the necessary apparatus
for philosophical and practical illustration.

This institution is provided for by subscription: the principal portion
of the mansion it occupies being the free gift of the same open hand
which so munificently endowed the asylum for the blind.

The private literary society here is said to be very superior to that of
any other city of the States, and by no means small. Of society so
called I nothing know, never having had the honour of being admitted of
the community, or indeed having made any attempts upon their proper
realm beyond an occasional rude foray on the border, uncontinued, and
consequently little noted.

Private intercourse is gay and agreeable, and less restrained by the
exclusive pretension to dress and fashion which prevails in society both
at New York and Philadelphia; whilst, if attractive women are less
numerous here than in those cities, beauty is by no means rare; indeed
Boston boasts of one family whose personal attractions might serve to
sustain the pretensions of a larger population.

THE TREMONT THEATRE.

In the same street, and immediately opposite the great hotel, is the
Tremont Theatre, certainly the most elegant exterior in the country, and
with a very well-proportioned, but not well-arranged _salle_, or
audience part.

I commenced here on Monday the 30th of September, three days after
closing at Philadelphia, to a well-filled house, composed, however,
chiefly of men, as on my _debut_ at New York. My welcome was cordial and
kind in the extreme; but the audience, although attentive, appeared
exceedingly cold. On a first night I did not heed this much, especially
as report assured me they were very well pleased; but throughout the
week this coldness appeared to me to increase rather than diminish, and
so much was I affected by it, that, notwithstanding the houses were very
good, I, on the last day of my first engagement of six nights, declined
positively to renew it, as was the custom in such cases, and as, in
fact, the manager and myself had contemplated: on this night, however,
the aspect of affairs brightened up amazingly; the house was crowded; a
brilliant show of ladies graced the boxes; the performances were a
repetition of two pieces which had been previously acted, and from first
to last the mirth was electric; the good people appeared, by common
consent, to abandon themselves to the fun of the scene, and laughed _a
gorge deployee_. At the fall of