being essential to complete success) and painfully suppressed Saint-Vitus-dance of every muscle in his body. This, with his having been put in the Commission of the Peace by our excellent Governor (_O, si sic omnes!_) immediately on his accession to office, keeps him continually employed. _Haud inexpertus loquor_, having for many years written myself J.P., and being not seldom applied to for specimens of my chirography, a request to which I have sometimes over weakly assented, believing as I do that nothing written of set purpose can properly be called an autograph, but only those unpremeditated sallies and lively runnings which betray the fireside Man instead of the hunted Notoriety doubling on his pursuers. But it is time that I should bethink me of St. Austin's prayer, _libera me a meipso_, if I would arrive at the matter in hand. Moreover, I had yet another reason for taking up the pen myself. I am informed that 'The Atlantic Monthly' is mainly indebted for its success to the contributions and editorial supervision of Dr. Holmes, whose excellent 'Annals of America' occupy an honored place upon my shelves. The journal itself I have never seen; but if this be so, it might seem that the recommendation of a brother-clergyman (though _par magis quam similis_) should carry a greater weight. I suppose that you have a department for historical lucubrations, and should be glad, if deemed desirable, to forward for publication my 'Collections for the Antiquities of Jaalam,' and my (now happily complete) pedigree of the Wilbur family from its _fons et origo_, the Wild Boar of Ardennes. Withdrawn from the active duties of my profession by the settlement of a colleague-pastor, the Reverend Jeduthun Hitchcock, formerly of Brutus Four-Corners, I might find time for further contributions to general literature on similar topicks. I have made large advances towards a completer genealogy of Mrs. Wilbur's family, the Pilcoxes, not, if I know myself, from any idle vanity, but with the sole desire of rendering myself useful in my day and generation. _Nulla dies sine lineâ_. I inclose a meteorological register, a list of the births, deaths, and marriages, and a few _memorabilia_ of longevity in Jaalam East Parish for the last half-century. Though spared to the unusual period of more than eighty years, I find no diminution of my faculties or abatement of my natural vigor, except a scarcely sensible decay of memory and a necessity of recurring to younger eyesight or spectacles for the finer print in Cruden. It would gratify me to make some further provision for declining years from the emoluments of my literary labors. I had intended to effect an insurance on my life, but was deterred therefrom by a circular from one of the offices, in which the sudden death of so large a proportion of the insured was set forth as an inducement, that it seemed to me little less than a tempting of Providence. _Neque in summâ inopiâ levis esse senectus potest, ne sapienti quidem_.