prevent these outrages. It is amusing to see Boston assuming the aspect
of a walled city, guarded, probably, by a detachment of church-members,
with a deacon at their head. Governor Belcher makes proclamation against
certain "loose and dissolute people" who have been wont to stop
passengers in the streets, on the Fifth of November, "otherwise called
Pope's Day," and levy contributions for the building of bonfires. In
this instance, the populace are more puritanic than the magistrate.

The elaborate solemnities of funerals were in accordance with the sombre
character of the times. In cases of ordinary death, the printer seldom
fails to notice that the corpse was "very decently interred." But when
some mightier mortal has yielded to his fate, the decease of the
"worshipful" such-a-one is announced, with all his titles of deacon,
justice, councillor, and colonel; then follows an heraldic sketch of his
honorable ancestors, and lastly an account of the black pomp of his
funeral, and the liberal expenditure of scarfs, gloves, and mourning
rings. The burial train glides slowly before us, as we have seen it
represented in the woodcuts of that day, the coffin, and the bearers,
and the lamentable friends, trailing their long black garments, while
grim Death, a most misshapen skeleton, with all kinds of doleful
emblems, stalks hideously in front. There was a coach maker at this
period, one John Lucas, who scents to have gained the chief of his
living by letting out a sable coach to funerals. It would not be fair,
however, to leave quite so dismal an impression on the reader's mind;
nor should it be forgotten that happiness may walk soberly in dark
attire, as well as dance lightsomely in a gala-dress. And this reminds
us that there is an incidental notice of the "dancing-school near the
Orange-Tree," whence we may infer that the salutatory art was
occasionally practised, though perhaps chastened into a characteristic
gravity of movement. This pastime was probably confined to the