EXERCISE CLXX. CONNECTICUT IN EARLY TIMES. BANCROFT. 1. Connecticut,, from the first, possessed unmixed popu lar liberty. The government was in honest and upright hands; the little strifes of rivalry never became heated; the magistrates were sometimes persons of no ordinary endow ments; but, though gifts of learning and genius were valued, the State was content with virtue and single-mindedness; and the public welfare never suffered at the hands of plain men. Roger Williams had ever been a welcome guest at Hartford and "that heavenly man, John Haynes," would say to him: "I think, Mr. Williams, I must now confess to you, that the most wise God hath provided and cut out this part of the world as a refuge and receptacle for all sorts of consciences." ; 2. There never existed a persecuting spirit in Connecticut; while it had a scholar to their minister in every town and village." Education was cherished; religious knowledge was carried to the highest degree of refinement, alike in its application to moral duties, and to the mysterious questions on the nature of God, of liberty, and of the soul. A hardy race multiplied along the alluvion of the streams, and subdued the more rocky and less inviting fields; its population for a century doubled once in twenty years, in spite of considerable emigration; and, if, as has often been said, the ratio of the increase of population is the surest criterion of public happiness, Connecticut was long the happiest State in the world. 3. Religion united with the pursuits of agriculture, to give to the land the aspect of salubrity. The domestic wars were discussions of knotty points in theology; the concerns of the parish, the merits of the minister, were the weightiest affairs; and a church reproof the heaviest calamity. The strifes of the parent country, though they sometimes occasioned a levy among the sons of the husbandmen, yet never brought an enemy within their borders; tranquillity was within their gates, and the peace of God within their hearts. No fears of midnight ruffians could disturb the sweetness of slumber; the best house required no fastening but a latch, lifted by a string; bolts and locks were unknown. 4. There was nothing morose in the Connecticut character. It was temperate industry enjoying the abundance which it had created. No great inequalities of condition excited envy, or raised political feuds; wealth could display itself only in a larger house and a fuller barn; and covetousness was satisfied by the tranquil succession of harvests. There was veni son from the hills; salmon, in their season, not less than shad, from the rivers; and sugar from the trees of the forest. For a foreign market, little was produced beside cattle; and, in return for them, but few foreign luxuries stole in. Even as late as 1713, the number of seamen did not exceed one hundred and twenty. 5. The soil had originally been justly divided, or held as common property in trust for the public, and for new comers. Forestalling was successfully resisted; the brood of speculators in land inexorably turned aside. Happiness was enjoyed unconsciously; beneath the rugged exterior, humanity wore its sweetest smile. There was, for a long time, hardly a law yer in the land. The husbandman who held his own plow, and fed his own cattle, was the great man of the age; no one was superior to the matron who, with her busy daughters, kept the hum of the wheel incessantly alive, spinning and weaving every article of their dress. 6. Fashion was confined within narrow limits; and pride, which aimed at no grander equipage than a pillion, could exult only in the common splendor of the blue and white linen gown, with short sleeves, coming down to the waist, and in the snow-white flaxen apron, which, primly starched and ironed, was worn on public days by every woman in the land. For there was no revolution, except from the time of sowing to the time of reaping; from the plain dress of the week day, to the more trim attire of Sunday. 7. Every family was taught to look upward to God, as to the Fountain of all good. Yet life was not somber. The spirit of frolic mingled with innocence; religion itself sometimes wore the garb of gayety; and the annual thanksgiving to God was, from primitive times, as joyous as it was sincere. Nature always asserts her rights, and abounds in means of gladness. 8. The frugality of private life had its influence on public expenditure. Ha'. a century after the concession of the charter, the annual expenses of the government did not exceed eight hundred pounds, or four thousand dollars; and the wages of the Chief Justice were ten shillings a day while on service. In each county, a magistrate acted as judge of probate, and the business was transacted with small expense to the fatherless. 9. Education was always esteemed a concern of deepest interest, and there were common schools from the first. Nor was it long before a small college, such as the day of small things permitted, began to be established; and Yale owes its birth "to ten worthy fathers, who, in 1700, assembled at Branford, and each one, laying a few volumes on a table, said,'I give these books for the founding of a college in this lolly.'" i 10. But the political education of the people is due to the happy organization of towns, which here, as, indeed, through out all New England, constituted each separate settlement a little democracy of itself. It was the natural reproduction of the system, which the instinct of humanity had imperfectly revealed to our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. In the ancient republics, citizenship had been an hereditary privilege. In Connecticut, citizenship was acquired by inhabitancy, was lost by removal. 11. Each town-meeting was a little legislature, and all inhabitants, the affluent and the more needy, the wise and the foolish, were members with equal franchises. There the taxes of the town were discussed and levied; there the village ofi cers were chosen; there roads were laid out, and bridges voted; there the minister was elected, the representatives to the assembly were instructed. The debate was open to all; wisdom asked no favors; the churl abated nothing of his pretensions. 12. Whoever reads the records of these village democra cies, will be perpetually coming upon some little document of political wisdom, which breathes the freshness of rural legislation, and wins a disproportioned interest from the justice and simplicity of the times. As the progress of society re quired exertions in a wider field, the public mind was quickened by associations that were blended with early history; and when Connecticut emerged from the quiet of its origin, aud made its way into scenes where a new political world was to be created, the sagacity that had regulated the affairs of the village, gained admiration in the field and in the council. EXERCISE CLXXI. THE TOMB OF YEARS. CHARLES CONSTANTINE PISE 1. Upon the tomb of years the monarch bent, "Scepters and crowns lie moldering here with kings." 2. Next, crowned with laurel-wreaths the hero came, And paused in silence o'er the mighty grave; He read : "Time spares not glory, spares not fame,— Beneath this sod their plumes no longer wave!" 3. The lord of countless treasures then drew nigh, And trembled as he stooped to scan the doom Of the rich man,—and heaved a hollow sigh; He read: "Wealth can not bribe the impartial tomb." 4. The beauteous girl in all her youth and charms, 5. The skeptic sternly gazed,—but on his brow And not a ray will light his grave when dead! 6. The Christian knelt,-and reading, that beneath 7. Yes, o'er Time's sepulcher,-amid the gloom EXERCISE CLXXII. EVENING IN PARADISE. Now came still evening on, and twilight gray MITON |