be called gentlemen's houses, or which give one the idea of being in the vicinity of educated, or well-bred society. One, between 30 and 40 miles from Philadelphia, exhibited traces of taste and elegance in the front of the house and garden: the out-buildings seemed complete and extensive. My companion said, the whole of the buildings might cost, with the house furnished, 7,000 dollars; and 100 acres of land, in high cultivation, in the vicinity, 5,000 dollars more. Now, I think, with good management on the farm, a family might live comfortably, with 18,000 dollars in addition; not with less than that sum, nor with so little, if there were boarding-school expenses to pay, or any charges, except those strictly domestic. Now, let us suppose that Mr. Birkbeck had settled there :his family, except as regards society, would scarcely have been conscious that they were transplanted: he would have felt at home, in a cultivated country, instead of a novice in the prairies; and his agricultural skill might have been profitably exerted in a congenial sphere: 30,000 dollars out of the 35,000, which he is said to have brought with him, would have been disposed of in a form at least as convertible as at present. I much doubt whether his whole property, at the end of ten years, including the

5,000 dollars left to accumulate with compound interest, would not have been of more value than it will now prove, and have commanded as many cultivated and uncleared acres in Illinois, as he will possess, at the expiration of that period. If he should not be benefited, or be only partially so, by the remissions of price proposed by the Government to be afforded to purchasers of public lands, (which will depend on the state of his instalments,) or if his settlement continue unpopular, he may actually lose by his lands, the reduction of three-quarter dollars per ann, which Government contemplate in the price of vacant land, of course reducing the value of those he has entered. This, however, is a speculation for which I have no sufficient data; but I was led to think a little on the subject, on passing these fine Pennsylvanian farms. It appears to me, that the "aliquid immensum infinitumque," which played round the youthful imagination of Cicero, and conducted that celebrated orator into regions of truth and beauty, had taken possession of the mind of Mr. Birkbeck, and led him, less courteously, into the prairies of Illinois, where I have no doubt it has long since vanished, like an ignisfatuus, leaving him probably not a little mortified at having been beguiled by an insidious

phantom, which beckoned him to fame and fortune in the Western wilds.

We reached Philadelphia, 60 miles from Lancaster, at four o'clock in the afternoon, and found our party at the boarding-house increased by the arrival of a gentleman and lady, and three daughters, from Lexington, in Kentucky, who, having hastily left a comfortable estate in the vicinity of London, had become tired of the Western wilderness, and had returned to the Atlantic States, beginning to think that, to persons in their easy circumstances, at least, there was no place like Old England, after all.

Letter XXXIV.

New York, 1st January, 1821.

I HAD expected, ere this, to have been within a few days' sail of my native shores, but circumstances, to which I have already adverted, have induced me to postpone my return a few weeks. I was at first disappointed, to find that it would protract my absence from home, but as it will give me an opportunity of seeing more of the New England States, I probably shall not ultimately regret it. I arrived here on the 1st December, and took up my abode at the Mechanic Hall. Our party at the common table, which is always most handsomely provided, is composed principally of two or three manufacturers from Yorkshire or Lancashire, an English merchant or two, and a captain of the British navy. We much miss the Carolinians and Georgians, who, in the summer and autumn, form so agreeable an addition, in their way to and from Canada and the Springs. I am not much in the hotel, however, for New York is a most hospitable place. The influx of strangers into this city, from all

parts of the world, is perfectly astonishing, as you will see by the statement which I shall attach to this letter; and the society, as might naturally be expected, is very miscellaneous. There is, however, as you will have seen from the detail of my visits, which I have given you in a former letter, some very good society, and in many of the old families, whose names have been rendered familiar to you by Mrs. Grant, there is much intelligence and refinement. In the mass of the mercantile community, however, I am disposed to believe, that there is less mental cultivation than in Boston, and less refinement than in Philadelphia.

The young ladies, who are fond of the French style, are accused by the females of Philadelphia, of dressing in a more showy and expensive manner, but with less taste than themselves. I will not embroil myself in this delicate dispute, but will merely observe, that these gay, light-hearted, delicate, pretty, young creatures, who seem to brave the coldest weather, in light dresses, in their daily promenade in Broadway, bent on amusement, and without a care, exchange, I am told, their Elysian dreams, for the cold realities of life, without one parting sigh, and discharge, with assiduity and affection, the duties of