The legislation of Geneva is peculiarly lenient. It forbids the bed of the debtor to be taken under any circumstances. Unless there is nothing else to pay the debt, it is compulsory to leave ploughing instruments, farm animals, and a month's supply of flour. The creditor is likewise compelled to leave, at the option of the debtor, one cow, two goats, or three ewes, workmen's tools, and the instruments of the art or profession of the debtor, to the value of sixty florins. As in the rest of the continental system, the debtor is entitled to release as soon as he attains the age of seventy years. But Geneva is in another respect the most lenient towards the debtor. In France, the prisoner is discharged, as a matter of course, after an imprisonment of five years; at Geneva, after an imprisonment of three. He can be imprisoned anew, however, if he shall afterwards come into possession of notorious means of payment. The old annals of the Fleet will produce instances of prison luxury and extravagance equal to those of M. Ouvrard. Prisoners served upon plate are upon record more than once. There are, on the other hand, some piquant stories of a different character. Thomas Pope was confined in 1792 for a debt of L.10,000-money which he had appropriated in his capacity of executor to a baronet. It was discovered after he had been put in prison, that he was worth at least L.100,000. He lived in the most penurious manner-spending less than L.50 per annum. From the length of his confinement, he was entitled to a better room than ordinary-this he let to another prisoner for a guinea per week, and contented himself with one at a shilling. Meanwhile, he was actually saving L.500 a year, the interest of his debt and expenses, which the creditors could not legally claim during his imprisonment. To be sure, this was a good way from the million francs per annum of M. Ouvrard. A man was at the same time confined within the walls, who at once amused and enriched himself by building houses within that favoured locality. The prison authorities stated at the time, to a committee of the House of Commons, that very many prisoners omitted to sue out their discharge when they were entitled to it; and in some instances the debtor, freed by the act of his creditor, actually refused to quit the place, and it became necessary to turn him out by head and shoulders. The prisoners, when they could afford it, used to amuse themselves by changing, by habeas, one prison when they became tired of it for another. Many of them spent the winter regularly in the Fleet, and the summer in the Queen's Bench, taking their seasons like other fashionables. It was supposed that the summer in the Fleet was peculiarly uncomfortable and unhealthy. It is enough to make one's blood run cold to read the annals of debt imprisonment scarcely fifty years ago. No medical advice allowed in the prison-men and women dying of disease-no support but chance charity -clergymen and ladies perishing from actual want. But the most outrageous anomaly was this-a man might be arrested, if his supposed creditor had a spite against him; he might be in prison positively for twelve months before it became necessary to try his cause, and after all, he might, and frequently did, obtain a verdict. He had no remedy or compensation whatever for his long imprisonment, except by pleas so difficult of proof that no one was ever known to make the attempt. Worse than all-a man might be arrested and kept in prison for a year for a debt which he did not owe, and when the injustice of the claim against him was proved, might still remain a prisoner for life, because unable to pay the prison-dues. In those happy times, prisoners slept on the stairsmen, women, and children by dozens in a single small room; and if a prisoner died, his body remained for days in the same room with his former chums! This was in the days of Wilberforce and Whitbread, of Pitt and Fox, of the fathers of the present generation, and even of some of the present generation itself. Truly, the march of civilisation is subject to wonderful caprices. Amongst other things, the arrest of insane persons for debt was not an uncommon occurrence. So far as legislation is concerned, a few years have done wonders in the improvement of our system of treating debt legally. The next great step must come, not from the lawyer or the legislature, but from society itself. The one has at least done something—the latter has everything to do. Corrupting the young-tempting the inexperienced trader to overtrading-pandering to the passions of the rich-making a lottery of credit offering unlimited advances at huge premiums on the purest risks-forcing goods on people, to be paid for at their convenience-and even sacrificing all hope of payment, for the sake of doing business: all this is beyond the reach of the most searching law. We have been a thousand years making physical laws against the debtor-it is time we did something to enforce a moral law against the creditor. Hitherto, the moral punishment has been all on one side, while the fault is with the one at least as often as it is with the other. CONVICT LITERATURE. IT is a common observation that everybody writes now-a-days-that the literary