Dear Brother:

I greatly regret that you could not continue your journey with us to Ridgefield. The weather was fine, and the season--crowning the earth with abundance--made every landscape beautiful. The woods which, as you know, abound along the route, spread their intense shade over the land, thus mitigating the heat of the unclouded sun; and the frequent fields of Indian corn, with their long leaves and silken tassels, all fluttering in the breeze, gave a sort of holiday-look to the scene. Of all agricultural crops this is the most picturesque and the most imposing. Let others magniloquize upon the vineyards of France and the olive orchards of Italy: I parted with these scenes a few weeks since, and do not hesitate to say, that, as a spectacle to the eye, our maize fields are infinitely superior. Leaving New Haven by rail, we reached Norwalk in forty minutes; an hour after we were at Ridgefield--having journeyed three miles by stage, from the Danbury and Norwalk station. Thus we performed a journey, in less than two hours, which cost a day's travel in our boyhood. You can well comprehend that we had a good time of it.

As I approached the town, I began to recognize localities--roads, houses, and hills. I was in a glow of excitement, for it was nineteen years since I had visited the place, and there was a mixture of the strange and familiar all around, which was at once pleasing and painful; pleasing, because it revived many cherished memories, and painful, because it suggested that time

is a tomb, into which man and his works are ever plunging, like a stream flowing on, only to disappear in an unfathomable gulf. The bright village of to-day is in fact the graveyard of the past generation. I was here like one risen from the dead, and come to look on the place which I once knew, but which I shall soon know no more. All seemed to me a kind of dream--half real and half imaginary--now presenting some familiar and cherished remembrance, and now mocking me with strange and baffling revelations.

Nevertheless, all things considered, I enjoyed the scene. The physiognomy of the town--a swelling mound of hills, rising in a crescent of mountains--was all as I had learned it by heart in childhood. To the north, the bending line of Aspen Ledge; to the east, the Redding Hills; to the west, the Highlands of the Hudson; to the south, the sea of forest-crowned undulations, sloping down to Long Island Sound,--all in a cool but brilliant August sun, and all tinted with intense verdure, presented a scene to me--the pilgrim returning to his birthplace--of unrivaled interest.

In general the whole country seemed embowered in trees--fresh and exuberant, and strongly in contrast with the worn-out lands of the old countries--with openings here and there upon hillside and valley, consisting of green meadow, or pasture, or blooming maize, or perhaps patches of yellow stubble, for the smaller grains had been already harvested. As I came within the precincts of the village, I could not but admire the fields, as well on account of their evident richness of soil and excellent cultivation, as their general neatness. The town, you know, was originally blessed or cursed, as the case may be, by a most abundant crop of stones. To clear the land of these was the Herculean task of the early settlers. For many generations, they usurped the soil, obstructed the plow, dulled the scythe, and now, after ages of labor, they are formed into sturdy walls, neatly laid, giving to the entire landscape an aspect not only of comfort, but refinement. In our day, these were rudely

piled up with frequent breaches--the tempting openings for vagrant sheep, and loose, yearling cattle. No better evidence can be afforded of a general progress and improvement, than that most of these have been relaid with something of the art and nicety of mason-work. The Mat Olmsteads and Azor Smiths of the past half century, who laid stone wall for Granther Baldwin and General King at a dollar a rod, would be amazed to see that the succeeding generation has thrown their works aside in disgust, and replaced them by constructions having somewhat of the solidity and exactitude of fortifications.

As we passed along, I observed that nearly all the houses which existed when we were boys, had given place to new, and for the most part larger, structures. Here and there was an original dwelling. A general change had passed over the land: swamps had been converted into meadows; streams that sprawled across the path, now flowed tidily beneath stone bridges; little shallow ponds--the haunts of muddling geese--had disappeared; the undergrowth of woods and copses had been cleared away; briers and brambles, once thick with fruit, or abounding in birds'-nests, or perchance the hiding-place of snakes, had been, extirpated, and corn and potatoes flourished in their stead. In one place, where I recollected to have unearthed a woodchuck, I saw a garden, and among its redolent pumpkins, cucumbers, and cabbages, was a row of tomatoes--a plant which in my early days was only known as a strange exotic, producing little red balls, which bore the enticing name of love-apples!

