On the steps of the City Hall was a tricolor canopy, to which Kossuth was led. Hardly had he stepped from the carriage, when such thronging and such tumultuous uproar began that I felt quite bewildered, and expected every moment to see our carriage, and all those which preceded us, swept away by the multitude. hardly know what ensued, for the confusion and noise grew every moment, and the crowd obstructed our view in all directions. After a stormy hour we at last began to move again, and slowly passed along the line formed by the brilliant militia, offering a most striking variety of nationalities and regimentals. The American rifles, who never miss their aim, and never retreat before fire; English hussars on fine horses, and again, hussars with helmets and epaulets; Irish volunteers, with their animated countenances and dark hair, finely relieved by their green coats; the Washington guards, in the old style, with blue and buff coats, high boots, and powdered wigs and tails, recalling vividly bygone times, that we well might fancy they were relics of the revolutionary war; the German grenadiers, and stern black rifles, formed altogether a most impressive and varied picture.

It grew almost dark before we had achieved the whole circuit up Broadway and down Bowery. We reached the Irving House by a back door, for the front entrance was obstructed by the crowd. Yet the stairs and passages of this large hotel were likewise beset by gazers; it seemed as if gazing had become the business of the occasion, for everybody was everywhere on the look-out, even where I could not detect anything worth glancing at, and therefore I was much pleased to retire to the dining-room, where the mayor, as president of our meal, expected us.

Her first Sunday in New York affords her a glimpse of the look of the population.

December 9.

When on Sunday we drove to St. Bartholomew's Church, the fine streets of New York looked quiet and sober in comparison with what they had appeared on the previous day. The houses, before so gaudily and gayly apparelled, stood in silent uniformity, their long

breathes health around. It is very remarkable, that while the American cities generally command plenty of room, and therefore their houses could easily have been so disposed as to leave ample space for pleasure-grounds, they seem to be avoided as superfluous. And yet the trees along the avenues, and the creepers clustering up the walls of the most elegant houses, show that the Anglo-Saxon race is not less partial to green spots and fresh blossoms across the ocean, than their ancestors were in once merry old England.

numerous

The sermon in the Episcopalian Church, which we attended, was dogmatical, and therefore appealing exclusively to the reasoning faculties, and neither calming the mind nor bedewing the feeling. Such sermons are very different from those we were accustomed to hear in Hungary, where they generally preach on moral topics addressed to the heart and imagination, thus leading to contemplation, instead of arousing ideas of controversy. After service was over, I had leisure to see the congregation, which was so that people could get out but slowly. No characteristical costumes mark here the dif ferent grades of society, which, in Eastern Europe, impress the foreigner at once with the varied occupations and habits of the old country. There is the peasant girl with the gaudy ribbons interlaced in her long tresses, her bright corset and her richly-folded petticoat; there the Hungarian peasant with his white linen shirt, and his stately sheepskin; the Slovack in the closely-fitting jacket and the bright yellow buttons; the farmer with his high boots, and the Hungarian coat; old women with the black lace cap in the ancient national style, and none but the young ladies apparelled in French bonnets and modern dresses. But here all have submitted to the rule of Paris_fashion, despotically swaying over Western Europe and across the Atlantic; they all wear the uniforms prescribed by English tailors and French milliners. One gentleman passes after the other, every one of them clad so exactly alike, that they seem. cast in one and the same mould, and the ladies wear the same bonnets, the same silk dresses and furs, only varied in color, but equal in cut, equal in adornment. There is no individual turn of mind impressed on the outward appearance, and therefore such an assembly bears a manufactured, thoroughly unartistical stamp, in singular contrast to the poetical beauty of the ladies. In Europe, I always had understood that American women were very pretty up to twenty, but that their bloom was soon gone. Here, on the contrary, I beheld a whole congregation of attractive countenances, and though certainly many

of them had passed the prime of youth, the charm of beauty had by no means departed from their faces.

On arriving at Washington, the Hungarians received a cordial welcome from Gov. Seward, whose estimable character is at once appreciated, as will be seen in the following

sketch.

Some other senatorial celebrities are introduced into the same picture.

