CHAPTER III.

"The king can make a belted knight,
Confer proud names, and a' that;
But pith of sense and pride of worth
Are brighter ranks than a' that."


The village of Westminster yields, perhaps, in the tranquil and
picturesque beauty of its location, to few others in New England. In
addition to the advantage of a situation along the banks of that
magnificent river, of which our earliest epic poet, Barlow, in his
liquid numbers, has sung,

"No watery glades through richer valleys shine,
Nor drinks the sea a lovelier wave than thine,"

it stands upon an elevated plain, that could scarcely have been made
more level had it been smoothed and evened, by the instruments of art,
to fit it for the arena of some vast amphitheatre, which the place,
with the aid of a little fancy, may be very easily thought to
resemble; for, from the principal street, which is nearly a mile in
extent, broad and beautiful fields sweep away in every direction, till
they meet, in the distance, that crescent-like chain of hills, by
which, with the river, the place is enclosed.

It was probably this natural beauty of the place, together with its
proximity to the old fort at Walpole, at which a military
establishment was once maintained by the government of New Hampshire