it was a small perversion of formalities. Joab Patterson was a popular town-clerk, and was frequently reelected, as may be said of other townclerks; and no one was deprived of the liberty of his ballot by Matthew Harvey's remark. But in the same position, there are few men who would take the responsibility of so much freedom of public utterance. In Matthew Harvey's case there was only an indulgence of a light pleasantry; in another's case, it might be a construed usurpation of personal privilege. A match is a very little thing, but it sometimes kindles a great fire.

According to local report, in one instance at least, Matthew Harvey had his instinct of informalism put to a peculiar test. In religion, in early life he had been more or less intimately associated with the Baptist church, which, in its functional ecclesiasticism, has ever been eminently democratic. We can easily conceive that such a church would have offered opportunities congenial to such a man as Matthew Harvey. In Hopkinton, however, he became connected with the Protestant Episcopal church. He subscribed to the ecclesiastical constitution of Christ's church, organized in 1803. Christ's church was truly Protestant Episcopal, but its worship was conducted with a lesser ritualistic exactness than has obtained in St. Andrew's church, reconstructed from the elements of Christ's church in 1827, when Matthew Harvey became a vestryman of the new organization. Rev. Moses B. Chase, founder of St. Andrew's church, introduced into its worship the practice

ceive the communion from the priest. Matthew Harvey was impatient at this innovation. It is said he turned his back in church when the most solemn Christian rite was in progress. We can excuse him, having a large measure of the instinct of informalism. He was perhaps thinking of ritualistic bondage, prelatical usurpation, hierarchical inquisition. Without special evidence in the case, we presume Matthew Harvey overcame his aversion to the eucharistic genuflexion. He perhaps eventually conceived that to reverently kneel and receive a crumb of bread and a drop of wine from the hands of a pious priest does n't defile a man. If any harm results, it is probably in consequence of some debasing motive or monstrous interpretation implied in the act.

Let us now pass from the anecdotal stage of reflection to turn to a positive assertion. Among all the observations made of Matthew Harvey, we have never heard one to his personal hurt. Apparently he had no enemies. Personally considered, this is an admirable fact. Socially entertained, it is suggestive of philosophical deduction. In a legitimate sense, Matthew Harvey must have been a kind of negative character. Had he been a man of eminently positive character, he would have said or done something that would have provoked local controversy, aversion, and animosity. Yet this characteristic negativeness is an important factor in society.

Without instances of its individual illustration, society cannot exist. In Matthew Harvey's case it was of the utmost importance. By it

to go again, for he will return as Persepone from Pluto's kingdom and the dark shades of Orcus sought ever year by year the flowery meads and sylvan streams of Enna-the haunts of her virgin youth. Go where he will, he will return to this place as the Mecca of beauty, the holy tabernacle of lake and hill and cloud.

Asquam, familiarly abbreviated to Squam lake, is not so well known as the Winnipesaukee, its larger and statelier sister, but it is not less worthy of a wide fame and the immortality of verse. In fact, it is considered by good judges the most picturesque of all the lakes in this region. Its islands are numerous, set gemlike in the midst of its purple waves, and glittering with summer green. It lies in the midst of a beautifully fertile valley, surrounded by emerald wooded hills, and overlooked on the north by the towering stony peaks of Whiteface, Passaconaway, and Cho

corua.

All along its shores are picturesque points and coves, and long wooded peninsulas interpose their verdure, cutting off the water vistas up and down. The scenery resembles that of Winnipesaukee, but is more striking. The mountains are nearer and grander. Sloping meadows, luxuriously fertile, are interspersed with cornfields, patches of yellow grain, and masses of woodland. Artists have often sought to render this scenery in all its perfection; but the Divine artist is not easy to copy when He works on a broad scale. One sees effects here in a single week which for their audacity and splendor the most courageous colorist would not dare attempt. Only a Turner or

a Claude Lorraine could do them any manner of justice.

