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 LIFE 
 
 LOM^f li§$tIf>l)EXTER ; 
 
 SKETCHES OF THE 
 
 ECCENTRIC CHARACTERS 
 
 THAT COMPOSED 
 
 HIS ASSOCIATES: 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 DEXTER'S PICKLE FOR THE KNOWING ONES. 
 
 BY SAMUEL L. KNAPP, 
 
 NEWBURYPORT : 
 
 PUBLISHED BY JOHN G. TILTON. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 WM. J. REYNOLDS & CO. 
 
 18 4 8. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1838, 
 
 By G. N. THOMSON, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 
 
 
 Stereotyped by T. Moore, 204 Washinglon StTMb 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In looking over some old papers a short time 
 since, I came across several memoranda I had 
 made many years ago, on the eccentric person, 
 commonly called Lord Dexter. The man and 
 most that related to him had passed from my mind 
 as one of those dreams in the course of our lives, 
 that make a strong impression for a time, and 
 then sink from the memory, perhaps never to re- 
 turn. The perusal of these old notes awakened 
 recollections of hy-gone times so distinctly, and 
 brought with them so many sunny images, that I 
 felt, at once, determined to give the picture a more 
 
VI. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 permanent canvass than these Sibylline leaves 
 that I had dragged up from the cells of the cav- 
 ern. All the dramatis personae of the piece were 
 well known to me and were subjects of my par- 
 ticular study ; and I think that these persons will, 
 at once, be recognized by many in the neighbor- 
 hood in which they lived, as drawn fully from 
 life, and no trait of their characters or acts as set 
 down in malice. 
 
 The poet I have described, is remembered by 
 thousands who retain a recollection of his air, and 
 manner, as well as the tones of his stentorian 
 voice. The person of the colored woman is yet 
 fresh in the recollections of men, women and 
 children. The weird sisters in the group are not 
 strange personages ; not a few will remember 
 them distinctly, for they were of notoriety in their 
 day. The astrologer has now been dead more 
 than thirty years, and much of the present genera- 
 tion have come up since his departure ; but there 
 are several now in active life, who knew him well 
 and have excellent anecdotes of him still in store. 
 It is not many years since I heard several of 
 them. 
 
 The Dog-town landscape^was once true to na- 
 ture and history, but in the march of intellect 
 
PREFACE. Vli. 
 
 there may be, for ought I know, a city resplendent 
 in architecture and famed for wisdom, on the spot 
 once so barren and desolate, that the surveyor's 
 chain had hardly crossed it when I saw it. Ima- 
 ges of buried poverty and misery, may be called 
 up by the historian and the philanthropist "to 
 point a moral or adorn a tale." One reason, per- 
 haps, for thinking our fathers were better than we 
 are, may be, that we cherish the memory of the 
 good only and leave in forgetfulness all that were 
 indifferent or bad. 
 
 To judge rightly of the past we should see 
 every shade and every light of the picture. The 
 living panorama that passes before us must be 
 scrupulously examined to give us a fair under- 
 standing of the matter; and those of memory 
 should be as well grouped and arranged, for us to 
 draw sound opinions from them. There is a sort 
 of evening shadow over the past, which brings on 
 a distinctness which cannot be had under more 
 vertical rays of the sun. Some may take excep- 
 tions to our going too minutely into past events. 
 This is not the example which sacred history sets 
 us. In that history, virtues and vices, weakness 
 and strength are fully exhibited. There is a 
 fastidiousness about modern times that often re- 
 
Vlll. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Strains a free pen ; which may be illustrated by 
 an anecdote. A modern Venetian magnate on 
 seeing West's picture of " Christ Rejected," ob- 
 served, that he thought it unkind that the inde- 
 cision of his ancestor, Pontius Pilot, should so 
 often be brought forward at this latp day 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER 
 
 If " the proper study of mankind is man," 
 every form of character should pass under 
 our notice. No one can be said to have a 
 thorough knowledge of human nature, who 
 has only examined a few of the good and 
 wise. The naturalist fills his museum with 
 every production of nature, and takes as 
 much pleasure in studying the " elegantly 
 little," as the vast ; and perhaps dwells long- 
 er on the structure and plumage of the fairy 
 humming bird, than on the enormous wing 
 of the albatross. Goldsmith, in his Animated 
 Nature, has taken as much trouble to de- 
 scribe the frog and the toad, as he has in 
 portraying the horse, the noblest of all the 
 quadrupeds on earth. The mighty delinea- 
 tor of human nature, of habits and educa- 
 tion, Shakspeare, has made greater effort to 
 
10 LIFE OF DEXTEF.. 
 
 show off the eccentric and the foolish than 
 he has to exhibit the wise, the heroic and 
 the good. In portraying such men as Juhus 
 Caesar, Anthony, Cicero and the more an- 
 cient philosophers and warriors, he has taken 
 whole pages from Plutarch and other writers, 
 but his eccentrics and fools are all his own. 
 In this new path he seemed not to borrow any 
 thing, and his Touchstones, Dogberrys, Mal- 
 volios, are his alone. Did any previous 
 dramatist furnish him with models for his 
 Masters Shallow, Slender and Silence? No 
 one will pretend to point out any such char- 
 cters in any work of antiquity. iEsop drew 
 some characters that were foolish enough 
 but they were nothing to Shakspeare's crea- 
 tion ; yet the very moment their likenesses 
 were seen they Avere known to be natural. 
 
 The miser, the fop and the downright fool 
 are found in many works, but that com- 
 mingling of cunning, shrewdness, imbecility, 
 roguery and sarcasm, which constitutes some 
 minds and makes up an anomaly in the hu- 
 man family, has seldom been attempted. 
 After Shakspeare, Sir Walter Scott has been 
 the most successful in his dramatic characters, 
 and it cannot be denied but that his eccen- 
 tric beings are the master touches of his 
 pencil. AH his singular beings are acting in 
 their proper sphere and make up the variety 
 which nature intended to exhibit. These 
 
LIFE OF DEXTEti. 11 
 
 satirists have dealt in moral and mental 
 monsters; such beings as they wished to 
 chastise, they called up by the force of the 
 imagination, and after lashing them as long 
 as they enjoyed the sounds of their own 
 whips, held them before the world, and then 
 the monsters sunk again to the shades. Not 
 so with the creations of Shakspeare and 
 Scott; these poets and masters of every 
 spell, have left their offspring to share im- 
 mortality with themselves ; Touchstone and 
 Meg Merrilies will never die while their pro- 
 genitors are remembered. 
 
 Tired of dwelling upon "the tall, the 
 wise, the reverend head," and of the prow- 
 ess of heroes, I was looking over some old 
 papers, and among them 1 found a few pages 
 of memoranda, made many years ago, upon 
 the life and character of that eccentric being, 
 now remembered by thousands, Timothy 
 Dexter. The fame of this singular mari 
 was not confined to the town, county or 
 state in which he lived; but many of the 
 anecdotes respecting him have been publish- 
 ed in different parts of the world. No doubt 
 that a great many stories told of him were 
 made up by the ingenious, but still there are 
 enough very well authenticated, to make a 
 few amusing pages, and to throw some light 
 on the idiosyncrasies of the human mind. It 
 is a well known fact that '* strange beings 
 
J 2 LIFE OF DKXTER. 
 
 will find strange associates." This was 
 fully proved in the life of Dexter. No one 
 ever collected about him a more singular 
 group than this oddity. His tricks were 
 fantastic^ but never maligna?it, wlien free 
 from the insanity of inebriation, and the 
 reader, I think, when he has followed him 
 through a part of his eccentricities and follies 
 will feel more pity than hatred for the man, 
 v/hose only crime was in his possessing For- 
 tunatus' cap, to catch a shower of gold for 
 which others had to labor hard to obtain in 
 scanty drops. 
 
 Timothy Dexter was born in Maiden, 
 near Boston, in the year 1743. He was bred 
 to the leather dressing, then, and since, a lu- 
 crative profession. The business for the 
 commonwealth of Massachusetts, was near- 
 ly all concentrated in the town of Charles- 
 town. Sheep-skins, goat and deer-skins, 
 were dressed so elastic and soft as to make 
 a delicate wear. About the time of Dexter's 
 apprenticeship the secret of dressing skins 
 after the fashion of leather brought from the 
 Levant, called morrocco leather, became 
 known to some of the craft in Charlestown, 
 and for years they had the monopoly of the 
 business. A great demand for the article 
 for ladies' shoes gave the initiated constant 
 employment. On arriving at the age of 
 twenty-one, Dexter commenced business for 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 13 
 
 himself, and by industry, frugality ana per- 
 severance, soon became thrifty and above 
 board; and although Charlestovvn was 
 laid in ashes at the commencement of the 
 revolutionary struggle, he pursued in the 
 neighborhood his calling to a profitable 
 account, and in a few years after the peace, 
 could command several thousands of dollars 
 in specie. He had married a widow whose 
 former husband had been in the occupation 
 and had left his family in good circumstan- 
 ces. She was industrious also, and saving, 
 and made no inconsiderable profit on a small 
 stock of goods she kept for sale in the huck- 
 ster line. Thus they went on, good, quiet, 
 tidy, honest folks, blessed with children to 
 labor for, as well as for themselves. The 
 times from the peace of 1783, until after the 
 adoption of the federal constitution in 1789, 
 were dark and diflicult, and many were sadly 
 oppressed. The old continental money was 
 depreciated to almost nothing, and the secu- 
 rities issued by the state of Massachusetts, 
 which had for a while kept public confidence 
 in that quarter alive, had now sunk to about 
 two shillings and sixpence on the pound. 
 The patriotic holders were greatly distress- 
 ed ; many of them, possessing nothing for 
 seven years' services but this trash, were 
 forced to part with it for any thing they 
 could get. Two benevolent gentlemen in 
 2 
 
i4 i^^FE OF DEXT£ll. 
 
 Boston, John Hancock, governor of the com- 
 monwealth at that time, who had formerly 
 heen president of the continental congress, 
 and Thomas Russel, the most eminent mer- 
 chant then in America, to keep up the 
 public confidence, and to oblige a friend, 
 would make purchases of these securities, 
 until ihe amount was considerable. This 
 had the desired effect in some measure, and 
 a few other purchasers were found, but hard 
 money was so scarce that not much was 
 done in this brokerage. Dexter finding his 
 great neighbors, Hancock and Russel, doing 
 something in stocks, took all his own cash, 
 with what his wife had, and in imitation 
 purchased likewise. He probably made 
 better bargains than the magnates did. He 
 bought in sm.aller quantities, and had better 
 opportunities to make his purchases thai) 
 they had. He felt that he could live on his 
 industry, and ventured all on the chance of 
 these securities ever being paid. When 
 Hamilton's funding system went into opera- 
 tion, he was at once a v/ealthy man, and 
 leaving his mechanical business, speculated 
 pretty largely in stocks, and to great advan- 
 tage, for there were many who then seemed 
 to feel and reason as if the government of 
 the United States was a house built on sands, 
 and the acts of congress but of little more 
 permanency than writing traced on the same 
 
LIFE OF DEXTEFv. 15 
 
 material on the sea-shore, which the first 
 storm would efface. 
 
 Dexter soon aspired to join the upper 
 classes of society, as many a fortunate block- 
 head had done before him ; but he would 
 not be hypocritical, and he could not keep 
 his mouth shut, and of course made no head- 
 way in his attempted progress to join the 
 aristocrats of the day. Nothing could be 
 done with the upper classes in Boston, and 
 he found it more difficult in Salem, which 
 led him to turn his attention to Newbury port, 
 the third sea-port then in Massachusetts. 
 It was a delightful place. 
 
 The town of Newburyport is situated on 
 the right bank of the Merrimack. The 
 whole territory belonging to the corporation 
 is but little more than six hundred acres, 
 and nearly one half of this is low pasture 
 lands, but the thickly settled part is a lovely 
 spot of ground. The southerly line is on an 
 elevation about sixty or seventy feet from 
 the surface of the river. The main street, 
 called High street, running about a mile and 
 a quarter from east to west on the town 
 boundary, extends either way much further, 
 making a delightful riding course of more 
 than three miles in distance. The streets 
 running at right angles with High street to 
 the water are intersected by others, throwing 
 a great portion of the \vhole site into squares 
 
16 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 convenient for building lots. The soil is 
 light, gravelly and warm, well suited for 
 gardens, for which the town is famous. 
 Many of the buildings are still of wood: 
 forty years ago they were chiefly so. The 
 water here is good and the streets are wide 
 and kept clean, and every thing about the 
 " sweet village," bore marks of industry, 
 thrift and comfort. Numerous churches and 
 school-houses were placed at convenient dis- 
 tances. The shipping was extensive, for 
 the size of the place. The town was thrifty 
 for many years before the revolution, and 
 when the war broke out several merchants 
 left Boston to carry on their commerce in 
 Newbury port. Their business flourished 
 from the peace of 1783, until the embargo of 
 1807, when it received a grievous wound, 
 but, thank heaven, not a vital stab as many 
 thought it would have proved, for it is slowly 
 rising from its difficulties. The evils will 
 vanish in time, for the people act there upon 
 the Grecian maxim that " the gods sell all 
 things to industry." The education of this 
 people was plain and wholesome. Reading, 
 writing and arithmetic were taught to all, 
 and their moral precepts were all drawn 
 from one book. The bible was read from 
 lisping infancy to purblind decrepitude. 
 Every one was master of the good old trans- 
 lation from the Saxon — and it contains a vo- 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. J7 
 
 cabulary sufficiently capacious for all the mo- 
 ral and religious relations of life ; the business 
 relations find their appropriate language as 
 fast as they are required. There never was 
 any canaille here : some few there are, as 
 everywhere, the unfortunate and poor ; but 
 the mass of people were well to do ; intelhgent 
 and active, they of course were happy. The 
 wealthy and intellectual portion of the com- 
 munity formed a circle that had sufficient of 
 the comforts and refinements of life to give 
 society a charm which is seldom found in 
 Gv^ergrown cities. The population was not 
 so large as to hide any individual, however 
 humble. Each stood out as it were from the 
 canvass, and could be examined by every 
 one who wished to observe. It will be seen, 
 by those who take the trouble to think upon 
 the subject, that there are more singular and 
 eccentric characters to be found in small 
 places than in large; in the latter it is hard 
 to attract notice. The diorama is con- 
 stantly shifting, and an individual is seen for 
 an instant only, and then disappears, perhaps 
 forever ; while in the small picture, which 
 is not larger than the angle of ordinary vision, 
 each image stands for constant examination. 
 The landed property in Newburyport was, 
 at the time of Dexter's coming there, lower 
 than in other sea-ports in the East, in conse- 
 quence of the failure of several distinguished 
 2=* 
 
18 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 merchants who had traded too largely on the 
 return of peace. Their palaces — for they 
 could not, in justice, be called by a lesser 
 name — were in the market, and Dexter pur- 
 chased two of them. One of them he occu- 
 pied for a short time, and on the revival of 
 business sold it at a fair profit. The other 
 he fitted up for himself in his own style. It 
 was a princely chateau, standing on the 
 height of land about a quarter of a mile from 
 the river, commanding a most beautiful and 
 extensive view of the sea, the Isle-of-shoals, 
 and the far surrounding country. The 
 grounds had been laid out in the most ap- 
 proved European manner by the intelligent 
 artists from England and France. 
 
 The house was capacious and well finish- 
 ed, and the out-houses tasteful and com- 
 modious. A lovelier spot or a more airy 
 mansion, Lucullus himself could not have 
 wished; and all his ponds would not have 
 furnished a greater variety of excellent fish 
 than the Newburyport market supplied. 
 When Dexter bought this seat every thing 
 about it was in fine order ; but it was not to 
 the taste of the purchaser. He raised min- 
 arets on the roof of his mansion, surmounted 
 by gilt balls in profusion ; and the whole 
 building was painted as finely as a fiddle. 
 One who marked the alteration compared it 
 to a person changing the robes of a peer and 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 i^ 
 
 assuming the motley dress of a harlequin ; 
 but this made the bumpkins stare, and gave 
 the owner the greatest pleasure. In all the 
 agitations of a vitiated taste, Dexter went on 
 with his supposed improvements. In the 
 garden, which extended several hundreds of 
 feet on the noble high-way, passing in front 
 of it, and was filled with fruit and flowers 
 of indigenous growth, or those imported 
 from Europe, or acclimated from warmer 
 regions, the tasteless owner, in his rage for 
 notoriety, created rows of columns, fifteen 
 feet at least, high, on which to place colossal 
 images carved in wood. Directly in front 
 of the door of the house, on a Roman arch of 
 great beauty and taste, stood general Wash- 
 ington in his military garb. On his left 
 hand was Jefferson ; on his right, Adams, 
 uncovered, for he would suffer no one to be 
 on the right of Washington with a hat on. 
 On the columns in the garden there were 
 figures of Indian chiefs, military generals, 
 philosophers, politicians and statesmen, now 
 and then a goddess of Fame, or Liberty, 
 meretricious enough to be either. If he, in 
 the plentitude of his generosity, raised a col- 
 umn to a great man to-day, he reserved the 
 liberty of changing his name to-morrow ; 
 and often the painter's brush made or un- 
 made a fierce warrior. General Morgan, 
 yesterday, is Bonaparte to-day ; and the 
 
20 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 great Corsican leader was often as much 
 neglected in the garden of the capricious 
 Dexter, as he afterwards was at St. Helena. 
 But Dexter was more of a gentleman than 
 Sir Hudson Lowe, and never passed Bona- 
 parte — even when he was not so great a 
 favorite — without touching his hat. 
 
 There were upwards of forty of the figures, 
 including four lions, two couchant, and two 
 passant. These were well carved, and at- 
 tracted more attention from those who had 
 any taste than ail the exhibition except the 
 arch, on which stood the three presidents. 
 The lions were open mouthed and fierce as 
 if they had been rampart in Heraldic glory, 
 and reminded the gazer of the lion in the 
 sounding verses of Sir Richard Blackmore : 
 
 " The lordly lion looked so wondrous grim. 
 His very shadow durst not follow him." 
 
