said, "Don't you know the bad news I have heard to-day?"
"What?" asked the wife. "Roland is dead, who alone was the safeguard of
Christendom." On which his wife tried to soothe the silly grief of her
husband, and yet, with all her tenderness, could scarce get him to sit
down to meat.'"[13]

The effect of the ballad, however, upon the worthy man of Milan reminds
one of the historical incident, recording the effect of song, celebrated
anew in one of the stanzas of Childe Harold:--

"When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,
And fettered thousands felt the yoke of war,
Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse,
Her voice their only ransom from afar;
See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car
Of the o'ermastered victor stops: the reins
Fall from his hands--his idle scimitar
Starts from its belt--he rends his captives' chains,
And bids them thank the bard for freedom and his strains."

X.

The ancestor of Colonel Edward Wigglesworth, mentioned in the text, an
officer of the Revolution, highly esteemed by Washington, was Rev.
Michael Wigglesworth, author of "The Day of Doom," published in the last
quarter of the seventeenth century, and reprinted in London; a dreadfully
dismal, but edifying poem, and not without a certain horrifying merit.

XI.

Were it within the scope of this work, I might furnish a catalogue, by no
means meagre, of inhabitants formerly distinguished in their day and
generation. For example, I have heard it stated as a curious fact, that,
not far from the beginning of the present century, each of the three
Professors of Harvard College, namely, Professors Webber, afterwards
President; Pearson, and Toppan, were natives of Newbury.

XII.

I could hardly dismiss this volume from my hands without some reference
to the means of public information furnished by the newspapers of the
town. Of these, there have been, since "The Essex Journal," soon
afterwards merged in "The Impartial Herald," and first published in 1773,
between thirty and forty attempts to establish newspapers; but the
"Herald," the successor of those before-named, for many years conducted
as a semi-weekly journal, and since the year 1832 as a daily paper, has
alone steadily maintained its ground. It has always been distinguished
for the editorial ability displayed in its columns, and for a care
bestowed upon its several departments, which gave it a high reputation,
s