BY MISS LESLIE.
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PART THE FIRST.
Perhaps there is no place in America where the people continued to cling so long, and so fondly, to the relics and traditions of the olden time, as in Boston—their first era being that of the early settlers, their second that of the revolution. At the commencement of my acquaintance with Boston and Bostonians, I was particularly struck with the prevalence of this feeling, having found so little of it in my native city, Philadelphia. Yet I was sorry to hear from my eastern friends, that comparatively it was fast subsiding, and that a fancy for modern improvements (blended with the powerful incentive of pecuniary interest) was rapidly superseding that veneration so long cherished for the places and things connected with the history of their “ancient and honorable town,” and the founders of their country’s freedom. On my second visit to Boston I missed much that on my first I had found still undesecrated. On my third, but few vestiges remained of the poetry, the romance, and the quaintness that, with regard to external objects, had so interested and amused me in the year 1832. I looked in vain for the “old familiar faces” of certain antiquated and, perhaps, unsightly structures that I had delighted to contemplate as the time-honored habitations of men with undying names. They were gone, and new and more profitable buildings erected on their site. In many of these instances “I could have better spared a better house.”
Fortunately the charter of the city specifies that Faneuil Hall is never to be sold, nor can the ground on which it stands be appropriated to any other purpose. Except that the market-place in the lower story is now occupied by shops, the whole edifice still remains nearly as it was when the walls of its chief apartment resounded with the acclamations of the people who discussed, at their town meetings, those principles that led to their self-emancipation from the sway of Britain. Acclamations elicited by the bold and overpowering eloquence of James Otis, the enthusiastic outbreakings of the impetuous spirit of Warren, the pure and self-sacrificing patriotism of Quincy, and the calm but energetic plain sense of Samuel Adams, backed by the generous liberality of that wealthy and noble-minded merchant whose name, as president of the first Congress, leads on the glorious array of signatures appended to the Declaration of Independence. Did no one think of preserving the pen with which those names were written?—the sacred quill
“That wing’d the arrow, sure as fate,
Which ascertain’d the rights of man.”
The full-length portrait of Peter Faneuil stands at the upper end of the hall, looking like its guardian spirit. It is a fine copy of a small original that was painted in his lifetime. In regarding the likeness of a person of note (provided always that the painter is a good artist) you can generally judge of its verisimilitude, by its representing the features of the mind in conjunction with those of the face. If a well painted portrait has no particular expression, you may safely conclude that the sitter had no particular character. When, at the first glance of a picture, you are struck with the conviction that the original must have looked exactly so, it is because you at once perceive his mind in his face. Who that has ever seen it, while it hung so long in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, does not recollect Berthon’s admirable and life-like portrait of Buonaparte in the first year of that consulate. Every beholder was struck with an irresistible conviction of its perfect and unimpeachable fidelity of character. There, in his gold embroidered blue coat, his tri-colored sash, and his buff-leather gauntlets, was the pale, thin, almost cadaverous young soldier, just returned from the unwholesome regions of the Nile; with his dark, uncared-for hair shading his thoughtful brow, and his deep-set, intense eyes, that looked as if they could search into the soul of every man they saw. So self-evident was the truth of this picture, that it was unnecessary to be aware of its exact accordance with all the descriptions given at that time of the republican general, who had just made himself the chief magistrate of the French people, and was called only Buonaparte. A few years afterward, when “the hero had sunk into the king,” and was termed Napoleon, and when, in becoming more handsome, his face lost much of its original expression, this picture was equally valuable, as showing how he had looked in the early part of his wondrous career.
Another picture which we feel at once to be a most faithful representation, is Greuze’s portrait of Franklin. It was painted by that excellent artist when the venerable printer, philosopher, author, statesman (what shall we call him) was living in Paris. The dress is a coat and waistcoat of dark reddish silk, trimmed with brown fur. The head is very bald at the top, and he wears his gray locks plain and unpowdered. He has that noble expanse of forehead which is almost always found in persons of extraordinary intellect. His eye is indicative of strong sense and benevolence, enlivened with a keen relish for humor. His whole countenance exhibits that union of genius and common sense, shrewdness and kindness, which formed his character. My father had once in his possession (but lost it by lending) a fine French engraving taken from this very portrait, and printed in colors. He had known Dr. Franklin intimately, and he considered it the most admirable likeness he had ever seen—in fact the very man.
To return to Mr. Faneuil—his portrait also is highly characteristic. No one can look at this picture of a tall, dignified gentleman, in a suit of crimson velvet and gold, a long lace cravat, and a powdered wig, according to the patrician costume of his time, and can view his fine open countenance, without believing the whole to be a correct portraiture of the opulent and public spirited merchant who, while he was yet living, gave its first market-place, with a hall for the accommodation of public meetings, to the town that had afforded an asylum to his Huguenot ancestor. The remains of Peter Faneuil, who died suddenly in 1743, are interred amid the green shades of the Granary Burying Ground, so called from the town granary having been in its immediate vicinity. This cemetery is close to the Tremont Hotel, and in view of another “ancient place of graves,” belonging to the King’s Chapel, which was founded in 1688, and, in early times, numbered among its congregation the largest portion of the Boston aristocracy; and many of their descendants still worship there. It is built of light brown stone, and is frequently called the Stone Chapel.