 These images were all in good repair 
 when Dexter died. The first that time or 
 accident threw down, was the gigantic Corn- 
 planter, the mighty progenitor of a race of 
 illustrious sachems. Whether this was om- 
 inous of the fate of the red men, or a mere 
 accident, no oracle yet has told us ; but when 
 the column was prostrate in the dust, the 
 Indian was placed as a scare crow to the 
 chickens, but they soon became brave under 
 the feet of " the fierce barbarian grinning 
 o'er his prey." The rest of the columns stood 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 21 
 
 the sunshine and the storms until " the great 
 September gale," which happened in 1815, 
 when most of them were thrown down in 
 that tornado. The three presidents rode out 
 the storm. The executor on the estate sold 
 the images at auction. The goddess of Fame 
 sold for the most money — she brought five 
 dollars. The image of the great premier of 
 England, William Pitt, whose sagacity and 
 firmness guided Britain in safety through 
 the most terrific convulsions of nations, when 
 the great deep of the political world was 
 broken up and a universal deluge threatened 
 mankind, was sold for a dollar ; and an ec- 
 clesiastic who had been named the " Travel- 
 ling Preacher " brought only fifty cents. 
 
 Dexter had put himself among the great 
 he dehghted to honor, and labelled the col- 
 umn, *' I am the greatest man in the East ;" ' 
 and I believe once it was extended to the 
 North, West and South, and his fame as a 
 philosopher made an addendum. What a sa- 
 tire on monumental glory ! On the fallen 
 image no bid could be had ; so fares it with 
 those who thrust themselves into company 
 with whom they had no claim of equality. 
 
 The cost of these columns and images was 
 considerable, probably twice as much as 
 the whole estate, when Dexter purchased. 
 The arch and figures of the presidents were 
 •expensive, two thousand dollars or more; 
 
22 LIFE OF DEXTEE. 
 
 the lions, without the columns on which 
 they stood, were carved at two hundred dol- 
 lars apiece. The other thirty-six columns 
 with their images must have cost two hun- 
 dred dollars each — taking in the lettering 
 and gilding, the ^vhole could not have fallen 
 short of fifteen thousand dollars. 
 
 In the group on the arch, Mr. Jefferson 
 holds in his hand a scroll partly unrolled, 
 intended to compliment him as the author 
 of the Declaration of Independence. The 
 sculptor had not imagined it so obscure as 
 to require an inscription, but lord Dexter 
 thought that he would make the painter 
 finish what the sculptor, in his opinion, 
 neglected. His favorite painter, a very 
 clever artist, Mr. Babson, was employed. 
 He commenced his labor by taking the pre- 
 caution to tie a rope around his body to pre- 
 vent accidents on the scanty staging, and 
 made it fast to some part of the arch. He 
 measured out his letters, "The Declaration 
 of Independence," and while pencilling it. 
 Dexter, from the ground, could not distinctly 
 see the letters, but as soon as the painter had 
 reached Dec, Dexter called out to him, "That 
 is not the way to spell Constitution." " You 
 want," returned the painter " the Declaration 
 of Independence." " I want the Constitu- 
 tion, and the Constitution I will have." 
 
 The Constitution had then just been adopt- 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 23 
 
 edj and by the adoption Dexter's fortune 
 was made, and that was uppermost in his 
 mind at all times, and the Declaration of 
 Independence was a matter too deep in the 
 recesses of ancient history for his lordship's 
 memory ; still, with the pertinacity of an 
 honest mind, Mr. Babson would not erase 
 his letters, for he knew what the artist in- 
 tended. Dexter raved ; the painter remon- 
 strated most distinctly, when Dexter went 
 into the house, brought out a large pistol and 
 discharged it at his man of letters before the 
 latter had a chance of escape. The ball en- 
 tered the house, and the marks of its passage 
 were long afterwards seen there. The en- 
 raged lord was no shot, and was fortunate 
 in hitting the side of a house instead of the 
 object of his wrath. The letters remain to 
 this day, '' The Constitution.'^ 
 
 Society is always in danger when the 
 sword and purse ar« imited, as ih&Y were in 
 this instance ; — in fact, their union has al- 
 ways been attended with fearful consequen- 
 ces. Their connection has never been legiti- 
 mate. The liberties of Rome were lost 
 when the Pretorian band had possession of 
 the military chest. The mind that has two 
 such powers to wield, sinks under its exer- 
 tions, for it is constantly in a state of intoxi- 
 cation ; the rule extends from the household 
 officers to those of an empire. 
 
24 LIFE OE DEXTER. 
 
 Dexter imported elegant articles from 
 France to furnish his house, and it must be 
 confessed that his agents were men of taste ; 
 for some portions of it were splendid and 
 classical. It was soon after the era of phren- 
 sy, in France, when David's pencil drew 
 models for the upholsterer, and the sans cu- 
 lotte and the assassin changed their savage- 
 ism to taste, intending to enjoy this world, as 
 they believed in no other. This elegant and 
 tasteful furniture was soon spoiled by abuse. 
 He and his son, with such companions as 
 they could find, kept up their revels in the 
 best apartments of the house. His wife was 
 seldom at home, for she could not live in 
 his house with any comfort. This mansion, 
 once the abode of a wise and elegant man, 
 with a well-regulated family, nov/ became a 
 pest-house and not unfrequently a bagnio. 
 Of course, the splendid French colors became 
 tawdry-yellow or dirty-red. Curtains and 
 counterpanes which had once belonged to 
 the queen of France, which, at all events^ 
 were elegant, were covered ^v^th unseemly 
 stain, offensive to sight and to smell. 
 
 He had seen at the houses of Hancock 
 and Russel, cases of well bound books, and 
 he was seized with a desire to emulate them 
 in the possession of a library. He bought 
 the best bound books he could find, and in 
 that manner secured some valuable works ; 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 26 
 
 but he was often deceived, as such binding 
 as he liked was put on worthless books and 
 exposed to his sight as by accident. He had 
 splendid editions of Bornel Thornton's 
 Works, the Bon Ton Magazine and all such 
 ridiculous trash ; but he never read in them 
 ten minutes at a time. These books were 
 scattered through every apartment in his 
 house, while the book case was half empty, 
 and its doors on the swing. The leaves in 
 iiis books were turned down at places at- 
 tractive to the reader. The libidinous prints 
 were often much worn, and many books 
 were entirely despoiled of their cuts by the 
 people who visited him. The library, when 
 sold, amounted to a trifle only, as most of 
 those of a fair character were torn and de- 
 faced. 
 
 He was told of the great passion some of 
 the noble lords in England had for paintings, 
 who had expended large fortunes in collecting 
 galleries for the gratification of their taste in 
 ihis way, and he gave himself no rest until 
 he had commenced a gallery. He employed 
 a young gentleman of taste, who was about 
 to visit Holland and other parts of Europe, 
 to -act as a picture fancier for him, and it 
 must be confe'ssed that he had made some good 
 purchases, but on his return. Dexter selected 
 all the daubs and declined taking the others. 
 The collector was at first indignant and mor- 
 3 
 
26 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 tified, but some one suggested to him to mark 
 those ordinary paintings with some great 
 master name, and all would be right. This 
 he did in self-defence, and a Correggio, a 
 Guido, a Raffaelle, or a Titian were hung 
 upon the walls before the paint was dry that 
 marked their names. If he was cheated, he 
 was not the only dupe in picture buying, for 
 many who have started into sudden wealth, 
 and who supposed that the acquisition of 
 dollars superinduced a refinement of taste, 
 have been most laughably imposed upon, 
 and often while pointing out the beauties of 
 the picture to their guests, by rote, as the 
 salesman dealt them out at his rooms, or the 
 auctioneer when his eloquence was enforced 
 by his hammer, are unconscious of the 
 sneer that plays about the lips of the listen- 
 ing connoisseur who is waiting for his din- 
 ner. In Dexter's palmy state there were but 
 few good pictures in the country, and the 
 most wealthy and ancient families contented 
 themselves with a portrait from Smybert or 
 Copley, of some ancestor, and the rest of the 
 ornaments were some French engravings of 
 Joseph, sold by his brethren, or Jonah thrown 
 into the sea, or of the bears sent to devour the 
 wicked children; but the most venerated 
 painting of the household was generally the 
 Family Coat of Arms, the production of 
 some wonderful sign-painter who had suffi- 
 
OF DEXTER. 27 
 
 cient enterprise to own Guillim's Book of He- 
 raldy, from which he copied the arms of such 
 families as he found there, and who tran- 
 scribed on the back of the picture, the de- 
 scription of the bearings and a^ests in lan- 
 guage eqnally unintelligible to limner and 
 possessor. 
 
 At one time Dexter's passion was for horses, 
 and with the assistance of his coachman he 
 was frequently successful in obtaining a fine 
 span for his carriage; but although he kept 
 a beautiful saddle horse, he seldom ventur- 
 ed to appear on horseback. He conceived 
 a desire for the exhibition of cream-colored 
 horses, and after a long time bought a pair 
 of very good ones, and for a while he heard 
 the boys cry out, " Huzza for Dexter'^ 
 horses !" but their admiration died away, 
 and his love for cream-colored horses died 
 with it. Unstable as the wind, he sold them 
 for no other fault than that they would not 
 change color as his fancy changed. 
 
 His coach was elegant, and well, as it 
 came from the maker's hands, but he must 
 make it gaudy and finical. He had his 
 coat of arms painted on it, with the Baronial 
 supporters, which he stole from the Peer- 
 age according to the dictates of his taste, 
 being beyond the power of the Herald office 
 and all its kings at arms. 
 
 He found it difficult to fill up the measure 
 
28 
 
 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 of his time, as he had led an industrious 
 Hfe. And finding merchants then the lead- 
 ing men, and thinking that they were soon to 
 be the nobility of the country as they had 
 been the nobility of Venice, as some of those 
 around him intimated, he engaged most zeal- 
 ously in commerce. At that period it was 
 almost impossible to make a bad voyage, 
 go any where, in any part of the habitable 
 globe. His traffic was principally to the 
 West Indies and to Europe, but he sent ad- 
 ventures to the East Indies, which were gen- 
 erally very profitable. While engaged in 
 commerce, Dexter's son, Samuel Lord Dex- 
 ter, as he was called, arrived to that age 
 when young men think themselves capable 
 of doing the business of factor abroad, then 
 seldom trusted to the master of a vessel. The 
 son importuned the father for this employ- 
 ment and prevailed upon him to send him in 
 that capacity to Europe ; the result was that 
 he squandered the full amount of the cargo 
 at the gambling table, where he was a mere 
 gull. The old man had some misgiving 
 when he sent his hopeful heir on such an 
 errand, and was not so much disappointed 
 as might have been supposed at such an is- 
 sue. The boy was naturally imbecile, but 
 his course of education made him a tool for 
 every sharper. Intoxicated with the fame 
 of his father's wealth, he thought that i^ 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 5Sff 
 
 would supply the place of every thing; of 
 course he was idle at all times, and profli- 
 gate when he could be. He grew in size 
 more rapidly than most boys, but his mind 
 was stored with nothing useful or ornamen- 
 tal. He was capricious in his appetite, petu- 
 lant in his temper, and cowardly in the ex- 
 treme, and, in fact, rotten to the core. He 
 had but one redeeming virtue among boys, 
 and it was that of profusion. He bribed 
 them with cakes, fruit and confectionary, to 
 assist him in getting his lessons and to screen 
 him from insults. His father's ideas of gen- 
 tility, consisted in the expenditures of his 
 son. and as he was the most lavish of a'll 
 the boys, of course he was the most elevat- 
 ed of the gentry. His education was costly, 
 and his father thought it good. The only 
 ingenuity and talent he ever exhibited was 
 in inventing lies to screen himself from pun- 
 ishment. The boys despised, and the mas- 
 ter pitied his imbecility. School became 
 irksome to him, as smaller boys went before 
 him, and larger ones neglected him. On 
 returning home and mingling with the young 
 merchants he conceived the desire of being 
 supercargo, and it eventuated as we have 
 sfjated. 
 
 vii/When he returned from his European 
 voyage he lived in perpetual quarrels with 
 his father, and plunged into every species 
 3# 
 
30 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 of dissipation ; a more useless or profligate 
 young man could not be found. He was a 
 goose from whom every knave plucked a 
 feather, to whom every Cyprian had a chain 
 to hold him as a cub. If he had been for- 
 tunate enough to have had a sober and dis- 
 creet father, who would have insisted on a 
 proper education, feeble as he was, some- 
 thing might have been made of him. It was 
 a difficult time to educate a boy who had 
 any expectations of fortune from his parents, 
 for there were then many Avretched exam- 
 ples of profligacy among the sons of the rich 
 men of that time. It would be painful to 
 call up names, but most of those who have 
 reached middle age can call to mind many 
 fine fellows, who, from mistaken impressions 
 of life, have gone down to the grave " un- 
 v«rept, unhonored, and unsung." The R's, the 
 K's, the T's, and the S's, &c. &c., read no- 
 thing but anecdotes of Charles Fox's dissipa- 
 tion, or of Richard Brinsly Sheridan's wit and 
 profligacy. In the sport of buckism they 
 ate hundred dollar bills on a slice of bread 
 and butter, and skipped dollars on the sur- 
 face of a pond, all to show their nobility. 
 Many of their fathers, honest men, whose 
 great merit was success, looked forward to 
 the time when orders of nobility would be 
 created in this country, and if they were 
 not elevated to the peerage themselves, they 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 3tt 
 
 imagined that their high-bred sons would 
 stand a good chance for the advancement. 
 They did not see that the polarity of the 
 government and people was inclining to de- 
 mocracy; but, fortunate or not, all those 
 aristocratical feelings were swept away by 
 the tide that was then beginning to agitate 
 the public mind. The past seems a dream 
 to those who lived in it, and almost a legend 
 to those who only take it from history ; from 
 history did I say? history was afraid to 
 record a tythe of the truth of the times. 
 The wisest knew nothing of the elastic pow- 
 er of public opinion. Young Dexter, like 
 many of his contemporaries, the sons of rich 
 men died, without doing the slightest good 
 in society and without any particle of regret 
 from any one. No drunken companion who 
 had partaken of his wine even said "he 
 was a clever fellow ; it is a pity he went off 
 so soon." 
 
 We may as well speak of the daughter of 
 Timothy Dexter now as at any other time. 
 She bloomed for a while, a giggling belle of 
 more than ordinary personal beauty; but 
 her education was superficial as her brother's. 
 The fame of her father's wealth brought 
 about her a host of swindling, simpering gal- 
 lants ; but most of them retired after a visit 
 or two, finding it impossible, with all their 
 love of money, to bring their minds to 
 
32 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 make serious proposals to one so entirely 
 unfitted for society. At length, a grave, 
 philosophical scholar, who had travelled in 
 Europe and the East, made his bow to her. 
 His fame was then at its height. She 
 saw his name in the newspapers, as hav- 
 ing made a pilgrimage to Mecca, or of doing 
 some other wonderful feat in the way of 
 travel, and her vanity was raised at his at- 
 tentions. He was deeply read in men, and 
 soon knew how to manage lord Dexter. 
 They were married ; the father did not 
 bleed as freely as he expected, and his wife 
 did not improve as he thought she would do 
 under his instruction. They dragged along 
 together, she growing every day more slat- 
 ternly and siJly and he more morose and inat- 
 tentive. They had one child, a daughter. 
 The father has been attentive to her morals 
 and education, and she makes a respectable, 
 excellent woman. Soon after the child was 
 born, his wife grew intemperate, was led 
 astray, and a divorce followed. She lived 
 for many years a sad object of fatuity and 
 wretchedness. There are none of the crea- 
 tures of God that make so pitiful a spectacle 
 as a feeble mind sunk in vice. It has no 
 redeeming flash of thought, no lucid remi- 
 niscences, no bitter weepings over the past, 
 which show what once existed, and often 
 screen a fallen being from deserved neglect 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 3^ 
 
 and insult. The bloated forms of idiocy, 
 and the obstreperous, vacant laugh of in- 
 sanity are appalling to sensitive minds, and 
 a sore lessener to those who indulge in the 
 pride of human nature. She was kept out 
 of public sight, and supported by the provi- 
 dent care of her father ; one good deed 
 which should be named in the waste of 
 his life, where but few green spots are to be 
 found. 
 
 Dexter, by every devise, could only be no- 
 torious, but not popular. He soon found 
 that people did not always find respectabili- 
 ty according to the extent of their taxes, nor 
 even in proportion to their profusion. The 
 men would not associate with him, the wo- 
 men shunned him, and the boys used him at 
 times for their mirth. Boys are shrewd 
 critics and good judges of men, within which 
 lists they would not suffer him to come. In 
 any other portion of our country, but such 
 a quiet place as Newburyport, he could not 
 have existed ; the mob, or the incensed 
 citizen, would have driven him out until his 
 reason had come to him ; but there they as- 
 sumed no Lynch law, having too great a re- 
 spect for the ordinances and laws establish- 
 ed by their fathers. 
 
 He had nothing to give the people but his 
 money, and this they would not except, at 
 the price of granting him indulgences to 
 
34 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 commit crimes, or even peccadilloes or follieSj 
 but they were willing to protect him in all 
 his rights. He would have done better in 
 London than in the town of Newburyport. 
 In a large place, generosity, or the parade of 
 it, has ten thousand wings, but domestic 
 sins are often hid in the mighty wilderness 
 of an overgrown population, while they are 
 directly exposed to the sharp-sightedness of 
 a village. 
 
 When Dexter first came to Newburyport 
 he opened his garden for the inspection of 
 the public, and in the seasons of fruits and 
 flowers was very liberal to his visiters, par- 
 ticularly to those from the country. Gay 
 maidens came from his gates laden with 
 flowers or fruits, and seemed happy in their 
 visit to the strange man. If their gallants 
 thought he was not a Solomon, they found 
 him no niggard. This did not last long, for 
 he soon considered, and in fact called his 
 grounds ^^ a yellov)-hird trap f^ for although 
 he was an hundred times rebufled and treat- 
 ed with the profoundest contempt, yet he 
 still persisted in believing that he was mas- 
 ter of all he found there. The story of his 
 attempts at improper liberties with his fe- 
 male visiters soon became current, and the 
 number diminished every day; but those 
 who still persisted in coming were of the 
 less scrupulous of their sex. Hisflowersand 
 
LIFE OF DEXTElt. 35 
 
 fruits lost their charms, and ofterx were of- 
 fered in vain. If an unsophisticated female 
 came from the country, unacquainted with 
 his reputation, he gloated over her with the 
 most disgusting fondness ; but it was fre- 
 quently a long while before the girl under- 
 stood the man who offended her by such in- 
 civilities. There were instances of his get- 
 ting most sadly used up by such guests^ 
 when they saw the situation they were in. 
 On the whole, his trap-cage cost more than 
 it came to ; for sometimes a half a dozen 
 country damsels made him a visit for a frolic^ 
 and protected each other. 
 
