as this is, that its gorgeousness takes away from the sweet solemnity that makes the fall of the year pre-eminently the season of thoughtful contemplation.  Our autumn at home is mellow and harmonious, though sometimes melancholy; but the brilliancy of this decay strikes one sometimes with a sudden sadness, as if the whole world were dying of consumption, with these glittering gleams and hectic flushes, a mere deception of disease and death....  Good-by, my dearest H——­

                                       PHILADELPHIA, October 14, 1832. 
     DEAREST H——­,

“Boston is a Yankee town, and so is Philadelphy;” considering which, I assure you I find the latter quite a civilized place.  The above quotation is from “Yankee-doodle,” the National Anthem of the Americans, which I will sing to you some day when I am within hearing.

We have just returned from church.  Dall and I being too late this morning for the service, which begins at half-past ten, sallied forth in search of salvation this afternoon, and after wandering about a little, entered a fine-looking church, which we found was a Presbyterian place of worship....  The preaching to-day was extemporaneous, and extremely feeble and commonplace, occasionally reminding me of your eloquent friend at Skerries....  I shall try, on my return to New York, to settle to some work in earnest, as I hope there that we shall repeat the plays we have already acted, and so need no rehearsals....  To-morrow I act Juliet to my father’s Romeo; he does it still most beautifully....  In spite of his acting it with his own child (which puts a manifest absurdity on the very face of it), the perfection of his art makes it more youthful, graceful, ardent, and lover-like—­a better Romeo, in short, than the youngest pretender to it nowadays.  It is certainly simple truth when he says, “I am the youngest of that name, for lack of a better,” when the nurse asks for young Romeo.

     Wednesday we act “The School for Scandal,” and Friday “Venice
     Preserved.”  So there’s your play-bill....

At this moment a great political excitement pervades the country; it is the time of the Presidential Election, and the most vehement efforts are being made by the Democratic party to maintain the present President, General Jackson, in his post.  The majority, I believe, is in his favor, though we are told that the “better classes” (whatever that may mean where no distinctions of class exist) embrace the cause of his opponent, Henry Clay.

It seems curious, if it is true, as we have been assured, that in this one State of Pennsylvania, eight thousand persons out of fifty who have the right of voting were all who in this last election exercised it; so that the much-vaunted privilege of universal suffrage does not seem to be highly prized where it is possessed.

From all the opinions that I hear expressed