pets on the Common near Mr. Alford's. Then went to the Green Chamber and sounded there till about sunrise. Bell man said these verses a little before break-a day which I printed and gave them. The trumpeters cost me five pieces of 8." These verses were from Sewall's own pen; they were fittingly reread on Beacon Hill by the Reverend Edward Everett Hale at midnight on the eve of our present century's dawn. The first two are:

"Once more! Our God vouchsafe to shine:
Tame thou the rigor of our clime.
Make haste with thy impartial light
And terminate this long dark night.

"Let the transplanted English vine
Spread further still; still call it thine;
Prune it with skill: for yield it can
More fruit to thee the husbandman."

Nothing about the Diary is more significant than some of its omissions. When "news is brought to us" (September 17, 1714) of Queen Anne's death the only comment Sewall makes upon the sad countenance of him who bore the tidings is, "I was afraid Boston had burnt again." Anne was a High Churchwoman and had given aid and succour to the Church of England to which Sewall had refused to sell

land for a parish home. Though Sewall was now sixty-two, he was on hand bright and early, we may be sure, for that dinner held at the Green Dragon tavern to proclaim George I king of England and "Supreme Lord of the Massachusetts."

Judge Sewall's wife Hannah died October 19, 1717. He mourned her deeply, but briefly. It was expected with the rigour of a law in the Puritan land that widows and widowers should remarry. They all did it, and not to do it was a social offence. Apparently they all helped each other to do it, and for a man in Judge Sewall's social station there was no chance of escape, even though he was sixty-five. But he appears to have bent his neck cheerfully enough to the matrimonial yoke, for we find the Diary recording:

"Feby. 6, 1718. This morning wandering in my mind whether to live a single or married life, I had a sweet and very affectionate meditation concerning the Lord Jesus. Nothing was to be objected against his person, parentage, relations, estate, house, home. Why did I not presently close with him. And I cried mightily to God that he would help me so to do."

"Feby. 10. I received a letter from Mr.

Winthrop having one enclosed to his mother which I carry to her. She tells me Mr. Eyre [Mrs. Winthrop's first husband] married her May 20, 1680. Lived together about twenty years."

"March 10. In Madame Usher's absence Madam Henchman took occasion highly to commend Madame Winthrop, the Major-General's widow [as a wife] March 14. Deacon Marion comes to me, sits with me a great while in the evening; after a great deal of discourse about his courtship he told me all the Olivers said they wished I would court their aunt (Madam Winthrop). I said 'twas not five months since I buried my dear wife. Said little, but said before 'twas hard to know whether best to

marry again or no; whom to marry. Dr. Mather (Increase) sends me his Marah in a letter in which is this expression,

But your honor will allow me now at length to offer you my opinion that all the regards are not yet paid which you owe unto the Widow, and which are expected from you.'"

This Marah was probably one of the elder Mather's books, with the title, "An Essay to do Good unto the Widow," and the grave badinage here of the Puritan divine at the expense of the Puritan Judge is characteristic.