land, praying that they might come, and when Winthrop, ten
years afterwards, sailed, he took them all on board, and if the little
State of Massachusetts has done anything to carry out the principles of
the men who landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620, why, some little part of
the credit is due to my humble ancestry. [Laughter and applause.]

* * * * *

BOSTON

[Speech of Edward Everett Hale, D.D., at the first annual dinner of the
New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, December 21, 1880. The
President, Benjamin D. Silliman, in proposing the toast, "Boston,"
said: "We are favored with the company of a typical and eloquent
Bostonian, identified with all that is learned and benevolent in that
ancient home of the Puritans, and familiar with all its notions. In
response to the toast, we call on the Rev. Edward Everett Hale."]

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--I am sure that there is not a
Boston boy who hears me to-night who does not recollect that when he
went out to his first Pilgrim dinner, or to see Fanny Kemble or to any
other evening dissipation of fifty years ago, the last admonition of his
mother was, "We will leave the candle burning for you, John, but you
must be sure and be home before twelve o'clock!" I am sure that the
memory of this admonition is lingering among our friends now, that we
are entering on the small hours, and that I must only acknowledge your
courtesy and sit down. I feel, indeed, all along in your talk of hoar
antiquity, that I owe my place here only to your extreme hospitality. In
these aged cities you may well say to me, "You Bostonians are children.
You are of yesterday," as the Egyptians said to the Greek traveller. For
we are still stumbling along like little children, in the anniversaries
of our quarter-millennium; but we understand perfectly well that the
foundations of this city were laid in dim antiquity. I know that nobody
knows when Brooklyn was founded. Your commerce began so long ago that
nobody can remember it, but I know that there was a beaver trap on every
brook in Kings County, while Boston was still a howling wilderness.
These noble ancestors of yours had made themselves at home on Plymouth
Rock before we had built a flat-boat on any river in Massachusetts Bay.
[Applause.]

It is only as the youngest daughter, quite as a Cinderella, that we of
Boston have any claim on your matchless hospitality. But, as Cinderella
should, we ha