power exists, in a greater or less degree, in all classes and characters of men. But perhaps this sweeping theory, if closely examined, would receive some modification: we should be inclined, for instance, to except the more vulgar rogues and vagabonds, such as the thieves and burglars sent every now and then in ship-loads to the antipodes. Some remarkable examples, it is true, might be quoted, in which the literary feeling appears to have co-existed with criminality even of the meanest nature; but these, one would think, must have been wholly exceptional, proving, by their rarity, and the attention they attracted, the almost universality of the rule. There lies before us, notwithstanding, a literary performance, the work, in a great measure-not of evildoers brought up in some sort of refinement, and now in a compulsory pause of their career reverting to the feelings of the past-but of a miscellaneous assemblage of rogues of the commonest order, meeting by chance in a convict ship, and thrust forth from the country they had outraged and disgraced.* If we bear in mind, too, that offenders are rarely sentenced to transportation, till they have appeared at the bar four or five times, it will be with no small interest we shall read the lucubrations of this convict crew, furnished instantaneously in respondence to the call of their Superintendent for contributions to a periodical he thought fit to establish on board. Let it not be thought, however, that we claim for these papers the praise of literary excellence of any degree; we are content to see in them manifestations of thought, and proofs of the moral and intellectual existence of the individual beyond the circle of his bonds and crimes. The prisoners in question had the good-fortune to be placed under the superintendence of Mr Daniel Ritchie, a navy-surgeon, pre-eminently qualified for the trust by a rare union of firmness and humanity, accompanied with a strong leaven of that enthusiasm which is necessary to support men in the discharge of a difficult and trying duty. In the spring of 1852, he was appointed by the Admiralty, Surgeon-superintendent of the Pestonjee Bomanjee, a transport hired for the conveyance of nearly 300 convicts to Van Diemen's Land, with a pensioner The Voice of our Exiles; or Stray Leaves from a Convict Ship. Edited by Daniel Ritchie, Esq., Surgeon, R.N. Edinburgh : Menzies. 1854. guard of thirty men and their families. The following is the classification he gives of his prisoners, with a hint of the theory by which he was himself governed:"The mental condition of a considerable number was certainly defective in a varying degree, from some slight aberration to nearly absolute imbecility. The ignorance and depravity of others, who had been reared to crime, were so great as almost to abrogate the power of conscience, or so to pervert its indications as to destroy all rule of life. A few had been driven, by excited passions, through a series of follies-too mild a term-until accident rather than inherent vice precipitated them into some criminal action. By far the largest proportion, however, had first acquired habits of intemperance, which, unsettling the reason in a similar degree to the physical structure, left no sound protecting power. If we add to the above a small number who were forced into crime by want of the necessaries of life, or by temptation in a moment of forgetfulness, we shall probably have a classification in which every convict could be arranged, in some degree, as the inmates of a lunatic asylum, according to their mental defects. There is this important difference, however, that while a majority of the patients in the one case are incurable, in the other they are nearly all susceptible of being restored to a correct frame of mind, by restraint and education.' 'but we can look back upon it with regret, and draw such profit and instruction from it as may stimulate us to exert ourselves with diligence and propriety for the time to come. We have all, through a kind and judicious government, been granted opportunities of improving our minds, and, what is of infinitely greater importance, insuring the salvation of our immortal souls. We have been placed under the teaching of faithful ministers, who have arduously laboured to shew us the folly of sin, and the importance of awaking to a life of righteousness.' This essayist was a bonnet-maker by trade, but by practice a thief or pickpocket. After his final apprehension, his mind turned towards religion, and his behaviour on board was perfectly in accordance with the faith he professed, being quiet and unobtrusive, unless urged by a generous anxiety to occupy a more prominent position in instructing his more ignorant fellow-prisoners.' This is an interesting picture from another of his essays, Divine Service at Sea :-'A loud shrill whistle was the signal for us to attend divine service on the quarter-deck, it being the Sabbath-day. I was much gratified with the scene which presented itself: the juvenile members of the congregation-the soldiers' children-were seated in front of the poop; behind them were the soldiers under arms, and their wives occupied any little vacant spaces; on the right stood the