At last we came into the main street. This is the same--yet not the same. All the distances seemed less than as I had marked them in my memory. From the meeting-house to 'Squire Keeler's--which I thought to be a quarter of a mile--it is but thirty rods. At the same time the undulations seemed more frequent and abrupt. The old houses are mostly gone, and more sumptuous ones are in their place. A certain neatness and elegance have succeeded to the plain and primitive characteristics of other days.

The street, on the whole, is one of the most beautiful I know of. It is more than a mile in length and a hundred and twenty feet in width, ornamented with two continuous lines of trees--elms, sycamores, and sugar-maples--save only here and there a brief interval. Some of these, in front of the more imposing houses, are truly majestic. The entire street is carpeted with a green sod, soft as velvet to the feet. The high-road runs in the middle, with a foot-walk on either side. These passages are not paved, but are covered with gravel, and so neatly cut, that they appear like pleasure-grounds. All is so bright and so tasteful that you might expect to see some imperative sign-board, warning you, on peril of the law, not to tread upon the grass. Yet, as I learned, all this embellishment flows spontaneously from the choice of the people, and not from police regulations.

The general aspect of the street, however, let me observe, is not sumptuous, like Hartford and New Haven, or even Fairfield. There is still a certain quaintness and primness about the place. Here and there you see old respectable houses, showing the dim vestiges of ancient paint, while the contiguous gardens, groaning with rich fruits and vegetables, and the stately rows of elms in front, declare it to be taste, and not necessity, that thus cherishes the reverend hue of unsophisticated clapboards, and the venerable rust with which time baptizes unprotected shingles. There is a stillness about the town which lends favor to this characteristic of studied rusticity. There is no fast driving, no shouting, no railroad whistle--for you must remember that the station of the Danbury and Norwalk line is three miles off. Few people are to be seen in the streets, and those who do appear move with an air of leisure and tranquillity. It would seem dull and almost melancholy were it not that all around is so thrifty, so tidy, so really comfortable. Houses--white or brown--with green window-blinds, and embowered in lilacs and fruit-trees, and seen beneath the arches of wide-spreading American elms--the finest of the whole elm family--can never be otherwise than cheerful.

I went of course to the old Keeler tavern, for lodgings. The sign was gone, and though the house retained its ancient form, it was so neatly painted, and all around had such a look of repose, that I feared it had ceased from its ancient hospitalities. I, however, went to the door and rapped: it was locked! A bad sign, thought I. Ere long, however, a respectable dame appeared, turned the key, and let me in. It was Anne Keeler converted into Mrs. Ressequie. Had it been her mother, I should only have said that she had grown a little taller and more dignified: as it was, the idea crossed my mind--

"Fanny was younger once than she is now!"

But it seemed to me that her matronly graces fully compensated for all she might have lost of earlier pretensions. She looked at me gazingly, as if she half knew me. She was about inquiring my name, when I suggested that she might call me Smith, and begged her to tell me if she could give me lodgings. She replied that they did sometimes receive strangers, though they did not keep a tavern. I afterward heard that the family was rich, and that it was courtesy more than cash, which induced them to keep up the old habit of the place. I was kindly received, though at first as a stranger. After a short time I was found out, and welcomed as a friend. What fragrant butter, what white bread, what delicious succotash they gave me! And as to the milk--it was just such as cows gave fifty years ago, and upon the slightest encouragement positively produced an envelope of golden cream! Alas! how cows have degenerated--especially in the great cities of the earth,--in New York, London, or Paris--it is all the same. He who wishes to eat with a relish that the Astor House or Morley's or the Grand Hotel du Louvre can not give, should go to Ridgefield, and put himself under the care of Mrs. Ressequie. If he be served, as I was, by her daughter--a thing, however, that I can not promise--he may enjoy a lively and pleasant conversation while he discusses his meal. When you go there--as go you must--do not forget to order ham and eggs, for they

are such as we ate in our childhood--not a mass of red leather steeped in grease, and covered with a tough, bluish gum--as is now the fashion in these things. As to blackberry and huckleberry pies, and similar good gifts, you will find them just such as our mother made fifty years ago, when these bounties of Providence were included in the prayer--"Give us this day our daily bread," and were a worthy answer to such a petition.