 When disappointed of 'his prey he would 
 rave about house and curse his family for 
 joining in the league against him. How 
 wretched is the life of a dotard, in the pur- 
 suit of what he calls pleasure. 
 
 A thousand anecdotes have been told of 
 Timothy Dexter showing his folly and his 
 success, and many of them are unquestiona- 
 bly correct. When in the full tide of his 
 commercial speculations, he was the same 
 imitative creature as in buying his securi- 
 ties. Some of the merchant's clerks were 
 fond of quizzing him ; at one time they put 
 him up to send a large lot of warming-pans 
 to the West Indies, as a part of an assorted 
 cargo. The captain, a young and ingenious 
 man, finding this article in the invoice, set 
 
36 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 his yaiikee talents to work to find a sale for 
 them. He took oflf the covers and had hand- 
 some handles put to them, and called them 
 skimmers and the pan part, ladles. He then 
 liad them introduced into a large sugar-making 
 establishment, and they were much approved 
 of, as the best machines of their kind ever 
 invented. Every sugar-maker was anxious 
 to obtain several sets for his establishment, 
 and the whole was sold to great advantage. 
 At another time a rigger of one of his ves- 
 sels called upon him for a large quantity of 
 stay stuff, when he rode to Salem and Boston, 
 and purchased up all the whale-bone to be 
 found, and had it brought to Newburyport, 
 and when his workmen laughed at him for 
 his stupidity, he said, " Never mind." In a 
 short time it was found that he had monopo- 
 lized the article and could command his own 
 price for it. This put him on a scent by 
 which he frequently profited, for he would 
 inquire if any article was scarce in the mar- 
 ket, and if so, he would buy up all he could 
 find, and not unfrequently raised the price 
 of it to double or more. He made quite a 
 speculation in opium at one time, in this 
 way. It often happened that shrewd mer- 
 chants were suspicious of selling him an ar- 
 ticle, apprehensive that it was almost a sure 
 sign that it was going to rise, although they 
 could see no reason for it. 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER, 37 
 
 He purchased a splendid country seat, in 
 the town of Chester, in New Hampshire, 
 thinking that noveUy would please him, and 
 that the reputation for wealth would avail 
 him more in the country than in the town. 
 Here, after ornamenting his house and out- 
 houses in the most finical manner, and other- 
 wise lavishing large sums of money in mak- 
 ing magnificent stables, and monstrous sized 
 pigeon-houses, he began to quarrel with the 
 inhabitants, who cared but little for the 
 wealth they could not share ; and they more 
 than once put a stop to his impudence with 
 a horse- whip. Hampton Beach, in the 
 county of Rockingham and state of New 
 Hampshire, is a famous watering place. 
 There is a beautiful beach of no inconsid- 
 erable extent, from which the eye rests on a 
 boundless expanse of the ocean. At morn- 
 ing and evening, on fine summer days, are 
 to be seen gay groups of men, women and 
 children wandering about, picking up shells 
 which the winter storms and waves have 
 brought to the shore, and to add to the pic- 
 turesque beauties of the scene, there is a 
 bluff called " Boar's Head," against which 
 the sea dashes in impotent roar in the storm, 
 but at the summer season so gently laves as 
 to give it that beauty which borders on sub- 
 limity, but does not reach it. On this beach, 
 those who came to take *' a sniff of the 
 4 
 
38 LIFE OF DEJCTER. 
 
 briny/' are free and easy in their intercourse 
 with strangers. Here Dexter often resorted 
 to catch the notice of some one who had 
 not much acquaintance with ''''the greatest 
 man in the East^^'' and ran over his history, 
 which he was generally fond of communi- 
 cating to any one who was wiUing to hsten 
 to him. On such occasions he was silly, but 
 still amusing to many. A playful girl 
 amused herself with him on one of their ex- 
 cursions, until he lost all sense of propriety, 
 and rudely assailed her. She outran him, 
 and coming up all out of breath to the car- 
 riage where her protecter was, she entered 
 her complaint to him. He was a gigantic 
 youth, who could not brook this treatment of 
 his female friend, and yet disdained to use 
 his strength in the ordinary way to avenge 
 her, seized the old man by the collar, led 
 him to the steps of the carriage and seating 
 himself on them, took the offender across his 
 knee and chastised him with his open hand 
 as school-masters used to do unlucky ur^ 
 chins who stole apples, or played truant, in 
 former days. The blows were so severe as 
 to make the blood trickle to the heels of the 
 offender. This kept him in good order in 
 public places for years. 
 
 Dexter was not only ambitious of being a 
 lover of learning, but made a most wonder- 
 ful effort to write a book. This extraordi- 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 nary performance was called, a very signifi- 
 cant title, " A Pickle for the Knowing 
 Ones." It was a galamathies of all the saivs, 
 shreds, and jmtches that ever entered the 
 head of " a7mtley fool,'' with sonfie items of 
 his own history and some allusions to his 
 family difficulties. It was so ridiculous that 
 there seemed no small degree of ingenuity 
 in making it up, and probably he had some 
 assistance from the printer, or his devil. He 
 spurned all the ordinary laws of orthoe- 
 py or punctuation. He spelt from the light 
 of nature, and left common sense to make 
 out the pointing ; but fearing they should 
 forget the stops, he put them all in the last 
 page, requesting the reader to place them 
 where he pleased. Of this work he publish- 
 ed and gave away a. large edition, under- 
 standing that the noblemen in England did 
 not sell their literary works, but sent them 
 as presents through the land. The example 
 of lord Byron, of later days, could not then 
 have been cited, as he had never written or 
 published, or sold to them who gave him 
 the most for his works like other men. This 
 work contained a likeness of this ^' greatest 
 man of the East,''' admirable for its correct- 
 ness, and valuable for the engraving. His 
 little dog is placed in the foreground, and 
 is as good a likeness as that of his master. 
 He was made happy by hearing the compU- 
 
40 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 ments paid to him for this extraordinary work. 
 He was told, and he repeated it, that Shak- 
 speare and Milton were not his equals, and 
 his work would be read when they were for- 
 gotten ; not thinking it might he added, as 
 it was in another case, " not until then.''' 
 The book is out of print ; many of these 
 volumes are no doubt scattered throughout 
 the country, but, by most diligent search, I 
 have been miable to procure a copy, although 
 in my inquiry I found king James' Blast 
 blown against Tobacco, and many curious 
 old sermons, with long and quaint titles. 
 What a careless generation ! one would 
 almost think that the press had not the pow- 
 er to preserve works of genius, according to 
 the boast of the times. There are now in 
 existence several volumes of his library, but 
 his production has sunk to oblivion. I 
 think he has broached the idea of his own 
 immortality in the volume, and anticipated 
 the wonderings of posterity over his lucu- 
 brations. He is not the only author and 
 publisher of a book who has made errone- 
 ous calculations. " I write for perpetuity,'' 
 may have been said in the hearts of thou- 
 sands ; but few such presentiments were 
 the true promptings of genius. 
 
 When the news of the death of Louis 
 XVI. arrived in Boston, Dexter was there. 
 He hastened to Newburyport, as fast as his 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 41 
 
 horses would carry him ; but said nothing of 
 the intelUgence he had received. It was early 
 in the evening, when several of the church 
 bells of the town began to toll, to the sur- 
 prise of the inhabitants. On reaching the 
 doors of the churches the people found them 
 closed. Dexter had procured the sextons, 
 when he found those that could be bribed, 
 to commence the passing bell before he 
 promulgated the news of the death of the 
 amiable monarch. The selectmen soon 
 stopped the bells, but Dexter gained his 
 point, that of promulgating the mournful 
 tidings after his own manner. The boys 
 left their play, and gathering in groups, lis- 
 tened to the tale of wo. One, however, of 
 the Jacobins of that day, a little fellow, said 
 he was glad of it; all kings should die, 
 said he, that poor people might have their 
 money; he wished the poor would cut off 
 the heads of our rich men to-morrov/. 
 Another urchin mounted the fence, and from 
 a post took the other side. He said king 
 Louis XVI. was a good man, and assisted 
 the Americans in gaining their indepen- 
 dence; and wicked men cut off his head 
 before the good men could come to save him ; 
 and then related several anecdotes of his 
 generosity to the poor. The boys were 
 mostly on the side of the latter speaker. 
 The first was hustled out of the company ; 
 4# 
 
42 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 and some one of them hearing that it was 
 Dexter who brought the news, and paid 
 sexton Hale and others for tolhng the bell, 
 proposed to make Dexter a visit and to 
 sympathize Avith him. The great man, 
 at that time, hved in the centre of the 
 town, in the first palace that he had pur- 
 chased. The proposition \yas at once ac- 
 ceded to, and the crowd moved to State 
 street, and paraded before Dexter's door, 
 who came out to know their wishes. The 
 speaker whose eloquence had been approv- 
 ed of by the boys stated to him the object of 
 their visit, and thanked him for noticing the 
 death of so good a man. Dexter acquitted 
 himself remarkably well. He said in reply, 
 they were fine boys, and would grow up and 
 make great men ; adding, that if the fruits 
 or flowers were growing, he would let them 
 all come into the garden ; but it was the 
 season only for digging. He then proposed, 
 that they should come in and have a glass 
 of wine ; but the boys said that would be 
 making merry, and declined the honor. As 
 they turned to depart they raised the cry, 
 " long live Dexter." Never was being more 
 happy than Dexter at that moment. The 
 boys went home, some were reprimanded 
 for the course they took, and others were 
 commended for their good feelings. Dexter, 
 during the whole French revolution, ex- 
 pressed his commiseration for the royal 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 43 
 
 family that had escaped the guillotine, and 
 said that he would fit up his house for their 
 accommodation, if they should escape to 
 this country. At one period he bought up 
 a large stock of provisions, alleging his be- 
 lief that they would come here. They did 
 not come ; but provisions rose in price, and 
 he made a handsome advance on them. 
 This he attributed to Providence, to pay him 
 for his good intentions ; but most probably 
 this was a piece of his sagacit}'', or of imi- 
 tation, as some of his shrewd neighbors had 
 accumulated a stock likewise, and saw their 
 account in it as well as himself, without al- 
 leging any such reasons for their course of 
 business. Such a man's motive, it is fre- 
 quently difficult to discover, and perhaps 
 would be equally difficult for him to honestly 
 avow ; there are but few men who are suffi- 
 ciently attentive to their own thoughts to 
 be able to analyze every motive to action, 
 and among these Dexter was not one. 
 
 Dexter, notwithstanding he believed that 
 his name would go down to posterity in 
 great honor, and that over his remains there 
 would hang a permanent halo of glory, still 
 knew that, according to the course of na- 
 ture, " this mortal coil must be shuffled 
 off," and other worlds must be tried, and 
 that sooner than he might expect. With 
 this impression, he built himself a tomb, not 
 
44 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 a dark and dreary vault, where neither air 
 nor sun obtains entrance, except when its 
 " ponderous and marble jaws are opened" 
 to receive a tenant. Dexter's tomb was the 
 basement story of a handsome summer- 
 house, erected on a sightly position, sur- 
 rounded by " shrub, flower and tree." The 
 tomb was well lighted and ventilated — a 
 mere pleasant retreat, " after life's fitful fe- 
 ver" should be over. In this sleep of death 
 he knew not what dreams might come, and 
 he said, that " as a candle burning in one's 
 room at night kept ofl" bad dreams, why 
 should not the light of day keep off ugly 
 speqtres when we shall sleep the long sleep of 
 death ? and the music which the living have 
 in the summer-house can offend no one." 
 
 Some one had told him, for it was the 
 amusement of young and old wags to fill his 
 head with singular events, that the great car- 
 dinal Wolsey, when he was in power, "sound- 
 ing all the depths and shoals of honor," had 
 sent to Egypt for a black marble sarcopha- 
 gus of great size, in which his body was to 
 wait the resurrection of the just. In all 
 probability the relator did not tell him that 
 the cardinal did not use his sarcophagus, hav- 
 ing died in disgrace; and certainly no one 
 could tell him whose mortal remains should 
 rest in it, for lord Nelson, whose corse now oc- 
 cupies it, was then living in the full tide of 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 45 
 
 fame, the admiration of Dexter, with the 
 rest of the world, for he had placed his effi- 
 gy in his galaxy of the worthies who orna- 
 mented his grounds. After long meditation, 
 he came to the conclusion of preparing his 
 own coffin, as he had done his tomb, and 
 most certainly reason could find no argu- 
 ments against one, more than the other ; nor, 
 in fact, against either. His first object was 
 to hunt for an extraordinary lot of mahoga- 
 ny plank ; and, by picking a board here and 
 another there, he succeeded in procuring them 
 full of knots, curls and veins of rich hues. 
 The next step was to employ a cabinet mak- 
 er to construct the coffin. A house joiner, 
 whose works were mostly pine, would not, 
 in his mind, be sufficiently skilled to make 
 such a doomsday article. A workman was 
 at length found, of reputation enough to be 
 employed. It was an excellent piece of 
 work, well jointed and fastened, superbly 
 lined and pillowed, and in which a living 
 head might have rested comfortably. Four 
 massy silver handles were attached to the 
 sides, in order that it might be moved about 
 without the awl-ivv^ardness generally atten- 
 dant on handling a coffin with a corse in it, 
 particularly a heavy one. He surveyed the 
 article with delight, and having the top un- 
 screwed, tried this future repository of 
 his ashes, and found that there was room 
 
46 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 enough for bim to lie well. He tlien placed 
 it in a room convenient for exhibition. He 
 took no small pleasure in showing it to his 
 visiters, who generally expressed a wish to 
 see it. At other times it was locked up with 
 caution, for fear it might be injured, by ac- 
 cident or design ; for he knew enough of hu- 
 man nature to believe, that envy and malice 
 often struck their daggers into the coffin of 
 those whose presence when living they fled 
 from. With the key which fast bound his 
 treasure in his pocket, he went to prepare 
 the place in which he was to rest, by some 
 new change of earth, wall or upper build- 
 ing, according to his caprice, and to hasten 
 the time of his coming to it by copious 
 draughts of alcohol — the grave-digger of 
 millions. 
 
 After the tomb had been prepared, and the 
 coffin finished to his taste, Dexter, with a few 
 of his cronies, got up a mock funeral, sup- 
 posed by many at the time to be a real one. 
 He had, by giving to his wife, son and 
 daughter, suits of mourning and money to 
 boot, engaged them, at last, to acquiesce 
 in his whim. Cards were sent to certain 
 persons in the town to attend the funeral. 
 Some who had no misgivings, and all who 
 desired a frolic, came at the hour appointed. 
 Some wag, for he could not get a priest to 
 perform the burial service, read it and pro« 
 
LIFE OF DfiXTER. ^ 
 
 tiounced a eulogy on the great man of the 
 East. The procession moved to the garden- 
 Vault, the coffin was deposited, and the door 
 locked. The assembled mourners returned 
 to the large hall, where a sumptuous enter- 
 tainment had been provided, and the choicest 
 wines were poured out like water. Some 
 one hinted that Dexter's ghost was seen at 
 an upper window while the procession slow- 
 ly moved to the vault, but this passed away, 
 when a loud complaint was heard in the 
 kitchen. It was lord Dexter caning his 
 wife for not acting her part as she should 
 have done in the ceremony. She had not 
 shed a tear ! She should have cried to think 
 it was not a reality. Dexter had been so 
 much pleased in his concealment, in hearing 
 of his praise, that he entered the wake-room 
 with the highest glee ; shared in the wine, 
 and threw small change from his window to 
 the gaping crowd of boys who had gathered 
 to witness the last solemn scene. These 
 freaks amused a portion of the people, and 
 did no great harm. The judicious grieved^ 
 but the mass loved fun. There was, how- 
 ever, a drawback to his experiment ; not a 
 single bell tolled, when he expected the whole 
 of them would have sounded a knell for his 
 passing soul. That was not all ; not a requi- 
 em was sung, except by the wag who per- 
 formed the funeral services : he gave one that 
 
48 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 some bacchanalian had in former limes com- 
 posed for himself to be simg before his de- 
 parture. Dexter expressed himself satisfied 
 with every thing but the absence of the toll- 
 ing bell, and his wife's dry eyes. His son 
 had performed his part to admiration, being 
 sufficiently drunk to weep without much 
 effort. It is said that his grief was so exces- 
 sive that he required support as he entered 
 the tomb ; at least, the old man was satisfied 
 with his enactments. 
 
