on the fascination of serpents, in the Medical Repository and American Medical and Philosophical Register. Ile was a contributor to Carey's Museum of several papers on languages and politics. An active promoter of the medical, literary, and philanthropical associations of New York, and of its material interests, especially in his advocacy of the canal policy, he enjoyed the friendship of the excellent society then at its height in New York, the Clintons, Hosacks, Mitchells, and others, till his death in his eightyfifth year, May 22, 1819. In his personal character Williamson was a man of strength and integrity. No one could approach him with flattery or falsehood. The style of his writing is direct and forcible. His appearance was noticeable, tall, dignified, with strongly marked features. His portrait was painted by Trumbull* SAMUEL PETERS. SAMTEL PETERS, the "Parson Peters" of M'Fingal, and the reputed and undoubted author of a History of Connecticut, very generally read, but deservedly much impugned as an authority, belonged to that one family of Peters which has become so widely spread in the country, and of which, in its first generation in America, the celebrated Hugh Peters was the representative. There were three brothers who came to New England in 1634 to avoid star-chamber persecution, William, Thomas, and Hugh. The last succeeded Roger Williams at Salein, repudiating his alleged heresies, and remained there five years, paying much attention to its civil affairs, his proficiency in which led to his being sent to England to regulate some matters of trade in 1641. He there became the active parliamentary leader and preacher, and on the restoration was somewhat unnecessarily beheaded, as a return for his political career. His publications were sermons, reforming pamphlets, and poems. His Good Work for a Good Magistrate, in 1651, contained the radical proposition of burning the historical records in the Tower. Hugh Peters, during his imprisonment in the Tower, wrote a book of religious advice and consolation, addressed to his daughter ElizabethMr. Hugh Peters's Last Legacy to an only Child.† His great nephew, Samuel, says of it, "it was printed and published in Old and New England, and myriads of experienced Christians have read his legacy with ecstasy and health to their souls. No doubt but the book will be had in remeinbrance in America as long as the works of the Assembly of Divines (at Westminster) and the holy Bible." Notwithstanding this prediction it would probably be difficult to procure a copy of the book now. Its spirit may be known by the rules which he sent to his daughter from his prison Biographical Memoir, by Dr. Hosack. Collections of the New York Historical Society, ill. A Dying Father's Last Legacy to an only Child; or Mr. Hugh Peters's Advice to his Daughter: written by his own hand, during his late imprisonment in the Tower of London; And given her a little before his death. London; Printed for G. Calvert and T. Brewster. 1660, History of the Rev. Hugh Peters, TT. Prayers Recreation Memory, so gainful, with Content; No painted Pomp, nor Glory that bewitches; is the best monument: that soars above the Sky, but better pleased to dye. I wish you such a Heart open'd as Lydia's was: who the naked clad; to live yourself to see who must your Saviour be. The son of the eldest brother, William, settled at Hebron, Connecticut, in 1717, where his fifth son, Samuel, was born Dec. 12, 1785. He was graduated at Yale in 1757; travelled the next year to Europe; abandoned the family Puritanismu and became a clergyman of the Church of England in 1760, when he returned to Connecticut, marrying a descendant of learned Dr. John Owen. He had charge of the churches at Hartford and Hebron. In 1774, he was compelled to leave the country Samvel Peters way to England, smarting with the wrongs of the Yankees, and bent on revenge. His design was to accumulate stories of the desperate acts of the people of the state for the government in England, and procure a withdrawal of the Charter. This was suspected by his Connecticut friends, and they made sure of it by intercepting his letters. In one of these, dated Boston, addressed to the Rev. Dr. Auchmuty, of New York, he intimates as in prospect, that "the bounds of New York may directly extend to Connecticut River, Boston meet them, and New Hampshire take the Province of Maine, and Rhode Island be swallowed up as Dathan."