When, on the 30th of December, we reached Washington, the fog was as dense and as yellow as if it had been freshly imported from London. The first man who greeted us at the railway terminus was Mr. Seward, late Governor of New York, now senator for that state-one of the three gentlemen appointed by Congress to receive Kossuth. He made a most agreeable impression on me. His appearance is distinguished; a noble forehead, light gray hair, penetrating eyes, pointed New England features, in which shrewdness and benevolence are blended; his elegant dress and easy manners convey at once the idea that he is at home in the drawing-room as well as in the Senate. His conversation is fluent and instructive, fascinating even to his political opponents. I had repeated opportunity of seeing that this gentleman, the heir of John Quincy Adams' principles and views, did in fact reconcile, by his personal amiability, all those southerners who came in personal contact with him. Senator Seward, though, by the unceasing denunciations of The New York Herald, he is the bugbear of the south, is yet highly respected by southern statesmen, and has never become an object of those violent parliamentary attacks with which John Quincy Adams, in spite of his eminent services as ambassador, secretary of state and president, was assailed, when, towards the close of his remarkable career, he again entered Congress as a member of the House.

Senator Seward is the most influential of the whig leaders. He has the instinct of the future, and never shrinks from taking up measures because they are unpopular, if he foresees that in time they will get the majority. When we arrived in America, his popularity was at an ebb, for he was known as unfriendly to the Fugitive Slave Law; but before we left the United States, he had won back the majority among the whigs, and commanded the esteem of the democrats.

We had hardly entered the drawing-room of Brown's Hotel, when the Secretary of State was announced. The countenance of Mr. Webster is well known in England. The vast bald forehead, the broad, thick, black eyebrows over the stern, large, dark eyes, the reserved countenance, the emphatic, deep voice, the measured gait, impart a gravity to

his demeanor, extended to every one of his movements, even to the cool hand-shaking with which he greets you. He was evidently surprised at Kossuth's mild, melancholy, dignified manner. The unmovable countenance of the silencious Secretary of State was lighted up for a moment, when he first beheld the oriental solemnity of the great Hungarian ; he remembered, perhaps, the sunny time of his own manhood, when he was the warm advocate of struggling Greece. The cold statesman, the logical expounder of the interests of the United States, was ever open to noble impulses; but his calculating mind controlled the impressions of his heart. He had perhaps expected to meet in Kossuth a visionary agitator, a theoretical revolutionist; but a short interview obviously satisfied him of Kossuth's superiority. A few days later he was asked how he liked the" nation's guest." "He has the manners of a king; his is a royal nature," was the answer.

General Cass and General Shields, the members of the reception-committee of the Senate, were our next visitors.

The old explorer of the head-waters of the Mississippi, the celebrated ambassador at the Court of Louis Philippe, the most popular of the democratic leaders, has one resemblance in his fortunes with the whig Secretary of State

he has not been able to attain the highest position in his country, though inferior men have attained it.

It is indeed remarkable, that, for a series of years, the most prominent political men of both parties, Henry Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Cass, Buchanan, were not elected presidents. They were all ministers; but a prominent parliamentary career, and a high rank among the statesmen, is in America conducive to renown and respect, not to popularity. Military chiefs and statesmen of second order have more chances at the presidential elections. The masses require instinctively a stout heart and sound common sense in their chief, and they wish to see him surrounded by the men of first-rate talent, as his advisers, at the head of the departments. Democracy never did, and never does, think it safe to entrust the supreme power to men of genius, though it requires their exertions for the public weal.

General Cass, tall and stout, full of vivacity, and French politeness to the ladies, strikes by the frankness and cordiality of his manners.

General James Shields, the democratie senator of Illinois, is a "self-made" man. An Irish emigrant, he became a lawyer of influence in the West, and took a prominent part in the Mexican war, at the head of a regiment of volunteers. Bold and gallant, as his countrymen used to be, he distinguished himself in different battles, and when severely wounded, he attracted the general interest of his adopted country; so prominent and at

discoveries of Mr. Agassiz shows that several species of the Infusoria are nothing else than the embryos of molluscus. Embryolizing has become by this discovery a chief object of his attention. But whether he speaks on the recent coral formation of Florida and of the fossil corals which were heaved up in the Jura range, or whether it is the transformation of the crabs and molluscus, he always gives to science that lively interest and practical bearing which are sure to captivate the hearer. By his energetic activity he finds time also for the general interest of humanity, and especially for the important question of education in regard to University reform.