Immediately after my arrival, waiting only to deposit my carpet-bag in my room, I set out to visit our house--our former home. As I came near I saw that the footpath we had worn across Deacon Benedict's lot to shorten the distance from the street, had given place to a highway. I entered this, and was approaching the object of my visit, when I was overtaken by a young man, walking with a long stride.

"Whose house is this on the hill?" said I.

"It is mine," was the reply.

"Indeed; you must have a fine view from your upper windows?"

"Yes, the view is famous, and the house itself is somewhat noted. It was built by Peter Parley, and here he lived many years!"

By this time we had reached the place. The stranger, after I had looked at the premises a few moments, said, "Perhaps you would like to ascend the hill to the north, from which the view is very extensive?" I gave assent, and we went thither--soon finding ourselves in the old Keeler lot, on the top of High Ridge, so familiar to our youthful rambles. With all the vividness of my early recollections, I really had no adequate idea of the beauty of the scene, as now presented to us. The circle of view was indeed less than I had imagined, for I once thought it immense; but the objects were more striking, more vividly tinted, more picturesquely disposed. Long Island Sound, which extends for sixty miles before the eye, except as it is hidden here and there by intercepting hills and trees, seems nearer than it did to the inexperienced vision of my childhood. I could distinguish the differ-

ent kinds of vessels on the water, and the island itself--stretched out in a long blue line beyond--presented its cloud-like tissues of forest, alternating with patches of yellow sandbanks along the shore. I could distinctly indicate the site of Norwalk; and the spires peering through the mass of trees to the eastward, spoke suggestively of the beautiful towns and villages that line the northern banks of the Sound.

West Mountain seemed nearer and less imposing than I had imagined, but the sea of mountains beyond, terminating in the Highlands of the Hudson, more than fulfilled my remembrances. The scene has no abrupt and startling grandeur from this point of view, but in that kind of beauty which consists in blending the peace and quietude of cultivated valleys with the sublimity of mountains--all in the enchantment of distance, and all mantled with the vivid hues of summer--it equals the fairest scenes in Italy. The deep blue velvet which is thrown over our northern landscapes, differs indeed from the reddish-purple of the Apennines, but it is in all things as poetic, as stimulating to the imagination, as available to the painter, as suggestive to the poet--to all, indeed, who feel and appreciate the truly beautiful. As I gazed upon this lovely scene, how did the memories of early days come back, clothed in the romance of childhood! I had then no idea of distance beyond these mountains; no conception of landscape beauty, no idea of picturesque sublimity--that surpassed what was familiar to me here. Indeed, all my first measures of grandeur and beauty, in nature, were formed upon these glorious models, now before me. How often have I stood upon this mound, at the approach of sunset, and gazed in speechless wonder upon yonder mountains, glowing as they were in the flood of sapphire which was then poured upon them! I pray you to excuse my constant reference to foreign lands; but as I have just left them, it is natural to make comparisons with these objects, familiar to my childhood. Let me say, then, that no sunsets surpass our own in splendor, nor have I seen any thing to equal them in brilliancy, when the retiring orb of day, as if to shed

glory upon his departure, pours his rays upon the outstretched fleece of clouds, and these reflect their blaze upon the mountain landscape, below. Then, for a brief apace, as you know, the heavens seem a canopy of burnished gold, and the earth beneath a kingdom robed in purple velvet, and crowned "with rubies and sapphires. In Italy, the sunset sky has its enchantments, but while these perhaps surpass the same exhibitions of nature in our climate, in respect to a certain tranquil softness and exquisite blending of rainbow hues, they are still inferior, in gorgeous splendor, to the scenes which I have been describing.

Having taken a hasty but earnest view of the grand panorama of High Ridge, I returned with my guide to the house. I feigned thirst, and begged a glass of water. This was readily given, and I tasted once more the nectar of our "old oaken bucket." After glancing around, and making a few observations, I thanked my attendant for his courtesy--who, by the way, had no suspicion that I knew the place as well as himself--and took my leave, and returned to the hotel. My emotions upon thus visiting our early home--so full of the liveliest associations--it would be utterly in vain to attempt to describe.

