CUSTOMS. 89 



tliough rot recognized by his faithful wife, or do- 

 mestics, yet his old dog Argus immediately knew 

 his master, and expired in a paroxysm of jo} . 

 What a striking eulogium on the sagacity and 

 fidelity of the dog ! how true to nature, and how 

 worthy of the Prince of Poets : it is the most pa» 

 thetic scene in the Odyssey. 



LETTER XX. 



Canandaiguttj June, 1820, 

 My dear Sir, 



A LATE English traveller, who published a 

 book of travels, and who calls himself John Cam 

 Hobhouse, has declared in the true John Bull 

 style, when smarting under the privations and 

 sufferings of a barbarian country, that " properly 

 speaking, the word comfort cannot be ap- 

 plied to any thing he ever saw out of England." 

 1 have travelled much, both in the United States 

 and in Great Britain, and I can truly say, that 

 making allowance for the difference in price, and 

 the newness of settlement, the accommodations 

 are not superior in the latter. The unhappiness 

 of life frequently proceeds more from a series and 

 repetition of petty vexations, than great and over- 

 whelming calamities,, and these miseries in minia-- 



