fame, and size beyond other towns in New England, it may be allowed to us to regard it as the capital of these six Northern States, without guilt of lese majeste toward the other five.  To me, I confess this Northern division of our once-unruly colonies is, and always has been, the dearest.  I am no Puritan myself, and fancy that, had I lived in the days of the Puritans, I should have been anti-Puritan to the full extent of my capabilities.  But I should have been so through ignorance and prejudice, and actuated by that love of existing rights and wrongs which men call loyalty.  If the Canadas were to rebel now, I should be for putting down the Canadians with a strong hand; but not the less have I an idea that it will become the Canadas to rebel and assert their independence at some future period, unless it be conceded to them without such rebellion.  Who, on looking back, can now refuse to admire the political aspirations of the English Puritans, or decline to acknowledge the beauty and fitness of what they did?  It was by them that these States of New England were colonized.  They came hither, stating themselves to be pilgrims, and as such they first placed their feet on that hallowed rock at Plymouth, on the shore of Massachusetts.  They came here driven by no thirst of conquest, by no greed for gold, dreaming of no Western empire such as Cortez had achieved and Raleigh had meditated.  They desired to earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, worshiping God according to their own lights, living in harmony under their own laws, and feeling that no master could claim a right to put a heel upon their necks.  And be it remembered that here in England, in those days, earthly masters were still apt to put their heels on the necks of men.  The Star Chamber was gone, but Jeffreys had not yet reigned.  What earthly aspirations were ever higher than these, or more manly?  And what earthly efforts ever led to grander results?

We determined to go to Portland, in Maine, from thence to the White Mountains in New Hampshire—­the American Alps, as they love to call them—­and then on to Quebec, and up through the two Canadas to Niagara; and this route we followed.  From Boston to Portland we traveled by railroad—­the carriages on which are in America always called cars.  And here I beg, once for all, to enter my protest loudly against the manner in which these conveyances are conducted.  The one grand fault—­there are other smaller faults—­but the one grand fault is that they admit but one class.  Two reasons for this are given.  The first is that the finances of the companies will not admit of a divided accommodation; and the second is that the republican nature of the people will not brook a superior or aristocratic classification of traveling.  As regards the first, I do not in the least believe in it.  If a more expensive manner of railway traveling will pay in England, it would surely do so here.  Were a better class of carriages organized, as large a portion of the