12 PREFACE. 



prietor, and the lectures were continued every evening- until 

 Christmas. The months of January and February, 1842, were 

 passed, at Boston, where the lectures were given at the Melo- 

 deon and at the Tremont theatre. The unprecedented num- 

 bers collected in the latter building to attend the lectures will 

 not be forgotten by those who were present on these occa- 

 sions, and the# afforded a satisfactory proof that the discourses 

 delivered were adapted to the wants and the tastes of the pop- 

 ulation of that part of the Union. 



The reputation which this species of entertainment had thus 

 acquired now brought invitations from the other chief cities 

 of the Union, and after having passed the months of January 

 and February in Boston, I went to Philadelphia, where dis- 

 courses were delivered in the Chesnut-street theatre on the 

 alternate evenings during the month of March. 



Between this time and the close of the year 1844, I visited 

 every considerable city and town of the Union, from Boston to 

 New Orleans and from New York to St. Louis. Most of the 

 principal cities were twice visited, and several courses were 

 given in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Nor did the 

 appetite for this species of intellectual entertainment appear to 

 flag by repetition. The audiences at Palmo's theatre, New 

 York, in August, 1844, were even more crowded than they 

 had been at Niblo's in 1841 ; those in the Melodeon at Bos- 

 ton, in October, 1844, were as numerous as they had been at 

 the Tremont theatre in January, 1842; and the crowds assem- 

 bled in the great saloon of the Philadelphia museum, in De- 

 cember, 1843, and January, 1844, were much greater than 

 even the audiences of the Chesnut-street theatre, in March, 

 1842. 



My purpose in mentioning these circumstances is not the 

 gratification which such results might afford to my vanity, al- 



