t material
for story. It seems as natural to make tales out of old tumble-down
traditions, as canes and snuff-boxes out of old steeples, or trees
planted by great men. The puritanical times begin to look romantic in
the distance. Who would not like to have strolled through the city of
Agamenticus, where a market was held every week, on Wednesday, and there
were two annual fairs at St. James's and St. Paul's? Who would not like
to have been present at the court of the Worshipful Thomas Gorges, in
those palmy days of the law, when Tom Heard was fined five shillings for
being drunk, and John Payne the same, 'for swearing one oath'? Who would
not like to have seen the time, when Thomas Taylor was presented to the
grand jury 'for abusing Captain Raynes, being in authority, by
_thee-ing_ and _thou-ing_ him;' and John Wardell likewise, for denying
Cambridge College to be an ordinance of God; and when some were fined
for winking at comely damsels in church; and others for being
common-sleepers there on the Lord's day? Truly, many quaint and quiet
customs, many comic scenes and strange adventures, many wild and
wondrous things, fit for humorous tale, and soft, pathetic story, lie
all about us here in New England. There is no tradition of the Rhine nor
of the Black Forest, which can compare in beauty with that of the
Phantom Ship. The Flying Dutchman of the Cape, and the Klabotermann of
the Baltic, are nowise superior. The story of Peter Rugg, the man who
could not find Boston, is as good as that told by Gervase of Tilbury, of
a man who gave himself to the devils by an unfortunate imprecation, and
was used by them as a wheelbarrow; and the Great Carbuncle of the White
Mountains shines with no less splendor, than that which illuminated the
subterranean palace in Rome, as related by William of Malmesbury. Truly,
from such a Fortunatus's pocket and wishing-cap, a tale-bearer may
furnish forth a sufficiency of 'peryllous adventures right
espouventables, bryfefly compyled and pyteous for to here.'"

We must always remember that Longfellow came forward at a time when
cultivated Americans were wasting a great deal of superfluous sympathy
on themselves. It was the general impression that the soil was barren,
that the past offered no material and they must be European or die. Yet
Longfellow's few predecessors had already made themselves heard by
disregarding this tradition and taking what they found on the spot.
Charles Brockden Brown, al