dammed up till its overflow made a mimic ocean. When I last looked for
this tiny streamlet, which was still rippling freshly through my memory,
I found it strangely shrunken; a mere ditch indeed, and almost a dry
one. But the green lane was still there, precisely as I remembered it;
two wheel-tracks, and the beaten path of the horses' feet, and grassy
strips between; the whole overshadowed by tall locust-trees, and the
prevalent barberry-bushes, which are rooted so fondly into the
recollections of every Essex man.

From this lane there is a steep ascent up the side of the hill, the
ridge of which affords two views of very wide extent and variety. On
one side is the ocean, and Salem and Beverly on its shores; on the other
a rural scene, almost perfectly level, so that each man's metes and
bounds can be traced out as on a map. The beholder takes in at a glance
the estates on which different families have long been situated, and the
houses where they have dwelt, and cherished their various interests,
intermarrying, agreeing together, or quarrelling, going to live,
annexing little bits of real estate, acting out their petty parts in
life, and sleeping quietly under the sod at last. A man's individual
affairs look not so very important, when we can climb high enough to get
the idea of a complicated neighborhood.

But what made the hill particularly interesting to me, were the traces
of an old and long-vanished edifice, midway on the curving ridge, and at
its highest point. A pre-revolutionary magnate, the representative of a
famous old Salem family, had here built himself a pleasure house, on a
scale of magnificence, which, combined with its airy site and difficult
approach, obtained for it and for the entire hill on which it stood, the
traditionary title of "Browne's Folly." Whether a folly or no, the
house was certainly an unfortunate one. While still in its glory, it