Two works devoted to the Ancient City, as its inhabitants delight to style it, have been published. One of these is a pleasant little hand-book, issued some ten years since by the Rev. Mr. Sewall, Episcopalian minister there.[115] He prepared it “to meet the wants of those who may desire to learn something of the place in view of a sojourn, or who may have already come hither in search of health,” and it is well calculated for this purpose. A view of the town from the harbor, (sold also separately,) and sketches of the most remarkable buildings increase its usefulness. A curious incident connected with this book is worth relating for the light it throws on the character of the so-called Minorcans of St. Augustine. In one part Mr. Sewall had inserted a passage somewhat depreciatory of this class. When the edition arrived and this became generally known, they formed a mob, surrounded the store where it was deposited, and could only be restrained from destroying the whole by a promise that the obnoxious leaf should be cut from every volume in the package. This was done, and the copy I purchased there accordingly lacks the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth pages. An action on their part that calls to mind the ancient saw, “’Tis the tight shoe that pinches.” Another and later work that enters into the subject more at length, has recently appeared from the competent pen of G. R. Fairbanks,[116] a resident of the spot, and a close student of the chronicles of the old colony. The rise and progress of the settlements both French and Spanish are given in detail and with general accuracy, and though his account of the former is not so finished nor so thoroughly digested as that of Sparks, consisting of little more than extracts linked together, we have no other work in our language so full on the doings of the subjects of His Catholic Majesty in Florida, and the gradual growth of the Ancient City. It thus fills up a long standing hiatus in our popular historical literature. Numerous articles on Florida have appeared in various American periodicals, but so few of any value that as a class they do not merit attention. Most of them are flighty descriptions of scenery, second-hand morsels of history, and empty political disquisitions. Some of the best I have referred to in connection with the points they illustrate, while the Index of Mr. Poole, a work invaluable to American scholars, obviates the necessity of a more extended reference. Those that have appeared in the serials of Europe, on the other hand, as they mostly contain original matter, so they must not be passed over so lightly.