stretched its pedigree back through the royal and tory governors of New Hampshire, to the gifted Earl of Strafford, the hapless friend of Charles I. She possessed intellect of no common order, rapid perceptions, strong retentive powers, facility of seizing knowledge almost by intuition, and a command of language comprising somewhat of histrionic force. Her mind, but little disciplined by education, sprang to its results without intermediate toil, and in its flights of fancy and originality of thought revealed the true impulses of genius.
By this fair young mother I was received with a joy that remembered not the anguish which for three days and nights had threatened to terminate her life; and by my father, usually grave beyond his years, with an amazement of delight and gratitude. Their first gift to me was the name of the early-smitten consort, consecrated by the baptismal water from the hand of the Rev. Dr. Joseph Strong, in the church of the old town, under the gray cliffs, ere the second week of my infant pilgrimage was completed. Such was the custom of those days. Before the moon had filled her horn, which, perchance, hung its faintest crescent over the cradle, the new babe must be presented to the priest, in the great congregation. During the early periods of colonial existence it was thought proper that the day of its birth should be also that of its baptism. A venerable friend, whose advent was during the coldest