It was now Saturday evening, which I spent quietly with my host and his family, in talking over old times. In the morning I rose early, for it seemed a sin to waste such hours as these. Standing on the northern stoop of the Keeler tavern, I looked upon the beautiful landscape bounded by the Redding and Danbury hills, and saw the glorious march of morning over the scene. The weather was clear, and the serenity of the Sabbath was in the breath of nature: even the breezy morn soon subsided into stillness, as if the voice of God hallowed it. The birds seemed to know that He rested on this seventh day. As the sun came up, the fluttering leaves sank into repose: no voice of lowing herd or baying bound broke over the hills. All was silent and motionless in the street: every thing seemed to feel that solemn command--Remember the Sabbath-day!--save only a strapping Shanghai cock in Mr. Lewis's yard over the way, which strut-

ted, crowed, and chased the hens--like a very Mormon--evidently caring for none of these things.

At nine o'clock the first bell rang. The first stroke told me that it was not the same to which my childish ear was accustomed. Upon inquiry, I learned that on a certain Fourth of July, some ten years back, it was rung so merrily as to be cracked! Had any one asked me who was likely to have done this I should have said J.... H....,, and he indeed it was. With a good-will, however, quite characteristic of him, he caused it to be replaced by a new one, and though its tone is deeper, and even more melodious than the old one, I felt disappointed, and a shade of sadness came over my mind.

On going into the meeting-house, I found it to be totally changed. The pulpit, instead of being at the west, was at the north, and the galleries had been transposed to suit this new arrangement. The Puritan pine color of the pews had given way to white paint. The good old oaken floor was covered by Kidderminster carpets. The choir, instead of being distributed into four parts, and placed on different sides of the gallery, was all packed together in a heap. Instead of Deacon Hawley for chorister, there was a young man. who "knew not Joseph," and in lieu of a pitch-pipe to give the key, there was a melodeon to lead the choir. Instead of Mear, Old Hundred, Aylesbury, Montgomery, or New Durham--songs full of piety and pathos, and in which the whole congregation simultaneously joined--they sang modern tunes, whose name and measure I did not know. The performance was artistic and skillful, but it seemed to lack the unction of a hearty echo from the bosom of the assembly, as waa the saintly custom among the fathers.

The congregation was no less changed than the place itself, for remember, I had not been in this building for five and forty years. The patriarchs of my boyhood--Deacon Olmstead, Deacon Benedict, Deacon Hawley, Granther Baldwin, 'Squire Keeler, Nathan Smith--were not there, nor were their types in their places. A few gray-haired men I saw, having dim and fleeting semblances

to these Anakims of my youthful imagination, but who they were, I could not tell. I afterward heard that most of them were the companions of my early days, now grown to manhood and bearing the impress of their parentage--blent with vestiges of their youth--thus at once inciting and baffling my curiosity. For the most part, however, the assembly was composed of a new generation. In several instances I felt, a strange sort of embarrassment as to whether the person I saw was the boy grown up or the papa grown down. It produces a very odd confusion of ideas to realize in an old man before you, the playmate of your childhood, whom you had forgotten for forty years, but who in that time has been trudging along in life, at the same pace as yourself. At first, every thing looked belittled, degenerated in dimensions. The house seemed small, the galleries low, the pulpit mean. The people appeared Lilliputian. These impressions soon passed off, and I began to recognize a few persons around me. William Hawley is just as you would have expected; his hair white as snow, his countenance mild, refined, cheerful, though marked with threescore and ten. Irad Hawley, though he has his residence in "Fifth Avenue," spends his summers here, and begins now to look like his father the deacon. I thought I discovered Gen. King in an erect and martial form in one of the pews, but it proved to be his son Joshua--who now occupies the family mansion, and worthily stands at the head of the house. As I came out of church, I was greeted with many hearty shakes of the hand, but in most cases I could with difficulty remember those who thus claimed recognition.

