Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, vol 2.djvu/21

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INTRODUCTION.
xvii

great part of her industrious inhabitants. After spending a day with our good friends and relatives, we continued our journey, and arrived at Boston.

Boston! Ah! reader, my heart fails me when I think of the estimable friends whose society afforded me so much pleasure in that beautiful city, the Athens of our Western World. Never, I fear, shall I have it in my power to return a tithe of the hospitality which was there shewn towards us, or of the benevolence and generosity which we experienced, and which evidently came from the heart, without the slightest mixture of ostentation. Indeed, I must acknowledge that although I have been happy in forming many valuable friendships in various parts of the world, all dearly cherished by me, the outpouring of kindness which I experienced at Boston far exceeded all that I have ever met with.

Who that has visited that fair city, has not admired her site, her universities, her churches, her harbours, the pure morals of her people, the beautiful country around her, gladdened by glimpses of villas, each vying with another in neatness and elegance? Who that has made his pilgrimage to her far-famed Bunker's Hill, entered her not less celebrated Fanneuil Hall, studied the history of her infancy, her progress, her indignant patriotism, her bloody strife, and her peaceful prosperity—that has moreover experienced, as I have done, the beneficence of her warm-hearted and amiable sons—and not felt his bosom glow with admiration and love? Think of her Adamses, her Perkins, her Everetts, her Peabodys, Cushings, Quinceys, Storeys, Paines, Greens, Tudors, Davises, and Pickerings, whose public and private life presents all that we deem estimable, and let them be bright examples of what the