college days. It could not but be a pleasant party, six at table, all young, four gentlemen as well as the hostess overflowing with memories of Yale and New Haven, and that "smart girl," Joanna Leffingwell, whose "pleasing countenance" retained something of its beauty, and whose "expressive eye" had not lost its expressiveness, when I knew her, almost half a century later, an honored "mother in Israel" the widow of Charles (not Daniel) Lathrop.

The next day (Thursday) was like the other days at Norwich; breakfast with his "old friend and good friend Shubael; " "dinner with the Governor and family" at Mr. Breed's, where Shubael and his wife were also present, and where the inevitable "pompion pie " suggested the thought of how soon he should be beyond the reach of that New England dainty; an after-dinner call at Mr. Coit's; tea at Mr. Moore's; and the evening at Mr. Leffingwell's again"in a circle of no less than sixteen ladies, besides many other supernumeraries." To the record of all this, he adds, "About nine, went to my lodgings, proposed a plan to the Governor, and received his approbation, ate supper, smoked the calumet for the last time, and bade them all a good night."

On Friday, Dec. 5th, our traveler, having taken leave of Norwich friends, journeyed toward his father's home, by the somewhat meandering way of all his "uncles and aunts in Lisbon, Preston, and Canterbury;" and those uncles and aunts, with all the cousins, seem to have been the most loving and amiable people in the world. Arriving at Scotland parsonage again on Saturday, he was detained there by a storm which gave him time for reading and writing, and for "receiving lessons of divine instruction from the lips of "his" affectionate parent." Wednesday, Dec. 19th, the weather having become propi

tious, he went to Mansfield for the sake of visiting two more cousins, whose amiable qualities he sums up by saying, "In short, they are two Fitches, which is sufficiently explanatory to myself."

From Mansfield, the next day's travel brought him to Lebanon again, his solitary ride being cheered by the pleasant thought that all the relatives whom he has been visiting, and who had received him with kindliest affection, were so well worth knowing. These uncles, aunts, and cousins seem to have been fair specimens of what I may venture to call the old Connecticut gentry, well-to-do people living comfortably and honestly on their own acres, working six days and resting on the seventh according to the commandment, thinking people, whose intellectual life was nourished chiefly by the Bible and the doctrinal exposition of it from the pulpit, men and women whose hereditary Puritanism had not vanished into Estheticism, and who were therefore characterized more by strength of opinions about right and wrong than by exquisiteness of taste, plain people with no aristocratic pretensions, yet gentry as descended from ancestors whom they honored, and for whose sake they were ready to welcome every cousin who did not dishonor the stock (the gens) from which they came. All the kindred whom our traveling friend had visited in Preston, Lisbon, Canterbury, and Mansfield, were as he proudly calls them, "Fitches," and they all knew their descent from James Fitch, the famous first minister of Norwich.

Strong's case and had a long and friendly conversation with her husband, pondering meanwhile (we may conjecture) the question of making his abode in Hartford, I find him proceeding on the next day to Haddam, and there "welcomed very sincerely by Theodore and Parson May and family" thence, after a day's detention by storm, he comes to New Haven again, and finds the same hospitality which he had found four weeks before.

The last date on these torn leaves is Saturday, Dec. 19th. On that day, after "several morning visits "-additional to all the visits of the preceding day, he rode to Greenfield via Stratford, Victory, etc. It was seven o'clock in the evening, when he arrived at the house of the pastor, who was also the poet of "Greenfield Hill." He found himself "in the midst of a smiling circle;" and the talk by the winter evening fireside was cheerful and instructive. I can make out concerning the "four young ladies under Mr.Dwight's tuition" that "the expression of each was uncommonly fine-a loveliness of disposition, a benevolence of heart, and a sprightliness of thought were clearly discernible in every eye." Here we come to a ragged edge. The The last

words are "If I can judge— account given of them by Mrs. Dwight, and my own they are lovely girls, and on the high road to make husbands happy."

This picture of life in the last century, a snap shot, so to speak, taken when people did not know that any one was looking, discloses new charms at every reading.

After we have excepted the powdered hair, and the unaffected interest in Sunday worship, which, alas! is not at all characteristic of these days, it is hard to realize that these young people are not of us to-day. The cultivated manners, the

ease of intercourse, the unaffected enjoyment of the pleasures of life, disclose a time of leisure and courteous living.

While many are ransacking every musty book of town enactments, and church records, to prove that our ancestors led a treadmill existence under the clouds of bigotry and severity, harassed by a superstitious dread of a Deity robed in terrors, and by the present fear of harsh and straitlaced magistrates, we may read this cheerful account of dancing, music, and singing, balls and teas, all enjoyed by the minister's son without any reproach, and in the midst of families whose social position was beyond question. Probably more genuine pleasure was enjoyed by young people in those days than now, for the leading families were still grouped near enough each other for the exercise of free hospitality among all the members of the "clans," and an intimate knowledge of each other and an affectionate interest were retained, which, with a certain quality in the conditions of life, made social intercourse satisfying without all the feverish effort to secure novel pleasures which is seen

now.

And what shall be said of the extraordinary prevalence of "pompion pie" at that period? Evidently, cut-worms and other enemies of the delicious vegetable had not then gained an ascendency. And we must lament the vanishing of the dignified name "pompion " behind the uncouth "pumpkin."

Dr. Bacon's running commentary adds much to the value and lucidity of the text. It may be well to explain that Dr. Bacon married Miss Catherine Terry, the daughter of the Catherine Wadsworth, afterwards Mrs. Terry, who appears in the diary as the good-hearted younger sister, a circumstance which makes all the more remarkable the return to Dr. Bacon of the manuscript.