wear wigs in infinite variety,--the Tie, the Brigadier, the Spencer, the
Albemarle, the Major, the Ramillies, the grave Full-bottom, or the giddy
Feather-top. Look at the elaborate lace-ruffles, and the square-skirted
coats of gorgeous hues, bedizened with silver and gold! Make way for the
phantom-ladies, whose hoops require such breadth of passage, as they pace
majestically along, in silken gowns, blue, green, or yellow, brilliantly
embroidered, and with small satin hats surmounting their powdered hair.
Make way; for the whole spectral show will vanish, if your earthly
garments brush against their robes. Now that the scene is brightest, and
the whole street glitters with imaginary sunshine,--now hark to the bells
of the Old South and the Old North, ringing out with a sudden and merry
peal, while the cannon of Castle William thunder below the town, and
those of the Diana frigate repeat the sound, and the Charlestown
batteries reply with a nearer roar! You see the crowd toss up their hats
in visionary joy. You hear of illuminations and fire-works, and of
bonfires, built oil scaffolds, raised several stories above the ground,
that are to blaze all night in King Street and on Beacon Hill. And here
come the trumpets and kettle-drums, and the tramping hoofs of the Boston
troop of horseguards, escorting the governor to King's Chapel, where he
is to return solemn thanks for the surrender of Quebec. March on, thou
shadowy troop! and vanish, ghostly crowd! and change again, old street!
for those stirring times are gone.

Opportunely for the conclusion of our sketch, a fire broke out, on the
twentieth of March, 1760, at the Brazen-Head, in Cornhill, and consumed
nearly four hundred buildings. Similar disasters have always been epochs
in the chronology of Boston. That of 1711 had hitherto been termed the
Great Fire, but now resigned its baleful dignity to one which has ever
since retained it. Did we desire to move the reader's sympathies on this
subject, we would not be grandiloquent about the sea of billowy flame,