VIEW OF FANEUIL HALL, AND ADJACENT BUILDINGS, BOSTON.
There are very few remaining of the many covered, gable-ended, top-heavy, old houses which constituted the compact centre of Boston in the days of English governors. The finest specimens long stood in the neighbourhood of Faneuiel Hall; but, with one exception, we believe, their picturesque heaps of triangles have dropped beneath the merciless hand of speculation and improvement. Boston has not grown so thriftily, or rather so miraculously, as the capitols of other States, through which the flood of emigration rolls more directly; but it is certainly the handsomest town in the United States, and probably its prosperity is more permanent and solid. Its granite houses and fine public buildings are in strong contrast with the description given of it by John Josselyn, Gent. who visited it in 1638, and afterwards favoured the world with his observations under the title of “New England Rarities.” “Having refreshed myself for a day or two on an island in the bay,” he says, “I crossed the harbour in a small boat to Boston, which was then rather a village than a town, there not being more than above twenty or thirty houses: and presented my respects to Mr. Muthrop the governor, and to Mr. Cotton the teacher of Boston Church, to whom I delivered from Mr. Francis Quarles, the poet, the translation of several Psalms in English metre for his approbation.”
A facetious bookseller, John Dunton, visited Boston some fifty years afterwards; and, in a book upon his “Life and Errors,” gives a humorous account of its inhabitants in his time. The passage, which is now commonly made in from sixteen to twenty-five or thirty days, occupied the unfortunate bibliopole four months; and he was reduced, at the latter part of it, to one bottle of water for four days.
“When we came within view of Boston,” he writes, “we were all overjoyed, being just upon the point of starving; we put off to land in the long boat, and came ashore near the Castle, which stands about a mile from Boston. The country appeared at first a barren waste, but we found humanity enough when we came among the inhabitants. We lodged the first night at the Castle, and next morning we found our way to Boston Bay over the ice, which was but cold comfort to us after we had been stowed up so many months in a cabin. The air of New England was sharper than at London; which, with the temptation of fresh provisions, made me eat like a second Mariot of Gray’s Inn. The first person that welcomed me to Boston was Mr. Burroughs. He heaped upon me more civilities than I can reckon up, offered to lend me moneys, and made me his bedfellow till I had provided lodgings.”
Dunton’s book would have sold merrily in our scandal-loving days. Its personalities are delightful. The following list of his acquaintance is as good as a portrait gallery.
“Mr. Phillips, my old correspondent.—He treated me with a noble dinner, and (if I may trust my eyes) is blest with a pretty, obliging wife. I’ll say that for Sam (after dealing with him for some hundred pounds), he is very just, and (as an effect of that) very thriving. I shall add to his character, that he is young and witty, and the most beautiful man in the town of Boston.
“The next was Mr. King.—Love was the cause of this gentleman’s long ramble hither. Sure his mistress was made of stone, for King had a voice would have charmed the spheres; he sang “All hail to the Myrtle Shades” with a matchless grace.