A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER. 95 



Massachusetts from that in which we of later generations 

 have been bred. Till after he had passed middle life, 

 Boston was more truly a capital than any other city in 

 America, before or since, except possibly Charleston. 

 The acknowledged head of New England, with a popula- 

 tion of wellnigh purely English descent, mostly derived 

 from the earlier emigration, with ancestral traditions and 

 inspiring memories of its own, it had made its name 

 familiar in both worlds, and was both historically and 

 politically more important than at any later period. 

 The Revolution had not interrupted, but rather given a 

 freer current to the tendencies of its past. Both by its 

 history and position, the town had what the French call 

 ^solidarity, an almost personal consciousness, rare any- 

 where, rare especially 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 homogene- 

 ous, and there were leading families ; while the form of 

 government by town-meeting, and the facility of social 

 and civic intercourse, gave great influence to popular 

 personal qualities arid opportunity to new men. A wide 

 commerce, while it had insensibly softened the asperities 

 of Puritanism and imported enough foreign refinement 

 to humanize, not enough foreign luxury to corrupt, had 

 not essentially qualified the native tone of the town. 

 Retired sea-captains (true brothers of Chaucer's Ship- 

 man), whose exploits had kindled the imagination of 

 Burke, added a not unpleasant savor of salt to society. 

 They belonged to the old school of Gilbert, Hawkins, 

 Frobisher, and Drake, parcel-soldiers all of them, w r ho 

 had commanded armed ships and had tales to tell of 

 gallant fights with privateers or pirates, truest represent- 



