LIFE OF WILSON. 
Iv 
but less covered with woods. On reaching Hartford, I waited on Mr. G., a 
member of congress, who recommended me to several others, particularly a 
Mr. W., a gentleman of taste and fortune, who was extremely obliging. The 
publisher of a newspaper here expressed the highest admiration of the work, 
and has since paid many handsome compliments to it in his publication, as 
three other editors did in New York. This is a species of currency that will 
neither purchase plates, nor pay the printer; but, nevertheless, it is gratifying 
to the vanity of an author — when notliing better can he got. My journey from 
Hartford to Boston, through Springfield, Worcester, &c., one hundred and 
twenty-eight miles, it is impossible for me to detail at this time. From the 
time I entered Massachusetts, until within ten miles of Boston, which distance 
is nearly two-thirds the length of the whole state, I took notice that the prin- 
cipal features of the country were stony mountains, rocky pasture-fields, and 
hills and swamps adorned with pines. The fences, in every direction, are com- 
posed of strong stones ; and, unless a few straggling, self-planted, stunted apple 
trees, overgrown with moss, deserve the name, there is hardly an orchard to 
be seen in ten miles. Every six or eight miles you come to a meeting-house, 
painted white, with a spire. I could perceive little difference in the form or 
elevation of their steeples. 
"The people here make no distinction between t<non and towmliip; and 
travellers frequently ask the driver of the stage-coach, ' What town are we 
now in V when perhaps we were upon the top of a miserable barren mountain, 
several miles' from a house. It is in vain to reason with the people on the 
impropriety of this — custom makes every absurdity proper. There is scarcely 
any currency in this country but paper, and I solemnly declare that I do not 
recollect having seen one hard dollar since I left New York. Bills even of 
twenty-five cents, of a hundred different banks, whose very names one has 
never heard of before, are continually in circulation. I say nothing of the 
jargon which prevails in the country. Their boasted schools, if I may judge 
by the state of their school-houses, are no better than our own. 
" Lawyers swarm in every town, like locusts ; almost every door has the 
word 0-ffice painted over it, which, like the web of a spider, points out the 
place where the spoiler lurks for his prey. There is little or no improvement 
in agriculture ; in fifty miles I did not observe a single grain or stubble field, 
though the country has been cleared and settled these one hundred and fifty 
years. In short, the steady liabiis of a great portion of the inhabitants of 
those parts of New England through which I passed, seem to be laziness, law 
bickerings and * * * *. A man here is as much ashamed of being seen 
walking the streets on Sunday, unless in going and returning from church, as 
many would be of being seen going to a ***** *. 
" As you approach Boston the country improves in its appearance ; the stone 
fences give place to those of posts and rails ; the road becomes wide and spa- 
cious; and everything announces a better degree of refinement and civilization. 
It was dark when I entered Boston, of which I shall give you some account 
in my next. I have visited the celebrated Bunker's Hill, and no devout pil- 
grim ever approached the sacred tomb of his holy prophet with more awful 
enthusiasm, and profound veneration, than I felt in tracing the grass-grown 
