“But you certainly had a poet in your family?” said Miss Hurribattle, determined to repair her blunder by suggesting a potent cause of congratulation.

“Indeed we had, Madam!” said the Colonel, with creditable emotion; “though unfortunately none of his productions have come down to us.  But we have the highest contemporary testimony to his excellence in a copy of verses prefixed to his posthumous discourse entitled ’The New Snare of a Maypole, or Satan’s own Trap for a Slippery Church.’  The lines were written by his colleague, the Reverend Exaltation Brymm, and are certainly much to the purpose:  I generally keep a copy of them in my pocket-book.”

“Oh, do read them, brother!” said Miss Prowley, with strong interest.

Thus adjured, the Colonel produced a piece of paper, put on his spectacles, and read to this effect:—­

  “New Englande! weep:  Thy tuncfull Prowllie’s gone,
  Who skillfully his Armour buckled on
  Agaynst Phyllystine Scorn and Revelrie: 
  His Sword well-furbished was a Sight to see! 
  This littel Booke of his shall still be greene
  While Sathan’s Fangles lorden stand betweene: 
  Now Pet of Sinne boil up thy dolefull Skum! 
  Ye juggelling Quakers laugh:  his Inkhorn’s dumb. 
  He put XIII Pslames in verse for our Quire,
  And with XXVII Pastorals witcht Apollo’s Lyre.”

“Do you recollect John Norton’s funeral elegy on Ann Bradstreet, the Eve of our female minstrelsy?” interrogated Miss Hurribattle; “there are two lines in it which are still in my memory:—­

  ’Could Maro’s muse but hear her lively strain,
  He would condemn his works to fire again.’

What a launch upon the sea of fame! and how sad it is that an actual freight of verses should be preserved in the ship’s hold!”

“Well, well, my kinsman was perhaps wise in trusting none of his psalms or pastorals to the press, especially as that greatest of poets, Pope, has since been in the world.  But I truly regret that he left no portrait, nor even so much as an outline in black from which something might be made up by an imaginative artist.  I have judges, majors, and attorneys, all properly labelled, in the other room, who would be much improved by a slight dash of the aesthetic element; however, I suppose it can’t be helped now!”

“Not unless you substitute Saint Josselyn for an ancestor, as Mrs. Hunesley did the other day,” said Miss Prowley.

“Ha, ha! it might not be a bad plan to follow out the lady’s suggestion:  but do tell the story of her strange mistake.”

“Why, you must know that the other day old Doctor Dastick brought his New-York niece to call upon us.  She began to talk to my brother, and when at last topics of conversation failed, turned to look at the picture of Saint Josselyn, which could be seen through the open folding-doors.”

“The gentleman whose sole garment consists of some sort of skin thrown over his shoulders:  you must all have observed it as we came in to dinner,” said our host, in parenthesis.