excitement over the rendition of Anthony Burns. Boston had long since
taken her place in the very front of anti-slavery ranks, and with the
rest of Massachusetts was playing somewhat the same part as in the years
before the War of Independence.

Later events of importance have already been indicated in essentials. On
the 9th-10th of November 1872 a terrible fire swept the business part of
the city, destroying hundreds of buildings of brick and granite, and
inflicting a loss of some $75,000,000. Within two years the whole area,
solidly rebuilt and with widened and straightened streets, showed no
traces of the ruin except an appearance superior in all respects to that
presented before the fire. The expense of this re-creation probably
duplicated, at least, the loss from the conflagration. Since this time
there has been no set-back to the prosperity of the city. But it is not
upon material prosperity that Boston rests its claims for consideration.
It prides itself on its schools, its libraries, its literary traditions,
its splendid public works and its reputation as the chief centre of
American culture.

AUTHORITIES.--See the annual _City Documents_; also Justin Winsor
(ed.) _The Memorial History of Boston, including Suffolk County ...
1630-1880_ (4 vols., Boston, 1880-1881), a work that covers every
phase of the city's growth, history and life; S.A. Drake, _The History
and Antiquities of ... Boston_ (2 vols., Boston, 1854; and later
editions), and _Old Landmarks and Historic Personages of Boston_
(Boston, 1873, and later editions); Josiah Quincy, _A Municipal
History of ... Boston ... to ... 1830_ (Boston, 1852); C.W. Ernst,
_Constitutional History of Boston_ (Boston, 1894); H.H. Sprague, _City
Government in Boston--its Rise and Development_ (Boston, 1890); E.E.
Hale, _Historic Boston and its Neighbourhood_ (New York, 1898), and L.
Swift, _Literary Landmarks of Boston_ (Boston, 1903). A great mass of
original historical documents have been published by the registry
department of the city government since 1876 (34 v. to 1905). Boston
has been described in many works of fiction, and the reader may be
referred to the novels of E.L. Bynner, to L. Maria Childs' _The
Rebels_, to J.F. Cooper's _Lionel Lincoln_, to the early novels of
W.D. Howells (also those of Arlo Bates), to O.W. Holmes' _Poet_ and
_Autocrat_, and Hawthorne's _Scarlet Letter_, as pictures of Boston
life at various perio