In LIFE OF 



to our view. In two hours more we landed, and, by the stillness 

 and solemnity of the streets, recollected we were in New England, 

 and that it was Sunday, which latter circumstance had been almost 

 forgotten on board the packet-boat. 



" This town is situated upon a sandy plain, and the streets are 

 shaded with elm trees and poplars. In a large park, or common, 

 covered with grass, and crossed by two streets and several footpaths, 

 stands the church, the state house, and college buildings, which last 

 are one hundred and eighty yards in front. From these structures 

 rise four or five wooden spires, which, in former times, as one of 

 the professors informed me, were so infested by woodpeckers, which 

 bored them in all directions, that to preserve their steeples from 

 destruction, it became necessary to set people with guns to watch 

 and shoot these invaders of the sanctuary. About the town the 

 pasture-fields and corn look well ; but a few miles off, the country 

 is poor and ill cultivated. 



" The literati of Newhaven received me with politeness and re- 

 spect ; and, after making my usual rounds, which occupied a day 

 and a half, I set off for Middleton, twenty-two miles distant. The 

 country through which I passed was generally flat and sandy. In 

 some places, whole fields were entirely covered with sand, not a blade 

 of vegetation to be seen, like some parts of New Jersey. Round 

 Middleton, however, the country is really beautiful ; the soil rich ; 

 and here I first saw the river of Connecticut, stretching along the 

 east side of the town, which consists of one very broad street, with 

 rows of elms on each side. On entering, I found the streets filled 

 with troops, it being muster-day. The sides of the street were 

 choked up with waggons, carts, and wheelbarrows, filled with bread, 

 roast beef, fowls, cheese, liquors, barrels of cider, and rum bottles. 

 Some were singing out, ' Here's the best brandy you ever put into 

 your head ! ' Others in dozens shouting, ' Here's the round and 

 sound gingerbread ! most capital gingerbread ! ' In one place I 

 observed a row of twenty or thirty country girls drawn up, with 

 their backs to a fence, and two young fellows supplying them with 

 rolls of bread from a neighbouring stall, which they ate with a hearty 

 appetite, keeping nearly as good time with their grinders as the 

 militia did with their muskets. In another place, the crowd had 

 formed a ring, within which they danced to the catgut scrapings of an 