The discourse was very clever, and thoroughly orthodox, as it should be, for I found that the Confession and Covenant of 1750 were still in force, just as our father left them. Even the eleventh article stands as it was--"You believe that there will be a resurrection of the dead, and a day of judgment, in which God will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ; when the righteous shall he acquitted and received to eternal life, and

the wicked shall bo sentenced to everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."

I was, I confess, not a little shocked to hear the account the minister gave of the church members, for he declared that they were full of evil thoughts--envy, jealousy, revenge, and all uncharitableness. He said he knew all about it, and could testify that they were a great deal worse than the world in general believed, or conceived them to be. Indeed, he affirmed that it took a real experimental Christian to understand how totally depraved they were. I was consoled at finding that this was not the settled minister--Mr. Clark--but a missionary, accustomed to preach in certain lost places in that awful Babylon, called New York. Perhaps the sermon was adapted to the people it was designed for, but it seemed ill suited to the latitude and longitude of such a quaint, primitive parish as Ridgefield, which is without an oyster-cellar, a livery stable, a grog-shop, a lawyer, a broker, a drunkard, or a profane swearer.

This circumstance reminded me of an itinerant Boanerges, who, in his migrations, half a century ago, through western New York, was requested to prepare a sermon to be preached at the execution of an Indian, who had been convicted of murder, and was speedily to be hung. This he complied with, but the convict escaped, and the ceremony did not take place. The preacher, however, not liking to have so good a thing lost, delivered it the next Sabbath to a pious congregation in the Western Reserve, where he chanced to be--stating that it was composed for a hanging, but as that did not take place, he would preach it now, presuming that it would be found appropriate to the occasion!

In the afternoon we had a begging sermon from a young converted Jew, who undertook to prove that his tribe was the most interesting in the world, and their conversion the first step toward the millennium. After the sermon they took up a contribution to aid him in getting an education; he also sold a little story-book of his conversion at twelve and a half cents a copy, for the benefit of his converted sister, I have no objection to

Jews, converted or unconverted, but I must say that my reverence for the house of God is such that I do not like to hear there the chink of copper, which generally prevails in a contribution-box. Even that of silver and gold has no melody for me, in such a place. It always reminds me painfully of those vulgar pigeon dealers who were so summarily and so properly scourged out of the Temple.

The old dilapidated Episcopal church, which you remember on the main street--a church not only without a bishop, but without a congregation--has given place to a new edifice and stated services, with a large and respectable body of worshipers. The Methodists, who were wont to assemble, fifty years ago, in Dr. Baker's kitchen, have put up a new house, white and bright, and crowded every Sabbath with attentive listeners. This church numbers two hundred members, and is the largest in the place. Though, in its origin, it seemed to thrive upon the outcasts of society--its people are now as respectable as those of any other religious society in the town. No longer do they choose to worship in barns, schoolhouses, and byplaces: no longer do they affect leanness, long faces, and loose, uncombed hair: no longer do they cherish bad grammar, low idioms, and the euphony of a nasal twang, in preaching. Their place of worship is in good taste and good keeping: their dress is comely, and in the fashion of the day. The preacher is a man of education, refinement, and dignity, and he and the Rev. Mr. Clark--our father's successor--exchange pulpits, and call each other brother! Has not the good time come?

On Monday morning, I took a wide range over the town with Joshua King, who, by the way, is not only the successor, but in some things the repetition of his father. He represents him in person--as I have already intimated--and has many of his qualities. He has remodeled the grounds around the old family mansion, amplifying and embellishing them with much judgment. The house itself is unchanged, except by paint and the introduction of certain articles of furniture and tasteful decorations--tes-

timonials of the proprietor's repeated visits to Europe. Here, being a bachelor, he has gathered some of his nieces, and here he receives the members of the King dynasty down to the third generation--all seeming to regard it as the Jerusalem of the family. The summer gathering is delightful, bringing hither the refinements of the best society of New York, Philadelphia, and other places. Here I spent some pleasant hours, meeting, of course, many of the neighbors, who came to see me with almost as much curiosity as if I had been the veritable Joyce Heth.

