Great Melesigenes! erst, poor and blind, A wanderer didst thou sing thy Epic verse, Which peasants, princes equally rehearse, And act thy characters of lofty mind-- War’s trump Calliope aloud doth blow, When telling of fair Ilium’s famous towers, Which Greece beleaguered with her mighty powers, Led by Pelides, Hector’s sternest foe-- Fair Helen’s beauty thou dost there portray, Whom gallant, bold old generals admire; Speaking, too, of his rovings wild and ire, Whose bended bow doth the wild suitors slay-- The story of thy heroes; scenes of old, Demands, by right, a shining case of gold. * * * * * =GRACE BARTLETT.= =AN AMERICAN TRADITION.= =BY MARY J. WINDLE.= CHAPTER I. Light of the new-born verdure! Glory of the jocund May! What gladness is out in leafy lanes! What joy in the fields to-day! W. C. Bennet. Sunshine and storm--the alternate checker-work Of human fortune! Shelley. A lover of the picturesque, whether poet, painter, or simply an enjoyer of Nature’s works, may be justified, perhaps, in extending his quest after the sublime and beautiful beyond the rich and varied landscapes of New England. Yet it is in this unpretending region that we are about to lay the opening incidents of our tale, rather than amid the cloud-capt rocks of Niagara, or upon the indented shores of our romantic lakes. In the early days of our pilgrim forefathers, ere luxury and fashion had tarnished with their deceptive but defacing touch the primitive customs of the land--and, at the crisis referred to, neat but unpretending villages were beginning to dot at intervals the surface of the adopted country.