of a portion of the results of the patient toil of a lifetime. This material, however, which was consigned to the flames, would have been of great benefit to historical societies, who now treasure the minutest facts that bear upon our past history. In 1814, when society had recovered its equilibrium, and began to feel a dawning pride in the great achievement that made of the colonies a free and independent nation, an interest naturally increased in those things that pertained to their earliest chronicles. The Historical Society looked over the books and pamphlets belonging to Mr. Prince, removing the historical portion to their rooms, while the ecclesiastical was sent to the house of the pastor of the Old South. In 1860 it was considered desirable to place them all together in the Public Library of Boston, where they would be under the guardianship of the city, and be far more accessible, though still the property of the Old South. Everything seemed to conspire to make the life of Thomas Prince an exceptionally happy and fortunate one. He had remarkable opportunities from his birth to develop all his natural capabilities, and in spite of his Puritan surroundings he gained a liberal view of life, and appreciated and profited by the facilities for culture that were open to him. He traced himself the genealogy and characteristics of the Prince family, and we find in him the modified traits of his English and Puritan forefathers, who, though strictly religious, were not so fanatical as many about them. His great-grandfather, the Rev. John Prince, who lived in the reign of James I. and Charles I., was educated at Oxford, and became rector of East Shefford, Berkshire, Eng. Thomas Prince says of him: "Of whom there was this remarkable, that he was one of the Puritan ministers of the Church of England who in part conformed and who greatly longed for a further reformation. He had married a daughter of Dr. Toldenburg, D.D., of Oxford, by whom he had four sons and seven daughters. Every one of the children proved conscientious non-conformists even while their parents lived, without any breach of affection. Thus they continued pretty near together until the furious and cruel Archbishop Laud dispersed and drove their eldest son, with many others, to this country." Walter Money, F.S.A., local secretary of Berks, writes of the old church at East Shefford, of which Rev. John Prince was rector from 1620 to 1644: "The church where he preached still stands, being used only for a mortuary chapel, a new one for use having been erected near by. The old chapel is a most interesting building of the time of Henry VIII., and considered worthy to be described in full in archaeological works found in the British Museum. It contains a remarkable monument of Sir Thomas Fettiplace and his wife Beatrice, whose old manor-house adjoined the church. There is an exquisite view of the latter in the British Museum."