was the brief presence of these pale and misty apparitions, vanishing in the cold, clear dawn of Massachusetts history, which first attracted me to the epoch. The charm of the subject lay in a wild improbability, which seemed to surround it, but which disappeared upon an examination of contemporary record.

The gentle reader is assured, and the ferocious critic is warned, that the personages and scenes, which may appear to be out of keeping, are strictly true in their coloring and spirit. An elephant hunt, for example, would hardly be more unexpected in Massachusetts than a hawking scene; a Hetman of Cossacks as likely a personage to meet with as a Knight of the Sepulchre - and yet both the character and the adventure are literal verities.

As the classics are growing unfashionable, Morton may perhaps appear more of a pedant than he would have done two centuries ago. The reader may very probably object to his quotations from Horace. If so, the quarrel must be not with me, but with Morton, who is hardly able to write a page of his autobiography without a classical allusion or

extract.

With regard to another point, it can hardly be necessary to disclaim any improper motive in describing the scenes in which the Liturgy and Church of England are degraded by their profane supporters. The spirit of the scenes is historical, and it is to the accidental presence and the mad follies of such ribalds, who affected to belong to the English church only to show their ill-will to the Puritans, that much of the subsequent hostility manifested by the fathers of Massachusetts to the honored church, for which, upon leaving England, they expressly proclaimed their affection, may perhaps be traced.

So far as I know, the epoch has not been illustrated by writers of fiction, with a single exception. I am aware, that in one of the volumes of Mr. Hawthorne's "Tales," is a story called the "Maypole of Merry

Mount." Although familiar with most of those masterpieces of exquisite delineation and subtle fancy, I was so fortunate as never to have read that particular story before writing these volumes, and I took care not to read it afterwards, feeling sure, if I did so, that my own pictures would be still more unsatisfactory to me. With this exception, the ground has not I believe been occupied.

Every man will of course decide for himself where the line between history and romance should be drawn. As I have concluded not to use my materials for an article in the Massachusetts Historical Collections, I do not hold myself at present strictly accountable for all my authorities, in all particulars.

As for my sources, beyond those accessible to every reader, I do not care at present to indicate them. How certain portions of Sir Christopher Gardiner's correspondence were discovered in the cellar of an old house at Squantum-how certain documents, relating to the Gorges family, were found wrapped about the Third Volume of Winthrop's Journal, when it was discovered in the steeple of the Old South - how some workmen, in digging for the foundation of a new house in Blaxton's six-acre lot, recently discovered an iron box, which to their disappointment was found to contain not doubloons, but documents relating to the private affairs of one William Blaxton, clerk of Shawmut - how these remarkable papers were all which escaped the destruction which befell his house and library, and all his effects, in Philip's war— - how they at last came into my possession; — all this, and much more "of worthy memory," I might have stated, as the excellent Grumio has it, which, however, must for certain reasons "perish in oblivion, and the curious public return uninstructed to its grave.”

Another word for like the bellows-mender of Athens, an author sometimes likes to explain his roaring. The timorous reader may fear, from the epoch, to find this an Indian story. The fear would be natural,

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for it must be admitted that in fiction there is "6 no more dangerous wild-fowl" than your Indian, not even your lion." But it is not an Indian story. The savages are left in the back-ground, although it would have been difficult and impolite to turn them altogether out of their country at that early period.

I will only observe, in conclusion, that if the epoch sometimes seems dreary, and the story dull, the dulness is intentional, and must be imputed entirely to the didactic nature of the subject. As somebody says

in the Spectator, "Whenever I am dull, the reader may be sure I have a design in it."