In all parts of the town I was struck with the evidences of change--gentle, gradual, it is true--but still bespeaking the lapse of half a century. Along the main street, the general outline of things is the same, but, in detail, all is transformed, or at least modified. Most of the old houses have disappeared, or have undergone such mutations as hardly to be recognized. New and more expensive edifices are scattered here and there. If you ask who are the proprietors, you will be told--Dr. Perry, Joshua King, Nathan Smith--but they are not those whom we knew by these names--they are their sons, perhaps their grandsons. Master Stebbins's schoolhouse is swept away, and even the pond across the road--the scene of many a school-day frolic--is evaporated! I am constantly struck with the general desiccation which has passed over the place; many of the brooks, which formed our winter skating and sliding places, have vanished. I looked in vain for the pool back of Deacon John Benedict's house--which I always imagined to be the scene of the ballad:

"What shall we have for dinner, Mrs. Bond?
There's beef in the larder and ducks in the pond:
     Dill, dill, dill, dill, dilled,
     Come here and be killed!"

Col. Bradley's house, that seemed once so awful and so exclusive, is now a dim, rickety, and tenantless edifice, for sale, with

all its appurtenances, for twenty-five hundred dollars! Is it not strange to see this once proud tenement, the subject of blight and decay, and that too in the midst of general prosperity? Nor is this all: it has just been the subject of a degrading hoax. I must tell you the story, for it will show you that the march of progress has invaded even Ridgefield.

About three days since there appeared in the village, a man claiming to be the son-in-law of George Law. In a mysterious manner he agreed to buy the Bradley estate. With equal mystery, he contracted to purchase several other houses in the vicinity. It then leaked out that a grand speculation was on foot: there was to be a railroad through Ridgefield; the town was to be turned into a city, and a hotel, resembling the Astor House, was to take the place of the old dilapidated shell now upon the Bradley premises! An electric feeling soon ran through the village; speculation began to swell in the bosom of society. Under this impulse, rocks rose, rivers doubled, hills mounted, valleys oscillated. This sober town--anchored in everlasting granite, having defied the shock of ages--now trembled in the hysterical balance of trade.

Two days passed, and the bubble burst; the puff-ball was punctured; the sham son-in-law of George Law was discovered to be a lawless son of a pauper of Danbury. All his operations were in fact a hoax. At twelve o'clock on Saturday night he was seized, and taken from his bed by an independent corps under Capt. Lynch. They tied him fast to a buttonwood-tree in the main street, called the Liberty Pole.

"No man e'er felt the halter draw,
In good opinion of the law."

At all events, the prisoner deemed it a great incongruity to use an institution consecrated to the rights of man and the cause of freedom, for the purpose of depriving him of the power to seek happiness in his own way; so about ten o'clock on Sunday morning--finding it unpleasant to be in this situation while the

people went by, shaking their heads, on their way to church--he managed to get out his penknife, cut his cords, and make a bee-line for South Salem.

Farther on, proceeding northward, I found that Dr. Baker's old house--its kitchen the cradle of Ridgefield Methodism--had departed, and two or three, modern edifices were near its site. Master Stebbins's house*--from its elevated position at the head of the street, seeming like the guardian genius of the place--still stands, venerable alike from its dim complexion, its antique form, and its historical remembrances. Its days may he set at a hundred years, and hence it is an antiquity in our brief chronology. It almost saw the birth of Ridgefield: it has probably looked down upon the building of every other edifice in the street! It presided over the fight of 1777. Close by, Arnold's horse was shot under him, and he, according to tradition, made a flying leap over a six-barred gate, and escaped. Near its threshold the British cannon was planted, which sent a ball into the northeastern corner-post of 'Squire Keeler's tavern, and which, covered up by a sliding shingle, as a relic too precious for the open air, is still to be seen there.

The old house I found embowered in trees--some, primeval elms, spreading their wide branches protectingly over the roof, stoop, and foreground; others--sugar-maples, upright, symmetrical, and deeply verdant, as is the wont of these beautiful children of our American forest. Other tree--apples, pears, peaches, and plums, bending with fruit--occupied the orchard grounds back of the house. The garden at the left seemed a jubilee of tomatoes, beets, squashes, onions, cucumbers, beans, and pumpkins. A vine of the latter had invaded a peach-tree, and a huge oval pumpkin, deeply ribbed, and now emerging from its bronze hue into a golden yellow, swung aloft as if to proclaim the victory. By the porch was a thick clambering grape-vine, presenting its

purple bunches almost to your mouth, as you entered the door. I knocked, and Anne Stebbins, my former schoolmate, let me in. She was still a maiden, in strange contrast to the prolific and progressive state of all around. She did not know me, but when I told her how I once saw her climb through the opening in the schoolhouse wall, overhead, and suggested the blue-mixed hue of her stockings--she rallied, and gave me a hearty welcome.