surgeon-superintendent, and on the left, with The education here meant is general training the officers of the ship, was the captain; the sailors physical, moral, and intellectual. The convicts were seated themselves under the break of the poop, in the compelled to a system of order, regularity, obedience, rear of the pulpit, while the prisoners formed a semicleanliness, and attention to personal appearance; and circle in front. A solemn silence prevailed; not a in addition to daily school-instruction, they received sound was to be heard but what was occasioned by the daily admonitions and addresses on moral duty, and slight flapping of the sails: all nature appeared calm heard morning and evening prayers, with short practical and tranquil. Above our heads had been spread an lessons from Scripture. Over and above all this, was awning, to protect us from the scorching rays of that 'the healthful stimulus created and sustained by a glorious sun which seemed to smile upon the convict weekly journal, conducted by themselves, thus develop-ship as she lay becalmed on the so often turbulent but ing the reasoning powers, and engaging their thoughts on intellectual subjects.' From this journal, as the surgeon-superintendent told them, not much was expected in the early numbers; but he counselled them to persevere, and to regard the opportunity as an important one. 'Be persuaded to listen to the holier impulses of your nature, and employ the talents which God has given you, that by their vigorous exercise they may acquire a dominion over the brutish instincts, and call into existence the germs of a higher and purer life.' The call, considering all circumstances, seems to have been responded to with great energy. The reader may perhaps remember smiling some years ago at the verses scrawled on the walls of Newgate by a juvenile thief He what prigs what isn't hisn, When he's cotched must go to prisn; The summer sun throws dazzling light Reflected on the waters bright, Are ship, and tower, and tree. The sea-mew flies with airy bound, Or wanton skims the sea; The sailor's song rings blithely round Following this piece there is an Essay on Sin, in which the author draws a forcible picture of the misery which he and his comrades have brought upon themselves. 'We cannot obliterate the past,' he continues, now peaceful ocean.' Another of the author's essays, Danger or no Danger, is distinguished by its fancy, but, like most of this convict's productions, is too exclusively religious for a lay periodical. Some verses, that are a little in the street-ballad style, do not prepare us for the character the author receives. The poet tells us of the kind surgeon and the prison chaplain, who Use their best endeavours to try and make us see The chain of sin with which we 're bound by Satan's tyranny; and concludes with And should the Lord permit us to reach our journey's end, Be sure he will a blessing on our poor exertions send. This gentle and religious writer, however-a tailor by trade-had been five times in prison. He was essentially vicious; and no training, no discipline, In his nature he will probably ever change him. resembled the fox-sly, mischievous, plausible, yet untamable. There did not probably exist in his composition one spark of any generous or ennobling feeling. His cowardice alone shackled his evil disposition. Whether this idiosyncrasy is congenital, or merely the result of habit and vice, is doubtful; but it appears impossible to view it otherwise than as displaying some peculiar mental conformation, probably dependent on the physical structure of the individual. There was nothing, however, remarkable about this man's cranial development; his capacities were above the average, and his appearance would have been prepossessing but for a peculiar expression of the eyes, which, always indicating a consciousness of guilt and a felonious intention, renders the possessor repulsive. He was sentenced to seven years' transportation for theft, of which time he had already served more than two and a half years in separate confinement, and employed in public works, so that he would probably, soon after his arrival at Hobart Town, obtain a conditional or free pardon.' Another religious poet, who begins with My Bible, was remarkable, it seems, for exhibiting so much talent united with such loose moral principle.' The superintendent, however, appears to think that he succeeded in reforming him; but if so, we are quite sure that, during the progress of his reformation, he stole from somebody, whose name we forget, an Ode to the Flying-fish, and palmed it upon the worthy editor as his own property. A contributor of prose, who was in prison three times before his present sentence, indulges in recollections of his early school-fellows, and concludes with a paragraph which might find a place in a new volume of Elegant Extracts: There is nothing in these histories to dazzle, but there is much to instruct us. In them we observe not only examples of men rising from humble life to as possible of the purifying air of heaven between decks, as well as above; and by enforcing cleanliness and attention to personal appearance, he gradually raised them from their abyss of degradation. In this way