*" as a Royalist clergyman. The circumstances of this exit were characteristic of the times. He was considered by the Whigs who were conducting the Revolution, as an arrant Tory, who was meddling with and marring the work of Independence by his communications to his correspon-membering Connecticut, but he punished the na dents in England. If his humorous, voluble style is to be taken as evidence of his conversational powers, his tongue must also have been an unwelcome scourge of his rebellious townspeople. So a committee of the public paid him a domiciliary visit to secure from him a decided declaration of his opinions. Three hundred gathered at his house at Hebron, stated his offences, and hinted at a suit of tar and feathers. It was a committee with power; and they called for books and papers, demanding copies of the letters which he had forwarded, and of the malignant articles which he had sent to the newspapers. They procured from him a declaration in writing, that he had not "sent any letter to the Bishop of London or the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, relative to the Boston Port Bill, or the Tea affair, or the Controversy between Great Britain and the Colonies, and designed not to, during his natural life, as these controversies were out of his business as a clergyman; also, he had not written to England to any other gentleman, or designed Company, nor would he do it.' He gave them up, also, a copy of Thirteen Resolves which he had written for the press, which were found, when they came to be published and read, to be not satisfactory to the public mind. This was in August. In September, he received another visit from a committee, and undertook to defend himself by argument; but they were there to act and not to talk, and referred him to the sovereign people in full assembly without. He addressed the latter convocation in an harangue; and in the midst of it a gun was heard to go off in his house, notwithstanding his declaration that he had no serviceable fire-arins. He was allowed to go on, and another paper was proposed to be signed by him. He prepared one, and it was not satisfactory. The committee requested his signature to one of their own writing, which he declined. To cut short the parley, the whole body broke into the house by door and windows, and seizing Dr. Peters, carried him off to the meetinghouse green, three quarters of a mile away. He was now convinced by this rough logic, and signed the required docuinent. "During the affair," we are told, "his gown and shirt were torn, one sash of his house was somewhat shattered, a table was turned over, and a punch-bowl and glass were broken," After this the Doctor fled to Boston, on his • Sabine's Loyalista, Art. Peters, Doctor Peters did not carry his point of dis tives almost as effectually by writing a book-his history of the State. It was published anony mously, but it was as plainly Peters's as if every page had been subscribed by him, like the extorted declarations. Looked at as history, we may say it is unreliable; but regarded as a squib, which the author almost had the opportunity of writing with quills plucked from his writhing body, and planted there by his over-zealous brethren of Hebron, it is vastly enjoyable and may be forgiven. The General History of Connecticut is as good, in its way, as Knickerbocker's New York. The full-mouthed, humorous gravity of its style is ir resistible. Its narrations are independent of tine, place, and probability. A sober critic would go mad over an attempt to correct its misstatements; though the good Dr. Dwight thought the subject once of importance enough to do something of the kind in his Travels, where he amends the historian's account of the magnificent flight of steps which led up to the church at Greenwich, by stating that they were simply stones of the street placed there to protect visitors from the mud. In the reprint of the work at New Haven, in 1829, illustrated by eight very remarkable engravings, there is a species of apologetic preface, which would lift the work into the dignity of history, after making liberal allowances for the author's "excited feelings," and particularly his revenge upon the Trumbull family for “that notable tetrastic," which was put into the mouth of the hero by the author of M'Fingal:— What warnings had ye of your duty, But all this will not do. What are we to think of a sober writer, on the eve of the nineteenth century, publishing such a geographical statement Sabine's Loyalista, 584. A General History of Connecticut; from its First Settlement, under George Fenwick, Esq., to its latest period of amity with Great Britain, including a description of the Country, and many curious and interesting Anecdotes; to which is added an Appendix, wherein new and the true sources of the present Rebellion in America are pointed out; together with the particular part taken by the People of Connecticut in its Proinotion. By a Gentleman of the Province. Plus apud me ratio valebit, quam vulgi opinio.-Cic. London, printed for the author. Sold by J. Bew, 1761. "This is the building pompously exhibited in that mass of folly and falsehood commonly called Peters's History of Connecticut."