and Mrs. Webster senior (the latter
by the bye is a _most_ charming person) and had the advantage of
seeing society in England and France in its best aspect, and is one
who can compare as well as see ... Among the men [of the Boston
society] are Dr. Chinning, a prophet in our country, a pamphleteer
in his own; Bancroft, _the_ historian of America, a man of superior
talents and great agreeability, but a black sheep in society, on
account of his Van Buren politics, against whom the white sheep of the
Whig party will not rub themselves; Prescott, the author of _Ferdinand
and Isabella_, a handsome, half blind shunner of the vanities of the
world, with some others, who read and write a good deal, and no one
the wiser for it. Edward Everett is in Italy, where you will surely
meet him [we saw a good deal of him]. He is rather formal than
cold, if all I hear whispered of him be true; of elegant taste in
literature, though not of easy manners, and altogether an admirable
specimen of an American orator and scholar. At Cambridge, three miles
off, we have Judge Story, of the Supreme Court, eloquent, deeply
learned, garrulous, lively, amiable, excellent in all and every way
that a mortal can be. He is decidedly the gem of this western world.
Mr. Webster is now settled at Washington, though here at this moment
on a visit to Mrs. Paige. Among our neighbouring notabilities is John
Quincy Adams, an ex-President of the United States, ex-Minister at
half the courts in Europe, and now at seventy-five, a simple Member of
Congress, hard as a piece of granite, and cold as a lump of ice.
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