he kept on the better movement already commenced in their imprisonment on shore, and landed them in Tasmania in a state, both moral and physical, which fitted them for re-entering energetically upon the active duties of life. Their services were eagerly sought for; they all found instant employment; and so far as he could learn afterwards-for he did not quit the country for some time-they had good reason to look back with satisfaction upon their voyage, and upon the Journal of the Pestonjee Bomanjee. THINGS AS THEY ARE IN AMERICA. BOSTON-LOWELL. AFTER paying a few visits to Brooklyn on the one side, and the New Jersey shore on the other, I left New York, and proceeded northwards to spend a short time in New England; my journey taking me direct to Boston in one day-distance by railway 236 miles, for which the fare was five dollars. By this line of route, very large numbers pass to and from New York daily. The cars, starting in detachments, with teams of horses, from influential positions, but in the characters collectively of such men we behold the source of our national greatness. It is to the collective wisdom, the silent industry, the native energy of men like these, that the great middle class of Britain owes its moral power. By their intellect and commercial enterprise, they have raised their country to the pre-eminent position she holds in the scale of nations, and endowed her with that power which influences the destiny of the world.' A housebreaker, who had previously suffered impri-Canal Street, were united in a long train outside the sonment for another crime, furnishes The Railway Spiritualised-not honestly come by we fear, though the editor is sanguine on the point. The line to heaven by Christ was made, That points the way to heaven clear; By faith, repentance, holiness, Come, then, poor sinner! Now's the time, If you repent and turn from sin, The train will stop and take you in! The volume may be described as a Curiosity of Literature, and one of an interesting and instructive kind. The contributors are for the most part thieves, burglars, forgers, and fire-raisers; yet there is not a sentiment contained in it that might not be fitly instilled into her child by a mother, not a doctrine that might not proceed from the most orthodox of pulpits. Does it not seem as if the crimes of the convict had been committed by some detached inferior part of his nature during the silence of his unawakened soul? And is it not reasonable to conclude, that by a wise management of the circumstances that surround him, we may bring about the natural balance, and give him the habit of right thought and creditable action? This was the theory on which the benevolent and careful superintendent proceeded. But he did not attend to moral circumstances alone: he watched over the health of his prisoners, as a thing essential to the progress of their reformation; he gave them as much town, and then drawn in good style by a locomotive at the rate of about twenty-five miles an hour. The line, which makes a considerable bend in its course, proceeds by way of New Haven, IIartford, Springfield, and Worcester; and so traversing a populous country, goes through the state of Connecticut into Massachusetts. After passing New Haven, a handsomely built town, the seat of Yale College, the country improves in appearance; and in the neighbourhood of Hartford, within the valley of the Connecticut river, the land is green, rich, and beautiful. When we reach Springfield, the arable plains of Connecticut are exchanged for the rugged and pastoral hills of Massachusetts; and we need not to be told that we have arrived in a region which depends not on natural products, but on an intense spirit of manufacturing industry for its wealth and importance. Placed on a group of conical mounts, partly environed by inlets of the sea, Boston is seen on our approach to be an odd mixture of towns and lakes, which the stranger requires several days to comprehend-and which I cannot say I quite understand even yet. A fine bay, as formerly noticed, admits shipping from the sea up to the various wharfs that fringe the lower parts of the city, and renders Boston one of the best seats of exterior commerce on the whole coast of America. It will be recollected, that it was not in this inviting harbour that the 'Pilgrim Fathers' landed in New England, December 22, 1620; but at Plymouth, about thirty-six miles distant along the coast to the south. Boston was settled ten years later by a fresh band of English refugees, fleeing from religious persecution, and was at first called Tremont; but this descriptive name was afterwards changed to Boston, in compliment to the Rev. John Cotton, who had emigrated from Boston in Lincolnshire; and so Boston it remains, along with all its traditions, historic and biographical. I hinted on a previous occasion, that a glance at Boston would disenchant any one from illusory ideas respecting the Americans. The city, occupying the slopes of a rounded low hill, is thoroughly English in aspect-the brick-houses smarter, perhaps, and might almost say the cement-of American society. Retaining the temperament and modes of expression of their English ancestry, we find that they are more