I pity the man who, on a fine morning, can walk through the shady and clean streets of Phildelphia and cry, "all is barren!" In my eyes, it appeared, even at first sight,—and no place improves more upon acquaintance,—one of the most attractive-looking towns I had ever beheld.

Coming immediately out of the noise, bustle, and variety of Broadway, its general aspect appears quiet, almost triste; but the cleanliness, the neatness, the air of comfort, propriety, and health, that reigns on all sides, bespeaks immediate favour.

The progress of improvement, and enlargement too, are sufficiently evident, for at either extremity of the city, the fall of hammer and chisel give unceasing note of preparation. The circle designed and marked out as the limit of its future greatness by the sanguine mind of its sagacious founder has long since been overleaped; the wide Delaware on one side, and on the other the Schuylkill, seem incapable of bounding the ambitious city. Already does Market-street rest upon these two points, which cannot be less than three miles apart.

Touching Market-street I ought to know something, since, on two occasions, I got out of my bed to visit it at four A.M. I am curious in looking upon these interesting entrepÔts whence we cull the dainties of a well-furnished larder, and a view over this was truly worth the pains; for in no place have I ever seen more lavish display of the good things most esteemed by this eating generation, nor could any market offer them to the amateur in form more tempting. Neatness and care were evident in the perfect arrangement of the poultry, vegetables, fruit, butter, &c.; and the display of well-fed beef, with the artist-like way in which it was dressed, might have excited our Giblets' spleen even in the Christmas week.

Poultry of all kinds here is equal to that of any country, and the butter almost as good as the best Irish, which I think the sweetest in the world. The market, at the early time I mentioned, offered a busy and amusing scene, and I passed away a couple of hours here very much to my satisfaction, besides cheating those souls of d——d critics, the musquitoes, out of a breakfast; for each day, about the first light, I used to be awakened by their assembling for a little dÉjeuner dÂnsant, whereat I was victim.

One of the pleasantest visits a man can pay in Philadelphia on a hot day, is to the water-works at Fair-mount, on the Schuylkill: the very name is refreshing with the mercury at 96° in the shade; and, if there be a breeze in Pennsylvania, you will find it here. No city can be better supplied with water than this; and I never looked upon the pure liquid, welling through the pipes and deluging the thirsty streets, without a feeling of gratitude to these water-works, and of respect for the pride with which the Philadelphians regard their spirited public labour. They have evinced much taste, too, in the quiet, simple disposition of the ground and reservoirs connected with the machinery; the trees and plants are well selected for the situation, and will soon add to the natural beauty of this very fine reach of the river.

Mounting the east bank of the stream, from this to the village of Manayunk, you have a very pretty ride; and crossing the bridge at the "Falls of the Schuylkill,"—falls no longer, thanks to the dam at Fair-mount,—the way back winds along by, or hangs above, the canal and river, here marching side by side; offering, in about four miles, as charming a succession of river views as painter or poet could desire. It is a lovely ramble by all lights, and I have viewed it by all,—in the blaze of noon, and by the sober grey of summer twilight; I have ridden beneath its wooded heights, and through its overhanging masses of rare foliage, in the alternate bright cold light and deep shade of a cloudless moon; and again, when tree, and field, and flower were yet fresh and humid with the heavy dew, and sparkling in the glow of early morning.

At the period of my first visit, the huge piers of a new bridge, projected by the Columbian Railroad Company, were just appearing in different degrees above the gentle river's surface. The smoke of the workmen's fires rising from the wood above, and the numerous attendant barges moored beneath the tall cliff from which the road was to be thrown, added no little to the effect. I have since seen this viaduct completed, and have been whirled over it in the train of a locomotive; and, although it is a fine work, I cannot but think every lover of the picturesque will mourn the violation of the solitude so lately to be found here.

I could not refrain from picturing to myself the light canoes of the Delaware Indians as at no very remote period they lay rocking beneath the shelter of that very bluff where now were moored a fleet of deep-laden barges: indeed these ideas were constantly forcing themselves, as it were, into my mind as I wandered over the changeful face of this singular land, where the fresh print of the moccasin is followed by the tread of the engineer and his attendants, and the light trail of the red man is effaced by the road of iron: hardly have the echoes ceased to repeat through the woods the Indian's hunter-cry before this is followed by the angry rush of the ponderous steam-engine, urged forward! still forward! by the restless pursuer of his fated race.