 To guard his images and his fruit, he 
 generally, in the summer season, kept a sen- 
 try during the night. If the guard made no 
 alarm he was pretty sure of being charged 
 with negligence of duty. He often had a 
 shrewd old man as a watchman at the time 
 when his cherries were ripening, and he 
 had a most noble orchard of this excellent 
 fruit, planted by the care of the original 
 owner of the premises he possessed. For 
 several nights the watchman made no alarm, 
 and Dexter began to suspect that he was 
 leagued with those who used to purloin his 
 cherries. This he did not fail to make 
 known to all. The next night, at the dead 
 hour of darkness, two discharges of a mus* 
 ket were heard. The inmates of the house 
 rushed out half dressed and found the watch- 
 man deploring the deed he had done ; blood 
 was traced from one of the trees, on which 
 
Life op dexter. 4^ 
 
 a limb v/as broken, to the wall that divided 
 the garden from the town street ; this was 
 partly thrown down, and prints of hands 
 and feet were seen in the clayey soil on 
 which the victim had fallen, in his desperate 
 exertions to escape ; and then the traces of 
 blood were lost in the grassi 
 
 The watchman was found in an agony 
 of distress at the rash act, and threw all the 
 blame, moral and legal, on his employer. 
 Dexter was delighted, and was willing to 
 take all responsibility. He was now amply 
 revenged on the rascals who had plundered 
 his garden. As a reward, he swore^ in the 
 plenitude of his dehght, that his faithful 
 watchman should be rewarded by fifty 
 pounds of coffee. He had lately imported a 
 cargo of coffee, and directed his wife to weigh 
 it out. She, not having full confidence in 
 the honesty of the transaction, and being 
 prudent withal, gave the guard quite a small 
 bag for one containing fifty pounds. Dexter 
 cast his eye upon it, and suspecting the 
 cheat, most solemnly declared that his wife 
 should add five-fold for all deficiencies. The 
 bag was weighed and fell sadly short. The 
 quantity forfeited by the wife, when forth- 
 coming, was more than the old man could 
 shoulder, and he hired a hand cart to convey 
 the coffee, the reward, of his fidelity, to his 
 own home. It was undoubtedly a hoax, but it 
 5 
 
60 L11?E OF DEXTER. 
 
 answered two purposes, without wounding 
 any one. It satisjfied Dexter, and frightened 
 away the little thieving rascals, who had 
 wishfully eyed his fruit, if they had not, as 
 yet, made an attempt to furtively gain it. 
 
 The people from the country who came 
 to make a visit to the sea-board and to catch 
 a sea-breeze were his favorites. They came 
 for a frolic and enjoyed it. They knew his 
 weak side, and flattered him to his hearths 
 content, and for their pains saw all his curi- 
 osities, had free access to his garden, and fed 
 deliciously upon ripe currants, gooseberries, 
 pears and plums, as happened to be ripe, and 
 not unfrequently drank his brandy and wa-^ 
 ter, or partook of his good wines* If he 
 was at times a little free in his remarks, they 
 took no notice of it, as they visited him in 
 such large bodies that no one felt particu- 
 larly aggrieved, and all departed in good 
 glee. On one or these visits, which fell un- 
 der the writer's observation, the country 
 damsels carried on the fun so far as to beg a 
 lock of his hair, now growing gray, for a 
 locket. One wished for a lock that had be* 
 come entirely gray, another beginning to 
 turn so ; and, believing them all, the locks 
 of the Adonis were pretty well shorn ; but 
 it is more than probable they were all shorn 
 from a wig. If this were the case, he must 
 have been delighted at the joke ; for he loved 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER, 51 
 
 to deceive as well as lo be deceived. He 
 was never satisfied with any thing natural ; 
 tricks without malice made up the great 
 amusement of his latter days. He devised 
 it in the morning and cherished it at night, 
 and no doubt but that it filled his dreams. 
 
 Tiiere were times in which he quite as- 
 tounded his acquaintances by his remarks, 
 half wisely and half foolishly said. When 
 every paper w^as teeming with lord Thur- 
 low's famous speech in the house of lords, 
 " When 1 forget my king may God forget 
 me," he travestied it to " When I forget my- 
 self may God forget me," and many thought 
 liis more sincere than the chancellor's, which 
 seemed to smack of political ambition. 
 
 One of Dexter's amusements was to ex- 
 amine many times a day his clocks and 
 watches, in which his house abounded. In 
 general, he had selected those of curious 
 workmanship and of great value. Once a 
 week he had them regulated and set a run- 
 ning. And to those that behaved best, to use 
 his own phrase, he gave great names, some- 
 times most ridiculously inappropriate. He 
 daily talked to his chronometers as things 
 of life, and threatened to sell them if they 
 did not go well. If they got out of order 
 he sent for his friend T. B., a very ingenious 
 watchmaker ; a man of singularities, but of 
 no moral aberrations. He indulged in harm- 
 
52 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 less, but sometimes strange views of mental 
 philosophy ; and Dexter's mind was to him 
 a subject of much thought and analysis. 
 He had the entire confidence of the great 
 man of the East, and could draw from him all 
 his honest opinions, whenever he had any 
 that existed for a minute at a time. One 
 day when the artist was regulating clocks 
 and watches, which was no easy task, as 
 many of them were of complicated work- 
 manship, a conversation arose upon the na- 
 ture of time. Dexter gave it as his opinion 
 that time was part of the atmosphere, for 
 some of his clocks, he said, showed when it 
 was going to rain ; it was also a part of the 
 heaven, for his clocks showed the growth 
 and decrease of the moon. Then it was a 
 part of the mind of man, for he could set 
 one of the clocks so that it would ring a bell 
 and wake him up at any hour of the night. 
 At last, like Simonides, when questioned up- 
 on the nature of God, who asked but a few 
 hours at first to answer the question, and at 
 the end of the time required a longer period, 
 and so on until he refused to answer at all, 
 Dexter gave it as his opinion that time was 
 a shadow you could not catch with a hat 
 like a butterfly, or shoot with a gun like a 
 pigeon. 
 
 Time is a subject that every one, what- 
 ever calibre of mind he may possess, from 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 53 
 
 the philosophical and poetical Young, to 
 Shakspeare's Fool, attempts to discuss. 
 
 " Good morrow, Fool," Quoth I. " No, sir," Quoth he, 
 
 " Call me not. Fool, till heaven hath sent me fortune." 
 
 And then he drew a dial from his poke, 
 
 And looking- at it with lack-lustre eye, 
 
 Says very wisely, " It is ten o'clock ; 
 
 Thus may we see," quoth he, " how the world wags ; 
 
 'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, 
 
 And after an hour more it will be eleven ; 
 
 And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, 
 
 And then from hour to hour we rot and rot, 
 
 And thereby hangs a tale." When I did hear 
 
 The motley fool thus moral on the time, 
 
 My lungs began to crow like chanticleer. 
 
 That fools should be so deep contemplative, 
 
 And I did laugh, sans intermission. 
 
 An hour by his dial. O noble fool ! 
 
 A worthy fool ! Motley 's the only wear. 
 
 The fit of talking upon philosophy was 
 still upon him, and he said that it was a 
 great puzzle to him that God suffered man 
 to do what he had not done himself. " Look 
 at all these trees," said he, " there are no two 
 of them alike ; no two men now going along 
 in the street are alike ; there are two of no- 
 thing alike, yet you can make my clocks 
 and watches so much alike that they do not 
 vary a minute in a month. This is strange 
 to me, and I have come to the conclusion, 
 Mr. T. B., that man is a wonderful toad ! 
 Sometimes I think he is a woodchuck, and 
 digs a hole to keep out of sight, until he 
 gets a fair chance for the clover ; now he 
 looks to me hke a weasel that can creep in- 
 to a small place to catch a rat : sometimes 
 5=* 
 
54 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 he is as cunning as a fox, then as stupid 
 as a jackass, and pretty generally, I do not 
 know what the d — 1 to make of him." There 
 was a pause, but the philosophizing spirit 
 had not departed. 
 
 At length he resumed, " Mr. B., what do 
 you think of our ministers in this town 7 are 
 they, in your opinion, honest men?" " O ! 
 certainly," replied the philosopher, who was 
 the best natured man in the world, "excel- 
 lent men," enumerating them, and giving 
 each his peculiar characteristics, to the extent 
 of a longer eulogy than was his custom to 
 give, for he wished to impress on Dexter's 
 mind a respect for the holy men. " Well, 
 well," said Dexter, " I suppose they are 
 'good men ; but I want to know why they 
 do not agree any better? they are always at 
 sword's points, and will not enter each other's 
 pulpits, or hardly nod at each other in the 
 
 streets. M says, that Dr. S 's god 
 
 is his devil ; and M again says that an 
 
 Antinomian cannot go to heaven. I once 
 asked lawyer P., who knows every thing, 
 and as much again, what an Antinomian 
 was ; he told me in a minute that it was ' an 
 old stingy fellow who would not go to law, 
 and cheated the lawyer of his fees.' " "So 
 you see he had got one member on his side, 
 and that is pretty well for the lawyers." 
 "Mr. B.," said Dexter, " I should like this 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 55 
 
 parson M ; he has a good voice, which 
 
 makes the house ring again, and he is not 
 afraid to roast sinners to a crisp ; but then 
 he has too much of tlie Alphin and the Omc- 
 gin for me," meaning that he dealt too much 
 in declamatory sentences, such as, ''I am 
 Alpha and Omega — the beginning and the 
 end, the first and the last.^'' The thunders 
 of the gospel were more familiar to his 
 tongue than the cooings of the dove, or the 
 whispers of love, and the musical organs of 
 Dexter were nicely attuned. One fact, in 
 proof that if 
 
 " The man that has no nnusic in himself, 
 Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 
 Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils," 
 
 that he who has, is not necessarily great. 
 The artist now wished, at this stage of the 
 conversation, to avoid it altogether. But not 
 so with Dexter; he continued, "I dare say 
 that all our ministers are clever fellows, 
 Mr. B., but 1 wish you and I had the wind- 
 ing of them up ; if we had, they would not 
 tick so loud, and would go better than they 
 now do." So it falls out that one class of 
 men are critics upon others, and even Pope 
 acknowledged that Dennis had some truth 
 in his satire. 
 
 In one of his paroxysms. Dexter ordered 
 his son to take the gun and fire at a person 
 in the street, who was, as he thought, too 
 
56 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 impudently or sneakingly viewing the pre- 
 mises. The young man had principle and 
 feeling enough to decline ; but the father, 
 drawing a pistol, swore he would shoot him, 
 if he did not obey at once. The son fired, 
 and either by intention or good fortune, 
 struck the fence, near the traveller. A com- 
 plaint was made to the magistrates, who ad- 
 judged Dexter to the county house of cor- 
 rection, for several months. He then made 
 a bargain with the officer who was ordered 
 to attend him to his place of confinement 
 to suffer him to ride in his own coach to the 
 county-house, in the town of Ipswich. The 
 officer attended on horseback, and Dexter 
 amused himself by jollification and ribaldry 
 all the way, to the astonishment of the good 
 people they passed. The disgrace at first 
 was nothing to the pleasure he felt, from 
 thinking that he was the first man sent to 
 the house of correction who went in his own 
 carriage, drawn by two splendid horses. In 
 this state of confinement he grew vSober, and 
 began to feel the degradation of his situation, 
 and to be solicitous of being relieved. This 
 was efi*ected, but not without considerable 
 expense. It was said, at the time, to have 
 cost him over a thousand dollars to get out 
 of the scrape. 
 
 There are many of more intellect than 
 Dexter possessed, who have stolen through 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 57 
 
 life without censure or notice, and passed as 
 clever sort of men, in their way. It was 
 Dexter's misfortune to have made himself an 
 object of notoriety. He was mentally feeble, 
 but his wealth gave him opportunities for 
 display. Strong minds, under the influence 
 of whim and caprice, often provoke a sneer 
 from those of more moderate capacity. 
 Many who attempted to take advantage of 
 him got sadly deceived. He had no small 
 share of cunning, when all seemed to have 
 departed from him. He by direct or indi- 
 rect means attained correct opinions upon 
 the value of goods and lands, and seldom 
 made an injudicious speculation. He dip- 
 ped into the Ohio lands to great advantage, 
 if the first executor on his estate had been 
 sagacious and sold it at the right time. Al- 
 though Dexter affected to dash onward as 
 a leader, yet he drew all opinions from the 
 public voice, constantly placing his ear 
 wherever public opinion was to be caught. 
 If he was not a profound calculator, he was 
 a ready reckoner and came to results rapidly. 
 There was no dulness about him. His ele- 
 ments, however shallow, were in constant 
 motion. Sometimes it was thought that he 
 seriously questioned his own greatness : but 
 such rational moments did not frequently 
 occur, and visions of distinction flitted be- 
 fore him oftener than any other. Now and 
 
58 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 then a pious fit came over his mind, and he 
 was determined to seek lame and heaven 
 together, hy becoming a patron to the 
 church. He did not regard the satirical re- 
 mark of the bard, 
 
 " Who builds a house to God and not to Fame, 
 Will scarcely mark the marble with his name ;" 
 
 but connected the idea of the constant 
 sonnds of a church-going bell with " the 
 whistling of a name." Dexter's gifts were aU 
 ways marked with tlie name of the donor. 
 The face of his presented clocks and bells 
 contained his name ; but gratitude has not 
 retained them all. The brush lias passed 
 over the former, and the latter have been 
 exchanged at the foundery, for others of a 
 larger size, or different tone; and the newly 
 cast ones contain nothing of the former 
 inscriptions. Was he much to blame] If 
 every particle of vanity was extracted from 
 every charity of life, how little would be the 
 residuum ! Vanity is a natural, if not a 
 necessary ingredient, in ail the eleemosynary 
 acts. This vanity is often easily disguised^ 
 but, nevertheless, it exists. Dexter, like 
 many others, had no balance-wheel to his 
 mind, or regulator to his tongue, particularly 
 when there were no dollars and cents in the 
 business. With all his follies, he could not 
 be called a hard master ; for he paid all his 
 workmen fairly, according to his agreementj 
 
LIFE OF DEXTEit* 59 
 
 but was sharp in making his bargains. He 
 insisted that every laborer Was worthy of 
 his hire. A laughable instance of this has 
 often been related of him. One of his family 
 being sick, he sent for a clergyman to com- 
 fort and pray with her. As he was about 
 to depart, Dexter offered the holy man his 
 fee. This was declined by the clergyman 
 and insisted on by Dexter, who unquestiona- 
 bly had the best of the argument. Finding 
 all entreaty vain, the master of the house 
 ended the debate at the muzzle of a pistol. 
 How few rewards were ever so enforced \ 
 From the lily hand of him who baptizes, 
 and him who offers the firmer grasp of the 
 physician, up to the iron clench of the law- 
 yer, was it ever before recorded, that a para- 
 lytic stroke reached the hand extended to 
 grasp a fee protlered by generosity ? 
 
 There Was a giant of a fellow, born some- 
 where near the head waters of the Merri- 
 mack, by the name of William Burley. He 
 stood six feet seven inches high without his 
 shoes. His frame was compact and strong. 
 His hands were large and his feet monstrous. 
 He was the champion of every wrestling ring 
 within fifty miles of the place of his birth. 
 He had heard of Dexter and went to see 
 him. They were mutually pleased with 
 each other, and a bargain was soon made 
 for Burley's services. The laborer was to 
 
60 LIFE OF DEXtEIt. 
 
 do double work, eat a double portiou of food,- 
 and do all Dexter's fighting, on condition 
 that he was saved harmless from the effects 
 of the law. Burley told his employer, that 
 he was generally called Dvmrf Billy^ by 
 way of distinction, and had no objection to 
 the name. For some time the dwarf was 
 seen industriously at work in the garden and 
 field, much to the satisfaction of Dexter^ 
 who would go down to his field, sit upon a 
 large basket of corn or pumpkins, and make 
 the dwarf take the whole load on his back to 
 the barn. He was so fond of the dwarf that 
 he would spend no small part of the day 
 with him to witness his feats of strength ^ 
 which he would take great pains to make 
 known to his neighbors. 
 
 While Burley was in the service of Dex- 
 ter, a bold and boisterous sea captain made 
 the Eccentric a visit and examined his house 
 and grounds; but having ^^ pulled at the 
 halyards^^ too freely, was quite uncivil and 
 found fault with every thing he saw. Dex- 
 ter became so vexed that he threatened to 
 call his men and drive him off. This was 
 amusing to the captain, who dared Dexter 
 to send any three of his men to him, and he 
 would give them fair play. Dexter now" 
 thought of Burle}^, who had been so good 
 natured about the house that Dexter had 
 forgotten all about his fighting powers. Be^ 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 61 
 
 fore the dwarf was sent for, the captain took 
 from his pocket a guinea and offered to wa- 
 ger it that no two men tliat Dexter had, 
 could get him fairly from the premises by 
 corporeal strength. The bet was accepted. 
 Billy came, and stood before the captain with 
 his arms bare, his shirt collar open, and 
 throwing on his antagonist a fierce look, 
 turned to his employer and said, '' Lord Dex- 
 ter, do you wish me to skin him before I eat 
 him, or not stop for that?" " Do as you 
 please," said Dexter, highly amused to see 
 how the captain looked. The captain eyed 
 the man-monster for some time, put his 
 gumea in his lordship's hands, saying, " By 
 Jupiter? if this is your dwarf, how big are 
 your giants ?" Dexter handed the guinea 
 over to Bill, whoquitecomposedly put itinto 
 his pocket, and taking up a handful of ap- 
 ples, presented them to the departing guest, 
 with a speech. " Captain, it is a good deal 
 better to eat a few good apples than to fight 
 even a dwarf ! You may say that apples 
 are big as an eighteen pound' cannon-ball, 
 at Halifax, but don^t say that they are quite 
 as large as my head, where I am." The 
 dwarf soon got tired of his employer's ca- 
 prices, and left him. 
 
