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it becomes intelligible. I begin to transcribe at the second paragraph.

"Without further circumlocution, I proceed to state that no small sensation has been created in our worthy village, by the publication, in your journal, of those papers concerning 'The Bubbleton Parish.' The first thing, I believe, that provoked the interest of our people, was their anonymous character. It was very annoying not to know who wrote them. There was an amazing exercise of conjecture. Our people, sir, have a very inquiring turn of mind. They went, in a body, to the minister's house, supposing that he must be in the secret. But he, excellent man! being wholly devoted to grave and solid studies, had not even read the exciting papers. Indeed, so earnestly did he disavow all knowledge concerning the said papers, that one of the deacons - who prides himself on his sagacity and knowledge of human nature quite as much as a deacon should deliberately charged him with having written them himself, - a charge which greatly distressed our honest pastor, both because it implied a doubt of his word, and because it supposed him capable of 'frittering away his time,' as he said, in such superficial employment. Well, as the minister could give them no information, the people came to me, with a confidence quite flattering. It was very humiliating to confess myself equally ignorant, for I remembered that I had sat in the State-house, and helped to support the majesty of the Commonwealth; but I did not know the author of the papers in question, and condescended to tell my neighbors so, frankly. I have understood, by the by, that several of them wrote to you on the subject; but as I have good

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reason to believe that they did not pay their postage, it is likely you never saw their letters!

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"Thus it happens, that, up to this present day, the author of those papers remains unknown to us. Meantime, the curiosity of our people has been increasing at a frightful rate. This is especially true of the women. It is not because of any merit apparent in the sketches for in my opinion they are quite destitute of claim on that ground - but because there is a secret connected with them. Our town of Scandalburgh is famous for demolishing secrets. It has an amiable facility of looking through every man's blinds. It holds to unlimited confidence- to unrestricted observation. Now in this matter, its curiosity is thwarted, and it fumes and swells like the mill-stream I dammed up on my new farm last summer! You will not wonder that I share this innocent curiosity, for I am but human, and I have dwelt all my life in Scandalburgh. Would it be presuming too far on your obliging disposition, to ask you to inform me, by return of mail, who this writer is? The secret shall be confined to my own breast, if such should be your desire, and I will baffle the anxiety of my friends with the hardihood of a stoic. Indeed, what right has Scandalburgh to claim all the information possessed by its Representative in the General Court?

"But our curiosity has reference to another particular: Where is BUBBLETON? We have consulted three of the largest maps of the Commonwealth, without the least satisfaction. My son, Adoniram, who is at the head of the geography-class, thinks it must be a new city, as he has never met with it in the course of all his explorations about his well-thumbed atlas; but the schoolmaster positive sort of a man-asserts, very dogmatically, that

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OF

THE BUBBLETON PARISH;

OR,

PAPERS FROM THE EXPERIENCE

OF AN

AMERICAN MINISTER.

Elhawan Wineiner Beynolds

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY BILLINGS.

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"Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in
them;
they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous
dragons' teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed
men."- -MILTON.

BOSTON:

A. TOMPKINS AND B. B. MUSSEY & CO.

1854.

there is no such town at all! Now what are we to think, Mr. Editor? I hope your anonymous historian is not imposing upon our simplicity, and exercising our interest on a mere fiction.

66

But this is not all we have to complain of. - It seems to us that the unknown writer of those Records' is a little personal in some of his descriptions. I know not a few good people, who consider themselves hit in some of the characters already drawn, and there's no telling what other innocent persons may be decoyed into this gentleman's menagerie. Whoever he may be, or however faithfully he may narrate the affairs of Bubbleton, I have a suspicion that he is not wholly ignorant of certain persons and transactions in our own excellent parish. Indeed, I fear that the fidelity of his pictures may lead that sagacious deacon of ours, to suspect the poor parson of having gossipped about the frailties of Scandalburgh, to this very writer, and so have become the real author of our confusion !

"It seems to us, moreover, that the writer in question insinuates certain mischievous opinions, concerning the authority of preachers, their obligations to preach the naked truth, and so on. Now we are an independent people in Scandalburgh, and we are resolved never to submit to priestly dictation. Our minister must preach what we want to hear, or he can't preach anything. We won't be made uncomfortable in our own church. If we give a minister his living, he is bound to respect our feelings, and not rake into notice our little faults. A fine thing it would be this keeping ministers and going to church if one were liable to hear the bold truth about one's self, and that to his very face! Why many of us would no

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