-Dwight's Travels, lil. 485, of a well known river as that which we place in italics in the following paragraph:— The middle river is named Connecticut, after the great Sachem to whom that part of the province through which it runs belonged. This vast river is 500 miles long, and four miles wide at its mouth: its channel, or inner banks, in general, half a mile wide. It takes its rise from the White Hills, in the north of New England, where also springs the river Kennebec. Above 500 rivulets, which issue from lakes, ponds, and drowned lands, fall into it; many of them are larger than the Thames at London. In March, when the rain and sun melt the snow and ice, each stream is overcharged, and kindly hastens to this great river, to overflow, fertilize, and preserve its trembling meadows They lift up enormous cakes of ice, bursting from their frozen beds with threatening intentions of plowing up the frighted earth, and carry them rapidly down the falls, where they are dashed in pieces and rise in mist. Except at these falls, of which there are five, the first sixty miles from its mouth, the river is navigable throughout. In its northern parts are three great bendings, called cohosses, about 100 miles asunder. Two hundred miles from the Sound is a narrow of five yards only, formed by two shelving mountains of solid rock, whose tops intercept the clouds. Through this chasm are compelled to pass all the waters which in the time of the floods bury the northern country. At the upper cohos the river then spreads several miles wide, and for five or six weeks ships of war might sail over lands, that afterwards produce the greatest crops of hay and grain in all America. People who can bear the sight, the groans, the tremblings, and surly motion of water, trees, and ice, through this awful passage, view with astonishment one of the greatest phenomenons in nature. Here water is consolidated, without frost, by pressure, by swiftness, between the pinching, sturdy rocks, to such a degree of induration, that an iron crow floats smoothly down its current:-here iron, lead, and cork, have one common weight :—here, steady as time, and harder than marble, the stream passes irresisti ble, if not swift, as lightning:-the electric fire rends trees in pieces with no greater ease, than does this mighty water. The passage is about 400 yards in length, and of a zigzag form, with obtuse corners. or how can we accept for anything but a wag the narrator of this marvel at Windham: Windham resembles Rumford, and stands on Winnomantic river. Its meeting-house is elegant, and has a steeple, bell, and clock. Its court-house is scarcely to be looked upon as an ornament. The township forms four parishes, and is ten miles, square. Strangers are very much terrified at the hideous noise made on summer evenings by the vast number of frogs in the brooks and ponds. There are about thirty different voices among them; some of which resemble the bellowing of a ball. The owls and whippoorwills complete the rough concert, which may be heard several miles Persons accustomed to such serenades are not disturbed by them at their proper stations; but one night, in July, 1758, the frogs of an artificial pond, three miles square, and about five from Windham, finding the water dried up, left the place in a body, and marched, or rather hopped towards Winnomantic river. They were under the necessity of taking the road and going through the town, which they entered about midnight. The bull frogs were the leaders, and the pipers followed without number. They filled a road The con 40 yards wide for four miles in length, and were for several hours in passing through the town, unusually clamorous. The inhabitants were equally perplexed and frightened; some expected to find an army of French and Indians; others feared an earthquake, and dissolution of nature. sternation was universal. Old and young, male and female, fled naked from their beds with worse shriekings than those of the frogs. The event was fatal to several women. The men, after a flight of half a mile, in which they met with many broken shins, finding no enemies in pursuit of them, made a halt, and summoned resolution enough to venture back to their wives and children; when they distinctly heard from the enemy's camp these words, Wight, Hilderken, Dier, Tete. This last they thought meant treaty; and plucking up courage, they sent a triumvirate to capitulate with the supposed French and Indians. These three men approached in their shirts, and begged to speak with the general; but it being dark, and no answer given, they were sorely agitated for some time betwixt hope and fear; at length, however, they discovered that the dreaded inimical army was an army of thirsty frogs, going to the river for a little water. Such an incursion was never known before nor since; and yet the people of Windham have been ridiculed for their timidity on this occasion. I verily believe an army under the Duke of Marlborough, would, under like circumstances, have acted no better than they did. His story of Old Put and the Wolf too has some variations from acknowledged versions: We read that David slew a lion and a bear, and afterwards that Saul trusted him to fight Goliath. In Pomfret lives Col. Israel Putnam, who slew a shebear and her two cubs with a billet of wood. The bravery of this action brought him into public notice: and, it seems, he is one of fortune's favorites. The story is as follows:-In 1754, a large she-bear came in the night from her den, which was three miles from Mr. Putnam's house, and took a sow out of a pen of his. The sow, by her squeaking, awoke Mr. Putnam, who hastily ran to the poor creature's relief; but before he could reach the pen, the bear had left it, and was trotting away with the sow in her mouth. Mr. Putnam took