there to be seen. However, in this man's house dwelt one of the excellent of the earth, one rich in faith, and an heir of the kingdom, which, with me, who was well acquainted with him, there is no doubt, he is now in the possession of. By his death I have lost a precious, pious, praying, friend; but my loss is doubtless his gain and in that it becomes me to rejoice" [Loring's manuscript Journal.]

FRAMINGHAM, MASS.

452. Note.-Capt. GODDARD of Framingham, according to a memorandum in rev. mr. Loring's Journal, departed this life, 9 February, 1754. His son, the rev. David Goddard of Leicester died, 19 January preceding. Capt. Goddard had been a justice of the peace and one of his majesty's council. He was a man of distinguished abilities, which were much improved by reading and study He held the pen of a ready writer and was a strenuous defender of the Calvinistick scheme.

WORCESTER, MASS.

453. This corner stone was laid, 1 October, 1801, by Isaiah Thomas, esquire, who, with William Caldwell, esquire, sheriff of the county, and Salem Towne, esquire, are a committee for building and completing this intended COURTHOUSE. The old courthouse now stands two feet southeast from this spot, 1801.

Note. The foregoing is a copy of the inscription engraved on a silver plate, which was enclosed in a leaden box with specimens of New England coin struck by virtue of an act of the province of Massachusetts, passed in the years, 1652 and 1654, with others of the United States and Great Britain, and deposited under the corner stone of the new courthouse, in Worcester. This is the best building of the kind in the commonwealth, except that in Boston recently erected.

ROXBURY, MASS.

454. Note. The rev. THOMAS WELD, according to Calamy, having found the ecclesiastical requisitions in Terling, county of Essex, unpropitious to his ministerial labours, and having been ejected from his living at Gatesend, near Newcastle, for his non-conformity, came to New-England. In July, 1632, he was invested with the pastoral care of the church in Roxbury.

In the November following, the rev. John Eliot, who translated the Bible into the aboriginal dialect of Natick, was ordained teacher in the same church. In 1741, mr. Weld was sent, with the rev. Hugh Peters, as an agent to England, where he spent the remainder of his days. In the Roxbury church records, he is said to be of Kettering, and to have died in London, 1660-1.

sans of the first pastor of the church in Roxbury, lived in this place and died of a fever in 1682.

From the church records it appears, that his children were Samuel, Thomas, who was the minister of Dunstable, [see art. 116] Samuel, John, Edmund, Daniel, Dorothy, a woman of remarkable piety and a benefactor to the church, whose first husband was William Dennison, and second Samuel Williams, both of Roxbury, Joseph, and Margaret.

IRELAND.

456. Note. The rev. EDMUND WELD, son of the rev. Thomas Weld of Roxbury, was graduated at Harvard college, in 1650. He went to Ireland, after graduation, and was settled in the ministry at Inniskean. He died, 2 March, 1668, in the S9 year of his age. Contemplating his dissolution as nigh at hand, he wrote the following dialogue, a little before his decease, between Death, the Soul, the Body, the World, and Jesus Christ, which his widow sent to his relatives in New-England, and is here preserved as a specimen of the poetick taste of that period.

D. Ho ho, prepare to go with me,
For I am sent to summon thee,
See my commission seal'd with blood;
Who sent me He will make it good.

The life of man

Is like a span,

Whose slender thread I must divide.

My name is death,

I'll stop thy breath;

From my arrests thou canst not hide.

S. O Death, triumph not over me, My Saviour's death hath conquered thee, Man's sin at first did give thee breath, Whose exit now must be thy death. But yet through grace,

So stands the case,

Harm thou canst not, but only fright.
Ah death thou'rt dead,

Broke is thy head,

Thy sting and strength removed quite

But what dost think, to scare me so ?
Me to assault, so like a foe?

Nay, Death, thy power and all that's thine
The second cov'nant made it mine.

Come let's shake hands,

I'll kiss thy bands;

'Tis happy news for me to die.

What dost thou think,

That I will shrink?

I'll go to immortality.

Transported is my ravish'd heart,

To think now hence I must depart;

Long waited I for such a day,

Thrice welcome summons, come away.

Come, strike the blow,
That I may go;

Why stay thy chariot wheels so long?

To stay 'tis pain,

To die 'tis gain;

Delay me not, you do me wrong.

This is my Father's messenger,
My King and Bridegroom's harbinger ;

See here his chariot driving fast,

Home to conduct me in all haste.
I'm sick of love

For him above.

I grow impatient to be gone,

Him for for to see

Who loved me,

That precious loving, lovely one.

Hadst thou but knock'd the other day,
I had been forced then to say,

O spare a little, give me space
Until I see thy pleasant face.
Because my light

Was turn'd to night,

Hid was his face, eclips'd his love;

Then inward fears

Caus'd many tears;

Few visits had I from above.

His name forever blessed is,
To send at such a time as this;