erty. The explanation of this is found in the character of the testator, as indicated in a letter to Colonel Weare by one of his wealthy friends in Portsmouth, John Wendell, who wrote under date of June 29, 1778:

My circumstances place me beyond a dependence, and a private life is the summit of my ambition, to enjoy the blessings of society without the arduous weight of governmental matters to disturb my peace. You, my dear Sir, I honor and respect for your stability and firmness, and, as one of the community, I thank you for your wisdom and advice to my country. Truly sensible I am that you have sunk a fortune and exposed a large family to danger of being ruined, only by your close attention to the public.

The fortune which the patriotic Weare "sunk" was rather in expectation than in possession; but in 1754, when he went with another Portsmouth friend, older than himself, as Wendell was younger, Judge Theodore Atkinson, to the first American Congress at Albany, where they met Dr. Franklin, Hutchinson and Governor Shirley from Massachusetts, and young Thomas Pownall, who preceded Hutchinson and succeeded Shirley as Governor of Massachusetts, Colonel Weare had as good a prospect as any of his colleagues of amassing a fortune. But in the French and Indian war, which at once followed the Albany Congress, and in the Revolutionary struggle that soon came on, Weare attended to the public business, and allowed his own affairs to remain as they were. The testimony of William Plumer, of the same Rockingham County, who entered public life under Weare, and succeeded him a quarter-century later as governor, is even more emphatic than Wendell's, inasmuch as Plumer was apt to record the faults of men with more relish than their virtues. He wrote of Weare in 1820:

From the Declaration of Independence to the close of the war, Judge Weare was invested, at the same time, with the highest offices, legislative, judicial and executive, and continued in them by annual elections. The various offices which he held, during the long period of forty-five years, made him not proud or haughty. They did not change his mind, manners, or mode of living: his old mansion house remained unpainted, its ancient furniture was still used, and he continued to the last the same modest, unassuming man. From all his offices, and with all his prudence, he added not a cent to his property, which at death did not exceed that of a good common farmer.

I may add that Colonel Weare did paint the substantial house which he built for his eldest son, on the Shaw lands that had come to Samuel Weare from the estate of his grandfather and namesake, Deacon Samuel Shaw, and which, about one hundred years ago, became the property of my grandfather's brother, whose descendants still occupy it. This house, as I first remember it, still bore that faint colonial yellow tinge with which Colonel Weare had colored it for his son's occupation, I suppose, about 1760. But let us see with what books, and at what values, this New Hampshire Aristides carried on his public duties, and solaced his private hours. As listed and appraised by the officers of the Probate Court, his neighbors and kinsmen, this was the

About eighty-five volumes valued at £21.16.4, or about $72.00.

These books and pamphlets are about equally divided between law, politics, and divinity, with a few poems thrown in, and a slight sprinkling of Latin, French, and Hebrew, of all which languages Weare had some knowledge, the whole valued in 1786 at less than $80; although single volumes, offered for sale now, might bring half that sum. Mather's Manuductio sells, I think, for $20. Several other rare books are in the list, though they were not rare at that time. Many, no doubt, were presentation copies. The cost price of the whole may have been $120. Some of the books had been his father's or grandfather's.

No full list of the library of President Langdon exists, so far as I know. In his will, dated October 26, 1797, made, like his friend Weare's, but five weeks before his death, Dr. Langdon thus directed:

It is my will that none of the Old Books of my Library be sold at Public Vendue, but when my children have selected such as will be most useful to them, the rest may be left with the Church as the begiuning of a Library for my successors in the Ministry.

Probably the original number of books and pamphlets exceeded three hundred, and may have been five hundred. Those remaining in the parsonage during my boyhood were above two hundred; but after removal to the new church, which saved them from being burnt in the parsonage, they were reduced in number by borrowings and by the church mouse, so that when I made the following catalogue, in August 1855, for Rev. Theodore Parker, of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society in Boston, who purchased a few of them from Charles Newell Healey, a cousin of Mrs. C. H. Dall (then on the church committee at Hampton Falls), there were but ninety-five bound volumes and one hundred and forty-five pamphlets. Several of the latter were afterwards included in volumes. I have annexed to the titles the price offered by Mr. Parker for some works, but which he actually bought I cannot say. They are now, no doubt, if purchased by him, in the Boston Public Library. Few of Dr. Langdon's own works were in the collection fifty-four years ago; but I picked up a few of those among his former parishioners.

The Ministerial Library in 1855.

1. Folios, English and Latin, with a few Greek Texts. In Librum Psalmorum Joannis Calvini Commentarius. Cum Hebræo Latinoque Contextu. No title; date of preface, 1557.

Benedicti Ariæ Montani Hispalensis Commentaria in duodecim prophetas. Nunc tandem ab ipso auctore recognita. Antwerpiæ ex Officina Christ. Plantini. 1583.

Joannis Calvini Prælectiones in Librum Prophetiarum Jeremiæ et Lamentationes. Joannis Budæi et Caroli Jonuillæ labore et industria excerptæ. Tertia Editio. Genevæ. Apud Hæred. Eustath. Vignon,

Eicasmi, seu Meditationes J. Foxi in S. Apocalypsin. No titlepage. Dedicated to Archbishop Whitgift. For this T. Parker offered $1. An Exposition upon the Epistle to the Colossians. By N. Byfield. London, 1617.

Acta Synodi Nationalis in Nomine Domini nostri Dordrechti habitæ. Anno 1618 et 1619. Lugduni Batavorum. Typis Isaaci Elzeviri, 1620. $1 offered. This was the famous synod of Dort.

Harmonia Evangelica a M. Chemnitio inchoata, et per Polycarpum Lyserum continuata. Accessit Commentarius Johannis Gerhardi. Genevæ. Hæred. Jacobi Berjon. 1628.

Davidis Parei Opera Theologica. Praefixa est Narratio Historica de Vita et Obitu D. Davidis Parei, conscripta a Phillippo Parei, D. F. Væuit in Bibliopolo Hæredum Jona Rosa. No date, but about 1635.

Novum Testamentum sive Novum Foedus, Cujus Græco contextui respondent Interpretationes duæ, una, vetus, altera, Theodori Beza. Cum Beze et Camerarii Annotationibus. Cantabrigiæ. Ex Officina Rog. Danielis. 1642.

Discourses. Author unknown. Titlepage gone. 1400 pages. I

think I recall as a boy that it was the work of the Puritan divine, Goodwin, with this inscription: "This Book was left by the Rev'd Josiah Bayley for the use of those who tarry at the Meeting House between Meetings, to Read in if they are so Disposed." Mr. Bayley was a young minister from Newbury, who graduated at Harvard in 1752, and was settled at Hampton Falls in October 1757. He died there in 1762; and this book must have been transferred from the old Meeting House near Colonel Weare's, to the newer one near Dr. Langdon's parsonage, built in 1769, where the retired President of Harvard began to preach in 1780-81. A long quarrel over the two houses and parsonages was thus settled and peace again prevailed.

A Modest Inquiry into the Mystery of Iniquity. By H. More, D.D. London, 1664.

Exercitations upon the Epistle to the Hebrews. By J. Owen, D.D. London, 1674.

An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews. J. Owen, D.D. London, 1680.

Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God. By Stephen Charnock. London, 1682.

The Works of Stephen Charnock, D.D. Two Volumes. Portrait. London, 1684.

Explication to the Catechism of the Church of England. Part I. By Gabriel Towerson. London, 1685.

Explication of the Catechism of the Church of England. Gabriel Towerson. London, 1688.