On the 23d, a regiment of Militia was reviewed. The state of discipline is so bad that every movement is accompanied with disorder. The time occupied in training is short, and the practice of privates electing their own officers is not considered conducive to subordination, especially in time of peace. They are, however, armed with good rifles, and are formidable troops in the woods.
The last number of the Edinburgh Review, Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk,[144] Blackwood's Magazine, and the Monastery,[145] are the current works of the day. When lately at Louisville, I found an acquaintance reading Ivanhoe; during my stay with him, which was only about an hour, two persons applied for a loan of the book. He told me that there were seven or eight copies of it in that town, and that they are no sooner read by one than they are lent to another. Two copies of the Monastery had just then arrived in town, and were, if possible, more in request than the former. The natives of Britain, in America, have the satisfaction of mixing with a people who are descended from the same ancestors, who speak the same language, who are instructed by the same standard books, who are amused by the same novels, and who sing the same songs.
In giving you details of my journey from the Ohio to Lake Erie, I shall confine myself almost {273} entirely to a transcript of notes taken by the way.[146]
