Aristocracy in America. From the sketch-book of a German nobleman. vol. 2 (of 2)

MARTIN VAN BUREN. President of the United States. London. Published by Richard Bentley. 1839.
FROM THE SKETCH-BOOK OF A GERMAN NOBLEMAN.
EDITED BY FRANCIS J. GRUND. AUTHOR OF “THE AMERICANS IN THEIR MORAL, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL RELATIONS.”
“Why should the poor be flattered? No: let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, Where thrift may follow fawning.” Shakspeare’s Hamlet , Act iii. Scene 2.
IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II.
LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.
1839.
LONDON: PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY, Bangor House, Shoe Lane.
Arrival in Boston.—The Tremont House.—The Boston Common.—Aristocratic Exclusiveness of the Higher Classes.—The Massachusetts State-House.—Pathetic Elegy of a Boston Lawyer.—An Independent Gentleman, not a Speculator.—American Aristocracy contrasted with that of England.—The Aristocracy of America continually in contact with the Lower Orders.—Anecdote illustrating the opposition of the Lower Classes to Aristocracy.—An Aristocratic Patron.—Economy of the American Aristocracy.—Northern and Southern Aristocracy contrasted.
“If there’s a hole in a’ your coats, I rede you tent it; A chiel’s amang ye takin’ notes, And faith he’ll prent it.”
Burns.
The city of Boston, as may be known to many of my readers, is only approachable by water and a long narrow isthmus, called “the neck.” For this reason it is said to be “the head of New England;” but the people in the country, who are extremely jealous of the prerogatives of “the townsfolks,” merely call it “the great metropolis.” When it was first settled, which is more than two hundred years ago,—for which reason it is termed “an ancient and honourable city,” and the families descended from those settlers “ancient and honourable families,”—it contained, somewhere in the neighbourhood of what is now called “Beacon-street,” three large promising bumps, which however, entirely disappeared as the baby grew older, and are now smoothed down almost to a flat.