up a billet of wood, and followed the screamings of the sow, till he came to the foot of the mountain, where the den was Dauntless he entered the horrid cavern; and, after walking and crawling upon his hands and knees for fifty yards, came to a roomy cell, where the bear met him with great fury. He saw nothing but the fire of her eyes; but that was sufficient for our hero: he accordingly directed his blow, which at once proved fatal to the bear and saved his own life at a most critical moment. Putnam then discovered and killed two cubs; and having, though in Egyptian darkness, dragged them and the dead sow, one by one, out of the cave, he went home, and calmly reported to his family what had happened. The neighbors declared, on viewing the place by torchlight, that his exploit exceeded those of Sampson or David. Soon afterwards the General Assembly ap pointed Mr. Putnam a Lieutenant in the Army marching against Canada. Ilis courage and good conduct raised him to the rank of Captain the next year. The third year he was made a Major; and the fourth a Colonel. Putnam and Rogers were the heroes through the last war. Putnam was so hardy, at a time when the Indians had killed all his men, and completely hemmed him in upon a river, as to leap into a stream, which in a minute carried him down a stupendous fall, where no tree could pass without being torn in pieces. The Indians reasona bly concluded that Putnam, their terrible enemy, was dead, and made their report accordingly at Ticonderoga; but soon after, a scouting party found their sad mistake in a bloody rencontre. Some few that got off declared that Putnam was yet living, and that he was the first son of llobbamockow, and therefore immortal. However, at length the Indians took this terrible warrior prisoner, and tied him to a tree; where he hung three days without food or drink. They did not attempt to kill him for fear of offending Hobbamockow; but they sold him to the French at a great price. The name of Putnan was more alarming to the Indians than cannon, and they never would fight him after his escape from the falls. He was afterwards redeemed by the English. The sketch of the manners of the country is amusing. Passing over some graver topics we light upon this picture of a courtship. An English gentleman, during a short residence in a certain town, had the good luck to receive some civilities from the Deacon, Minister, and Justice. The Deacon had a daughter, without beauty, but sensible and rich. The Briton (for that was the name he went by), having received a present from the West Indies, of some pine-apples and sweetmeats, sent his servant with part of it to the Deacon's daughter, to whom at the same time he addressed a complimentary note, begging Miss would accept the pine-apples and sweetmeats, and wishing he might be able to make her a better present. Miss, on reading the note, was greatly alarmed, and exclaimed Mama! Mama! Mr. Briton has sent me a love-letter." The mother read the note, and shewed it to the Deacon; and, after due consideration, both agreed in pronouncing it a love-letter. The lawyer, justice, and parson, were then sent for, who in couacil weighed every word in the note, together with the golden temptation which the lady possessed, and were of opinion that the writer was in love, and that the note was a love-letter, but wordel so carefully that the law could not punish Briton for attempting to court Miss without obtaining her parents' consent. The parson wrung his hands, rolled up his eyes, shrugged up his shoulders, groane 1 out his hypocritical grief, and said, "Deacon, I hope you do not blame me for having been the innocent cause of your knowing this imprudent and haughty Briton. There is something very odd in all the Britons; but I thought this man had some prudence and modesty: however, Deacon," putting his hand on his breast, and bowing with a pale, deceitful face, "I shall in future shun all the Britons, for they are all strange creatures." The lawyer and justice made their apologies, and were sorry that Briton did not consider the quality of the Deacon's daughter before he wrote his letter. Miss, all ap prehension and tears, at finding no punishment could reach Briton in the course of law, cried out to her counsellors, “Who is Briton? Am I not the Deacon's daughter? What have I done that he should take such liberties with me? Is he not the natural son of some priest or foundling? Ought he not to be exposed for his assurance to the Deacon's daughter!" Her words took effect. The council voted that they would show their contempt of Briton by neglecting him for the time to come. On his return home, the parson, after many and great signs of surprise, informed his wife of the awful event which had happened by the imprudence of Briton. She VOL. 1.-18 soon communicated the secret to her sister gossips, prudently cautioning them not to report it as from her. But, not content with that, the parson himself went among all his acquaintance, shaking his head and saying "O Sirs! have you heard of the strange conduct of friend Britoa?