Of this territory, of which we have established the age in such satisfactory and substantial fashion, the State of Maine makes nearly one-half-thirtythree thousand square miles. The peoIple of Maine call it the "State of Maine,' with a certain pride and frequency not observable in other States. You say Delaware did this or Ohio did that, when a Maine man is a little apt to say, "the State of Maine " did this and the "State of Maine" did that. This is because from near the beginning until 1820 it was the District, or vernacular "Deestrict," of Maine. Under the operation of what is known as the Missouri Compromise in our politics, it was then set apart as a State. And the older people still remember with pride that it is no longer the "Deestrict," but it is the State of Maine-a pride which asserts itself even when they are unconscious of what they are saying.

Maine and Vermont are virtually the youngest of the New England States. This is because in practice people did not like to go into wildernesses to settle them, although they knew very well what happy homes they would make. They did not like to, while there was any fear

of French attack upon the North. The French always brought Indians with them. And you may charge it to the French religion or not, as you choose, but the savage warfare which they carried on under French direction was of the most horrible kind. If anybody cares, it is to be observed that the hatred of the Roman Catholic Church which existed formerly in New England was due to the memory that the

savage raids of

the eighteenth century were in all instances mixed up with French invasion, and were ascribed by the sufferers, more or less, to the machinations of Latin priests. But with General Wolfe at Quebec in 1759 such French domination practically ended-no more terror of savage warfare. And then New Hampshire people were glad enough to leave their gravel and rock for the fertile valleys of Vermont, and the Massachusetts people glad enough to send their emigrants up into the valley of the Kennebec and Penobscot. Before that time Maine was simply a fringe of seaboard towns.

My father was a born geographer, and before he died he found, rather to his own surprise, I think, that he was a great engineer. I am apt to think that I and my children inherit from him certain tastes and habits which our nearest friends sometimes venture to call Bohemian.

What I know is that I was born in the month of April, 1822, and that before I was four months old he had taken us all to Exeter, New Hampshire, a place marked with vermilion in the annals of our family. There he left my mother

This expedition was the first bit of travel which ever took me outside of Massachusetts. I do not affect to remember the New Hampshire of that time, but I like to record this adventure. A charming cousin of mine, one of the finest women of the century, used to tell me with amusement that she had made my acquaintance there and then, while I still wore the simpler garments of babyhood. Let this be the prelude to these memories of my own dealings afterwards with the different States of New England.

First of Maine. "Dirigo, I lead," is the fine motto of that State. Its people have no reason to be ashamed of it or to blush because their fathers chose it. It means, if you are modest, that Maine begins the list of the United States, because in those days men began at the north and repeated the list from north to south. So it was Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont. In these days the Pacific State of Washington runs farther north, to the parallel of 49. But in the days of the District of Maine no State ran so near the North Pole as she did. So Maine does lead for every school-boy

there.

and every schoolgirl of America. If, again, anybody cares, one of Samuel Hale's grandsons moved out into eastern Maine, while one of his sons moved into Connecticut. The son of this Connecticut man was my grandfather. And he was cousin, if you please, of the grandfather of those men from Maine who now find their companions in Senates and stand unawed before kings. But I did not know that when I first went

I believe I only mention it now to say that the Hales of Maine are our sort of Hales; the Hales of New Hampshire are of the sort of the distinguished lady I have spoken of, and are also of our kind of Hales, "the Hales who do not have sugar in their coffee." The Hales of Vermont are of the Newbury Hales, which means Thomas the Glover. They also are admirable people, and they have a Nathan Hale of their own who was a Captain Nathan Hale of the Revolution, and died on a prison ship in New York harbor and shall be spoken of hereafter. My son Philip is an artist. He was in a New York gallery one day when it was what the artists call "varnishing day," and a lady, referring to his picture, said, "So you have come to New York to be hanged, Mr. Hale." "Yes," said he; "that is the way the Hales usually come."

Perhaps it is as well to say that the Massachusetts Hales are some of them of one kind and some of another, and yet a third belong to the Rehoboth Hales.

The Rhode Island Hales are mostly Rehoboth Hales. Besides the Coventry Hales in Connecticut, of whom I am, and the Ashford Hales, who are

is now generally called the shower of the Leonids. And we did so, eight of us of the college class of 1839, on the Delta of those days. What says the poem of that day?

Our Chase and our Channing
The Northwest are scanning,
While the cold wind is fanning

Their faces upturned.
While our Hurd and our Hale,
With watching turned pale,
Are looking toward Yale

Where all these things burned.
And Morison and Parker
Cry out to the marker,
One yet black and darker
From zenith above.

While Adams and Longfellow,
Watching the throng below,
Won't all night long allow

Black meteors move.

All the rest of us insisted that there were black meteors as well as white ones. This opinion has been confirmed since then. Our observatory was a

square table, just where the statue of John Harvard sits in bronze to-day. North, south, east, and west of the table were four chairs, facing in those directions, and in them sat four of the club. A fifth, with a lantern on the table, recorded the observations. If any one wants to see them, he can look in Silliman's Journal of the next January, or in the Bulletins of the Astronomical Department of the French Academy of Sciences. That was my first appearance on that August record. The little club of observers called itself the Octagon Club. Chase afterwards won distinction as a mathematician. Morison was Provost of the Peabody Library at Baltimore, Adams distinguished himself as a lawyer before his early death, Longfellow was the preacher and hymn-writer, and Parker and Hurd every man's friends. We have never printed till now their "Octagonal Scribblings."