y become
the speakers, and the language is turgid to excess, the book is not
without some merits. It is all impossible enough; but that forms little
detriment to popularity even now, and the fact that no man or woman ever
talked as talk Mrs. Rowson's characters does not make the work peculiar
among its kind. It was published in 1892 in cheap form, but met with
little welcome; yet it remains as a monument in our literature because
of its titular position therein, though _Victoria_ was the first
American novel in point of time. Mrs. Rowson returned to this country
immediately after the publication of _Charlotte Temple_, and continued
to write--pouring forth a full stream of plays, songs, stories, and
even school books--until her death in Boston in 1824.

Let us now return to the whirlpool of society proper, as in those days
known. The first presidential mansion, as is well known, was on Market
Street, Philadelphia, and thither repaired the diplomats of foreign
nations as well as our own statesmen and politicians,--the latter class
already threatening to grow to unseemly proportions. Moreover, thither
repaired most of the social leaders of their time, and the president's
receptions, at which punch and cake were the staple refreshments, soon
became at least as distinctly social as political in their aspects and
influences. "The coteries of the Lady Presidentess" was the name
bestowed by certain disgruntled persons on the frequenters of these
functions, and there were murmurs as to lack of republican simplicity.
Yet there was in the manner of these receptions little to call forth
animadversion from the most uncompromising democrat; and the like
functions of Mrs. Adams, less official but more social in character,
were almost equally lacking in ornateness.

Still there was much gaiety in the Quaker City while it held its place
as the seat of government. "I have not," writes Miss Mary Binney, a
belle of this time, "one minute to spare from French, music, balls, and
plays. Oh, dear, this dissipation will kill me! for you must know our
social tea drinkings of _one or two friends_ is an assembly of two or
three hundred souls."

The dissipation shocked some of the staider souls; and we find Mrs.
Stoddert, in a letter to her niece, quoting her husband to the effect
that "large towns are terrible places for young females." This was the
pessimistic view of society which is always to the fore, whatever the
existing conditions; but i