Wander whither you will,—take any direction, the most frequented or the most secluded,—at every and at all points do these lines of railway intercept your path. Each state, north, south, and west, is eagerly thrusting forth these iron arms, to knit, as it were, in a straiter embrace her neighbours; and I have not a doubt but, in a very short time, a man may journey from the St. Lawrence to the gulf of Mexico coastwise with as much facility as he now does from Boston to Washington, a distance of four hundred and fifty miles, which may be at this day performed within forty hours, out of which you pass a night in New York.

But to leave anticipations and imaginings,—which, by the way, is a forbearance hard of practice in a region where all things are on the whirl of speculative change, and where practical results outrun the projections of even the most visionary theorist,—and return to make such rapid survey of this interesting city as may be ventured on during a first visit of some twenty days. I feel, indeed, that but little can be really known in so short a time of a place containing two hundred and twenty thousand souls, and having in a rapid state of advancement various alterations and improvements, including nearly five thousand new buildings all immediately required: although there are persons gifted with such power of intuition, that, as I learn from their own showing, they are enabled in half the period to decide upon the condition of the whole state of Pennsylvania; to discover the wants of its capital, the defects of its institutions, the value of its commerce, the drift of its policy; to gauge its morals, become intimate with its society, and make out a correct estimate of its relative condition and prospects compared with the other great divisions of the Union, surveyed, I presume, with equal rapidity, judged with equal candour, and estimated with equal correctness.

Each in his degree: and so, in my way, good reader, I will endeavour to give you some notion of this capital of old Penn's Sylvania; but if your own imagination come not to the help of my outline, I fear, after all my painstaking, your notion of the subject will be only a faintish one.

Philadelphia is built upon a peninsula formed by two rivers, the Delaware and the Schuylkill, having a long graduated rise from each, the highest point being about the centre of the city. It is laid out in squares, and the streets run in parallel lines of two and three miles in length, retaining the same names throughout, only divided by Market-street into north, and south: with the exception of this dividing street, those running east and west are named after trees, flowers, and fruits,—as chestnut, walnut, peach, &c.; and those parallel with the rivers, first, Front-street, or that facing the water; next, Second-street, third, fourth, fifth, &c. distinguished as, divided by Market-street, into South-second, North-second, &c.; a simplicity of arrangement which is unique, and renders the stranger's course an exceeding easy one: all he has to do is, first, to run down the latitude of his street by any of the great avenues, and, having fairly struck it, steer north or south, as may be, till he hits upon the friendly number.

The side-walks throughout are broad and well-ordered, neatly paved with brick, and generally bordered by rows of healthful trees of different kinds, affording in hot weather a most welcome shade, and giving to the houses an air of freshness and repose rarely to be met with in a populous city.

The dwellings are chiefly of brick, of a good colour, very neatly pointed; and nothing can be more tasteful than their fitting-up externally. The windows are furnished with latticed shutters; these, when not closed, fold back on either hand against the wall, and being painted green, and kept with much care and freshness, would invest humbler dwellings with an attractive air, especially in the eyes of an Englishman, accustomed to the dingy aspect of our city residences, which look as though the owners had resolved on making them as forbidding as possible without, in order to enhance the excelling comforts within.

Now the houses of Philadelphia are as clean and neat in all the detail of the exterior, as they are well-ordered and admirably furnished. The mountings of the rails and doors are either of polished silver plating or brass, and kept as bright as care can make them. The solid hall-door, in hot weather, is superseded by one of green lattice-work, similar to the window-shutters, which answers the purpose of keeping out every intrusive stranger, except the air,—air being at such seasons, as most strangers are at all times, especially welcome to Philadelphia, which is about the hottest place I know of in the autumn; the halls are commonly flagged with fine white marble, are spacious, lofty, and well fitted-up.

The houses average three stories, but in the best streets, those of the first class are run up to five, and even six, and are of great depth: indeed, I should say, the inhabitants of this city generally enjoy greater space in their lodgings than is afforded to those of any other large capital. Where population increases rapidly rents are necessarily high; and a good house in Philadelphia costs about as much, independent of taxation, as a dwelling of the same class in London.

Besides the great market, which gives its name to the dividing line of the city, and runs through its whole breadth, there are several others, less extensive perhaps, but all alike under cover, well adapted to the purpose, and boasting a due proportion of the abundance of good things, which, profusely displayed on all sides, give ready evidence of the agricultural wealth of the neighbourhood.

