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and activity. Here you see no one stirring, either in the fields or about the houses. And here I am sorry to remark, for the first time, since I commenced travelling, a bad disposition, and want of principle in the people, dangerous to unprotected travellers; it is hazardous both in the stage and at the inns. The inn-keeper, where we breakfasted after leaving Hartford, is the greatest ruffian I ever met with in any country, and in every respect unworthy the public patronage. We had ruffians in the stage, and the driver himself was one of the rudest, savage looking men I have seen. There was but one man in the stage who might be said to be a gentleman; and by our joint threats we made out to arrive safe at Worcester, about three o'clock P. M., having left Hartford at six A. M. For several miles before entering Worcester, the country is nothing but one mass of stones. Nothing but stone fences in this country, from Albany, with slight exceptions, to this town; and I am told they are universal in the New-England States. They add much to the scenery of the country, by laying it off in squares, by the regularity and symmetry of their appear

ance.

Worcester.-Worcester is a very handsome town; very much like Springfield, and about the same size. The streets are wide and straight; the houses (of wood, principally,) are painted white; and though planted with trees, it has not that rural air which the luxuriant elms give to Springfield. It has a very pompous courthouse, resembling the President's house at Washington city, 4 churches, a prison, an alms-house, 2 banks and 2,962 inhabitants. But it is chiefly remarkable for the residence of one of the most distinguished families in Massachusetts-I mean the Waldo family-judge Lincoln, (same family,) governor elect of Massachusetts, Doctor Bancroft, the celebrated poet, and the American Antiquarian Society. The Hon. judge Lincoln, governor of Massachusetts, (though he does not take his seat till June,) is a man of young appearance, for his age is forty. He might very easily pass for thirty. He is, in his person, tall and finely made; rather spare, his com

plexion fair, his features handsome, with a soft blue eye, his countenance luminous, his carriage light and natural, his manners that of a perfect gentleman. He is said to be a man of the first erudition, and to possess a great fund of theoretical, as well as practical knowledge. He appertains to the same family of the celebrated Gen. Lincoln, of the revolution, who received the submission of the royal army at Yorktown, under Lord Cornwallis. Governor L. has a brother, quite a young man, who bids fair to figure in the politics of his country at no distant day.

Doctor Bancroft is celebrated as one of the first writers in our country. He is far advanced in life; I should think over sixty; and though he has a slight paralytic, he walks about and converses with all the facility of youth. The Doctor lives in affluence, amidst an amiable family, like himself, possessed of all the affability and ease common to people of the best society.

The American Antiquary, I am told, is a rare collection of the various productions of nature and art, with a valuable library, consisting of 6,000 volumes. But from the absence of Mr. Thomas, the principal proprietor, I was unable to see it. Worcester is pronounced Wooster by the inhabitants; nor did I dream that Wooster meant the Worcester in the Geography, until I saw it saw spelled on the signs.

Having little to detain me at Worcester, I pursued my journey to Boston, (in the stage,) which is only forty miles distant. The land from Worcester to Boston is diversified with rich and poor, stony, flat, mountainous, and marshes covered with winter birch, the first I ever saw. This birch is of small size, between a shrub and a tree, and perfectly white; it is always an evidence of poor soil. To this variety of soil we must add numerous ponds of crystal water, which look extremely beautiful. When we drew nearer Boston, the face of the country changed into slight mountains, consisting of pine ridges, resembling the spurs of the Alleghany, with here and there an impetuous stream rushing down the declivities. About eight miles this side of Boston, we passed the beau tiful country seat of General Hull, who commanded in

pen

the last war. It was pointed out to me by my fellow passengers. It lies on the right hand side of the road, and for taste and beauty, may, with truth, be styled an earthly paradise. The house peeps above one of the richest shrubberies I have seen, in which art seems to have exhausted her skill. All the country seats, however, from this to Boston, generally, are truly magnificent; but they are completely eclipsed by the far-famed Cambridge, three miles on this side of Boston. Here I must stop! cities, towns, villages, rivers, shrubberies, groves, harbors, edifices, domes, steeples, bridges, and shipping, all bursting upon one at once, the ablest would shrink from the task. Cambridge itself unites every thing that can be called great and beautiful, a vast green of some miles in extent, as level as a calm sea, overspread with here and there a cluster of trees, streets and houses. The lofty halls of the University, a master piece of architecture, with the grand squares attached to them, the church, and professor's dwelling houses, may give some idea of Cambridge. But this is only a drop in the ocean; lift your eye from the smooth green lawns of Cambridge, and Boston stands before you, rising up as it were, out of the water; a little to the left is Charlestown, on the right is Roxbury and Watertown. Charles' river is upwards of a mile wide, branching off into different channels; five vast bridges in view; the United States' navy yard at Charlestown, with two ships of the line of an hundred and ten guns each; the shipping of Boston and Cambridge ports, all visible at one view, presents an assemblage of objects beyond the power of any one to describe.

