XCll 
LIFE OF WILSON. 
and intelligence of his eye bespeak the man of genius, and of the 
world. He complained to me of his inability to walk, an exercise 
he was formerly fond of ; — he examined my book, leaf by leaf, 
with great attention — desired me to put down his name as a sub- 
scriber ; and, after inquiring particularly for Mr. P. and Mr. B., 
Avished to be remembered to both, 
“ My journey through almost the whole of Newengland has 
rather lowered the Yankees in my esteem. Except a few neat aca- 
demies, I found their schoolhouses equally ruinous and deserted 
Avith ours — fields covered with stones — stone fences — scrubby oaks 
and pine trees — wretched orchards — scarcely one grain field in 
twenty miles — the taverns along the road dirty, and filled with 
loungers, brawling about laAV suits and politics — the people snap- 
pish, and extortioners, lazy, and tAvo hundred years behind the 
Pennsylvanians in agricultural improvements. I traversed the 
country bordering the river Connecticut for nearly two hundred 
miles. Mountains rose on either side, sometimes three, six, or 
eight miles apart, the space between almost altogether alluvial ; the 
plains fertile, but not half cultivated. From some projecting head- 
lands I had immense prospects of the surrounding countries, every 
where clothed in pine, hemlock, and scrubby oak. 
“ It was late in the evening Avhen I entered Boston, and, 
whirling through the narrow, lighted streets, or rather lanes, I could 
form but a very imperfect idea of the town. Early the next morn- 
ing, resolved to see where I was, I sought out the way to Beacon 
Hill, the highest part of the tOAvn, and whence you look down on 
the roofs of the houses — the bay interspersed Avith islands — the 
ocean— the surrounding country, and distant mountains of New- 
hampshire ; but the most singular objects are the long wooden 
bridges, of which there are fiA^e or six, some of them three quarters 
of a mile long, uniting the towns of Boston and Charlestown with 
each other, and with the main land. I looked round Avith an eager 
eye for that eminence so justly celebrated in the history of the Re- 
