had all passed away; and their immediate descendants,
witnesses of their earlier struggles, were whitening with the frosts of
age, and were also rapidly disappearing. If the records of their history
were to be gathered together, and preserved in a durable form, it was
time that the duty be undertaken. He was satisfied that an honorable
record would appear, and worthy of the place to which God had given so
much that is beautiful in nature.

These remarks were so sensible, their spirit was so noble, their form so
forcible, that at once a committee of five was appointed to compile,
write, and supervise the publication of a history of the town, and an
appropriation was made to defray the expense. This committee chose Mr.
J.E.A. Smith to aid them, and, according to the title-page, he compiled
and wrote the book under their general direction. It was published in
two octavo volumes: the first contained five hundred and eighteen pages,
and appeared in 1868, bringing the history from 1734 down to 1800; the
second, containing seven hundred and twenty-five pages, was not
published until eight years later. The second volume brought the history
down to date, and with the first formed an unbroken, readable narrative,
written in perhaps as good a style as town history could warrant us in
expecting. Not the least deserving of praise are the indexes, the lack
of which found in most books of the sort does more to lower their value
than any other defect. The man who writes a history without indexing it
thereby shows his utter lack of the most essential requisite in an
historian--a knowledge of the art of codification. He also calls down
upon his head the curses of every student who tries to use his book.

An abundance of illustrations is not rare enough in town histories to
merit applause, but they are so seldom worth looking at that the
presence of such admirable ones as we find here attracts more than
passing notice. If American art were to be judged by the generality of
such illustrations, we would do well to say as little as possible about
the slurs and sneers of foreign critics. In such case silence would be
the better plan.

The preface to the second volume contained the following suggestive
sentences:--

"The original plan of the work was to make the earlier portions more
full than the later: indeed, to give but a brief skeleton of recent
affairs: it being exceedingly difficult to make contemporary history
satisfactory to those