g}. Whether any of our national peculiarities may be traced to our use
of stoves, as a certain closeness of the lips in pronunciation, and a
smothered smoulderingness of disposition, seldom roused to open flame?
An unrestrained intercourse with fire probably conducive to generosity
and hospitality of soul. Ancient Mexicans used stoves, as the friar
Augustin Ruiz reports, Hakluyt, III., 468,--but Popish priests not
always reliable authority.

To-day picked my Isabella grapes. Crop injured by attacks of rose-bug in
the spring. Whether Noah was justifiable in preserving this class of
insects?

{d}. Concerning Mr. Biglow's pedigree. Tolerably certain that there was
never a poet among his ancestors. An ordination hymn attributed to a
maternal uncle, but perhaps a sort of production not demanding the
creative faculty.

His grandfather a painter of the grandiose or Michael Angelo school.
Seldom painted objects smaller than houses or barns, and these with
uncommon expression.

* * * * *

{e}. Of the Wilburs no complete pedigree. The crest said to be a _wild
boar_, whence, perhaps, the name. (?) A connection with the Earls of
Wilbraham (_quasi_ wild boar ham) might be made out. This suggestion
worth following up. In 1677, John W. m. Expect ----, had issue, 1. John,
2. Haggai, 3. Expect, 4. Ruhamah, 5. Desire.

"Hear lyes y^e bodye of Mrs Expect Wilber,
Y^e crewell salvages they kil'd her
Together w^th other Christian soles eleaven,
October y^e ix daye, 1707.
Y^e stream of Jordan sh' as crost ore
And now expeacts me on y^e other shore:
I live in hope her soon to join;
Her earthlye yeeres were forty and nine."
_From Gravestone in Pekussett, North Parish._

This is unquestionably the same John who afterward (1711) married
Tabitha Hagg or Rag.

But if this were the case, she seems to have died early; for only three
years after, namely, 1714, we have evidence that he married Winifred,
daughter of Lieutenant Tipping.

He seems to have been a man of substance, for we find him in 1696
conveying "one undivided eightieth part of a salt-meadow" in Yabbok, and
he commanded a sloop in 1702.

Those who doubt the importance of genealogical studies _fuste potius
quam argumento erudiendi_.

I trace him as far as 1723, and there lose him. In that year he was
chosen selectman.

No gravestone. Perhaps overthrown when new hearse-house was built, 1802.

He w