of noble
hearts striving to be free, and daring to strike for it, was listened to
by thousands, in whose breasts a ready response was found, and who,
catching the glowing enthusiasm of the orators, determined rather to be
rebels and free than subjects and slaves: the sequel is matter of
history.

I shall not tax the temper of my reader by going through any further
list of the public buildings, which are sufficiently known to those who
take an interest in this flourishing community; but I must hasten to
apologize for my ingratitude in not sooner acknowledging that most
pleasing feature in every traveller's experience in America, which, I
need hardly say, is hospitality.

Scarce was my half-smashed box landed at the hotel, when my young
American friend, who came from England with our party, appeared to
welcome me--perhaps to atone for the lion's share of champagne he had
enjoyed at our table on board the steamer. Then he introduced me to
another, and another introduced me to another another, and another
another introduced me to another another another, and so on, till I
began to feel I must know the _elite_ of Boston. Club-doors flew open,
champagne-corks flew out, cicerones, pedal and vehicular, were ever
ready to guide me by day and feed me by night; and though there are no
drones in a Yankee hive, so thoroughly did they dedicate themselves to
my comfort and amusement, that a person ignorant of the true state of
things might have fancied they were as idle and occupationless as the
cigar-puffers who adorn some of our metropolitan-club steps, the envy of
passing butcher-boys and the liberal distributors of cigar-ends to
unwashed youths who hang about ready to pounce upon the delicious and
rejected morsels. Among other gentlemen whose acquaintance I had the
pleasure of making, and whose hospitalities, of course, I enjoyed, I may
mention Mr. Prescott and Mr. Ticknor, the former highly appreciated in
the old country, and both so widely known and so justly esteemed in the
world of literature. As I consider such men public property, I make no
apology for using their names, while in so doing I feel I am best
conveying to the reader some idea of the society which a traveller meets
with in Yankee Athens.

The town has one charm to me, which it shares in common with Baltimore.
Not only is it built on undulating ground, but there are old parts
remaining, whereby the eye is relieved from the tiring monotony of broad
and straigh