“I stayed in Stratford till Friday, and then the Johnsons offered me a seat in the carriage to New York. This, of course, was irresistible; and Friday night at ten o’clock I was presented to the mayor of the city, at a splendid levee. It was his last before leaving his office, and I never saw such magnificence. The fashion and beauty and talent of the city were all there, crowding his immense rooms to show their respect for his services.… I found many old acquaintances there and made some new ones,--among the latter, a Mrs. Brunson, as beautiful a woman as I ever saw, and her sister, Miss Catherine Bailey, also a most beautiful woman. I met the very accomplished Adelaide Richards there, who patronized me and played my dictionary, and from whose father and mother I received an invitation to dine on New Year’s day. At two or three o’clock I went _home_ to Mr. William Johnson’s (who married Miss Woolsey’s sister), and in a glorious bed, with a good coal fire by my side, slept off the fatigues of a sixty miles’ ride and four hours’ dissipation. “On Saturday evening I went to a genuine _soirée_ at the great Dr. Hosack’s. This man is the most luxurious liver in the city, and his house is a perfect palace. You could not lay your hand on the wall for costly paintings, and the furniture exceeds everything I have seen. I met all the literary characters of the day there, and Halleck, the poet, among them. With him I became quite acquainted, and he is a most glorious fellow. More of him when we meet.… You know on New Year’s day in New York all the gentlemen call on all their acquaintances. I began at twelve o’clock at the Battery, and went up to St. John’s Park, merely running in and right out again till four, the dinner hour. I called on everybody. William Woolsey went with me, and, by appointing a rendezvous in every street, we kept along together. At four I went to Mr. George Richards’s to dine. He is no relative of Robert’s, and lives in the best style in a large house on St. John’s Park. We sat down to dinner between five and six, and sat several hours with a very large party. I got a seat next to the beautiful Miss Adelaide, and enjoyed it much. They live in the French style, and the last course was sugar-plums!” In another letter he says:-- “I was much flattered in vacation by the attentions of literary men and women; the latter more particularly, who seemed to consider it quite the thing to find a poet who was not a bear, and who could stoop so much from the _excelsa_ of his profession as to dress fashionably and pay compliments like a lawyer. I heard of a very _blue_ young lady who said, ‘La, how I should love to see Mr. Willis! I am sure I should fall in love with a man who writes such sweet poetry.’ She is both belle and bluestocking, they say.”