than sixty strings, lent for the occasion by the kind 'auld wives' of the village. An antiquated belle who had once flourished in the capital, completed the decoration of the crown by four nodding ostrich plumes, whose 'bend did certainly awe the world' of . There might have been some want of congruity in the regalia, but this was not marked by the critics of , as not one of the republican audience had ever seen a real crown.
A meeting was called of the trustees of the school, and the meeting-house (for thus in the land of the Puritans the churches are still named,) was assigned as the place of exhibition. In order not to invade the seriousness of the sanctuary, the pieces to be spoken were all to be of a moral or religious character. Instrumental music, notwithstanding the celebrations of Independence in the same holy place were pleaded as a precedent, was rigorously forbidden. The arrangements were made according to these decrees, from which there was no appeal, and neither, as usually happens with inevitable evils, was there much dissatisfaction. One of the boys remarked, that he wondered the deacons (three of the trustees were deacons,) did not stop the birds from singing, and the sun from shining, and all such gay sounds and sights. Oh that those, who throw a pall over the innocent pleasures of life, and give, in the eye of the young, to religion a dark and gloomy aspect, would learn some lessons of theology from the joyous light of the sun, and the merry carol of the birds!
