in the society of the literati of Boston; for, however indifferent many were to slavery per se, they enjoyed these fairs, and all classes flocked there till far into the night.  It was a kind of ladies’ exchange for the holiday week, where each one was sure to meet her friends.  The fair and the annual convention, coming in succession, intensified the interest in both.  I never grew weary of the conventions, though I attended all the sessions, lasting, sometimes, until eleven o’clock at night.  The fiery eloquence of the abolitionists, the amusing episodes that occurred when some crank was suppressed and borne out on the shoulders of his brethren, gave sufficient variety to the proceedings to keep the interest up to high-water mark.

There was one old man dressed in white, carrying a scythe, who imagined himself the personification of “Time,” though called “Father Lampson.”  Occasionally he would bubble over with some prophetic vision, and, as he could not be silenced, he was carried out.  He usually made himself as limp as possible, which added to the difficulty of his exit and the amusement of the audience.  A ripple of merriment would unsettle, for a moment, even the dignity of the platform when Abigail Folsom, another crank, would shout from the gallery, “Stop not, my brother, on the order of your going, but go.”  The abolitionists were making the experiment, at this time, of a free platform, allowing everyone to speak as moved by the spirit, but they soon found that would not do, as those evidently moved by the spirit of mischief were quite as apt to air their vagaries as those moved by the spirit of truth.

However, the Garrisonian platform always maintained a certain degree of freedom outside its regular programme, and, although this involved extra duty in suppressing cranks, yet the meeting gained enthusiasm by some good spontaneous speaking on the floor as well as on the platform.  A number of immense mass meetings were held in Faneuil Hall, a large, dreary place, with its bare walls and innumerable dingy windows.  The only attempt at an ornament was the American eagle, with its wings spread and claws firmly set, in the middle of the gallery.  The gilt was worn off its beak, giving it the appearance, as Edmund Quincy said, of having a bad cold in the head.

This old hall was sacred to so many memories connected with the early days of the Revolution that it was a kind of Mecca for the lovers of liberty visiting Boston.  The anti-slavery meetings held there were often disturbed by mobs that would hold the most gifted orator at bay hour after hour, and would listen only to the songs of the Hutchinson family.  Although these songs were a condensed extract of the whole anti-slavery constitution and by-laws, yet the mob was as peaceful under these paeans to liberty as a child under the influence of an anodyne.  What a welcome and beautiful vision that was when the four brothers, in blue broadcloth and white collars, turned down a la Byron, and