Professor Felton, who brings the sublime beauty of Greek and Roman poetry, by his popular lectures, within the reach of the pubfic at large, Dr. Gray the botanist, and Jared Sparks, the learned biographer of Franklin and Washington, and President of Harvard College, through the close vicinity of Cam bridge to the society of Boston, belong to that rare circle of intellectual notabilities, in which we meet Mr. Ticknor, the accomplished historian of Spanish literature; Prescott, of the Conquests of Mexico and Peru; Everett, the well known Ambassador at London, who has lately become Secretary of State; Dr. Warren, the celebrated physician, and proprietor of a remarkable collection of fossils; and others, whose personal acquaintance we have not made.

In London or in Paris many more celebrated men of science may be found; but these capitals are of such immense extent, and so many different interests divide and split people into sets and coteries, that the literary and scientific element is entirely diluted; whilst in Boston it forms one of the principal features of society. Love of science is inherent in New England; the whig principle that knowledge is the best safeguard of freedom, more so than standing armies; that therefore every citizen - whether childless, or blessed with many children must contribute to public education; that the common schools must be free to every child, and that the state must afford the greatest facility for higher education, prevails here generally, even among the democrats. In other states they favor rather the voluntary principle of education; establishing the schools by public money, but endeavoring to make them self-supporting by the fees of the students. They take the education of the children to be the duty of the parents, not of the citizens at large. It is through schools and instructions that Massachusetts strives against crime and oppression; and, in the regular expenditure of this state, public education has the prominent place, which in Europe is given to the army and navy estimate. The result of this spirit is visible everywhere. New England, and espec

ially Massachusetts, furnishes teachers to nearly three fourths of all the schools of the United States. The general instruction diffused through the people gives to the Yankees this peculiar aptitude for everything. They are, in turn, farmers and mechanics, shopkeepers and lecturers, engineers and clergymen, merchants and statesmen. Alphonse Karr, the French essayist and novel-writer, has attacked democratic institutions, on the plea that if talent alone gets a place in society and in government, no one will remain in the humbler situation of a mechanic, and all inventive genius will rush to the political career, much to the detriment of politics and industry. He feared that expansive views would no longer be formed among statesmen, and that stagnation would prevail in all mechanic pursuits. Poor Alphonse Karr thought, really, that it is only the aristocratic spirit of England which prevents Messrs. Moses & Son from becoming chancellors of the exchequer! He should come here to Boston; he would find that a shopkeeper has become Governor; a cobbler President of the Senate, and a cotton-boy Speaker of the House; yet he would find with them, not only the same good manners which he thinks the exclusive inheritance of aristocracy, but at the same time an elevation of mind and nobility of sentiment, straightforward honesty and devotion to the cause of humanity, which he does not find now either in the Chaussée de Antin or the Faubourg St. Germain. And yet, the grocery shops lack no man of business. Massachusetts supplies shoes to all the South, and in Lowell the mills have never been stopped for want of workers. The Frenchman would likewise find talent combined with the most different occupations, and intellectual accomplishment with the most various pursuits; and not only with men, but likewise with ladies, whom manifold duties do not prevent from not only adorning society by their charms, but aiding and enriching it also by their acquirements.

We spent three weeks in Boston, amid a society so varied in attractions that I found more time to enjoy than to record our enjoyments. In the first days of our stay we had an evening party at Mr. and Mrs. Loring's, where we became acquainted with the numerous circle of their relatives, the Putnams, Lowells, Grays, Peabodys, Jacksons-all names of literary reputation. The venerable Mr. Quincy was also here, the posthumous son of the great Josiah Quincy, the patriot whose writings and personal influence directed the minds of his countrymen to political independence. The present Josiah Quincy is the inheritor of the spirit of his father. His age- he was born in 1774- has not broken his faculties nor cooled his enthusiasm. He was the second Mayor of Boston, and, like his predecessor, Mr. Phillips, he administered the