the benediction which either the choice of those who rest
beneath it, or the congenial tribute of some survivor, has selected to
close the epitaph. Only traces of the cellar of the mansion-house and of
its garden-plot are now visible to mark the home where the Chief
Magistrates of Massachusetts and Connecticut, father and son, had lived
together and had matured the "conclusions" on which they exiled
themselves.

A monstrous and idle tradition, heard by the visitor, as he surveyed the
outlines of his ancestral home, prompted him to that labor of love which
he has so felicitously performed, and with such providential helps, in a
biography. The absurdity of the tradition, equally defiant as it is of
the consistencies of character and the facts of chronology, is a warning
to those who rely on these floating confoundings of fact and fiction,
which, as some one has said, "are almost as misleading as history." Two
hundred years and more had seen that manor-house deserted of its former
occupants. The neighboring residents had kept their name in remembrance,
more, probably, through the help of the tomb than of the dwelling.
Speculation and romance would deal with them as an extinct or an exiled
family. The story had become current on the spot, that the Winthrops
were regicides, and had fled to America, having, however, buried some
precious hoard of money about their premises before their flight. Our
author suggests the altogether likely idea that a suspicion might have
attached to him as having come over to search for that treasure. Little
may he have imagined what thoughts may have distracted the reverence of
some of his humble fellow-worshippers in Groton Church who whispered the
nature of his errand one to another. Our honored Governor and his son of
Connecticut had been near a score of years on this soil before Charles
I. was beheaded. Mr. Savage informs us that he was once asked by a
descendant of the father whether he had received before his death
tidings of the execution of his old master. The annotator is able to
quote a letter from Roger Williams, "to his honored kind friend, Mr.
John Winthrop at Nameag," [New London,] lettered on the back, "Mr.
Williams of ye high news about the king." This letter, conveying recent
tidings, was dated at Narragansett, June 26, 1649, two months after the
elder Winthrop had died in Boston.

It was but natural that even the absurdity of the tradition lingering
around the traces of the Gr