 Dexter was not only amusing in himself, 
 but not unfrequently the cause of wit and 
 merriment in others. Towards the close of 
 6 
 
^2 LiFE OiF DEXTER. 
 
 his career a stranger came to Newbiiryporlj 
 and wishing to see lord Dexter, sent him a 
 note, requesting the honor of an interview, 
 understanding that his lordship, at times, 
 was quite accessible. At this moment, " the 
 great eccentric" was quite indisposed hav- 
 ing the night before 
 
 ** Like great Caesar reeled sublime to bed," 
 
 and of course his attendant did not give him 
 the note ; but the colored woman who was 
 then reigning empress of the domains took 
 the letter to one of her distinguished patrons 
 and wished him to send an answer. The 
 gentleman was at dinner with a young 
 friend, and they thinking the writer of the 
 note was a foreigner who had been finding 
 fault with every thing in the country, and 
 boasting most egregiously of his own, 
 thought they would have some amusement 
 with him. An answer was returned stating 
 that, owing to the severe indisposition of 
 some part of his family, lord Dexter would 
 not receive the gentleman at his cha- 
 teau, but would be happy to meet him at 
 eight o'clock that evening at the Bridge inn, 
 to share in a little supper of birds. The 
 note was written on rose paper and sealed 
 with a lordly impression. The friends pre- 
 pared themselves for the interview. The 
 oldest, who was to represent lord Dexter, 
 wore a salmon-colored coat that had formerly 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 63 
 
 belonged to a French marquis who nad fled 
 from St. Domingo, at the time of the revolu- 
 tion, and had died at Newbury port ; the dis- 
 guise was still further made out by a full- 
 dressed wig of a fashion more than half a 
 century gone by. The younger, who was 
 to personate the son, had borrowed a drum- 
 mer's or hfer's red, shortcoat, rather too small 
 for him, but which gave the air of higher 
 gentility. It had been suggested in the an- 
 swer to the stranger's note, that as they seldom 
 were at public places, he must not inquire 
 for Dexter directly, but for the gentleman in 
 the west room. The stranger was punctual ; 
 but lord Dexter and his son had preceded 
 him. As the stranger entered they saw they 
 were out in their calculations, for instead of 
 seeing the coarse, big, and burly foreigner, 
 who had been talking of plums in his coun- 
 try as long as goose-eggs, and cantelopes as 
 large as a peck basket, they met a gentle- 
 man of highly polished manners ; and they 
 soon found him as intelligent as polished. As 
 he entered, lord Dexter arose to receive him, 
 with the grace and dignity of a prince. He 
 extended to the stranger one of the most deli- 
 cate hands that was ever presented in friend- 
 ship or ceremony, adorned with rings of 
 great brilliancy and value. The stranger, 
 although acquainted with the world, ac- 
 knowledged afterwards, that he had never 
 
64 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 witnessed such high-bred manners. The 
 supper soon came in. His lordship asked 
 the stranger if the bird should be carved 
 after the style of the Roman Lucullus or 
 after the manner of the modern epicure, 
 Quin. A smile played upon the face of the 
 stranger, and he, bowing, preferred the Ro- 
 man method, for he was not very distinctly 
 apprized of what that might be. The knife 
 was drawn across the breast, and the 
 division made transversely instead of lat- 
 erally, separating, in a good measure, the 
 white meat from the dark. " The Roman," 
 said his lordship, " wished to have a good 
 bite of the Aving and breast to satiate his 
 appetite, at first, and then pick upon the 
 scanty dark meat to provoke a fresh appe- 
 tite. Quin cut otherwise, because he wish- 
 ed to provoke an appetite first, and then in- 
 dulge it afterwards." "Quite philosophical," 
 thought the stranger, '• for one of lord Dex- 
 ter's reputation, but probably he has been 
 misrepresented." After quite a discussion 
 upon gastronom)'", the politics of the day 
 were introduced. The character of William 
 Pitt, the great premier of England, came on 
 the tapis. The son now broke forth in his- 
 torical eulogy of that great man. The po- 
 litical state of the world made the back- 
 ground of the picture. His father's virtues 
 were seen shadowed at a distance, and the 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 65 
 
 former age of lord Holland, general Wolfe, 
 with the embalmed malice of Junius, were 
 forcibly depicted. Buonaparte was placed 
 alongside of Pitt the younger, and their char- 
 acteristics dwelt upon, until they were seen 
 blazing abroad, and overshadowing the 
 whole world. From politics they passed 
 to literature and science, and in all, the 
 stranger bore his part most admirably, now 
 and then gazing with wonder upon his en- 
 tertainers. A new race of poets were then 
 just twinkling on the literary horizon. Sou- 
 they was then struggling through those Jac- 
 obin mists, which so long obscured his noble 
 genius. Campbell had breathed his strain 
 of hope, and Coleridge had begun his song. 
 Sir Walter Scott was then a clerk, who had 
 now ventured a few stanzas only, and was 
 still recording on the docket. " The Pur- 
 suits of Literature'' had just reached us, but 
 the author Was then not known. His taste, 
 his vanity, his learning, his honest but oft- 
 misguided satire, were subjects of passing 
 remark. The stranger inquired for the 
 American poets. They were presented to 
 him in regular order, from the earliest his- 
 tory of our country to the time of the con- 
 versation, and fair analysis of them given. 
 Lord Dexter now and then interspersed a 
 shrewd and pointed remark, but yielded to 
 his son, as being more conversant with mod- 
 ern subjects. 6"^ 
 
66 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 The wine was excellentj and circulated 
 freely. His lordship was at home in the 
 science of the wine cup. He knew every 
 vintage, on every soil, and now more than 
 ever astonished the stranger. His lordship 
 talked of every choice bottle from the Godol- 
 phin down to old Row's sales. 
 
 The subject of horses was alluded to ; 
 the Sporting Magazine was a text book to his 
 lordship. The history of the horse was fa- 
 miliar to him, from the day he was first sub- 
 jugated to man, to the barb and grey hound 
 of the desert of the present hour. The con- 
 versation was continued until late in the 
 night, when the father and son took their 
 carriage to go home. The stranger suggest- 
 ed that he would follow, as he was not ac- 
 quainted with the road. There was still a 
 lurking suspicion in the stranger's mind that 
 he was hoaxed. When Dexter and his son 
 arrived at their chateau, the colored woman 
 opened the gate, and they, wishing the 
 stranger good night, rode in. His suspicions 
 could exist no longer. He drove on, and 
 they, waiting until he was out of sight, fol- 
 lowed him. On viewing the subject the 
 next day, they come to the conclusion that 
 it was the proper course to make an expla- 
 nation at once. The next morning they 
 took a few friends with them and made the 
 *' amende honorable" to the stranger; by 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 67 
 
 this time he had become acquainted with the 
 braggadocio they intended to gull, and was 
 as much disgusted with him as they were. 
 All, therefore, Avas readily forgiven, and the 
 stranger was treated in the most courteous 
 manner. He was introduced to lord Dexter 
 and his driveling son, and often amused his 
 friends by the feelings and reasonings which 
 passed his mind in his evening's entertain- 
 ment. He used to say that he did not think 
 that there were as many diamond rings in 
 the whole city, as Dexter exhibited that 
 night. Late as it was when he returned, he 
 took down the evening's conversation, and 
 read it at several dinners, to the no small 
 amusement of his listeners. 
 
 In some way or other Dexter and his 
 family were constantly, for several years, 
 before the public ; for every thing they did 
 was noticed. The common currents of life 
 make a smooth surface, and attract but lit- 
 tle attention ; but on those waters where are 
 seen a few ripples and whirlpools the eye is 
 constantly directed ; and it is no great mat- 
 ter to the observer whether their agitations 
 are made by a sea-serpent or a horned pout, 
 or any other small fry. Diogenes, in his 
 course of life, did not half as much good as 
 lord Dexter, for Dexter employed and fed 
 many men, while the Greek philosopher 
 hardly fed himself. The difference between 
 
68 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 these great eccentrics was this, Diogenes 
 wished even kings to get out of his sunshine, 
 and Dexter wished his glory to shine on 
 every fool who would worship him. 
 
 Dexter, although he did not do much good, 
 did not live in vain. The follies he was 
 guilty of fell on himself and his family, but 
 the public did not suffer much. He was 
 guiltless of shedding his country's blood ; his 
 ambition did not that way tend. He never 
 aspired to the dreams of Condorcet, nor ter- 
 rified the world with the dagger of Catiline. 
 He sometimes affrighted his household with 
 the discharge of a musket, but never aimed 
 with sufficient precision to hit his object. 
 He never led mankind astray by false rea- 
 soning, for he never reasoned. He had no 
 influence in the social or political relations 
 in life, for he was hardly within the pale of 
 either circle. He never excited envy in the 
 breast of any one. The beggar that receiv- 
 ed his alms pitied the opulent giver. If there 
 Avere those who repined at their want of for- 
 tune, they thought of Dexter and ceased to 
 grieve. The tyro at school used his name 
 in his themes upon the vanity of riches, and 
 ran parallels between the poor with wisdom 
 and the rich with folly. It was a good sub- 
 ject and often discussed. Not unfrequently 
 the youthful poet would launch a satirical 
 rhyme at him, and even his dog did not es- 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 69 
 
 cape abuse for not having sagacity enough 
 to read his master's character. He never 
 rose to the altitude of hatred, nor to the dig- 
 nity of scorn, but was named for the laugh- 
 ter of the mirthful and used by the grave 
 '' to point a moral or adorn a tale." There 
 were none so poor as to do him reve7'e7ice. 
 
 One autumnal morning the writer was 
 passing Dexter's mansion quite early, and 
 saw him talking with a group of women on 
 horseback. Their appearance was more 
 frightful than the weird sisters on the heath ; 
 their attire was entirely tatterdemalion ; their 
 faces begrimed with dirt and smoke ; their 
 eyes haggard and sunken, and their bonnets 
 of every hue, and dingy in all. The horses 
 on which they were mounted were nearly 
 skeletons, and out-rosinanted Rosinante him- 
 self. The horse of Don Quixote, from the 
 military panoply of his master, armed with 
 a spur, had a touch of chivalry in him ; but 
 all fire had departed from the vision of their 
 shadows of horses. The dialogue between 
 the " wise tnan of the Easf^ and those 
 skinny, choppy-fingered witches could not 
 be distinctly heard, but the laugh was 
 screamy and obstreperous. The conversa- 
 tion lasted some time before they took up 
 their line of march on their skeletons. From 
 what was caught by the ear at their parting, 
 the belief then was, that there had been a 
 
70 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 trial of wit and sharp sayings between the 
 women and lord Dexter, for they rode off 
 with faces fnll of broad humor, while his 
 bore marks of defeat. From whence came 
 these imps the witness could not at that time 
 conjecture, but on inquiry found they were 
 '' Dog-Towners," people who inhabited a 
 lieath about five or six miles distant from the 
 Merrimack. The next day the writer with 
 a friend made them a visit. The travellers 
 entered a dreary looking tract of neglected 
 land, evidently thought by the owners too 
 poor for cultivation. A few wretched huts 
 were scattered over the barren spot, among 
 brush and w^eeds, with smoke issuing from 
 every part of the roofs of the cabins. The 
 horses seen the day before near the palace, 
 were here and there browsing upon thistles, 
 wire grass and blackberry vines, looking full 
 of misery. The crows were cawing over 
 their heads, with whetted beaks, impatient for 
 their natural rights, the possession of their 
 carcasses, when the few sands of the wretched 
 jades had run through the hour-glass of their 
 existence. The ominous croakings seemed 
 evidently to occupy the minds of the wo- 
 begone steeds. Among the bushes were seen 
 the women gathering whortleberries, black- 
 berries and various wild herbs, such as tho- 
 rough-wax, pennyroyal, white weed, mul- 
 lein, five-fingers, yellow dock, scullcap, with 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 71 
 
 Other herbs half domesticated, as saffron, 
 hyssop, and balm. The herbs and berries 
 were for the next day's market. On looking 
 into the cabins we found an abundance of 
 children, but not any men excepting one or 
 two decrepit old fellows, past service ; the 
 others, we understood, had gone a macker- 
 elling. The children of both sexes were 
 without hats, bonnets or shoes, and had but a 
 scanty rag to cover them. The outer layer 
 of their hair was bleached to a brown flax 
 color, of whatever natural hue it might 
 have been originally. Their feet felt no- 
 thing but the sharpest thorns ; they scoffed 
 at the brier and complained not of ston^- 
 crushes. These children were as agite as 
 young goats of the mountains, and but a lit- 
 tle more intelligent. They were unacquaint- 
 ed with misery, for they were above the ills 
 of life. Among the children were seen a few 
 stunted swine, squealing around the hovels. 
 They were the most sensitive of all the crew. 
 There were also a few barn-fowl, the only 
 well fed creatures we saw, for they were rev- 
 elling on clouds of grasshoppers. To make 
 up the group there were several cows of Pha- 
 raoh's lean kine, with a bell hanging between 
 their horns to direct the ear of the heath-born 
 urchins who looked after the cows straying 
 from the neighboring cabins ; we did not see 
 any spinning-wheel, loom or instrument of 
 
72 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 husbandry. There was, however, one branch 
 of manufacture carried on even here ; it was 
 that of distillation. A few small stills were 
 then in operation, for making tansy water, 
 mint drops and similar essences. We bought 
 there several bottles of rosewater of a most 
 exquisite flavor. It was distilled from the 
 leaves of the Eglantine. This species of the 
 wild rose abounds in that region, and by 
 long usage is the property of the herb-wo- 
 men, and never gathered by the owners of 
 the pastures in which it grows. The 
 friend of the writer, more fond of drawing 
 landscapes than of shooting the wild pigeons, 
 then plentiful there and all around, sketched a 
 view of Dog-Town and adorned it with some 
 figures of these weird sisters, over a still, 
 drawing the alcohol from herbs, as was prac- 
 tised at Bagdad some nine hundred years be- 
 fore it was known on the Newbury borders. 
 The sketch was graphic ; the smoke of the 
 alembic arose curling around the heads of 
 the females v/atching the process; an old tat- 
 tered remnant of a petticoat was thrown 
 over their heads to keep off a scorching sun 
 of the last of August. The figures were all 
 to the life. The writer remarked that in 
 some distant day, the picture might be 
 read in the heraldry of some family, as the 
 priestess of Nature, interrogating her mother 
 to disclose her secrets. All that was to be 
 
Uft OF DEXTER. ^3 
 
 ^otie to effect the change was only to soften 
 the hard features of the females, give a fash- 
 ionable air to the ragged garments, call the 
 old black petticoat the veil of Isis, and in- 
 scribe this motto to the picture, " Hygeia 
 in herbas." and the metamorphosis would be 
 effected. ' By elevating the imagination and 
 producing new creations from old ones, and 
 from trivial incidents, a thousand greater 
 changes were made in former days. The 
 laureate of some future Dexter may seize the 
 images and prove his patron to have descend- 
 ed from the great and early benefactors of 
 mankind, who taught the virtues of vegeta- 
 ble medicines. 
 
 The next morning the cavalcade made 
 their appearance in the city, and as they 
 reached the borders of it filed off in separate 
 directions to supply their particular custoni- 
 ers, for all who traffic have a system of their 
 own of doing business. 
 
 It would strike one as almost impossible 
 that such a colony should exist within six 
 miles of a beautiful and enlightened town. 
 But few seemed to know any more about 
 them than that they were Dog-Towners and 
 supplied the town with herbs and berries. 
 Ten thousand prayers have arisen from the 
 holy altars of that pious town for the hea- 
 then who walk in darkness, and are perish- 
 ing for lack of vision; but who ever heard a 
 7 
 
74 LIFE OF I>EXTER» 
 
 single aspiration to heaven for a blessing oi> 
 the colony of Dog-Town 1 Once, and again, 
 have the generous hearts of the inhabitants 
 of that good place, Newburyport, beat high 
 at the departure of holy men, missionaries to 
 the heathen, who went forth loaded with 
 presents and wafted onward by blessings, to 
 bring the Hindoos within the pale of Christ- 
 ianity, to break every spoke in the accursed 
 wheels of the car of Juggernaut, and to op- 
 pose by holy violence the tenth incarnation 
 of Brahma, and who were there that did not 
 feel a portion of the enthusiasm generally 
 exhibited at such times. But would it not 
 be wiser to think of those who perish for 
 lack of vision near us 7 I speak of times 
 gone by, before home missionaries were 
 thought of. All may now be changed, for 
 aught I know. 
 
 But to my point; miserable as these beings- 
 of Dog-T^own were, they still were possessed 
 of some character, for they did all they could 
 in their sphere, and they despised him who 
 fell short of his duty. They laughed at the 
 folly of Dexter as well as their betters, and 
 felt that they were every way above him. 
 They were bound to a hard-hearted soil that 
 refused to pay the laborer, but they picked 
 up a few of the foundhng germs of nature, 
 and by industry and perseverance made a 
 new class of statistics in national traffic ; 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 75 
 
 while the possessor of great wealth was then 
 frittering away the stores a blind fortune had 
 showered upon his head, casting them away 
 without feeling or without principle. 
 
