Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 7.djvu/63

 A CURIOSITY IN LITERATURH.

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��of the Boston Transcript, is buried here.

Rev. Walter Montague, rector of the church, was the person who received the ball that was taken from Gen. Warren, who fell at Bunker Hill. It is said that the first regularly organized Sunday-school in New England was established in this church in 1815, by Rev. Asa Eaton and Shubal Bell.

The church was built in 1723. The walls are three and one half feet thick. The spire rises to the height of one hundred and seventv-five feet. In 1804 it was blown down, and was re- built in 1S07. In 1847, being in a de-

��caying condition, it was succcssuiily low- ered to the ground, from a height of one hundred and thirty-five feet, and was re-built in conformity to the original plan. It still stands guard over the sacred dead beneath its walls, and those in the ancient burial-place, Copp's Hill, near by. This church is one of Boston's most ancient histor- ical and sacred land-marks, and wc trust it may stand through coming generations, till the old north-end shall again, as in days of yore, become a nourishing business center of this great metropolis.

��A CURIOSITY IN TITER. } TUKE.

��I'.V f. A. STICKNEY.

��An Astronomical Diary ; or, an AL- MANACK For the Year of our Lord CHRIST, 1758. Bein^ the Second after Bissextile or Leap- Year. In the 31st Year of the Reign of King GEORGE II. PORTSMOUTH, in New Hamp- shire : Printed and Sold by Daniel Fowle.

In the order of time this little book might have come into our hands for review many years ago, but it did n't. It contains sixteen pages, each of which is five and a half inches long and three and one eighth inches wide. It was printed by the first printer of New Hampshire, in the second year after he moved into the state from Boston. Typographically considered, it is a creditable production, and its editor and publisher was very proud of it, which we know because he men- tions " The Art of Printing, which has been, and now is, of as much Advan- tage to Mankind as any ever discov- ered : since it conveys to us in so cheap and easy a Manner the Learn- ing of past Ages, and enables us to acquaint ourselves with all Parts of the World, with surprizing Dispatch," VII — 4

��&c. [Piiew : how's that for 1758? The stage-coach had not been started. Talk about your telephones, telegraphs, and steam-boats and cars !]

Notwithstanding the delay in for- warding this book for review, it is in a capital state of preservation. Some good person, " gone down to history," or oblivion, put it in the great family Bible for a mark, and there it must have laid for more than a hundred years. [Is this any evidence that our ancestors read their Bibles oftener than we do?] The delightful meer- schaum color, which can only come from centuries, is evenly and equally diffused through all its pages. Tlie first page is devoted to the tide and a quotation from Young ; the second to the editor's preface ; the succeeding twelve to the calendar, and the last two to articles entitled " Of Eclipses," and " Of Comets." The first two and last pages are ornamented with bor- ders still on sale by type-founders, and the calendar pages are surrounded and divided with single rules in all cases, with the exception that the father of New Hampshire printers was obliged to use his " stops and marks," when

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