A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER. 73 



current to the tendencies of its past. Both by its history and 

 position, the town had what the French call a solidarity, 

 an almost personal consciousness, rare anywhere, rare espe 

 cially in America, and more than ever since our enormous 

 importation of fellow-citizens, to whom America means 

 merely shop, or meat three times a day. Boston has been 

 called the American Athens. -^Esthetically, the comparison 

 is ludicrous, but politically it was more reasonable. Its 

 population was homogeneous, and there were leading fami 

 lies ; while the form of government by town-meeting, and 

 the facility of social and civic intercourse, gave great influence 

 to popular personal qualities and opportunity to new men. 

 A wide commerce, while it had insensibly softened the aspe 

 rities of Puritanism and imported enough foreign refinement 

 to humanise, not enough foreign luxury to corrupt, had not 

 essentially qualified the native tone of the town. Retired 

 sea-captains (true brothers of Chaucer s Shipman), whose 

 exploits had kindled the imagination of Burke, added a not 

 unpleasant savour of salt to society. They belonged to the 

 old school of Gilbert, Hawkins, Frobisher, and Drake, 

 parcel-soldiers all of them, who had commanded armed 

 ships, and had tales to tell of gallant fights with privateers or 

 pirates, truest representatives of those Vikings who, if trade 

 in lumber or peltry was dull, would make themselves Dukes 

 of Dublin or Earls of Orkney. If trade pinches the mind, 

 commerce liberalises it ; and Boston was also advantaged 

 with the neighbourhood of the country s oldest College, 

 which maintained the wholesome traditions of culture 

 where Homer and Horace are familiar there is a certain 

 amount of cosmopolitanism and would not allow bigotry to 

 become despotism. Manners were more self-respectful, and 

 therefore more respectful of others, and personal sensitive 

 ness was fenced with more of that ceremonial with which 

 society armed itself when it surrendered the ruder protection 

 of the sword. We had not then seen a Governor in his 

 chamber at the State House with his hat on, a cigar in his 

 mouth, and his feet upon the stove. Domestic service, in 

 spite of the proverb, was not seldom an inheritance, nor was 

 household peace dependent on the whim of a foreign armed 

 neutrality in the kitchen. Servant and master were of one 

 stock; there was decent authority and becoming respect; 

 the tradition of the Old World lingered after its superstition 



