160 TIEVIEWS — LETTEBS EEOM THE UNITED STATES, ETC. 



Letters from the United States, Cuba, and Canada ; by the Hon. 

 Amelia M. Murray. New York : Gr. P. Putnam & Co., 1856. 



Towards the end of July, 1854, the Hon. Miss Murray, one of the 

 Ladies in "Waiting at the Court of Queen Victoria, crossed the 

 Atlantic, to see with her own eyes this new world and all its varied 

 institutions. Looking about her accordingly with intelligent and 

 observant eyes, she witnessed much that was novel, both in nature 

 and society. The Botany of auother hemisphere had its attractions 

 for one already educated to understand its scientific novelties ; the 

 Geology had its popular aspects of interest also ; while of its Zoology 

 the Genus Homo, Red, Yellow, "White, Black, and Brown, naturally 

 claimed a prominent share of her attention. On all these themes ac- 

 cordingly, she wrote and journalized, and now prints a pleasant, su- 

 perficial, oUa podrida of observations, opinions, surmises, and deduc- 

 tions, which would have been read, smiled at and forgotten, but for 

 the chance — fortunate or unfortunate as it may be, — that she deemed 

 her flying visit to the Southern States qualified her to set, not onh* 

 her friends, but the world at large right on the vexed question of 

 American Slavery. Her new opinions, it seems, before being issued 

 from the press were communicated to the Queen, who replied to her 

 Lady in Waiting —according to an explanation which the Athenaeum 

 gives of her retirement from Court, in correction of less guarded 

 statements, — by some very wise and womanly counsels. " Unhappily 

 the royal letter missed its object ; and before Miss Murray had the 

 advantage of reading her august friend's advice she had pledged her- 

 self not to observe that discreet silence on a most intricate and vexed 

 problem which is necessary in persons holding public situations. 

 Miss Murray has the courage of her opinions ; but as she chose to 

 take a part in a discussion that every day threatens to rend the 

 TJnion, her retirement from the Queen's household followed naturally. 

 These are the simple facts. There was no intention to dedicate the 

 book to her Majesty. Her Majesty never saw the proof sheets. "We 

 cannot suppose that the Queen meant to rebuke Miss Murray — as 

 the paragraph makes her — for forming an honest opinion. Miss 

 Murray's retirement from the Court must be assigned to apolitical — 

 not a personal — motive." 



A book for which its author has been made a martyr; which has 

 occasioned her deposition by " perfidious Albion," and her banish- 

 ment from Court, — which rumour persists in affirming, spite of all 

 contradictions, that British Majesty refused the dedication of, solely 

 because its authoress had the magnanimity to look at Jonathan's 



