Born in 1764, at five years of age he saw from his father's house in King Street the Boston Massacre, and, after receiving a commercial education, was for more than fifty years a leading merchant in his native city. His military title was not one of courtesy only, but conferred upon him as commander of the Corps of Independent Cadets, a most respectable body of citizens, upon whom devolved the annual duty of escorting the Governor and Legislature to hear the time-honored Election Sermon, which marked the opening of the General Court in the month of January. Passing up Milk Street, then also a street of dwellings,--among them the birthplace of Franklin,--the Old South Church, which at that time had received only its first "desecration," was soon reached, and the carriage turned into Washington Street, opposite the Province House--with its two large oak trees in front, and the grotesque gilt Indian on the roof with bended bow, just then pointing his arrow in obedience to a gentle breeze from the south-west; then up the narrow avenue of Bromfield Street, with the pretty view of the State House over the combined foliage of Paddock's elms and the Granary Burial Ground, and, turning into Tremont Street, our traveller was soon at Park-Street Corner. The noble church edifice which graces this sightly spot, though sadly dealt with in its general symmetry, still lifts its lofty spire with undiminished beauty, and justifies the stirring lines of Dr. Holmes:-- "The Giant standing by the elm-clad green; His white lance lifted o'er the silent scene; Whirling in air his brazen goblet round, Swings from its brim the swollen floods of sound." As our friend turned into Park Street on this summer morning, the giant's lance threw its shadow far into the Common among the cows which were quietly cropping the dewy grass within the enclosure of the old rail fence, while his brazen goblet clanged the hour of seven. As the substantial citizen of to-day passes up this street, where shops are rapidly displacing the mansions of the last century, he looks with honest pride upon Boston's crowning glory, the gilded dome which, like a great golden egg, is nested upright upon the roof which shelters the annually-assembled wisdom of the Old Commonwealth. Around its glowing swell the orbit of the sun's kiss is marked by an ever-moving flame, and even its shadows are luminous. As he looks across the Common he catches glimpses of the "New Venice" which has been built upon the lagoons of the Back Bay, and sees among its towers and spires one beautiful campanile which, by its graceful inclination to the south, recalls Pisa's wonder, and lends a special charm to the view.