still left in New England, wherein a contemporary of Cotton Mather and
Governor Endicott, were he permitted to revisit the scenes of his painful
probation, would scarcely feel himself a stranger. Law and Gospel,
embodied in an orthodox steeple and a court-house, occupy the steep,
rocky eminence in its midst; below runs the small river under its
picturesque stone bridge; and beyond is the famous female seminary, where
Andover theological students are wont to take unto themselves wives of
the daughters of the Puritans. An air of comfort and quiet broods over
the whole town. Yellow moss clings to the seaward sides of the roofs;
one's eyes are not endangered by the intense glare of painted shingles
and clapboards. The smoke of hospitable kitchens curls up through the
overshadowing elms from huge-throated chimneys, whose hearth-stones have
been worn by the feet of many generations. The tavern was once renowned
throughout New England, and it is still a creditable hostelry. During
court time it is crowded with jocose lawyers, anxious clients, sleepy
jurors, and miscellaneous hangers on; disinterested gentlemen, who have
no particular business of their own in court, but who regularly attend
its sessions, weighing evidence, deciding upon the merits of a lawyer's
plea or a judge's charge, getting up extempore trials upon the piazza or
in the bar-room of cases still involved in the glorious uncertainty of
the law in the court-house, proffering gratuitous legal advice to
irascible plaintiffs and desponding defendants, and in various other ways
seeing that the Commonwealth receives no detriment. In the autumn old
sportsmen make the tavern their headquarters while scouring the marshes
for sea-birds; and slim young gentlemen from the city return thither with
empty game-bags, as guiltless in respect to the snipes and wagtails as
Winkle was in the matter of the rooks, after his shooting excursion at
Dingle Dell. Twice, nay, three times, a year, since third parties have
been in fashion, the delegates of the political churches assemble in
Ipswich to pass patriotic resolutions, and designate the candidates whom