IN OLD NEWBURYPORT 123 



this once busy street the quaint and curious min- 

 gling of useless utilities and unvalued treasures, 

 one is reminded of the quaint and curious char- 

 acters such surroundings seem to evolve. Among 

 such Dickens finds an Old Curiosity Shop and its 

 keeper and makes them immortal. Yet it is not 

 often that the queer character himself goes into 

 print and leaves his name and pokes his person- 

 ality into the dusty corners of literary fame, to be 

 picked out and wondered at centuries after. New- 

 buryport had one such, the story of whose amazing 

 eccentricities still lasts, linked with the dignified 

 reputation of the old seaport. These stories in 

 time may be forgotten, though they have lasted 

 more than a century, but his astounding book, 

 " Pickles for the Knowing Ones," bids fair to last 

 far longer, as long in fact as libraries collect and 

 hold absurdities of print as well as literature. It 

 is one of the ironies of fame that Newburyport, 

 which can rightfully boast of being the town in 

 which William Lloyd Garrison established his 

 Free Press and wrote his anti-slavery broadsides, 

 the town where Whittier's first poem was pub- 

 lished, where Whitefield preached and John Pier- 



