surrounded with an iron fencing, and, although not large, the lay of the ground is very pretty.  It contains some very fine old trees, which every traveller in America must know are a great rarity in the neighbourhood of any populous town.  It is overlooked by the State-house, which is built upon Beacon Hill, just outside the highest extremity of the park, and from the top of which a splendid panoramic view of the whole town and neighbourhood is obtained.  The State-house is a fine building in itself, and contains one of Chantrey’s best works—­the statue of Washington.  The most interesting building in Boston, to the Americans, is, undoubtedly, Faneuil Hall, called also the “Cradle of Liberty.”  Within those walls the stern oratory of noble hearts striving to be free, and daring to strike for it, was listened to by thousands, in whose breasts a ready response was found, and who, catching the glowing enthusiasm of the orators, determined rather to be rebels and free than subjects and slaves:  the sequel is matter of history.

I shall not tax the temper of my reader by going through any further list of the public buildings, which are sufficiently known to those who take an interest in this flourishing community; but I must hasten to apologize for my ingratitude in not sooner acknowledging that most pleasing feature in every traveller’s experience in America, which, I need hardly say, is hospitality.

Scarce was my half-smashed box landed at the hotel, when my young American friend, who came from England with our party, appeared to welcome me—­perhaps to atone for the lion’s share of champagne he had enjoyed at our table on board the steamer.  Then he introduced me to another, and another introduced me to another another, and another another introduced me to another another another, and so on, till I began to feel I must know the elite of Boston.  Club-doors flew open, champagne-corks flew out, cicerones, pedal and vehicular, were ever ready to guide me by day and feed me by night; and though there are no drones in a Yankee hive, so thoroughly did they dedicate themselves to my comfort and amusement, that a person ignorant of the true state of things might have fancied they were as idle and occupationless as the cigar-puffers who adorn some of our metropolitan-club steps, the envy of passing butcher-boys and the liberal distributors of cigar-ends to unwashed youths who hang about ready to pounce upon the delicious and rejected morsels.  Among other gentlemen whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making, and whose hospitalities, of course, I enjoyed, I may mention Mr. Prescott and Mr. Ticknor, the former highly appreciated in the old country, and both so widely known and so justly esteemed in the world of literature.  As I consider such men public property, I make no apology for using their names, while in so doing I feel I am best conveying to the reader some idea of the society which a traveller meets with in Yankee Athens.