wiry in constitution, and speak in a higher and more nasal tone than is observable elsewhere. Moulded from a Puritan ancestry, it might be expected that the Bostonians, with many changes in sentiment, would still possess a slender appreciation of the fine arts; but the elegance of many of their buildings, and their love of music, demonstrated by the recent opening of a large and handsome hall for musical entertainments, would infer that they retain little of the ancient sourness of manners. They are, however, like another people whom we could name-not signalised by any love for theatrical representations. The drama, I should think, is in a low condition in Boston. I went one evening to a theatre, which was tolerated under the name of a 'Museum.' To invest it with this illusory character, its spacious vestibule was environed with cases of dried snakes, stuffed birds, and other curiosities, which nobody, so far as I could see, took the trouble to look at, the centre of attraction being a theatre beyond, fitted up with a hanging-gallery, and pews as like a church as possible. The house was crowded with a respectable and attentive audience, but the acting was of an inferior kind; and what in my opinion was more objectionable, the piece performed was a melodrama, in which religion was irreverently blended with buffoonery. I am at a loss to say whether this, like the adoption of the term 'Museum,' was a device to soothe public prejudice, but it communicated that impression. excelling in their brilliant green jalousies, plate-glass windows, and general air of neatness. A number of the public and other buildings are of granite, and the broad side-pavements are of this durable material. Boston is English even in its irregularity. Instead of being laid out on the rectangular American pattern, and garnished with rows of trees, the streets wind and diverge in different directions, some broad and some narrow, some steep and some level, according to fancy or the nature of the ground-the greater part clinging parasitically round the chief of the Tremonts, which is crowned with the conspicuous dome of the state-house. I was not prepared by any previous account for the throng of carriages, drays, and foot-passengers in the leading thoroughfares of Boston. Washington Street, which stretches longitudinally through the city, cannot be compared to Broadway in New York, or the Strand in London, yet as a fashionable business thoroughfare it has few equals. Tremont Street, which is parallel with it a little higher up the hill, is another principal avenue through the city, communicating at one end with the celebrated Boston Common. This is much the finest thing of the kind in America. It is an enclosed piece of ground, fifty acres in extent, ornamented with trees and a fountain, irregular in surface, and enclosed with a railing; it is always open for foot-passengers, and is devoted exclusively to the public use. On three sides, it is bounded by a terrace-like street, with a range of well-built houses, the residence of the élite of Boston. This spacious grassy common has a general inclination to the south, and at its upper part, the line of street embraces the state-house, from the summit of which a very fine panoramic view of the city and its environs is obtained. In Boston there are some public buildings in the best styles of architecture, and it may be said that to whatever side we turn, evidences of intelligence and taste are presented. After a visit to New York, the appearance of Boston is particularly pleasing. Instead of dirt, noise, and all sorts of irregularities, we have cleanliness, comparative tranquillity, and, as it seems, a system of municipal government in which things are not left altogether to take charge of themselves. In these and some other respects, Boston will probably please all who like to see a well-managed and respectable city-its police not a sham, and its streets really swept in requital for the money expended on them. So far are police arrangements carried, that smoking, as I was informed, is not allowed in the public thoroughfares. A regard for neatness and decorum was a predominant feature in the minds of the Puritan settlers of Massachusetts, and still remains impressed on the character of their descendants. We can, indeed, see that in manners and various social arrangements, the New England states-Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticutpossess a distinctive character. The cradle of civil liberty, they are also the source of those great schemes of free elementary education extending over the Union; while in most things which tend to general improvement, their people are generally seen taking the lead. Some writer has remarked, that the comparative barrenness of the soil of Massachusetts has proved an incalculable blessing to America. Unable from natural sources to support a large population, the country has thrown off swarms of emigrants, who have carried with them the shrewd keenness, perseverance, and love of independence of the New England race, which, in point of fact, is a living type of the hardy and thoughtful English who battled against the Stuarts in the middle of the seventeenth century. Spreading into other