Numbers of the best market-farmers for vegetables, poultry, butter, &c. are Germans, who, although most earnest in enriching the country by their labour, yet cling with strange tenacity to the customs and language of "Fader-land." Their costume and manner yet continues as distinct and recognizable as was the appearance of their progenitors on landing here some eighty years back, for the colony from which they are chiefly derived had existence about the middle of the eighteenth century; and many of these men, yet speaking no word of English, are of the third generation. They have German magistrates, an interpreter in courts when they act as jurors, German newspapers, &c.; and are the stoutest, if not the promptest, asserters of democracy.

They are usually found a little in arrear on the subject of all passing events; and at election times, or on occasions of extraordinary stir, when a man is striving to render them au courant with late occurrences, they will now and then interrupt their informant with, "Bud why de teufel doesn't Vashington come down to de Nord and bud it all to rights?"

The public buildings are here of a more ambitious style of architecture than any of the other cities can boast, and some of them are built in exceeding good taste; but the one which had most interest in my eyes was the old State-house, wherein the "Declaration of Independence" was signed. The Senate-chamber is, I fancy, little changed since that period; and contained, when I was last within it, models for various public works: amongst others, several for a heroic statue of Washington, about to be erected, somewhat late in the day to be sure, by the city; others for the new college, now building, according to the will of the late S. Girard, and intended to assist in perpetuating his name and wealth to all posterity.

Such appears to have been the great object of the will of this worthy citizen, and there is every prospect of its fully answering the purpose, since it has already set the whole community by the ears, and promises to prove as prolific of evils as the strong box of Miss Pandora, without having even Hope at the bottom.

This man, who has been so much eulogized dead, seems, as well as I could glean amongst his contemporaries, to have been anything but estimable in his living character. He is universally described as having been tricky, overreaching, and litigious in his dealings as a merchant; an unfeeling relation, an exacting, ungrateful, and forgetful master; and a selfish, cold-hearted man: unoccupied with any generous sympathy, public or private, throughout a long life, devoted to one purpose with sleepless energy, and to one purpose only—making and hoarding money; which, living, he contrived, as far as in him lay, to render as little beneficial to any as possible, and, dying, disposed of to his own personal glorification, but to the vexation of the community, amongst which he appeared to have lived unhonoured, and certainly died unregretted!

I am aware that "de mortuis nil nisi bonum" has usually been applied to cases similar to the above; "nil nisi justem" I think a sounder reading where a man is held up as a public example, and deem that the selection of a church or a college for a monument should not be permitted to shield the base from animadversion, or call for honours to the worthless.

THE THEATRES—WALNUT AND CHESTNUT:

So called were the houses at which I first acted here, situated in the two fine streets bearing the same names.

The Walnut is a summer theatre, and the least fashionable; and here it was my fortune to make my dÉbut to the Philadelphians with good success: a French company occupied at the same time the Chestnut, where, after a seven nights' engagement at the other house, I succeeded them; the proprietors being the same at both.

These houses are large, handsome buildings, marble-fronted, having ample and well-arranged vomitories; and are not stuck into some obscure alley, as most of our theatres are, but standing in the finest streets of the city, and every way easy of approach: within, they are fitted up plainly, but conveniently, and very cleanly and well kept. I prefer the Chestnut, as smaller, and having a pit—as I think all pits ought to be—nearly on a level with the front of the stage, instead of being sunk deep below, looking, when filled, like a huge dark pool, covered with upturned faces.

A crowded audience here presents as large a proportion of pretty, attractive women as are anywhere to be seen; and the male part is singularly respectable and attentive. Here again I must protest against the charge of insensibility being laid at their doors; that is, as far as my own feeling and experience goes.

If by applause, a constant clapping of palms or hammering of sticks is only meant, interspersed with cries of "Bravo!" I admit they are deficient; but if an evident anxiety to lose no word or look of the artist, an evident abstraction from everything but the scene, with demonstrations of admiration discriminating and well applied, may be accepted as sufficient marks of approval, then has the actor no cause of complaint.

With the tragedian, who strains after what in stage parlance are called points, and calculates on being interrupted by loud clapping before the sense of the sentence be complete, or else wants breath to finish it, a Philadelphian audience might prove a slippery dependence, since they come evidently to hear the author as well as see the actor, and are "attentive, that they may hear."

For myself, the unreserved laughter in which they indulged I found abundant applause, and in well-filled houses the best assurance that they were pleased. The company here was a very good one, and the pieces as well gotten up as anywhere in the States.

I paid frequent visits to this charming city, and shall have occasion again to refer to it. My first impressions are here set down, and favourable as these were, a more intimate knowledge only served to confirm them.