14 



traordinary men of his age to retire beyond the op- 

 pression of the " lord bishops," in its excess, de- 

 generating into the vice of eccentricity, drove him 

 from the society of the " lord brethren." About 

 1635, Blackstone sought asylum for his own unbend- 

 ing spirit from collision with the inflexible senti- 

 ments of other minds, in the calm solitude of Study 

 Hill, fast by the good stream which bears his name. 

 " There," says Hopkins, " he had the first of 

 that sort called yellow sweetings, that ever were in 

 the world : perhaps the richest and most delicious 

 apple of the whole kind." When the infirmity of 

 age came over the venerable hermit, and his steps 

 could no longer sustain the accustomed missions of 

 benevolence, he rode forth on the tamed bull train- 

 ed to supply the place of gayer steed, and bore w'ith 

 him the first fruits of Rhode Island, to encourage 

 by the distribution, the youthful disciples, whose 

 faith was warmed by the precepts he inculcated.^ 



Two hundred years, save one, have passed, since 

 John Josselyn, who calls himself " gentleman," but 

 who might have written another addition, visited 

 the bay of Massachusetts. That he possessed an 

 enlarged capacity of vision and imagination, we 

 agree, when we read, that in his day, among the 

 rarities of New England, were " pond frogs, which 

 chirp in the spring like sparrows, and croak like 

 toads, in the autumn, sitting, when upright, a foot 



(1) See the account of Providence in 2 Mass. Hist. Col. vol. ix. page 174, and the 

 biography of Blackstone, in the excellent Histonj of Rehoboih, hy heonard Bliss, 

 Jun., Esq.. pag'e 2, &c., and in Daggett's Attlcboroiigh, page 24. The place of 

 Blackstone's residence in Rhode Island was in Cumberland, near the east bank of 

 the river, about three miles above Pawtucket, and a mile and a half above Valley 

 Falls, Oil the west side of the road from Pawtucket to Worcester. 



