[Book review].

Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Book review]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    homes beside the church, the library, and the school. What¬ ever other changes may occur from one age or period to another, the features of natural scenery are, for the most part, unalterable. Massachusetts Bay is as it was when the Pilgrims cast their first look over it. Its blue waters~as blue as the seas of Greece—rippling up upon the sheeted snow of the sands in winter, or beating against rocks glittering in ice; in autumn the pearly waves flowing in under the thickets of gaudy foliage; and on summer evenings the green surface surrounding the amethyst islands, where white foam spouts out of the caves and crevices. On land, there are still the craggy hills, and the jutting promontories of granite, where the barberry grows as the bramble does with us, and room is found for the farmstead between the crags, and for the apple- trees and little slopes of grass, and patches of tillage, where all else looks barren. The boats are out, or ranged on shore, according to the weather, just as they were from the beg'nning, only in larger numbers; and far away on either hand the coasts and islands, the rocks, and hills and rural dwellings are as of old, save for the shrinking of the forest, and the growth of the cities and villages, whose spires and school-houses are visible here or there. Yet there are changes, marked and memorable, both in Salem and its neighbourhood, since the date of thirty-seven years ago. There was then an exclusiveness about the place as evident to strangers, and as dear to natives, as the rivalship be¬ tween Philadelphia and Baltimore, while far more interesting and honourable in its character. In Salem society there was a singular combination of the precision and scrupulous¬ ness of Puritan manners and habits of thought with the pride of a cultivated and travelled community, boasting acquaint¬ ance with people of all known faiths, and familiarity with all known ways of living and thinking, while adhering to the customs, and even the prejudices, of their fathers. While re¬ lating theological conversations held with liberal Buddhists or lax Mohammedans, your host would whip his horse, to get home at full speed by sunset on a Saturday, that the groom’s Sabbath might not be encroached on for five minutes. The houses were hung with odd Chinese copies of English engrav¬ ings, and furnished with a variety of pretty and useful articles from China, never seen elsewhere, because none but American traders had then achieved any commerce with that country but in tea, nankeen, and silk. The Salem Museum was the glory of the town, and even of the State. Each speculative merchant who went forth, with or without a cargo (and the trade in ice
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