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."

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 Itt'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

over the seas. Therefore I humbly intreat your Honour, this bee accepted as payment from him, who neither hath nor is any more than your honour's old thankful servant, "THOMAS DUDLEY."

Chronologically, the narrative trips in places for it was written, as Dudley himself says, by the fireside on his knee, in the midst of his family, who " break good manners, and make me many times forget what I would say and say what I would not," at a time when he had "no leisure to review and insert things forgotten, but out of due time and order must set them down as they come to memory." None the less the plain unvarnished descriptions in this letter make it a very telling one and when we put along with it Winthrop's brave notes to his son we have a vivid picture of the hardships of that first winter. "I shall expect your mother and you and the rest of my company here next spring, if God will . . ." wrote the governor. Bring some good oil, pitch and tar and a good piece of an old cable to make oakum; for that which was sent is much lost. Some more cows should be brought, especially two new milch, which must be well mealed and milked by the way, and some goats, especially