While I’ve a hand to save,
Thy axe shall harm it not.”—Morris.
BOSTON, AND BUNKER HILL,
(FROM THE EAST.)
This view is taken from a long cape, sometimes cut off by water overflowing the marshes, and called William’s Island. Five or six years ago, it was a thinly cultivated and neglected spot, scarce known, except to adventurous boys, who pulled across from the city wharfs, and to the one or two farmers who inhabited it. Now, with the suddenness which attends speculation in our country, it is grown suddenly into a consequential suburb, with a showy hotel and steam ferry, and citizens and strangers resort to it to eat French dinners, and pass the hot weeks of the summer.
Boston, from this point of view, is very picturesque. The town rises gradually from the water’s edge to the height surmounted by the State House, whose lofty cupola brings to a point all the ascending lines of the picture; Dorchester Heights rise gracefully on the left limit of the bay, and Bunker-Hill, famous in American story, breaks the horizon on the right. In the centre lie the forest of shipping, and the fine ranges of commercial buildings on the water side; and, turning from this view, the harbour, with its many small islands, stretches away behind to the sea, tracked by steamers, and sprinkled by craft of every size and nation. Like every other bay in the world, that of Boston has been compared to Naples; but it has neither its violet sky, nor its volcano, yet it may be mentioned in the same day.
Close under the eye of the spectator here, lies that part of the town formerly the fashionable quarter, but now very much what Red Lion Square, and its precincts, are to London. There is still existing (or there was, some six or eight years since,) the house of Governor Hutchinson, of which the mouldings were brought from London, and in which the drawing-room panels were portraits of his family, in their youth. This is still a very roomy and well-built, and must once have been a rather luxurious house. We are apt to fancy that our strait-laced ancestors from England lived parsimoniously, and denied themselves the elegances of modern luxury; but antiquarian researches exhibit a different state of things. “In the principal houses,” says the discourse of a learned gentleman on this subject, “there was a great hall, ornamented with pictures and a great lantern, and a velvet cushion in the window-seat which looked into the garden. On either side was a great parlour, a little parlour, or study. These were furnished with great looking-glasses, Turkey carpets, window curtains and valance, pictures, and a map, a brass clock, red leather-back chairs, and a great pair of brass andirons. The chambers were well supplied with feather beds, warming-pans, and every other article that would now be thought necessary for comfort or display. The pantry was well filled with substantial fare and dainties—prunes, marmalade, and Madeira wine. Silver tankards, wine-cups, and other articles of plate, were not uncommon; and the kitchen was completely stocked with pewter, iron, and copper utensils. Very many families employed servants, and in one we see a Scotch boy valued among the property, and invoiced at 14l.”