 Man, a little beside himself, is the most 
 unreasonable of all animals. Dogs and horses 
 belonging to those accustomed to being ine- 
 briated will come to the succor of their mas- 
 ters. The writer remembers a spirited horse 
 that no blows would drive to a quifck pace 
 when he felt his master reeling on his back. 
 It was said that Dexter's dog would never 
 leave his master's feet when he was at all 
 intoxicated. What a satire on the presump- 
 tion of man, w^ho arrogates to himself to be 
 lord of creation 1 
 
 A rich man of eccentricities will always 
 gather around him strange associates, and 
 Dexter could boast of many such. Among 
 those who early had an influence over him 
 
 John P' may be named. He was of 
 
 a respectable family, from which at a ten- 
 der age he became an outcast. He was a 
 being possessed of high powers of taste, im- 
 agination and invention. He had in the 
 common paths of life gleaned something in 
 the form of knowledge, and could make 
 most dexterous use of it among the mass of 
 mankind. He was a splendid chirographist, 
 and this was then the great desideratum for 
 a ischool-master; to which honor he aspired ; 
 
76 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 but with a discreet school committee his 
 morals would not answer, notwithstanding 
 their impressions of his genius and learning. 
 Having been rejected as a candidate for one 
 of the town schools, he opened a private one, 
 and for a while attracted attention and had 
 a respectable number of pupils. The writer 
 of this memoir, then only nine years of age, 
 "was among them. John P — — was a dare- 
 devil in some things and a coward in others, 
 a man of perpetual contradictions in his 
 characteristics. He gulled the world with 
 pretensions to occult sciences, while he knew 
 but little of any practical branch of know- 
 ledge. He set up claims to judicial astrolo- 
 gy and cast nativities for those who were 
 credulous enough to believe in the science, 
 and sometimes appeared a sincere believer 
 in his own calculations. He said of him- 
 self that he should never die until the sun 
 was blotted out of the heavens, and, to fix 
 the credulity of thousands, expired in a mis- 
 era«ble mansion on the 16th of June, 1806, 
 during the great and total eclipse of the sun 
 on that day. He was stretched on his death- 
 bed, so exhausted that he could not raise 
 himself without assistance to gaze on the 
 phenomenon. Being supported by some one^ 
 and handed a piece of smoked^ glass to look 
 at the sun, he reverted to his former prophe- 
 cy, and at the moment of total darkness^ 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 77 
 
 when all nature around him seemed distress- 
 ed, the chill of death came over him and he 
 expired without a sigh. However natural 
 maybe such death, superstition never forgets 
 such an instance, but treasures it up in the 
 memory, and it has its influence for years to 
 come, if not on the conduct, certainly on the 
 feelings of many. One of the freaks of this 
 eccentric man Avas, as he called it, to test his 
 pupils' pluck. One instance the writer can 
 never forget. A blind preacher, by the name 
 of Prince, died, and during his last moments 
 requested to be buried in the tomb with the 
 celebrated George Whitefield and the rever- 
 end Jonathan Parsons. Whitefield had died 
 in Newburyport, in 1770, and a vault was 
 made for him under the first Presbyterian 
 church in the town, and Parsons was laid 
 by his side a few years afterwards. This 
 was the only tomb under or near the build- 
 ing. It was opened a day or two before the 
 funeral of blind Prince, and hundreds visited 
 it. Whitefield and Parsons had been buried 
 in their surplices and wigs, which remained, 
 after so many years, tender, or nearly rotten, 
 but entire. Every visiter stole a piece of 
 the holy relics to carry away and preserve. 
 At the close of the afternoon lessons the 
 school-master and astrologer took a pupil to 
 the vault and showed him the remains. The 
 entrance was by a trap door in the broad- 
 
78 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 aisle of the meeting-house. A small lamp 
 was glimmering over the sacred ashes of the 
 two pious divines. The wicked teacher saw 
 that the boy was in a profound reverie, and 
 silently stole out of the tomb, and shutting 
 the trap door, departed. The child heard 
 the trap door close, and for an instant trem- 
 bled at the thought of being alone in the 
 charnel-house; but he instantly recovered 
 himself, and stood composedly gazing on 
 those who slept beneath. Can the departed 
 spirits of good men injure children ? was the 
 question put to himself This was soon set- 
 tled in his mind, and he taxed' his memory 
 for all the anecdotes of them Avhich he had 
 heard from his pious mother, who had often 
 listened to the orator Whitefield, during 
 his arousing appeals to those who went on 
 in life " sleeping on the confines of eternity 
 and loalking unconcerned over the bottomless 
 'pit.^'^ The child of the tomb at that hour 
 is still living, and has been frequently heard 
 to say that he dates back to that period the 
 reverence in which he ever holds the dead. 
 How long he was there he could not say 
 precisely, but it was the time the school- 
 master took to go some distance, and drink 
 tea with the boy's mother. As the astrolo- 
 ger finished his last cup, he told the mother 
 the position in which he had left her son to* 
 test his courage. The indignant woman 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. f9 
 
 sent him immediately to the release of her 
 child, desiring an elder boy to go with the 
 monster, as she called him, to see that he 
 went directly to the church. She was dis- 
 turbed, but at once observed " the boy will 
 sustain himself, I know his character:" still 
 the fondness and fearfulness of the mother 
 lingered beneath the guise of the pious he- 
 roine. When the prisoner returned not a 
 word passed between him and his mother on 
 the subject, and months elapsed before either 
 ahuded to the circumstance. 
 
 Such was the man who for several years 
 was the director of the mind of Dexter. He 
 at once understood the cahbre of the success- 
 ful fool, and took the proper course to man- 
 age him. The astrologer pretended to ini- 
 tiate his patron into the occult arts and sci- 
 ences, and exhibited his books of necroman- 
 cy treating of Druidical rites and abounding 
 in Finnic characters. There can be no doubt 
 that at the conclusion of the lessons both the 
 master and pupil's information was nearly 
 the same. The writer has the most vivid 
 recollection of the astrologer and his school- 
 house. Under a widely spreading elm of the 
 first class, which probably had been spared 
 by the early settler, on the south side of 
 High street, between what are now State 
 and South streets, in Newburyport, there 
 was a small cottage containing one room; 
 
80 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 this was the school-room of master P — — . 
 His manners were familiar, his discipline 
 lax, and his punishments few and not se- 
 vere. He taught by conversation and lec- 
 tures ; and so happy were his illustrations 
 that his boys of ten years old were superior 
 to those of other schools at fifteen. He had 
 several maps and charts, and spent hours 
 each day in showing his pupils the different 
 parts of the globe. When geography was 
 not a study in the common schools, his boys 
 could chalk out a tolerable map on the floor 
 and name the large cities and great rivers 
 of different countries. He knew a smatter- 
 ing of chemistry, and performed many ex- 
 periments in natural philosophy; but, so little 
 understood was the science of chemistry at 
 that time, these experiments Avere called 
 tricks. He had been taught some optical 
 illusions, which excited wonder among his 
 pupils. He would take them into the woods 
 and fields and teach them the names of trees 
 and plants, and of the birds as they flew by. 
 It was so much more delightful to go to 
 
 master P > than to other schools, that no 
 
 scholar that had been with him ever return- 
 ed cheerfully to the other instructors. The 
 rare books he possessed were sometimes 
 shown to his favorite pupils, and he explain- 
 ed their uses to them, laughing at the credu- 
 lity of the world. He introduced athletic 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 81 
 
 sports and superintended them himself, which 
 was a most scandalous affair to the other 
 grave teachers. One of them went so far as 
 to say thai he had gone in a swimming with 
 his boys and showed them how to acquire 
 the art ! what gross impropriety, thought 
 the dull teachers. The writer's memory has 
 hardly lost a single occurrence of that mem- 
 orable epoch; and on reviewing the man and 
 his course, although he must confess that 
 the extent of his knowledge of science was 
 small, and there was a great deal of charla- 
 tanry about him as a teacher, yet he pro- 
 nounces him a man of extraordinary powers 
 of mind, and one who more than any other 
 had a forecast of what instruction should be. 
 It is indeed a misfortune for a man to live 
 before his age, or rather in advance of it. 
 After all, he lived with a good-sense people, 
 and might have been respectable had he been 
 less profligate in his habits, or more guarded 
 in his conduct. He foolishly ridiculed what 
 he called superstition, and satirized stupidity 
 wherever he found it. He made himself 
 hated by coining soubriquets for his neighbors 
 that often had point and sarcasm in them, 
 and too much truth to make a palatable joke 
 of. He took more pleasure in annoying 
 dulness than m enlightening ignorance, and 
 was never happier than when he could raise 
 a laugh at any blockhead's expense. There 
 
Sa LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 was no medium in any thing he did ; his 
 generosity was prodigaHty, and his friendship 
 enthusiasm, but his enmities died away as 
 soon as he had succeeded in making his foe 
 ridiculous. He was a kind and skilful 
 watcher over a sick bed, and never appeared 
 weary in administering to the comfort of 
 the afflicted. He had a passion for being 
 with the dying and the dead ; and he adjust- 
 ed the folds of the winding sheet with ex- 
 quisite taste, and the grave digger's mattock 
 and spade were lovely instruments in his 
 eyes. He evinced a hatred to all lies on 
 tomb-stones, and often made parodies on flat- 
 tering epitaphs. One which ended in an 
 old fashioned couplet, " Death^ by thy fiery 
 darts thou hast me slain," he changed to 
 ^^ Rum, by thy," ifcc. which alteration mad 
 a great noise at the time. 
 
 Many stronger minds than that of Dex- 
 ter have been at times under the influence 
 of superstition. His was in constant thral- 
 dom by its influence. Brutus saw Caesar's 
 ghost, who promised to meet him at Philip- 
 pia, and Buonaparte believed in presenti- 
 ments. Fates and Fortunes. My lord Dexter 
 had a great variety of fortune-telling works, 
 dream books, and such valuable trash. Of- 
 ten, not trusting entirely to one juggler, he 
 would consult another, and sometimes they 
 played into each other's hands. On the pur- 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. S3 
 
 liens of the town there lived a singularly 
 bold, intelligent woman, who went by the 
 name of madam Hooper : the name she 
 probably assumed^ as it was a highly 
 respectable one in the town in which she 
 lived. She had made her appearance af- 
 ter the peace of 1763, and unquestionably 
 had been an appendage to the English army 
 in Canada. She gave out that she was the 
 widow of a British officer, who fell with 
 Wolfe. She had received a good educationj 
 particularly for that day. This woman ob- 
 tained a school in the town, and taught fe- 
 males with success ; but, at length, becomijig 
 tired of the labor, she gave it up and lived 
 on fortune-telling. She was Avondrously 
 shrewd, and made many admirable conjec- 
 tures upon forth-coming time, by knowing 
 the past events of the individual's life. She 
 sometimes pretended that her charms refus- 
 ed to work, and her applicants were sent 
 away, to come again in a more propitious 
 hour. This gave her an opportunity of hear- 
 ing all the conjectures made upon the sub-^ 
 ject. Then her Mephistopheles would obey 
 the league and bring information. She had 
 a masculine voice, and powerful arm, by 
 which she could wield a sword, particularly 
 a broad sword, with the skill and force of a 
 fencing master. She was also an excellent 
 shot with gun or pistol, and frequently 
 
84 Ltt-E OF iiteXtlEil. 
 
 amused herself by trials of skill, all aldnej 
 except she was watched by some wonder- 
 struck boys who had taken pains to conceal 
 themselves to witness her feats. Her con- 
 versations generally partook of aphoristic 
 fragments, enigmatical sentences, with up- 
 lifted or downcast eyes, or attended with 
 strange gestures; and she not unfrequently 
 closed her incantations with indistinct mut- 
 terings, as if communing with invisible 
 spirits. On a time Dexter had a bed of fine 
 melons robbed, night after night, of the 
 ripest and best of fruit. His astrologer 
 could not give him any information on this 
 subject, as it was nearly the full of the 
 moon, the patroness of thieves, and the stars, 
 by being further from the earth, refused to 
 answer all inquiry at the time. The astrol- 
 oger advised Dexter to apply to madam 
 Hooper, as her conjuration was not affected 
 by the moon or any other planet. Dexterj 
 at length, applied to her. She called up the 
 thief for her own satisfaction. She repre- 
 sented him as a grave looking man, in drab 
 clothes, one that was never suspected by the 
 owner of the melons, but she distinctly told 
 him how to find the house, and that there 
 he would find several melons that had been 
 marked by him. Precisely as he was di- 
 rected, he did, and there were his melons, 
 concealed, to be sold next day. She had 
 
LIPE OF DEXTER. 80 
 
 now established her fame with Dexter. It 
 Avas probably by a system of espoinage that 
 she was able to do all this ; but it must be 
 confessed, that many of her prophecies, inu- 
 endoes, and even positive declarations, have, 
 as yet, found no Sphinx to unriddle them. 
 She was one of the best physiognomists in 
 the world. She frequently made his lord- 
 ship a visit, and asked for nothing she did 
 not receive. She did not live long enough to 
 see Dexter in his wane, but at her death he 
 took into favor the celebrated Moll Pitcher, 
 who lived at the very inconvenient distance 
 of twenty-eight miles from his chateau ; but 
 she was several times consulted by Dexter. 
 The first time he visited the dame he went 
 in disguise; but she soon found him out, but, 
 concealing the fact, told all that had happen^ 
 ed to him for many years past, and this 
 chained him at once to the full belief of the 
 potency of her spells. Pitcher was a shrewd 
 woman, without education, and Dexter 
 sympathized with her more readily, and un- 
 derstood her better, than he did the learned 
 dame Hooper, He was afraid of the latter, 
 but he came within the magic circle of the 
 other without any dread. The history of 
 these women might be pursued until the 
 wise would blush, and the judicious grieve, 
 to find how many of good sense in most 
 things have made fools of themselves, by 
 8 
 
86 LIFE OP DEXTER. 
 
 clandestinely consulting these fortune-tellers. 
 The belief that the devil allows some of his 
 imps to know something hid from the wise 
 was an early impression, and one that will 
 last as long a,s man exists, but such is the 
 progress of common sense that the evils that 
 once flowed from this error have ceased to 
 be in any degree alarming. Dexter, in all 
 probability, saved money by his acquaint- 
 ance with these persons, reputed to know 
 every one who trespassed upon his premises. 
 But few men or boys dared under the cover 
 of darkness to run the risk of encountering 
 those who dealt in supernatural agency. 
 Such is human nature, that many, who af- 
 fect to despise all stories of hobgoblins and 
 witches in the sunshine, are confoundedly 
 afraid of them in the dark, particularly 
 when doing what their consciences teach 
 them to be wrong. To guard his fruit, a 
 few sentinels, man-traps and spells of en- 
 chanters, united, gave his garden a security 
 that the Hesperides never was sure of, un- 
 der the potent spells of the dragon ; and 
 there is no more insidious and formidable 
 foe than the boys of a city are to the or- 
 chards of the vicinity. 
 
 We have mentioned Dexter's literary taste 
 as being greater than his acquirements. He, 
 in emulation of the kings of England, select- 
 ed a poet laureate ; never was there a more 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 87 
 
 admirable selection. Their tastes, their ge- 
 nius, and, in some measure, their course of 
 life, were suited to each other. The name 
 of the bard was rather unpoetical, being 
 Jonathan Plummer ; but at that time that 
 wicked wag, lord Byron, had not said 
 "Amos Cottle Phoebus ! what a name." He 
 was younger than his patron by more than 
 twenty years ; but was wonderfully grave 
 for his age. He was born near Gravel hill, 
 in the town of Newbury, a large ancient 
 town, from which Newburyport had been 
 taken, a few years before the revolution. 
 Unlike most poets, he died near the very 
 spot of his birth-place. He was a strange 
 and wayward boy, had a great fondness for 
 reading, and possessed a remarkable memo- 
 ry. At about sixteen or eighteen years of 
 age, he attended a meeting of religious enthu- 
 siasts who worshipped God in the woods 
 and fields. Here, while listening to the 
 ranting of field preachers, his genius blazed 
 forth, and he spoke like one of gifts and 
 graces. His voice was deep toned and sol- 
 emn, and of great compass, and his dis- 
 courses were often graced with anecdotes 
 from his miscellaneous reading. He soon 
 announced to the world his intention of de- 
 voting his days to the holy calling of saving 
 souls, and abandoned his former honest call- 
 ing of selling halibut from a wheelbarrow, 
 
88 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 at fair weight and low prices ; a fat fin cut 
 for. two coppers a pound, the more solid 
 parts for a copper; and when there was a 
 more plentiful supply, even a ^^ Brumagem^^ 
 would buy enough to furnish a man a din- 
 ner. When the halibut were gone, he used 
 his wheelbarrow as a vehicle from which he 
 vended straw for under beds, and, for years, 
 he managed this business. He, at times, 
 under his mass of straw concealed certain 
 publications, that were frowned at, if not 
 prohibited, at common law. He sold Hoyle 
 to young men, and a copy of Bonnel Thorn- 
 ton's poems might be had of him; but when 
 he became a student in divinity all these 
 sources of profit failed, for it was not decor- 
 ous now to deal in these matters; but as 
 genius is always full of resources, he soon 
 appeared in another sphere of letters. He 
 seized all the terrible accidents^ drownings^ 
 suicides^ and hangings^ and ornamenting his 
 sheet with coffins, and spreading it out with 
 eulogies, elegies, and warnings^ in prose 
 and verse, he ushered them to the public 
 from a literary cabinet^ as he called the bas- 
 ket on his arm. This was a profitable 
 trade, for he added to this Pierian stock a box 
 of Hygeian pills, or a tincture in phials for 
 certain cures and preventives, &c. At times, 
 for a few cents, he would recite his own 
 compositions, or those he had committed to 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 89 
 
 memory ; and, if in an affected manner, yet 
 that manner was not without effect. Dur- 
 ing some months in the winter he retired to 
 the country, and kept school, and was not 
 unfrequently quite a popular master, for in 
 his day there were districts in which the 
 question among the school committee was, 
 not " what does he know?" but "how cheap 
 can we get him 7" 
 
 His whole business now was with the 
 Muses, in one or more of their capacities, as 
 inspirers or teachers of mankind. In the 
 bright and sweet risings of his fame, but 
 while he yet wore the clerical habit, his pro- 
 ductions caught the eye of the " greatest 
 man of the East f^ an introduction was 
 readily had, for wealth makes no ceremony 
 of entering the temples of learning. The 
 divine had never received a call, although 
 his fame had been widely spread. How of- 
 ten do we see prosing dulness take the place, 
 ay, the precedency of exalted talents. Per- 
 haps thinking he should never rise to Sibene- 
 fice^ he closed with a proposal to enter the ser- 
 vice of Dexter SiS poet laureate. The stipend, 
 for genius can never stoop to salaries, was 
 small, but he was furnished with a singularly 
 splendid livery. It consisted in a long, black, , 
 frock coat, with stars on the collar, and also 
 at the front corners ; this livery also was 
 fringed, where fringes could be put ; a black 
 8* 
 
90 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 under dress, shoes and large buckles, with a 
 large cocked hat, and a gold-headed cane, 
 made out the dress. The poet laureate began 
 his reign by eulogies in prose and verse, and 
 for some time the poet and patron were mu- 
 tually happy ; but after a while Jonathan 
 found that his muse could not produce flat- 
 tery half as fast as the cormorant appetite 
 of his patron demanded, and when he did 
 concoct an article of the kind it was not half 
 as saleable as the wonderful matters which 
 he gathered for his calender of strange events. 
 A religious scruple came over his conscience ; 
 in a dream he had learned that it was sinful 
 to wear frmges ; this scruple he imparted to 
 his patron, who ridiculed the impression as 
 nonsensical. This was too much for the lau- 
 reate ; still, however, after mutual jealousies 
 and scoldings on one side, and mutteriugs on 
 the other, they patched up treaties of peace, 
 which lasted until the death of the patron. 
 
 Jonathan expected to be remembered in 
 the will of Timothy, but he was not, and 
 his grief could not be assuaged, or the loss 
 of his legacy could not be forgotten ; but he 
 was obliged to console himself with the hon- 
 ors he had already received. 
 