-how he wrote a loveletter, and sent it with some pine-apples to the Deacon's daughter? My wife and I had a great friendship for Briton, but cannot see him any more." Thus the afflicted parson told this important tale to every one except Briton, who, from his ignorance of the story, conducted himself in his usual manner towards his supposed friends, though he observed they had a show of haste and business whenever he met with any of them. Happily for Briton, he de pended not on the Deacon, Minister, or Colony, for his support. At last, a Scotchman heard of the evil tale, and generously told Briton of it, adding that the parson was supposed to be in a deep decline merely from the grief and fatigue he had endured in spreading it. Briton thanked the Scotchman, and called on the friendly parson to know the particu lars of his offence. The parson, with sighs, bows, and solemn smirkings, answered, "Sir, the fact is, you wrote a love-letter to the Deacon's daughter, without asking her parents' consent, which has givea great offence to that lady, and to all her acquaintance, of whom I and my wife have the honor to be reckoned a part." Briton kept his temper. “So then," said he, "I have offended you by my insolent note to the Deacon's daughter! I hope my sin is venial. Pray, Sir, have you seen my note?" "Yes," replied the parson, “to my grief and sorrow: could not have thought you so imprudent, had I not seen and found the note to be your own writing." "How long have you known of this offence!" "Some months." Why, Sir, did you not seasona " bly adinonish me for this crime?" "I was so hurt and grieved, and my friendship so great, I could not bear to tell you." Mr. Briton then told the parson, that his friendship was so fine and subtle, it was invisible to an English eye; and that Gospel ministers in England did not prove their friendship by telling calumnious stories to everybody but the per son concerned. But I suppose," added he, "this is genuine New England friendship, and merits thanks more than a supple-jack!" The parson, with a leering look, sneaked away towards his wife; and Briton left the colony without any civil or ecclesiastical punishment, telling the Scotchman that the Deacon's daughter had money, and the parson faith without eyes, or he should never have been accused of making love to one who was naturally so great an enemy to Cupid. Of such or worse sort being the reception foreign settlers may expect from the inhabitants of Connecticut, it is no wonder that few or none choose to venture among them. As a satirical and humorous writer Peters certainly had his merits; and with all its nonsense there is some sharpened sly inspection” in his pages. 66 When the war was ended, Peters was chosen in 1794, bishop, by a convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Vermont, and accepted the office; but, on the ground that the act of Parlia ment limited the number of bishops for America, the Archbishop of Canterbury declined his consecration. Dr. Peters had gone so far, not only as to accept the proffered call, but to write an Episcopal letter, his pen armed with all the graces and dignity of St. Paul. He addresses his epistle "to the churches of Christ spread abroad in the State of Vermont, mercy, peace, and love be multiplied;" and goes on with an apostolic unction, the humor of which is irresistible when we consider Saint Paul, Dr. Peters, and that the writer was no bishop after all. He was only trying on the mitre. "Until I come," writes he, parodying the Apostle, "give attendance to reading, prayer, and faith. When present with you, by the grace of God, I will lead you through the wilderness of life, up to a world that knows no sorrow. I will guide you with mine eye, and feed your lambs and sheep, with bread While more durable than the everlasting hills. absent from you in body I am present with you in mind, thanking God always in every prayer of mine, and making request with joy for your fellowship in the gospel of his Son; that you may be of good cheer, and overcome a world yielding no content, the only wealth of man; and that you may know how to be abased, and how to abound; everywhere and in all things to be instructed to obey the laws of Christ. The spirit which heals all our infirmities, no doubt led you to glorify God in me, when you appointed the least of all saints to fill the highest station in the Church of Jesus Christ; duty and inclination (with feeble blood flowing in my veins) inspire my soul to seek and do you good in that sacred office to which you have invited me; being confident that you will receive me with all gladness, and hold me in reputation for the work of Christ, which brought me near to death, and shall finally **Should my make you my glory and my joy. insufficiency in spiritual and scientific knowledge appear too manifest among you, my zeal and labors in the vineyard of the Lord shall, I trust, be your pride and boast: in this hope, and resting on the candor, order, morality, learning, piety, and religion of those over whom I am well chosen to preside, I shall with some degree of confidence undertake the charge, and claim the wisdom of the wise to enlighten my understanding, and the charity and prayers of ali to remove any wants, and to lessen my manifold imperfections. Salute one another with faith and love." Peters seems to have resided in England till 1805, when he returned to America. He published in New York, in 1807, his History of the Rev. Hugh Peters.