states, these New Englanders are seen to win their way by an aptitude for business and a wonderful power of organisation. As merchants, lawyers, and magistrates, they In visiting Boston, so many are the memorials of are acknowledged to be an important element-one | the great revolutionary struggle, that one feels as if One of the days of my sojourn in Boston was the 24th of November, which, by proclamation of the governor of Massachusetts, was kept as Thanksgiving-dayaccording to an old custom-in the New England states. The institution of this religious festival is traced to an early period in colonial history, and has gradually assumed a national character. Each state may select the day most convenient to itself; that adopted, however, by Massachusetts, seems to set the fashion, and accordingly there is an almost universal holiday. On this occasion, all business was suspended in Boston, the stores were shut, and the churches of every denomination were open. In the afterpart of the day, things relaxed a little. There was a thronging in and out of the city on excursions and visits, and among other signs of jollity, the Museum' opened its attractions. The day, in short, came pretty closely up to the old English Christmas-one half devoted to church, and the other half to dining and amusement, like a genuine mediæval festival. I was told that the meeting together of members of a family on Thanksgiving-day was maintained as a sacred practice in New England, and that many travelled hundreds of miles to be present. It is not less a universal custom to have a turkey to dinner on the occasion of these family reunions; those too poor to purchase this delicacy, are usually presented with it by friends or employers; and, as may be supposed, the number of turkeys required throughout the New England states is immense. The opening of the churches for public worship permitted me to attend King's Chapel, a respectable-looking stone-built church, nearly opposite the Tremont Hotel, where I had taken up my quarters. This church, fitted with high familypews of dark wood, like those of the parish churches of England, retained very nearly the appearance it possessed previous to the revolution, when it was the place of worship of the English governor of the province. The service was liturgical, but differed in some respects from that of the Church of England. Adjacent is a burying-ground, separated by a railing from the street, and said to contain on one of the tombstones the oldest carved date in America-1642. surrounded by illustrations of history. The Old South Meeting House, where, on the 6th of March 1770, was held the town meeting to remonstrate with the governor against bringing in troops to overawe the inhabitants; Faneuil Hall, a huge brick-building in the market-place, celebrated for assemblages of the Sons of Liberty;' Griffin's Wharf, where, on a moonlight night, December 16, 1773, under the popular impulse given by Josiah Quincy, a large crowd went on board the Dartmouth, and other English ships, and within two hours poured the contents of 342 chests of tea into the harbour; the level slip of peninsula called Boston Neck, which unites the city with the mainland, and where were placed the British fortified lines in August 1774; the scenery on the western side of Charles River, including Bunker's and Breed's Hills, where took place the memorable action of June 17, 1775; Dorchester Heights, on the mainland, to the south, &c. Among the chief of the objects of curiosity, is the Bunker Hill Monument, occupying a conspicuous situation in the neighbourhood. To reach the spot where this monument has been erected, I crossed the Charles River by a long and low wooden bridge, supported on piles, and passing through Charlestown, arrived at the base of a grassy mound, little more than a hundred feet above the level of the sea. Such is Breed's Hill, which has been selected as the most favourable site for the Bunker Hill Monument. Originally in an open down, the locality is now crowded with houses, which seem to be closing round the hill, very much to the injury of its appearance. The top of the hill has been levelled and laid out with walks, radiating from an iron rail which surrounds the monument. Access to the summit is gained by a staircase. The monument is an obelisk of whitish granite, 221 feet in height, with a square base of 30 feet, whence it tapers to a point. It is a chastely correct work of art-a thing dignified and beautiful in its very simplicity. Many years were spent in bringing it to a complete state, on account of the difficulty experienced in raising the necessary funds for its execution. It was inaugurated by a public ceremonial in 1843, on which occasion Daniel Webster delivered one of his most admired orations. Accustomed as one is to find everything new in America, Boston, in its historical and social features, presents so much of an old and settled character, that it may be said to stand out alone in its resemblance to a European city. Although constructed principally of wood, no place could be imagined more English than Cambridge, a suburban city, situated to the south of Charlestown, and reached in the same way by an extremely long wooden bridge. This is