 The poet continued his labors in compo- 
 sitions and sales for nearly twenty years af- 
 ter the death of his patron, and by the most 
 rigid economy accumulated a pretty little 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. M 
 
 property, as was found at his death. He 
 had written, piibhshed, and sold several 
 wills of his own, before his death, but he 
 left one altogether different as his last testa- 
 ment. Some of the fair damsels mentioned 
 in a will he published many years before, 
 had grown old when he was about to give 
 up the ghost, and their charms were no lon- 
 ger the keys of his coffers. During a great 
 part of his life no man was more self-com- 
 placent than Jonathan Plummer; no poet 
 ever more satisfied with his muse ; but his 
 distracted brain at length was seized with 
 the disease of self -abhorrence, and he acted 
 on the maxim, " if thine eye offend thee, 
 pluck it out," until it led to a mutilation 
 of his person ; but he recovered from this, 
 and died of self-starvation. So departed 
 this poet of dreadful accidents, of groans, 
 and tears, and ivarnlngs, who had been city 
 and country ballad-monger for more than 
 forty years. If his fame shall not be as ex- 
 tensive as the laureates of other times, his 
 life was more singular ; no one of the whole 
 list, from Dryden to Southey, was more in- 
 dustrious ; and in this he differed from them, 
 he was more successful in selling than in 
 composing; and perhaps in one more he sur- 
 passed them, he was quite as grateful to his 
 patron as they were to their kings. Dryden 
 was removed from his office by a profligate 
 
92 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 monarch, or his subservient ministers, to 
 make room for such a poetaster as Shad- 
 well. The supremacy of Plummer was 
 never questioned, nor was he ever supersed- 
 ed; although at times it must be confessed 
 that Dexter received praise from rival poets, 
 and " rolled it as a sweet morsel under his 
 tongue." Plummer was moral, didactic and 
 pathetic, but indifferently descriptive. I do 
 not remember that he ever attempted a full 
 picture of the palace and its appendages, 
 notwithstanding it afforded a more ample 
 field for poetical description than W'mdsor 
 Forest^ or even Wappi?ig, themes on which 
 Pope dwelt with so much delight, and in 
 which he succeeded so admirably well. 
 Sternhold and Hopkins were the models on 
 which our bard fashioned his productions, 
 and if he deviated from them it was to fol- 
 low the early New England psalmist, whose 
 works, shame on the taste of the times ! have 
 gone down to oblivion. He satirized the fol- 
 hes and vices of men without being particu- 
 lar as to fools and culprits. 
 
 Plummer boasted that he had been crown- 
 ed with the poet's wreaths of flowers, by the 
 hand of his patron, in open day, but never 
 seemed satisfied that all had been done 
 which the august ceremony required. Some 
 years after the laurel crown had been placed 
 on Plummer's brow, some one read to him 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. \f6 
 
 the ceremony of crowning those poets who 
 had won the prizes in Italy. The crowning 
 of Petrarch and Corrina attracted his atten- 
 tion, and he sighed to think that he nor his 
 patron was acquainted with these gorgeous 
 ceremonies when he was honored with the 
 laurel. Dexter had been told that the Dru- 
 ids crowned their bards with misletoe, and 
 as this did not grow in his garden he was 
 directed to use parsley in its stead. This 
 herb, or rather weed, is frangible, and easily 
 wilts ; but in this case it did not perish by 
 sun, wind or rain, for the mob of boys press- 
 ed on so furiously that the ceremony was 
 interrupted, the laurel scattered, and the 
 poet and his patron fled. Some laughing 
 damsel, hearing of the issue of the ceremony, 
 bound some artificial flowers on the cocked 
 hat, which looked as well as the wreath of 
 Parnassus, drenched in the richest dews of 
 Castalia. This was the only time an attempt 
 was ever made to crown an American poet, 
 literally, as it was done in former times. 
 Still there are men now walking our streets 
 who wear the bays by dint of pufl'ers, who 
 never deserved a single leaf of laurel; who, 
 for wishy-ivashy^ silky -milky rhymes, print- 
 ed in either hemisphere, and trumpeted by 
 those who expect a similar favor, are 
 astonished that the world let them pass 
 without paeans from every quarter. They 
 
94 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 may reiga for a while, as Shadwell took the 
 laureate's leaf from Dryden, but they will in 
 a few years pass away as the whole bevy 
 of the Delia Cruscan school was swept into 
 oblivion by the iron hand of Gifford. There 
 was some hissing among the small snakes, 
 and writhing and darting of stings of those 
 who reared their heads as gorgons of a big- 
 ger size, but the very ^'' reluctantes dracones'- 
 died within the grasp of the modern Juvenal. 
 Oh ! for some extermination of this noi- 
 some race, for whether they belong to the 
 tribe of creeping reptiles, or may be classi- 
 fied with fawning puppies, they are equally 
 offensive. 
 
 The poet was in the full sale of his works 
 in 1808, after the death of his patron, when 
 a young lawyer came to Newburyport to 
 practise in his profession. The honest own- 
 er of the premises which he wished to hire 
 told him candidly, that he would find one 
 great nuisance about the premises, that no 
 one but death could abate. He then stated 
 that Plummer, the poet, was in the habit of 
 sitting on the steps of the office several hours 
 in the day, and that his temper was so vin- 
 dictive that he, nor any other person, dared 
 drive him away. "Never mind that," said 
 the young man, " I will take that upon my- 
 self" On taking possession of the premises he 
 said not a word to Plummer for some weeks, 
 
LiFfi OP BEXtER. 95 
 
 and he came with his basket as usual* The 
 occupant in the mean time bought of all the 
 Parnassian assortment of the poet, and put 
 his name as a subscriber for whatever might 
 come from his pen; the poet's confidence 
 was entirely won, and they interchanged as 
 friends the words of salutation every day. 
 At length, one day the lawyer took Mr. 
 Plummer aside, and observed, " I know you 
 are my friend, and you will hear me patient- 
 ly. You are aware that people who visit law- 
 yers' offices are of all classes,— sometimes 
 the rich, who wish to oppress, sometimes the 
 poor, who want protection, and not unfre-' 
 quently the vicious : now none of these wish 
 to be inspected by the pious clergyman who 
 may point at them in his next discourse j 
 this drives a great many from my door to 
 others ; you certainly do not want to injure 
 me." The poet seemed to awake from a 
 dream. " I see it, I see it all," was his first 
 remark,— "you shall find me there no more,'^ 
 and was as good as his word. The poet 
 was now invited to come into the office, and 
 examine the lawyer's library, which contain- 
 ed the English classics, and select those he 
 wished for his reading. The poet sparingly 
 availed himself of the offer, but took several 
 volumes of poetry, which he read with avid- 
 ity, and conversed upon the merits of the 
 authors, as he returned the books, if with 
 
96 LifE OF DEXTER* 
 
 some singularity, certainly with no small 
 degree of acumen ; but after a few months 
 he ceased to come altogether ; when the law- 
 yer meeting him, said in a pleasant way, " I 
 wish to know, friend Plummer, why you have 
 discontinued reading my books ; " I hope you 
 are not offended with me." " I will tell you 
 honestly," said Plummer, '* I dare not read 
 any more books of poetry, for the more I 
 read the less satisfied I am with my own 
 composition. Once I thought I stood nnm^ 
 ber one as a poet, for God had inspired me, 
 as he once did doctor Watts, but I can't 
 make it go now, as I once did before I was 
 seduced by the heathen gods and goddesses. 
 I am punished for having gone astray after 
 idols; but I can't help saying that they are 
 sweet creatures ; but I must forget them, or 
 I shall certainly be lost." It was in vain 
 for the young gentleman to assert that in 
 his opinion, Youngs Milton, Cowpe?^, and 
 others were equally inspired with the good 
 doctor Watts; it would not do. On a close ex- 
 amination the inquirer found that " Quarles' 
 Emblems'^ was this poet's most admired 
 volume, and this was presented to him. 
 The subsequent writings of Plummer bore 
 evidence of his having thoroughly read the 
 work ; no wonder that such a wild, pious, 
 half crazy production of genius as that of 
 Quarles' should attract such a poet as Plum- 
 
LIFE OP DEXTER. 9T 
 
 mer. Indeed, it is astonishing that the work 
 is not held in higher estimation than it is, by 
 those of purer taste, for some of his figures 
 and illustrations border on the oriental beau- 
 ties of the Apocalypse. 
 
 The person of Plummet was not of most 
 etherial make. His feet were long and 
 clumsy ; his legs thick, his chest broad and 
 strong ; his face was long, with a prominent 
 nose, wide mouth and thick lips. He was 
 irascible and vindictive, and it fared sadly 
 with the boy he caught, who, to use his own 
 peculiar phrase, attempted to make gamut 
 of him. He had the vanity—and is there a 
 poet without it?— to think that he was a 
 handsome man, and that half of the female 
 world was enamored with him ; but neither 
 beauty, wealth or fame, kept the laureate 
 from the destiny of falling by his own will 
 " Poets, alas ' must fall like those they sung, 
 
 Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.^' 
 
 A humble stone marks the spot where the 
 ashes of the laureate repose, but few pil- 
 grimages are made to it. Around him -rest 
 the early settlers who were men of renown. 
 The Dummers, the Sewalls, (fee, are there, 
 in their narrow beds. The requiem that 
 sung them to repose had ceased ages before 
 the laureate came to join the congregation of 
 the dead. In the same grave-yard are buri- 
 ed two poets of legitimate standing among 
 •I 
 
98 LIFE OF DEXTER* 
 
 the sons of song. William Boyd, who was 
 the author of a poem on Woman, and other 
 pieces of exquisite poetry, found a grave in 
 this yard, among his ancestors. His monu- 
 ment, unlike most poets', is conspicuous. His 
 taste was refined, his muse as delicate as the 
 Mimosa ; no easterly blast could make the 
 sensitive plant recede, fall and faint, sooner 
 than a coarse, critical remark would the 
 spirits of Boyd. His was no age for the re- 
 finements of the muse. Poetry, at the time 
 he flourished, some forty years ago, was 
 held in slight estimation, particularly if it 
 was classical, as was every line from the 
 pen of Boyd. Plummer and Boyd were 
 contemporaries : the latter was bred in the 
 groves of learning, and drank freely from the 
 pure fountains of inspiration ; the former 
 grew up among fishermen, clam diggers, 
 and lobster catchers, yet his works were read 
 by thousands where Boyd's were by one. 
 The ballad maker and death's head vender 
 grew rich on the sale of his trashj when 
 the sweet and delicate bard paid for the 
 printing of his own poems, without thinking 
 of sales or profits — so much depends on the 
 spirit of the age in giving character to men. 
 Robert Coffin, well known as the " Boston 
 bard," was buried in this place also. He 
 wrote many things that bore the true stamp 
 of genius, but his existence was short, fever- 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 99 
 
 ish, and but of little value to society. He 
 had none of the delicacy of Boyd, or the 
 perseverance of Plummer. As soon as he 
 began to reason, and feel, he quarrelled with 
 heaven, earth and himself, and continued 
 the warfare until life was at an end. His 
 works were collected and published by hiui- 
 self a few years before his death. The 
 fame of a writer of fugitive pieces is gener- 
 ally lessened by a collection of them. Odes, 
 hymns, &c. often receive a momentary 
 brightness, and current reputation, from the 
 occasion on which they were written, which 
 is lost or greatly impaired when they are 
 presented in a volume. Plummer was wise 
 enough to give only that which the occasion 
 called forth, and never stereotyped or seldom 
 published a second edition. He knew the 
 signs of the times, and the tastes and habits 
 of the public. The poet laureate went to his 
 grave thinking that " his eloquence was 
 sweeter than his song." Villiers and Ber- 
 nard, two excellent actors of the old Federal 
 street theatre, were on a visit to Newbury- 
 port, giving readings and recitations which 
 were very well attended. At that time 
 there were a goodly number in the city who 
 were fond of elocution. By some address 
 on the part of several gentleman of the place, 
 the actors had an interview with Plummer 
 and prevailed on him to read, recite and do- 
 
 Lore. 
 
100 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 claim, some of his own compositions in prose 
 and verse. After bearing him for a long 
 time, they gave it as their opinion, that if 
 he had received proper instruction he would 
 have made one of the first pulpit orators of 
 the age, — having a voice strong, flexible, 
 and euphonious ; but which was spoiled by 
 the affectation of being wonderfully pathetic. 
 Plummerisnot the only one made ridiculous 
 by such affectation. The evil is a common 
 one in our pulpits to this day, arthough 
 there have been great improvements in pul- 
 pit eloquence within a few years ; there is 
 more nature and less cant than formerly 
 among ecclesiastic or other orators. 
 
 The person who had the most influence 
 over Dexter of all who were near him was a 
 female African, whose name was Lucy Lan- 
 caster. She was the daughter of an old Afri- 
 can brought to this country when young. 
 He always stated that he was the son of a 
 prince, and had been taken in his first battle. 
 He was always believed by his master in 
 his assertions, and these were strengthened 
 by the attentions paid him by those who 
 came with him, young and old. On the 
 day of negro election, as it was at that time 
 called, in Massachusetts — meaning nothing 
 more than this, that by long usage, the 
 slaves, who were alv/ays treated well in that 
 state, were permitted to have a parade and 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 101 
 
 jollification on Boston common, on the day 
 of the assembling of the general court; Cae- 
 sar, Lucy's father, was generalissimo, and 
 had from his rank twelve footmen to run by 
 his side while he paraded on horseback. 
 His horse was always one of great speed 
 and elegance ; for he seemed to have a pre- 
 sumptive right to borrow the best horse in 
 the town. The daughter of the prince Cae- 
 sar was Patagonian in size, and quite heroic 
 in character. She was shrewd, well inform- 
 ed, and brave as ever man or woman 
 could be. She allowed no negro to enter 
 her dwelling. Her acquaintances were of 
 the first gentry. If a person was named 
 for the most unhesitating confidence it was 
 lawyer Parson, as she was called by the 
 |)oys — a name they courteouly bestowed up- 
 on her, because they thought her mind was 
 of a kindred order to that of the " giant of 
 the law." She endeared herself to many for 
 great services during an alarming period of 
 sickness, in 1796, when the yellow fever 
 raged in the town. Night and day she spared 
 no pains, but fearlessly, resolutely and skil- 
 fully attended her sick friends. She had a 
 constitution nothing, in that day, could break 
 down, and her judgment was of a superior 
 order ; as far above other common minds as 
 her strength was above that of ordinary fe- 
 males. Dexter, finding that she lived in the 
 9^ 
 
102 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 upper classes of society, sent for her in some 
 case of sickness, and, much to his credit, she 
 ever afterwards kept the hold she had at 
 that time gained as Dexter's nurse. She 
 was the confidant and confessor of the whole 
 family, and, by her prudent management, 
 often settled quarrels or prevented them. It 
 was in vain for any member of the family to 
 oppose corporeal or mental power against 
 her, and after a while they made no resis- 
 tance to her mandates. If Dexter loaded a 
 gun to shoot some one. Luce was sent for ; 
 if the son had a crazy fit, she must be 
 there ; if the daughter made an escape, as 
 she sometimes would do, Luce hunted her 
 up, and brought her back. She entered the 
 house when she pleased, and staid as long 
 as she pleased. The servants obeyed her as 
 mistress of the whole household. This sa- 
 gacious woman always gave Dexter more 
 credit for mind than any one else ever did. 
 She thought that he was a very honest man 
 and would not take any advantage of his 
 workmen, but would see them paid strictly 
 according to contract. She thought that 
 his eccentricities arose in a measure from 
 the flow of his animal spirits. He could 
 not be still, and having nothing of impor- 
 tance to occupy his mind, he fluttered 
 from folly to folly without thinking of what 
 he was about. She understood his charac- 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 103 
 
 ter perfectly, and when he was in one of 
 these restless fits, she would, if possible, 
 keep him from liquor, and advise him to 
 make an alteration in the garden, out houses 
 or fences; and as soon as his workmen were 
 busy, he was happy until the matter was 
 finished, and this cure often was effectual 
 for some time. As Dexter became more 
 weak and irascible, the more she was wanted, 
 and the more good she did. There can be 
 no doubt but that his freaks would have 
 been oftener and more injurious if he had 
 dispensed with her services. She often 
 quenched the fire as it was kindling, and 
 shot the folly ere it flew. Dexter never 
 understood the sound maxim of prudence, 
 " When you do?i^t know what to do, dou^tyou 
 do you donH knoio what.''' There is some 
 excuse for the man; he had no taste for 
 reading any thing, and probably did not pay 
 much attention to any thing he might have 
 attempted to read; he was excluded from 
 all society ; the common walks were not 
 paths for him, and in the higher circles he 
 could not travel. The pride of walking in 
 his garden, watching his flowers and trees, 
 was something, and the contemplation of 
 his images still more. He said of himself 
 that he could no more be still than a devil's- 
 needle, and sometimes used to say if there 
 was a transmigration of souls he should next 
 
104 LIFE OF DEXTER. 
 
 appear in one, and with this train of thought 
 in his mind he would suffer no one to kill 
 this insect. Thus his mind roved from whim 
 to whim, which might have been kept steady, 
 as it was in early life, if he had not been 
 free from all anxiety for a support. This 
 solicitude to obtain a subsistence is the bal- 
 ance-wheel in minds much stronger than 
 that of our subject. 
 
 Dexter continued his course of life, with- 
 out any essential change of habits, until Oc- 
 tober 26, 1806, when he quietly expired at 
 his palace. 
 
 " In Monday place, Sir Richard Monday died." 
 
 His life was a much longer one than could 
 have been reasonably expected of a man 
 given to such indulgences. One thing seem- 
 ed to protract his days ; he drank nothing 
 but the purest and best of liquors. Most 
 inebriates grow gross in their tastes, and at 
 last prefer that liquor which comes the near- 
 est to the highest proof alcohol to any other. 
 