Come up and see Squam, and spend a few days with me," wrote my old friend, Col. Cheney, the first of August. "Come up, and it will go hard if I do not show you some places which for beauty are unmatched in New Hampshire." So I went, and, like the queen of Sheba, I found that the half had not been told me. The whole country is a paradise. For a combination of lake and mountain view there are several scenes around Squam which are not surpassed the world over.

Ashland is forty miles from Concord as the crow flies. It is on the line of the Boston, Concord & Montreal Railroad, and every day the long incoming and outgoing trains deposit loads of tourists, who have come to visit the town and the beautiful lake lying at the gateway of the mountains. The village is a busy manufacturing place. There are several large papermills, a hosiery manufactory, woollenmill, strawboard-mill, lumber and grist-mills, glove and mitten manufactories, besides several other small mechanical shops. There are also two church edifices, ten or a dozen stores of all kinds, a good hotel,—the Squam Lake House, managed by the popular landlord, Charles H. Daniels,-an excellent high school, conducted by Prof. D. C. Durgin, and more than a hundred dwelling-houses. The scenery around Ashland is delightful, affording views wild, romantic, and beautiful. More than Plymouth it is the Conway of the western side of the water-shed, and is destined at no distant day to be a great summer resort.

Ashland is a part of what was once

Holderness, where the memories of the baronial Livermores cluster, and whose name is still a potent spell wherever great deeds and exalted character are venerated. The township, which is small, was taken from Holderness in 1868. Pemigewasset river washes the extreme western part of the town. Squam river, the outlet of Squam lake, runs in a south-west direction, and empties into the Pemigewasset. This river affords some of the best water power in the state, much of which is utilized, though double the capital could be invested on it to good advantage. In one of the paper-mills which is still standing in the village, the father of Col. T. P. Cheney and of ex-Gov. P. C. Cheney both worked at the same time for John Pattee, an early manufacturer, and helped to make the first sheet of paper ever manufactured in Ashland. Another great name beside that of Livermore is connected with this locality. One third of a mile north of Ashland village, on a little knoll in an open grass field, at present owned by Samuel H. Baker, is the grave of Hercules Mooney, a worthy of continental days, and a prominent man in the state for many years. Col. Hercules Mooney was of Lee. He was in the "Seven Years War" in 1757 as captain in Col. Meserve's regiment. Sept. 20, 1776, he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel by the Committee of Safety in a regiment raised for one year, of which Pierse Long was the colonel. This regiment was stationed at Newcastle. The troops were subsequently ordered to Ticonderoga, and the regiment marched to that fortress in February, 1777. From May 28, 1778, to

Aug. 26, 1778, Mooney was a member of the Committee of Safety, and again from Jan. 5, 1779, to April 7, 1779, when he resigned to take command of a regiment ordered from New Hampshire for service in Rhode Island. He was the member from Lee in the house of representatives in 1782. In 1784, or thereabouts, Col. Mooney removed to Holderness, of which he was a grantee, doubtless at the solicitation of his friend, Hon. Samuel Livermore, the magnate of that region, who was trying to build up an Episcopal city in the wilderness. His name occurs in the early records of Holderness as justice of the peace and as selectman. He died the last of the century, and was buried on an April day, in the midst of a terrific snow-storm which blockaded the roads for a week. No monument marks his grave save a piece of rough granite, emblematical of the stern soldier and tried patriot, who served his country well in her time of peril.

Mrs. Betsey Shepard, of Ashland, daughter of the first town-clerk of Holderness, and who has passed her centennial birthday, remembers Col. Mooney well. She states that he was a tall, stately man, rather good looking, and one thoughtful of his appearance. She also remembers the Livermores, Judge Samuel and Judge Arthur. They had almost feudal power, and ruled the town despotically many years. Whatever they said was law and gospel, and unchangeable as the statutes of the Medes and Persians. How have the mighty fallen!

The roads around Ashland are generally good, having a firm foundation,