† a book which is set forth as a vindication of the character of that parliamentary divine. The appendix contains some interesting notices of his own, and of some of the royalist families in America. The calculation of the rapid growth of the Peters fanaly in the country is curious. As a specimen of his waggery and skill in telling a story we may quote his account of an interview between Ward, the simple cobbler of Agawam, and Cotton Mather. 1 The Rev. Mr. Ward, being an eminent Puritan in England, disliked the spiritual and star-chamber courts under the control of the hierarchy of England; he fled to New England, and became minister of Agawam, an Indian village, making the west The Churchman's Magazine, N. Y. June, 1807. Art. Supplement to American Episcopate. With an A History of the Rev. Hugh Peters, A.M., Arch-Intendant of the Prerogative Court of Doctors' Commons; member of the celebrated Assembly of Divines at the Savoy, Westminster; and Principal Chaplain to the Lord Protector and to the Lords and House of Commons, from the year 1640 to 1660. Appendix. By the Rev. Samuel Peters, LL.D. praise famous men, and our fathers who begut us: the Lord hath wrought great glory by them."-Eccles, aliv, New York: Printed for the Author. 1807. "Let us part of Springfield, in the State of Massachusetts He was an exact scholar, a meck, benevolent, ard charitable Christian. He used the Indians with justice and tenderness, and established one of the best towns on Connecticut river. He was free from: hypocrisy, and stiff bigotry, which then domineered in New England, and which yet remain at Hadley and Northampton, not much to the credit of morality and piety. Mr. Ward had a large share of Hudibrastic wit, and much pleasantry with his gravity. This appears in his history of Agawain, wherein he satirized the prevailing superstition of the times; which did more good than Dr. Mather's book, entitled, Stilts for Dwarfs in Christ to Wade through the Mud, or his Magnalia, with his other twentyfour books. His posterity are many, and have done their part in the pulpit, in the field, and at the bar, in the six States of New England, and generally have followed the charitable temper of their venerable ancestor, and seldom fail to lash the avarice of the clergy, who are often recommending charity and hospitality to the needy stranger, and at the same time never follow their own advice to others. Mr. Ward, of Agawam, has left his children an example worthy of imitation. The story is thus related: Dr. Mather, of Boston, was constantly exhorting his hearers to entertain strangers, for by doing so they might entertain angels. But it was remarked, that Dr. Mather never entertained strangers, nor gave any relief to beggars. This report reached Mr. Ward, of Agawam, an intimate chum of the Doctor while at the university. Ward said he hoped it was not true; but resolved to discover the truth; therefore he set off for Boston on foot, one hundred and twenty miles, and arrived at the door of Dr. Mather on Saturday evening, when most people were in bed, and knocked at the door, which the maid opened. Ward said, “I come from the country, to hear good Dr. Mather preach to-morrow, I am hungry, and thirsty, without money, and I beg the good Doctor will give me relief and a bed in his house until the Sabbath is over." The maid replied, "The Doctor is in his study, it is Saturday night, the Sabbath is begun, we have no bed, or victuals, for ragged beggars," and shut the door upon him. Mr. Ward again made use of the kocker: the maid went to the Doctor, and told him there was a sturdy beggar beating the door, who insisted on coming in and staying there over the Sabbath. The Doctor said, "Tell him to depart, or a constable shall conduct him to a prison." The maid obeyed the Doctor's order; and Mr. Ward said, "I will not leave the door until I have seen the Dector." This tumult roused the Doctor, with his black velvet cap on his head, and he came to the door and opened it, and said, "Thou country villain, how dare you knock thus at my door after the Sab bath has begun?" Mr. Ward replied, "Sir, I am a stranger, hungry and moneyless; pray take me in, until the holy Sabbath is past, so that I may hear one of your godly sermons.' The Doctor said, Vagrant, go thy way, and trouble me no more; I will not break the Sabbath by giving thee food and lodging," and then shut the door. The Doctor had scarcely reached his study, when Ward began to exercise the knocker with continued violence. Doctor, not highly pleased, returned to the door and said, "Wretched being, why dost thou trouble me thus? what wilt thou have " Ward replied, "Entertainment in your house until Monday morning." The Doctor said, “You shall not, therefore go thy way." Mr. Ward replied, "Sir, ns that point is settled, pray give me a sixpence or a shilling, The Doctor and a piece of bread and incat." " The |