Cambridge as Village and City 287 



brightest light of Hellas in the wicked Pelopon- 

 nesian War! Can any right-minded Venetian 

 look without blushing at the bronze horses that sur- 

 mount the stately portal of St. Mark's ? a per- 

 petual memento of that black day when ravening 

 commercial jealousy decoyed an army of Crusaders 

 to the despoiling of the chief city of Christendom, 

 and thus broke away the strongest barrier in the 

 path of the advancing Turk ! What must the 

 citizen of Paris think to-day of cowardly massacres 

 of unresisting prisoners, such as happened in 1418 

 and in 1792 ? Is there any dweller in Birmingham 

 who would not gladly expunge from the past that 

 summer evening which witnessed the burning of 

 the house and library of Dr. Priestley? From 

 such melancholy scenes, and from complicity in 

 political crime, our community, our neighbourhood, 

 has been notably free. The annals of Massachu- 

 setts, during its existence of nearly three centuries, 

 are written in a light that is sometimes dull or 

 sombre, but very seldom lurid. In particular the 

 career of Cambridge has been a placid one. We 

 do not find in it many things to startle us ; but 

 there is much that we can approve, much upon 

 which, without falling into the self-satisfied mood 

 that is the surest index of narrowness and pro- 

 vincialism, we may legitimately pride ourselves. 



