At last, in, mid-afternoon, we beheld the tall tower of Saint Botolph’s Church (three hundred feet high, the same elevation as the tallest tower of Lincoln Cathedral) looming in the distance.  At about half-past four we reached Boston, (which name has been shortened, in the course of ages, by the quick and slovenly English pronunciation, from Botolph’s town,) and were taken by a cab to the Peacock, in the market-place.  It was the best hotel in town, though a poor one enough; and we were shown into a small, stilled parlor, dingy, musty, and scented with stale tobacco-smoke,—­tobacco-smoke two days old, for the waiter assured us that the room had not more recently been fumigated.  An exceedingly grim waiter he was, apparently a genuine descendant of the old Puritans of this English Boston, and quite as sour as those who peopled the daughter-city in New England.  Our parlor had the one recommendation of looking into the market-place, and affording a sidelong glimpse of the tail spire and noble old church.

In my first ramble about the town, chance led me to the river-side, at that quarter where the port is situated.  Here were long buildings of an old-fashioned aspect, seemingly warehouses, with windows in the high, steep roofs.  The Custom-House found ample accommodation within an ordinary dwelling-house.  Two or three large schooners were moored along the river’s brink, which had here a stone margin; another large and handsome schooner was evidently just finished, rigged and equipped for her first voyage; the rudiments of another were on the stocks, in a ship-yard bordering on the river.  Still another, while I was looking on, came up the stream, and lowered her main-sail, from a foreign voyage.  An old man on the bank hailed her and inquired about her cargo; but the Lincolnshire people have such a queer way of talking English that I could not understand the reply.  Farther down the river, I saw a brig, approaching rapidly under sail.  The whole scene made an odd impression of bustle, and sluggishness, and decay, and a remnant of wholesome life; and I could not but contrast it with the mighty and populous activity of our own Boston, which was once the feeble infant of this old English town;—­the latter, perhaps, almost stationary ever since that day, as if the birth of such an offspring had taken away its own principle of growth.  I thought of Long Wharf, and Faneuil Hall, and Washington Street, and the Great Elm, and the State-House, and exulted lustily,—­but yet began to feel at home in this good old town, for its very name’s sake, as I never had before felt, in England.

The next morning we came out in the early sunshine, (the sun must have been shining nearly four hours, however, for it was after eight o’clock,) and strolled about the streets, like people who had a right to be there.  The market-place of Boston is an irregular square, into one end of which the chancel of the church slightly projects.  The gates of the church-yard were open and free to all passengers,