You will no doubt, in some degree, comprehend the feelings with which I rambled over these scenes of our boyhood, and you will forgive, if yon can not approve, the length of this random epistle. I will trespass but little further upon your patience. I must repeat, that the general aspect of the town, in respect to its roads, churches, houses, lands--all show a general progress in wealth, taste, and refinement, Nor is this advance in civilization merely external. William Hawley--a most competent judge, as he has been the leading merchant of the place for forty years--mentioned some striking evidences of this. At the beginning of this century, most of the farmers were in debt, and a large part of their lands were under mortgage: now not four farms in the place are thus encumbered. Then it was the custom for the men to spend a good deal of their time, and especially in winter, at the stores and taverns, in tippling and small gambling. This practice has ceased. Drunkenness, profane swearing, Sabbath-breaking, noisy night rows, which were common, are now almost wholly unknown. There are but two town paupers, and these are not indigenous. Education is better, higher in its standard, and is nearly universal. Ideas of comfort in the modes of life are more elevated, the houses are improved, the furniture is more convenient and more abundant. That religion has not lost its hold on the conscience, is evident from the fact that three flourishing churches exist; that the duties of patriotism are not forgotten, is evinced by a universal attendance at the polls on election days; at the same time it is clear that religions and political discussions have lost their acerbity--thus leaving the feel-

ing of good neighborhood more general, and the tone of humanity in all things more exalted.

Is there not encouragement, hope, in these things--for Ridgefield is not alone in this forward march of society? It is in the general tide of prosperity--economical, social, and moral--but an example of what has been going on all over New England--perhaps over the whole country. We hear a great deal of the iniquities in the larger cities; but society even there, is not worse than formerly: these places--their houses, streets, prisons, brothels--are exhausted, as by an air-pump, of all their doings, good and bad, and the seething mass of details is doled out day after day, by the penny press, to appease the hunger and thirst of society for excitement. Thus, what was once hidden is now thrown open, and seems multiplied and magnified by a dozen powerful lenses--each making the most of it, and seeking to outdo all others in dressing up the show for the public taste. If you will make the comparison, you will see that, now, tipping over an omnibus, or the foundering of a ferry-boat, takes up more space in a newspaper, than did six murders or a dozen conflagrations fifty years ago. Then the world's doings could be dispatched in a weekly folio of four pages, with pica type; now they require forty pages of brevier, every day. Our population is increased--doubled, quadrupled, if you please--but the newspaper press has enlarged its functions a thousandfold. It costs more paper and print to determine whether a policeman of New York, was born in England or the United States, than are usually consumed in telling the story of the Revolutionary war. This institution--the Press--has, in fact, become a microscope and a mirror--seeing all, magnifying all, reflecting all--until at last it requires a steady brain to discover in its shifting and passing panoramas, the sober, simple truth. So far as the subject of which I am writing is concerned, I am satisfied that if our cities seem more corrupt than formerly, it is only in appearance and not in reality. If we hear more about the vices of society, it is because, in the first place, things are more ex-

posed to the public view, and in the next place, the moral standards are higher, and hence these evils are made the subject of louder and more noticeable comment. These obvious suggestions will solve whatever difficulty there may be in adopting my conclusions.

But however the fact may be as to our larger cities, it can not be doubted that all over New England, at least, there has been a quiet, but earnest and steady march of civilization--especially within the last forty years. The war of 1812 was disastrous to our part of the country; disastrous, I firmly believe, to our whole country. In New England it checked the natural progress of society, it impoverished the people, it debased their manners, it corrupted their hearts. Let others vaunt the glory of war; I shall venture to say what I have seen and known. We have now had forty years of peace, and the happy advances I have noticed--bringing increased light and comfort in at every door, rich or poor, to bless the inhabitants--are its legitimate fruits. The inherent tendency of our New England society is to improvement: give us peace, give us tranquillity, and with the blessing of God we shall continue to advance.

