“Oh, that was a bright thought in Mr. Hutchinson!” exclaimed Laurence.  “And, no doubt, the dim figures of the former possessors of the chair flitted around him, as he wrote, and inspired him with a knowledge of all that they had done and suffered while on earth.”

“Why, my dear Laurence,” replied Grandfather, smiling, “if Mr. Hutchinson was favored with any such extraordinary inspiration, he made but a poor use of it in his History; for a duller piece of composition never came from any man’s pen.  However, he was accurate, at least, though far from possessing the brilliancy or philosophy of Mr. Bancroft.”

“But, if Hutchinson knew the history of the chair,” rejoined Laurence, “his heart must have been stirred by it.”

“It must, indeed,” said Grandfather.  “It would be entertaining and instructive, at the present day, to imagine what were Mr. Hutchinson’s thoughts, as he looked back upon the long vista of events with which this chair was so remarkably connected.”

And Grandfather allowed his fancy to shape out an image of Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, sitting in an evening reverie by his fireside, and meditating on the changes that had slowly passed around the chair.

A devoted monarchist, Hutchinson would heave no sigh for the subversion of the original republican government, the purest that the world had seen, with which the colony began its existence.  While reverencing the grim and stern old Puritans as the founders of his native land, he would not wish to recall them from their graves, nor to awaken again that king-resisting spirit, which he imagined to be laid asleep with them forever.  Winthrop, Dudley, Bellingham, Endicott, Leverett, and Bradstreet!  All these had had their day.  Ages might come and go, but never again would the people’s suffrages place a republican governor in their ancient Chair of State!

Coming down to the epoch of the second charter, Hutchinson thought of the ship-carpenter Phips, springing from the lowest of the people, and attaining to the loftiest station in the land.  But, he smiled to perceive that this governor’s example would awaken no turbulent ambition in the lower orders, for it was a king’s gracious boon alone that made the ship-carpenter a ruler.  Hutchinson rejoiced to mark the gradual growth of an aristocratic class, to whom the common people, as in duty bound, were learning humbly to resign the honors, emoluments, and authority of state.  He saw,—­or else deceived himself—­that, throughout this epoch, the people’s disposition to self-government had been growing weaker, through long disuse, and now existed only as a faint traditionary feeling.

The Lieutenant-Governor’s reverie had now come down to the period at which he himself was sitting in the historic chair.  He endeavored to throw his glance forward, over the coming years.  There, probably, he saw visions of hereditary rank, for himself and other aristocratic colonists.  He saw the fertile fields of New England, portioned out among a few great landholders, and descending by entail from generation to generation.  He saw the people a race of tenantry, dependent on their lords.  He saw stars, garters, coronets, and castles.