Boston.-Boston rises up gradually from the water's edge on all sides, and terminates upon a lofty eminencein the centre, or nearly so. This gives it a fine display from whatever point it is approached. The state-house, a grand edifice with a lofty dome, stands upon the highest ground in the city, nearly in the centre; this, and the cupolas of Fanueil Hall, the old state-house, and a dozen others, with about 70 white steeples which pierce the clouds in every part of the town, gives Boston a de

cided advantage over any city, in point of beauty, at this distance. The bridges mentioned, as my fellow travellers informed me, are called by different names; one leads from Cambridge to Charlestown, another from Boston to Charlestown, and three from Cambridge to Boston; one, however, is a causeway, or mill dam, which is crossed as a bridge; some of them are a mile in lengh. We took the middle bridge, which soon landed us in Boston, where beauty diminished as we drew near; and still more so when we found ourselves lost in narrow streets, with houses mountain high on each side of us. I was no little afraid of being dashed to pieces by the stages and carriages which come meeting us, for want of room to pass.

At length I arrived at the exchange coffee-house, (where all the great people put up,) was assisted out of the stage by some of the clerks, and making a sudden stop at the foot of a tremendous staircase, desired the young man "not to put me in one of his little back rooms, where I could see nothing." "Ono," he replied, "you shall have room enough," and leading the way up stairs, he left me in a parlour about forty feet square! laughing as he drew the door after him at the idea, no doubt, that he had given me room enough. It was some time in the afternoon of the following day, before I ventured to walk over the city, which, independent of the scenery that surrounds it, is by no means handsome. The streets are very short, narrow, and crooked, and the houses are so high, (many of them five stories,) that one seems buried alive. The side-walks are narrow, and badly paved, and the town is badly lighted; in this respect, it is greatly behind New-York or Philadelphia. They have a custom amongst them as old as the city, singular enough; that is, shutting up their shops at dark, winter and summer, which gives the city a gloomy appearance, and must be doubly so during the long winter nights. I should be at a loss to conjecture how their clerks and young men dispose of themselves, during their long winters. New-York and Philadelphia do as much business after dark as they do in the day, and perhaps more; for the young people then take time

to amuse themselves, and the lights which illuminate the shops and stores, give life and activity to the whole city. Broadway, Pearl-street, Chatham, and in fact all that do business, forms one of the most cheering spectacles in the world at night. The site of the city is nearly circular, its greatest width being not more than a mile and a half, or perhaps three quarters; but the houses are closely built, and so high, that they contain a great number of people. There are, however, some handsome streets, such as Washington-street, State-street, Green and Congress-streets: but the glory of streets is the colonnade on the side of the mall. Beacon-street is also, for its length, unrivalled, bordering on the mall likewise, and being on elevated ground, it commands one of the finest views in the city: it runs in front of the statehouse. But the scenery of the environs is what distinguishes Boston from any city, perhaps in the world! No one can conceive imagery more rich, or more replete in beauty. From the top of the state-house arises a dome, ornamented with a cupola some hundred feet in height, from which you have one of the finest prospects in the world. Every part of the city, the wide spreading bay, the ocean, Charles' river, the bridges, white sails, Charlestown, Cambridge, South Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, Quincy, in short, twenty-eight towns and villages may be seen distinctly with the naked eye, with an extensive country, in the highest state of cultivation, splendid mansions, rich shrubberies and gardens, to the distance of twenty miles, with rounding hills of magic beauty, all mingled together; add to these the numerous islands in the bay, Fort Independence, and Fort Warren, the human mind is incapable of admitting more, the eye. is literally surfeited with beauty!- the scenes are lost in rapture!! Much as I had travelled, and curious as I had been to regard the scenery of the states through which I passed, never had I seen any thing to compare to this, even my favorite scenery in Washington City, shrinks into nothing beside it. I could extend these remarks to an enormous volume, abounding as it does, with endless materials, but my engagements oblige me to be brief, and I haste to describe the city in a topographical view.

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