You will not suppose me to say that government can do nothing: the prosperity of which I speak is in a great measure imputable to the encouragement given, for a series of years, to our domestic industry. When farming absorbed society, a large part of the year was lost, or worse than lost; because tavern haunting, tippling, and gambling were the chief resources of men in the dead and dreary winter months. Manufactures gave profitable occupation during this inclement period. Formerly the markets were remote, and we all know, from the records of universal history, that farmers without the stimulus of ready markets, sink into indolence and indifference. The protection, the encouragement, the stimulating of our manufacturing and mechanical industry, created home markets in every valley, along every stream--thus rousing the taste, energy, and ambition of the farmers within reach of these pervading influences. Ridge-

field is not, strictly speaking, a manufacturing town; but the beneficent operation of the multiplying and diversifying of the occupations of society, has reached this, as it has every other town and village in the State, actually transforming the condition of the people, by increasing their wealth, multiplying their comforts, enlarging their minds, elevating their sentiments: in short, increasing their happiness.

The importance of the fact I state--the progress and improvement of the country towns--is plain, when we consider that here, and not in the great cities--New York, or Boston, or Philadelphia--are the hope, strength, and glory of our nation. Here, in the smaller towns and villages, are indeed the majority of the people, and here there is a weight of sober thought, just judgment, and virtuous feeling, that will serve as rudder and ballast to our country, whatever weather may betide.

As I have so recently traveled through some of the finest and most renowned portions of the European continent, I find myself constantly comparing the towns and villages which I see here with these foreign lands. One thing is clear, that there are in continental Europe no such country towns and villages as those of New England and some other portions of this country. Not only the exterior but the interior is totally different. The villages there resemble the squalid suburbs of a city: the people are like their houses--poor and subservient--narrow in intellect, feeling, and habits of thought. I know twenty towns in France--having from two to ten thousand inhabitants, where, if you except the prefects, mayors, notaries, and a few other persons in each place--there is scarcely a family that rises to the least independence of thought, or even a moderate elevation of character. All the power, all the thought, all the genius, all the expanse of intellect, are centered at Paris. The blood of the country is drawn to this seat and center, leaving the limbs and members cold and pulseless as those of a corpse.

How different is it in this country: the life, vigor, power of these United States are diffused through a thousand veins

and arteries over the whole people, every limb nourished, every member invigorated! New York, Philadelphia, and Boston do not give law to this country; that comes from the people, the majority of whom resemble those I have described at Ridgefield--farmers, mechanics, manufacturers, merchants--independent in their circumstances, and sober, religious, virtuous in their habits of thought and conduct. I make allowance for the sinister influence of vice, which abounds in some places; for the debasing effects of demagogism in our politicians; for the corruption of selfish and degrading interests, cast into the general current of public feeling and opinion. I admit that these sometimes make the nation swerve, for a time, from the path of wisdom, but the wandering is neither wide nor long. The preponderating national mind is just and sound, and if danger comes, it will manifest its power and avert it.

But I must close this long letter, and with it bid adieu to my birthplace. Farewell to Ridgefield! Its soil is indeed stubborn, its climate severe, its creed rigid; yet where is the landscape more smiling, the sky more glorious, the earth more cheering! Where is society more kindly, neighborhood more equal, life more tranquil? Where is the sentiment of humanity higher, life more blest? Where else can you find two thousand country people, with the refinements of the city--their farms unmortgaged, their speech unblemished with oaths, their breath uncontaminated with alcohol, their poor-house without a single native pauper?

Daniel Webster once said, jocosely, that New Hampshire is a good place to come from: it seems to me, in all sincerity, that Ridgefield is a good place to go to. Should I ever return there to end my days, this may be my epitaph:

My faults forgotten, and my sins forgiven,--
     Let this, my tranquil birthplace, be my grave:
As in my youth I deem'd it nearest heaven--
     So here I give to God the breath He gave!