inhabitants of old Boston, yet to some of the dust that lies in its churchyard."

It is of this tower with its beacon and its bells that we hear in Jean Ingelow's touching poem, "High Tide On the Coast of Lincolnshire." St. Botolph, the pious Saxon monk of the seventh century, who is believed to have founded the town, received his name, indeed, Bot-holp, i. e. Boat-help, from his service to sailors; and the high tower was originally designed to be a guide to those out at sea, six miles down the river. An account of the town written in 1541 tells the whole story in one terse paragraph: "Botolphstowne standeth on ye river of Lindis. The steeple of the church

being quadrata Turris' and a lanthorn on it, is both very high & faire and a mark bothe by sea and land for all ye quarters thereaboute."

Perhaps it was remembrance of what the beacon in St. Botolph's tower had meant to the people of Lincolnshire which caused the Court of Assistants, assembled in new Boston, to pass the following resolution March 4, 1634: "It is ordered that there shalbe forth with a beacon sett on the Centry hill at Boston to give notice to the Country of any danger, and that there shalbe a ward of one pson kept there from the first of April to the last of September;

and that upon the discovery of any danger the beacon shalbe fired, an allarum given, as also messengers presently sent by that town where the danger is discov'red to all other townes within this jurisdiction."

Hawthorne hints, too, that it is to the influence of the old St. Botolph's town that the winding streets of our modern city may be attributed. "Its crooked streets and narrow lanes reminded me much of Hanover street, Ann street, and other portions of our American Boston. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the local habits and recollections of the first settlers may have had some influence on the physical character of the streets and houses in the New England metropolis; at any rate here is a similar intricacy of bewildering lanes and a number of old peaked and projectingstoried dwellings, such as I used to see there in my boyish days. It is singular what a home feeling and sense of kindred I derived from this hereditary connection and fancied physiognomical resemblance between the old town and its well-grown daughter."

Somewhat less romantic but still appealing is the explanation of our crooked streets volunteered by Bynner. "The first houses [of the colonial period] were necessarily of the rudest

description and they seem to have been scattered hither or thither according to individual need or fancy. The early streets, too, obedient to the same law of convenience, naturally followed the curves of the hills, winding around their bases by the shortest routes and crossing their slopes at the easiest angles. To the pioneer upon the western prairie it is comparatively easy to lay out his prospective city in squares and streets of unvarying size and shape, and oftentimes be it said, of wearying sameness; to the colonist of 1630 upon this rugged promontory of New England it was a different matter. Without the power of leisure to surmount the natural obstacles of his new home, he was contented to adapt himself to them.

"Thus the narrow winding streets, with their curious twists and turns, the crooked alleys and short-cuts by which he drove his cows to pasture up among the blueberry bushes of Beacon Hill, or carried his grist to the windmill over upon Copp's steeps, or went to draw his water at the spring-gate, or took his sober Sunday way to the first rude little church, these paths and highways, worn by his feet and established for his convenience, remain after two centuries and a half substantially un

changed, endeared to his posterity by priceless associations. And so the town, growing at first after no plan and with no thought of proportion, but as directed and shaped by the actual needs of the inhabitants, became a not unfitting exponent of their lives, the rough outward garb, as it were, of their hardy young civilization."

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Truth, however, demands the statement that our forefathers made brave efforts to compel a ship-shape city. In 1635 it was ordered: "That from this day there shall noe house at all be built in this towne neere unto any of the streetes or laynes therein but with the advise and consent of the overseers . . for the more comely and commodious ordering of them." At a subsequent meeting in the same month John Gallop was summarily told to improve the alignment of the "payles at his yard's end." Very likely he fought off the order, however; and very likely dozens of others did the same, regulating their homes in the fashion attributed to those settlers of Marblehead who are said to have remarked, each to the other," I'm a'goin' to set here; you can set where you're a mind to." Apparently just that had happened in the old St. Botolph's town; not improbably that was what also happened in the new.

IV

THE COMING OF A SHINING LIGHT

THE earliest and, in many ways, the best account of Boston life in the winter immediately following the naming of the town was that sent by Thomas Dudley in a letter to the Countess of Lincoln, mother of Lady Arbella Johnson. The explanation of this letter's origin is found in a note which Dudley sent with it to the righte honourable, my very good Lady, the Lady Bryget, Countesse of Lincoln" in the care of Mr. Wilson, pastor of the First Church, who sailed from Salem, April 1, 1631. "Madam," he wrote, " your ltt'res (which are not common or cheape) following me hether into New England, and bringing with them renewed testimonies of the accustomed favours you honoured mee with in the Old, have drawne from me this Narrative retribucon, (which in respect of your proper interest in some persons of great note amongst us) was the thankfullest present I had to send