very good reflections of the feeling of the community. Older and better established than the newspaper was the almanac, which throve in New England and performed a familiar service in every household. Mr. Ames or Mr. Lord, and their fellows, addressed readers in the jaunty, unconventional style which was regarded as appropriate to a class of literature which was neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, and after their preliminary talk and their monthly calendar, with its wonderful comments, gave the page or two that remained to anecdotes, poetry, and miscellaneous literature. The calendar was headed by verse, which was taken usually from English authors of the time, and sometimes was treated serially. Thus in one almanac the poem of "Porsenna in pursuit of the Kingdom of Felicity" trails along the head of the twelve months, and at the end is announced to be continued next year; next year it starts on its journey again, and overflows upon one of the extra pages, but still is unfinished; a third year it makes a desperate effort to come to an end, but the editor is obliged to announce, "Conclusion omitted this year for want of room;" and only when a fourth year has come is he able to get rid of this continued poem. Think of the impatience of readers who had to wait from year to year for four years before they could finish reading this work of art! As the years of the war drew near, the contents of these little books took on a more martial character, and the poetical feuilleton gave place to a military chronicle.

Jejune enough do these hints seem to make the life in which Webster grew up: but if it was poverty-stricken as compared with the abundant resources of our own day,—if the Hartford of 1765 is to be contrasted with that of 1881, to the manifest disadvantage of the former,—one would wish to remember that in the very sterility of that life there was a certain iron which entered into the constitution of the people who lived it. If there were not the leisure and culture of the present day, neither were there the mental indolence and dissipation. Ames's Almanac was a joyless sort of light literature, but at least it did not reduce intellectual recreation to a mere frivolous indulgence of the mental faculties. A fine picture could be drawn of Webster on the one side, extracting what juice he could from the chippy leaves of the almanac and "Courant," and of a youth of this year, entering a public library with his card, and having the range of a hundred thousand volumes; but the real comparison is to be made between the results in character and production. We are painfully familiar with the lists of books which constitute the reading of the average boy of to-day, and know perfectly well that they are very often narcotic and stimulant. The reading which was had with such difficulty in the middle of the eighteenth century may sometimes have acted as a sedative, but it was by reason of quality and scarcity more generally brave food; in the mind of the reader there was an immense respect for literature which induced a genuine hunger for books, and the individuality of one who had intellectual tastes was not impaired, as so often happens now, but fortified and enriched.

The farm, the social round, the school, the college, the out-door sports, the in-door books and papers, were all parts of the circumstance which affected the life of the youth, but no picture of the time would be complete which omitted the influence upon him of the church. He would grow up with the impression that the meeting-house was the principal building in town, the minister the principal person, and Sunday the principal day. A curious illustration of the strong hold which the religious observance of Sunday had upon the colonists then is in the construction of what were known as Sabbath-Day Houses, which I think were peculiar to Connecticut. At any rate, there is so good a description of them by a son-in-law of Webster's that I give it here:—

"These houses were from twenty to twenty-five feet in length, and from ten to twelve feet in breadth, and one story high, with a chimney in the middle, dividing the whole space into two rooms, with a partition between them, for the accommodation of two families, who united in building the house. The furniture consisted of a few chairs, a table, plates and dishes, some iron utensil, it may be, for warming food which had been cooked. Besides the Bible, there was sometimes a book on experimental religion, like Baxter's 'Saints' Rest,' or Allein's 'Alarm.' On the morning of the Sabbath the mother of the family, with provident care, put up her store of comforts for the dinner, substantial or slight fare as most convenient, a bottle of cider almost of course. The family then set off from their home in a large two-horse sleigh, or on saddles and pillions. They stopped at the Sabbath-day house, kindled a blazing fire, and then went forth to shiver in the cold during the morning services. At noon they hurried back to their warm room. After they had taken their meal, and by turns drunk from the pewter mug, thanks were returned. Then the sermon came under review, from the notes taken by the father of the family, or a chapter was read from the Bible, or a paragraph from some favorite author, the service concluding with prayer or singing. After again visiting the sanctuary, the family would return to the Sabbath-day house, if the cold was severe, before they sought their home. The fire was then extinguished, the door was locked, and the house remained undisturbed during the week. In time the custom of repairing to these houses changed; the houses themselves became dilapidated, or furnished a refuge for the poor. They were better suited to those times, when so much was thought of private family religion, than they would be to ours, when religion has become more of a public and social concern. The last Sabbath-day house which I remember stood on the land owned by the first minister. It was occupied by John King, a Hessian deserter from the British army. It was owned by one of the Nortons. The present writer can recollect as many as half a dozen of these houses."[4]

The legislation thrown about the Sabbath was in confirmation of the public opinion regarding its sanctity. The harsher aspects of this observance have been sufficiently dwelt upon in our histories; the effect upon character has been less considered, but the elevation of one day out of the tyranny of work, the resolute facing of eternal mysteries, and the withdrawal into a half-brooding, half-active state of mind must have had a powerful effect upon the imagination and conscience. The meeting-house was no holy building, but the Sabbath day was a holy day, and was the most comprehensive symbol of the Puritan faith. It was what the altar is in the Catholic Church, the holy of holies, about which the whole movement of religious worship gathered. Whatever disturbed the profound stillness of the day was seized upon by the law as sacrilegious; and never, perhaps, has there been a religion which succeeded so completely in investing time with the sacredness which elsewhere had been appropriated by place. Even the approach to the Sabbath was guarded, and the custom of the observance of Saturday evening appears to have been derived from the backward influence of the day, as the release upon Sunday evening appears to have been a concession to the flesh, which would otherwise have rebelled. Dr. Bushnell, in his "Age of Homespun," tells of his own experience in boyhood, when