1826.] Lelters from the United States of North America. 213 



minutes — would it not be truej also ? To be sure, it would, for the man, 

 A. did aver that he walked — either six or seven miles, in thirty or forty 

 minutes. You perceive now, a very good reason for the growth of a 

 Yankee city. A. tells B. that it contains about from forty to forty-five 

 thousand people ; A. knows the truth, and speaks the truth ; B. takes up 

 the story, and says that he heard A. declare that Boston, the city of, 

 contains about — either forty-five or fifty thousand, he forgets which — both 

 speak true ; C. avers that A. told B. (who told him, C.) that the population 

 was — either fifty or fifty-five thousand, he forgets which — all speak true ; 

 and yet, up goes the number, five thousand or so, at a bid.* You might 

 make a scale of this very fact, my dear P., by which the moral sense of 

 anybody might be graduated. Ask him how far he has ever been able 

 to jump. If he should say, up to his neck or chin — he forgets which ; 

 or from A. to B. or C. — he forgets which ; make him jump, and measure 

 it : guineas to farthings, my dear fellow, that you find hira always a peg 

 or two short of the shortest measure. But, in the second place, to go 

 back a page, there is yet another reason for such an over-estimate ; 

 and a very good reason, too. The larger the town, the larger the peoi)le 

 every where. To the Londoner, especially if he abide west of Temple 

 Bar, every other part of the British empire is the country — the people 

 thereof, country people. To his view, the Edinburgh critic, the 

 Manchester weaver, the Bath fashionable, the Birmingham hard-ware 

 dealer, and the Dublin upper-sort, are all pretty much of a piece — mere 

 country-folks, foi-eigners, provincials, to be regarded with dismay, if 

 they appear in his path : so is it here. The people of Boston are very 

 absolute — very ; they give the law to tlie country people for two or 

 three hundred miles about, in all matters of taste, literature, fashion, 

 &c. &c. Nobody ventures to wear a hat, or make a bow — to sport a 

 ribbon, or give a party — but after the Boston way ; that is, nobody 

 within the circle of New England. So with books, and so with every 

 sort of style. But in books, their authority spreads over the whole 

 Union, with a power which admits of no dispute, while, in other matters, 

 nobody hears of it, after he approaches the neighbourhood of New 

 York, or Philadelphia, Richmond, or Charleston, or Baltimore ; that is, 

 in the matter of taste or fashion, of taste in dress, or fashion of be- 

 haviour. The literature of Boston, partly because Harvard University 

 is near it (only three miles off), the chief university of the new world, 

 which is crowded with universities and colleges of one sort or another, 

 and partly because the North American Review is published here, 

 stands very high ; but I cannot say as much for the dress or fashion of 

 the people : both are disregarded by the Southerners — one party follow- 

 ing whatever is British, while pretending to judge for themselves ; the 

 other party following whatever is French, or about one quarter French 

 and three quarters British, while pretending to especial care in report- 

 ing the fashions of London. The people of Boston are altogether 

 English — English in their habits, in their speech, in their dress, in 

 every thing ; wliile those of the South — of New Orleans, for example, 



• Very much as a London baker will grow a leg of mutton, for a large family. 

 They require a leg, say, of twelve pounds. He goes to the butcher, not for a leg of 

 twelve, but for one of six or eight, say — if he be one of a score ; that, he exchanges 

 for another (after he gets home) of six pounds and a half, or eight pounds and a half, 

 as the case may be ; that, for another, weighing half a pound, or a pound more ; that, 

 for another ; and so on, till the leg has srown to the proper size. — X. X. 



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