the seat of Harvard University, an institution dating as far back as 1638, and now, with its various schools, the most important and best attended college in the United States. A glance at Old Cambridge, as it is named, shews us a variety of smart buildings scattered about among trees, with broad winding roads giving access to pretty villas, each with its flower-plot in front, and delightful bits of lawn used for pasturage or recreation. The grass, to be sure, is not so compact or so green as it is in England, the dryness of the climate forbidding that anywhere in America; but the imitation is here as near the original as possible. Driving along one of the broad thoroughfares, our vehicle stops at the gateway of one of the most venerable wooden villas. It is a neat house of two stories, with pilasters in the bald Grecian style of the Georgian era, attics in the roof, and side verandas, resting on wooden pillars. Across the garden-plot in the front, two short flights of steps lead up terrace-banks towards the door. The view in front is open, being across a grassy plain in the direction of Boston. This house became the abode of General Washington on the 2d of July 1775, when he came from New York to take command of the American army; and here he resided part of his time during the contest in the neighbourhood. At present, the villa is owned and inhabited by Mr H. W. Longfellow, professor of modern languages in the adjacent university, and one of the most accomplished living poets in the United States. Introduced by a literary friend, I had the honour of making the acquaintance of a person whose writings are esteemed in England as well as America, and of seeing the interior of the historically interesting mansion he inhabits. The walls of the room-a kind of library-boudoir-into which I was shewn, were panelled according to an old fashion, and the furniture was of that tastefully antique kind which seemed appropriate to the past and present character of the dwelling. The whole place speaks of other days. Adjoining the house are various tall elms, probably a century old-a highly respectable antiquity for America and the patch of garden appears to be preserved in the form it possessed when Washington paced across it on that celebrated summer morning when he went forth to put himself at the head of his troops. The spot where this event occurred was in the neighbouring common; here, under the shadow of a large tree, called Washington's Elm, standing at a central point between two cross-roads, he is said to have drawn his sword, and formally entered on command. It says much for the staid character of the Bostonians, that families connected not only with the revolutionary era, but with the early settlement of the province, still maintain a respectable position in the town, and form what may be called an aristocracy, distinguished alike by wealth and honourable public service. So much has been written of the peculiar attractions of Boston society, that I am fortunately left nothing to say, further than to take the opportunity of offering thanks for the many polite attentions I received from all with whom I had any intercourse. Although only a few days in the city and its neighbourhood, I had an opportunity of making some satisfactory inquiries respecting the prevalent system of elementary education, and of visiting some of the excellent literary institutions with which the intelligent inhabitants of Boston have had the good taste to provide themselves. The Athenæum, consisting of a library and reading-room, was the finest thing of the kind I had seen in America; for, besides a collection of 50,000 volumes, there was a gallery of paintings and sculpture of a high class. Among institutions of a more popular character, may be noticed the Mercantile Library Association, at whose rooms I was shewn a collection of about 13,000 volumes; also, the Lowell Institute, established by a bequest of 250,000 dollars, for the purpose of providing free lectures on science, art, and natural and revealed religion. Some movements were on foot to widen the sphere of intellectual improvement by means of a free library and otherwise: and from the great number of publishing establishments, it was evident that the demand for literature was considerable. Everybody reads and everybody buys books,' said a publisher to me one day; and he added: 'every mechanic, worth anything at all, in Massachusetts, must have a small library which he calls his own; besides, the taste for high-class books is perceptibly improving. A few years ago, we sold great quantities of trashy Annuals; now, our opulent classes prefer works of a superior quality.' At the same time, I learned that a number of copies of instructive popular works which I had been concerned in publishing, had been imported for the use of school-libraries; and as there are about 18,000 such libraries in the United States, the amount of books of various kinds required for this purpose alone may be supposed to be very considerable. Like most visitors of Massachusetts, I made an excursion to Lowell-a manufacturing city of 37,000 inhabitants, at the distance of twenty-five miles north-west of Boston. A railway-train occupied an hour in the |