In the Courier of October 14, 1824, the name of EDWARD EVERETT was first brought before the public as a candidate for representative in Congress. John Keyes, a distinguished lawyer, had been nominated for that place by a democratic caucus in the county of Middlesex, but the nomination was received with some unexpected coolness. Some of the electors, — the younger portion, especially, declared their preference for some one, who had not been identified with that party, nor pledged to sustain its favorite policy. A communication, proposing another caucus to consider the expediency of a new nomination, was sent to me for publication in the Courier. The thought immediately occurred to me that Mr. Everett, (then the Greek Professor in Harvard college, (would be a suitable person to represent the county, and I recommended his nomination on the ground that "his election would tend very much to the elevation of the character of the Massachusetts delegation in the National Legislature, and give a proud and honorable distinction to his immediate constituents. . . . . He stands before his fellow-citizens [it was added] as a candidate unpledged, unshackled, of uncommon natural power, improved by education, travel, and study; his moral and political character unimpeachable, his mind too enlightened and capacious to be wrought upon to any purposes of political iniquity by intrigue and corruption, and too elevated and magnanimous to participate in the counsels of low ambition, or to aim at personal exaltation at the expense of public good." If the nomination of Mr. Everett had occurred to any one previous to this suggestion in the Courier, it was

unknown to me. The proposed convention met at Lexington, the next week; he was unanimously nominated; and was elected by a large majority of the voters of Middlesex.

In the spring of 1827, Boston politics were in a sad state of incoherence, and as the time for choosing senators and representatives approached, there was, as an eminent statesman once said, "a plausible appearance of a probability," that the city might be unrepresented for that political year. The curious arrangement of parties I attempted to describe in the following article:

Our commonwealth and city politics are in a state of most admirable confusion. Every tenth man is the leader of a party; - the blind leading the blind. Republicans and Federalists, Jacksonmen, Adamsmen, Lincolnmen, administrationmen, freebridgemen, antifreebridgemen, antitariffmen, and woollen crusaders, are all thrown together into the political pot. The fire burns and the cauldron bubbles; and many are the weird sisters that are practising their incantations over the ingredients. Whether any thing will rise from this solemn sorcery, except scum, we profess not to foresee. Perhaps the managers expect that this process will result in the production of some new substance, in which the various qualities of all the ingredients shall be inseparably and mysteriously compounded, beyond all possibility of decomposition.

We are somewhat impatient to see these affairs settled. Not that we look for any personal advantage from the consummation, whatever the event may be. But there is a satisfaction in knowing when one may put to sea, who are likely to be his associates, whether he is to sail with the fleet under convoy of the admiral, or whether he must push off his frail bark alone, and, steer whatever course he may,

-still be in danger of shattering his vessel against that of some friend whom he would not willingly jostle. It is impossible to be for ever in port; and, in this uncertain state of the political elements, we dare not venture out with our little gun-boat, lest we come in contact with some of the seventyfours, now fitting for an expedition.

To be less figurative: - We understand that the masterspirits were at work last week, and that an arrangement was to be made, by which all political differences were to be reconciled, all were to be brought into one great family, - the names Republican and Federalist to be expunged from the vocabulary, - all our garments to be purified of the odors of the embargo, the terrapin system, and the Hartford Convention. It is our fault, perhaps, that we are too impatient, and unwilling that delay should keep pace between a good purpose and its effect.

The old republican party is divided, and all are acquainted with the inspired maxim, A kingdom divided against itself cometh to nought. The old federal party is declared to be defunct, and its odor remaineth only as an offence to a few individuals, who have survived its dissolution. If it be indeed so, we derive some consolation from the hope that, phoenixlike, a new party may arise from its ashes, possessing the wisdom, the magnanimity, the prudence, the disinterestedness, the patriotism, which rendered the original an object of admiration and respect while in its vigor of manhood; but without any of that weakness, meanness, or infidelity to friends and benefactors, that disgraced its decline. The dotage of the Sage and the imbecility of the Giant may excite compassion; the affected humility of an aristocrat in fetters, like the morality of a superannuated libertine, produces only disgust.

It was in the summer of 1827, that the railroad mania began to manifest itself in Massachusetts. Some symptoms had, indeed, been discovered a year or two sooner, but the fever had not prevailed to any great

extent. The following article, published in June, 1827, expressed not merely the notions I then entertained, but the general opinion of the people. The idea of a railroad from Boston to Albany, or even to Springfield, was met with ridicule in the Legislature, as a project too absurd to be discussed with gravity:

Alcibiades, or some other great man of antiquity, it is said, cut off his dog's tail, that quid nuncs (we suppose such animals existed in ancient as well as in modern times) might not become extinct for want of excitement. Some such motive, we doubt not, moved one or two of our natural and experimental philosophers to get up the project of a railroad from Boston to Albany; a project, which every one knows, — who knows the simplest rules in arithmetic, -to be impracticable but at an expense little less than the market value of the whole territory of Massachusetts; and which, if practicable, every person of common sense knows would be as useless as a railroad from Boston to the Moon. Indeed, a road of some kind from here to the heart of that beautiful satellite of our dusky planet would be of some practical utility, if a few of our notional, public-spirited men, our railway fanatics, could be persuaded to pay a visit to their proper country. There would be no fear of their ever returning to such a dull spot as this peninsula of Boston, where you cannot walk five rods without annoyance from some new edifice that is in progress to completion, finding yourself intrenched in a fortress of cotton bales, more impenetrable than that which our next President, that is (not) to be, erected for the defence of New-Orleans, -or being obliged to wait half an hour before you can cross a street, for a caravan of loaded trucks to pass by.

especially,

This railroad from Boston to Albany is, after all, a very pleasant thing, to talk about. It has converted two or three very indifferent men into orators and toast-makers of great parts and patriotism. It has so frightened the New-Yorkers that they have already suffered the grass to grow from the bed of their grand canawl, and their North river steam-boats will

soon be sacrificed under the hammer of the auctioneer. One of the great movers in our railway concern has hinted to us, (under a pledge of profound secrecy, however,) that the main object of the invisible managers is to alarm our neighbors of New-York with a threatened loss of trade to the West, in order (cunning dogs!) that they, i. e. the railway managers, may be able to buy the said North river steam-boats at a bargain. This project has also tested the liberality of our state legislature, who, with unexampled public spirit, not to call it by the more alarming name of prodigality, — after the ever-to-be-remembered trip to the Quincy railroad the neverto-be-forgotten interclusion of the Ousatonic between the piers of Neponset bridge,*— appropriated, from the public treasury, ten thousand dollars for the purpose of promoting internal improvements.

We have almost forgotten why we began this article; but, if we recollect right, it was to introduce the following toast, given lately at a public entertainment, by an advocate for the railroad from Boston to Albany:

"Internal Improvements. May the time speedily arrive when the canal boats shall come from Rochester to Boston on a railroad over Hoosac Mountain." [Nine cheers. Song, Back-side Albany.]

Within a year after writing this piece of sarcasm, the editor of the Courier was one of some ten or twelve persons who petitioned the Legislature in favor of a railroad from Boston to Ogdensburg, and who, themselves, paid the expense of an engineer to go over the proposed route, and report upon the practicability of making it. On no other subject, probably, has private or public opinion undergone so thorough a

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* A number of the members of the Legislature of 1826, made a reconnoisance" to the Quincy railroad in a small steam-boat, called the Ousatonic. their return, the boat stuck between the piers of Neponset bridge ;· - an event which caused some merriment at the expense of a member of the Boston delegation, who was the chief manager on the occasion.