 In his last days, he was sensible of the 
 follies of his life, and was desirous of aton- 
 ing for his errors as far as he could, by mak- 
 ing a just disposition of the property he was 
 about to leave. He took the best of advice 
 and followed it. It is a singular fact, that 
 while most wise men's wills are injudicious 
 in some features, no one ever found fault 
 with Dexter's. Not only his offspring, but 
 
LIFE OF DEXTER. 105 
 
 his collateral relations, were provided for in 
 a proper distribution of his goods and estate. 
 His remains were not allowed to repose in 
 the tomb he made for himself; the Board 
 of Health would not permit his wishes to be 
 carried into effect, and in this they were pru- 
 dent. The grave of such a man, in such a 
 public place, Avould have been a nuisance 
 indeed. He sleeps quietly in the Hill ceme- 
 tery, in Newburyport, the most numerous 
 congregation of the dead within the precincts 
 of the corporation. A simple stone marks 
 the grave of the once ambitious fortunate, 
 whose living dreams were full of posthumous 
 glories. The Dexter house has lately been 
 repaired, but the garden is not kept in such 
 order as it was in the days of the second oc- 
 cupant after the decease of the owner. Mr. 
 Caldwell had a taste for gardening, and did 
 all he could to make tlie grounds look well. 
 It will soon pass into hands desirous of re- 
 storing its former beauty and splendor, with- 
 out a particle of the frippery which once 
 was seen there, to the amusement of the 
 traveller, and to the annoyance and grief of 
 the neighborhood. 
 
106 
 
 The Poet Laureate of Lord Dexter, whose 
 name, as we have before stated, was Jona- 
 than Plummer, wrote a number of poems 
 to the praise of his Lordship, which were 
 printed and hawked about by the author; 
 The following we beheve is the only one 
 now extant. 
 
 Lord Dexter is a man of feme ; 
 Most celebrated is his name ; 
 More precious far than gold that's pure. 
 Lord Dexter shine forevermore. 
 
 His noble house, it shines more bright 
 Than Lebanon's most pleasant height ; 
 Never was one who stepped therein 
 Who wanted to come out again. 
 
 His house is fill'd with sweet perfumes, 
 Rich furniture doth fill his rooms ; 
 Inside and out it is adorn'd, 
 And on the top an eagle's form'd. 
 
 His house is white and trimm'd with green, 
 For many miles it may be seen ; 
 It shines as bright as any star, 
 The feme of it has spread afar. 
 
 Lord Dexter, thou, whose name alone 
 Shines brighter than king George's throne ; 
 Thy name shall stand in books of fame, 
 And Princes shall his name proclaim. 
 
 Lord Dexter hath a coach beside, 
 In pomp and splendor he doth ride ; 
 The horses champ the silver bitt, 
 And throw the foam around their feet. 
 
 The images around him stand, 
 
 For they were made by his command^ 
 
107 
 
 Looking to see Lord Dexter come, 
 With fixed eyes they see him home. 
 
 Four lions stand to guard the door, 
 With mouths wide open to devour 
 All enemies who dare oppose 
 Lord Dexter or his shady groves. 
 
 Lord Dexter, like king Solomon, 
 Hath gold and silver by the ton. 
 And bells to churches he hath given, 
 To worship the great king of heaven. 
 
 His mighty deeds they are so great. 
 He's honor'd both in church and state, 
 And Avhen he comes all must give way, 
 To let Lord Dexter bear the sway. 
 
 When Dexter dies all things shall droop, 
 Lord East, Lord West, Lord North shall stoop, 
 And then Lord South with pomp shall come, 
 And bear his body to the tomb. 
 His tomb most charming to behold, 
 A thousand sweets it doth unfold ; 
 When Dexter dies shall willows weep. 
 And mourning friends shall fill the street. 
 
 May Washington forever stand ; 
 May Jefferson, by God's command, 
 Support the rights of all mankind, 
 John Adams not a whit behind. 
 
 America, with all your host, 
 
 Lord Dexter in a bumper toast ; 
 
 May he enjoy his life in peace, 
 
 And when he's dead his name not cease. 
 
 In heaven may he always reign, 
 For there's no sorrow, sin, nor pain ; 
 Unto the world I leave the rest, 
 For to pronounce Lord Dexter blest. 
 
JONATHAN PLUMMER, 
 
 ;POET LAUREATE TO LORD DEXTER. 
 
PICKLE FOR THE KNOWING ONES, 
 
 OR 
 
 PLAIN TRUTHS IN A HOMESPUN DRESS. 
 
 BY tHE LATE 
 
 LORD TIMOTHY DEXTER. 
 
 WITH AN ENGRAVING OF LORD DEXTER AND HIS D00< 
 
 " r am the first in the east, the first in the west and the greatest 
 philosopher in the known world.' ^ 
 
 NEWBURYPORT: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY JOHN G. TILTON. 
 
 1848* 
 
LIFE AND GENIUS 
 
 LORD DEXTER 
 
 Sancho Panza never longed to be a gov- 
 ernor more ardently than Timothy Dexter 
 longed to be a lord. If a real title of 
 nobility could have been bought with 
 money, the illustrious trader in warming- 
 pans would have thrown down the cash till 
 his letters patent were gained ; but as, un- 
 fortunately for him, nothing of the kind in 
 a legalized shape could be procured, our 
 hero hit upon the novel and ingenious ex- 
 pedient of bestowing the title upon himself, 
 and this self-conferred honor seems to have 
 answered his purpose quite as well as any- 
 thing more legitimate would have done. 
 Everybody called him " Lord Dexter," and 
 he will probably continue to be known as 
 " Lord Dexter," as long as he is remem- 
 bered. His other title of "King of Ches- 
 ter," which he at one time had thoughts of 
 taking, in consequence of possessing a fine 
 
4 LIFE AND GENIUS 
 
 country seat at the town of that name in 
 New Hampshire, was not so successful. 
 
 Dexter, having thus astonished the world 
 by his great achievements in leather-dress- 
 ing, money-broking, land-speculating, and 
 castle-bailding, at length resolved to turn 
 author, and exhibit to mankind an example 
 of universal genius not to be easily paral- 
 leled in the history of the human intellect. 
 For this purpose he took pen in hand and 
 wrote " A Pickle for the Knowing Ones," 
 — a work which at once placed him on the 
 summit of fame as a literary character, and 
 threw the world into a maze of wonder 
 
 " That one small head could carry all he knew." 
 
 Dull people, indeed, could make nothing 
 of it : they found fault with the spelling and 
 punctuation. 
 
 But notwithstanding the cavils of the 
 ignorant and unreflecting, the Pickle was 
 well received by that portion of the com- 
 munity to whom it was addressed, namely 
 the Knowing Ones. These sagacious wights 
 found in it a fund of amusement as well as 
 instruction, and those recondite passages 
 where the meaning was not immediately 
 apparent, they were content to take upon 
 trust, fully persuaded that time, that unfail- 
 ing elucidator of hidden things, would bring 
 to light all the mysteries of Lord Timothy's 
 
OF LORD DEXTER. 5 
 
 oracular wisdom. So popular, in fact, did 
 the work become, that a second edition was 
 soon called for, and eagerly taken up. We 
 may add, however, that our author, with a 
 truly liberal spirit, did not hesitate to meet 
 the public curiosity at least half way, by 
 distributing his book gratis to all who had 
 the taste to admire it. 
 
 No doubt he had good reason for adopt- 
 ing his peculiar style of composition, which, 
 whatever may be said of it, must be al- 
 lowed at least to possess this high merit — 
 that it is not servilely copied from any 
 author ancient or modern, but is the original 
 invention of the great man himself. 
 
 Dexter, though he was an imitator in 
 some trifling particulars, though he bought 
 books Avhich he could not read, like some 
 other great men, yet in the main he had a 
 way of his own, which he disdained to copy 
 or suffer to be copied. He earnt his money 
 shrewdly and spent it foolishly: — others 
 who are shrewd in earning are shrewder in 
 spending. In short, he was a living excep- 
 tion to all general rules, and a living con- 
 tradiction to all maxims of human wisdom : 
 yet we have heard people deny him the 
 title of a great man ! 
 
 The world has been much divided on the 
 question as to which of Dexter' s exploits 
 was the greatest. The majority of his 
 1* 
 
b LIFE AND GENIUS OF LORD DEXTER. 
 
 admirers seem to incline in favor of the 
 warming-pan achievement : and it must be 
 allowed that our hero's genius shines in full 
 lustre in this adventure. Sending coals to 
 Newcastle was a deed that had been done 
 a hundred times, but to send warming-pans 
 to the West Indies was indeed a new thing 
 under the sun ! Who had ever thought of 
 such an attempt before ? and how the wise- 
 acres laughed v/hen they heard that the 
 thing had been attempted by our sagacious 
 Lord Timothy ! But who laughed in the 
 end 7 The warming-pans found purchasers 
 to the great astonishment of the Knowing 
 Ones of Newburyport, and our ingenious 
 experimenter in trade had the satisfaction 
 of turning the joke upon his detractors and 
 putting money in his pocket at the same 
 time. 
 
 He died at Newburyport, October 26, 
 1806. 
 
THE PICKLE; 
 
 FROM THE MUSEUM OF LORD TIMOTHY DEXTER. 
 
 Lord Dexter relates hoto he was created Lord by the 
 People, announces his intention of forming a 
 Museum of great men, that shall be the wonder o/* the 
 world, and shall confound his enemies. 
 
 Ime the first Lord in the younited States 
 of A mercary Now of Newburyport it is the 
 voise of the peopel and I cant Help it and 
 so Let it gone Now as I must be Lord there 
 will foUer many more Lords pretty soime 
 for it Dont hurt A Cat Nor the mouse Nor 
 the son Nor the water Nor the Eare then 
 gone on all is Easey Now bons broaken all 
 is well all in Love Now I be gin to Lay 
 the corner ston and the kee ston with grat 
 Remembrence of my father Jorge Washing- 
 ton the grate herow 17 sen treys past before 
 we found so good a father to his shildren 
 and Now gone to Rest Now to shoue my 
 Love to my father and grate Caricters I 
 will shoue the world one of the grate Won- 
 
O A PICKLE FOR 
 
 ders of the world in 15 months if now man 
 mourders me in Dors or out Dors such A 
 mouserum* on Earth will annonce O Lord 
 thou knowest to be troue fourder hear me 
 good Lord I am A goueing to Let or shildren 
 know Now to see good Lord what has bin 
 in the world grat wase back to owr fore 
 fathers Not old plimethf but stop to Addom 
 & Eave to shoue 45 figures two Leged and 
 fore Leged because we Cant Done weel 
 with out fore Legd in the first plase they 
 are our foude in the Next plase to make out 
 Dexters mouseum I wants 4 Lions to defend 
 thous grat and mistry men from East to 
 wist from North to South which Now are 
 at the plases Rased the Lam is Not Readey 
 in short meater if Agreabel I forme A good 
 and peasabel government on my Land in 
 Newburyport Compleat 1 taks 3 presedents 
 hamsher govenor all to None york and the 
 grate mister John Jay is one, that maks 2 
 in that state the king of grat britton mister 
 pitt Roufes king Cros over to f ranee Loues 
 the 16 and then the grate bonnepartey the 
 grate and there segnetoure Crow biddey — I 
 Command pease and the gratest brotherly 
 Love and Not fade be Linked to gether 
 with that best of troue Love so as to govern 
 all nasions on the fass of the gloub not to 
 
 * Museum. t Plymouth. 
 
THE KNOWING ONES. 9 
 
 tiranize over them but to put them to order 
 if any Despout shall A Rise^ as to . bound- 
 reys or Any maturs of Importance it is Left 
 france and grat britton and Amacarey to be 
 setteled A Congress to be all ways in france 
 all Despouts is to be thare settled and this 
 may be Dun this will balless power and 
 then all wars Dun A way there-fore I have 
 the Lam to Lay Dow with the Lion Now 
 this may be Dun if thos three powers 
 would A geray to Lay what is called Devel 
 one side and Not Carry the gentelman pack 
 hors Any longer but shake him of as dust 
 on your feet and LafF at him there is 
 grate noise Aboute a toue Leged Creter he 
 says I am going to set sade black Divel 
 there stop he would scare the woman s so 
 there would be No youse for the bilding, I 
 should have to erect sum None won Now 
 I stop hear I puts the Devil Long with the 
 bull for he is a bulling 2 Leged Annemal 
 stop put him one side Near Soloman Look- 
 
 * Here the learned author makes a plunge into the 
 sea of political discussion. The wisdom he displays cannot 
 be too much admired. If the princes and potentates of the 
 earth would but take a fool's advice they might save them- 
 selves the trouble of fighting. The " Pickle for the Know- 
 ing Ones," will teach them how they may compose their dif- 
 ferences without bloodshed. Should any one inquire who 
 invented Peace Societies, we can reply, " Lord Dexter." The 
 whole scheme of the " Congress of Nations" is to be found in 
 the lines which follow : yet we dare say, Dexter had never 
 read the Abbe St. Pierre. 
 
10 A PICKLE FOR 
 
 ing with Soloman to Ladey venus Now stop 
 wind up there is grat ods in froute I will 
 Let you know the sekret houe you may see 
 the Devel stand on your head before a 
 Loucking glass and take a bibel in to your 
 bousum fast 40 owers and look in the 
 loucking glass, there is no Devel if you dont 
 see the ould fellow but I affirm you will 
 see that old Devel 
 
 Unto you all mankind Com to my hous 
 to mock and sneare whi ye Dont you Lafe 
 be fore hewn or I meane your betters think 
 the heir power Dont know thorts and 
 Axsions Now I will tell you good and bad 
 it is not pelite to Com to see what the bare 
 walls keep of my ground if you are gentel 
 men you would stay Away when all is 
 Dun in marble Expect to gone out my selfe 
 to Help it thous grat men will send on there 
 Likeness all over the younited States I wish 
 all the printers would send on there Like- 
 nesses in 40 Days to Timothy Dexter I 
 mean I want the printers to give Notis if 
 pleases to inform by printen in the Nous- 
 papers for the good of the hoU of man- 
 kind 
 
 I wans to make my Enemys grin in time 
 Lik A Cat over A hot pudding and goue 
 Away and hang there heads Doun Like A 
 Dogg bin After sheep gilty stop see I am 
 Afrade I Rite toue hash my peopel Com- 
 
THE KNOWING ONES. 11 
 
 plane of backker spittel maks work to 
 
 Cleane it up in the women skouls A 
 
 bout it spit in ther hankershif or not spit A 
 tall I must say sumthing*or I should say 
 Nothing there fore make sum Noise in the 
 world when I git so ouely to Nash my goms 
 and griyng for water and that is salt water 
 when brot A young Devel to bring it and A 
 Scoyer"*^ to wate and tend on gentelmen A 
 black Suier his breth Smelt wos than bram 
 stone by far but Let the Devel goue in to 
 Darknes and take his due to Descare man- 
 kind for A Littel while this Cloven foot is 
 seen by sum but the trap will over hall the 
 Devel in tim, I pittey this poore black manf 
 I thine his master wants purging A Littel to 
 har ber mr Devel A most but I did Not say 
 Let him Run A way good Nit mr Devel 
 CaryJ the sword and money with you tak 
 John mekel Jentel man good Nit 
 
 T Dexter 
 
 Lord Dexter relates how he came to Fortune, by Specula- 
 tions in Warming-Pans, Whalebone, Bibles, and 
 Government Securities. 
 
 How Did Dexter make his Money ye 
 
 * Squire. 
 
 1 1 pittey this poore bladk man. There is the same touch of 
 pathos in Tristram Shandy. "The devil is damned to all 
 eternity," quoth Dr. Slop. " I am sorry for it," said my uncle 
 Toby. 
 
 t Mr. Gary was a clergyman of Newburyport, with whom 
 Dexter had a quarrel. 
 
12 A PiCKLE FOR 
 
 says bying whale bone for staing for ships 
 in grosing three houndred & 40 tons — bort 
 all in boston sahmi and all in None york 
 under Cover oppenly told them for my 
 ships they all laffed so I had at my oan 
 pris I had four Counning men for Rounoers 
 thay found the home as I told them to act 
 the fool I was full of Cash I had nine tun 
 of silver on hand at that time— all that 
 time the Creaters more or less laffing it 
 spread very fast here is the Rub — in fifty 
 days thay smelt a Rat — found where it was 
 gone to Nouebry Port — spekkelaters swarm- 
 ed like hell houns— to be short with it I 
 made seventey five per sent — one tun and 
 
 halfe of silver on hand and over one 
 
 more spect — Drole a Nuf — I Dreamed of 
 worming pans three nites that thay would 
 doue in the west inges I got no more than 
 fortey two thousand — put them in nine 
 vessels for difrent ports that tuck good 
 hold I cleared sevinty nine per sent the 
 pans thay made yous of them for Coucking 
 ' — very good masser for Coukey— blessed 
 good in Deade missey got nise handel 
 Now burn my fase the best thing I Ever 
 see in borne days I found I was very 
 luckky in spekkelation. I Dreamed that 
 the good book was Run Down in this Coun- 
 trey nine years gone so low as halfe prise 
 and Dull at that — the bibel I means I had 
 
The knowing ones. 1$ 
 
 the Ready Cash by holl sale I bort twelve 
 per sent under halfe pris thay Cost fortey 
 one sents Each bibbel — twentey one thou- 
 sand — I put them into twenty one vessels 
 for the west inges and sent a text that all 
 of them must have one bibel in every familey 
 or if not thay would goue to hell — and if 
 thay had Dun wiked flie to the bibel and 
 on thare Neas and kiss the bibel three 
 times and look up to heaven annest for 
 forgivnes my Captteins all had Compleat 
 
 orders here Coms the good luck I made 
 
 one hundred per sent & littel over then I 
 found I had made money anuf I hant speck 
 alated sence old time by government se- 
 courities ,1 made or cleared forty seven 
 thousands Dolors — that is the old afare 
 Now I toald the all the sekrett Now be 
 still let me A lone Dont wonder Noe 
 more houe I got my money boaz 
 
 Lord Dexter informs the whole World of the Improve- 
 ments made and contemplated, about his Palace s 
 describes his Tomb^ djfc. 
 
 To mankind at Large the time is Com at 
 Last the grat day of Regoising what is that 
 whye I will tell you thous three kings* is 
 
 * Thous three kings, are the three Presidents which Dexter 
 placed on the Royal Arch ia front of his house. They stand 
 
14 A PICKLE FOR 
 
 Rased Rased you meane shoued know 
 Rased on the first Royel Arch in the world 
 olniost Not quite but very hiw up upon so 
 thay are good mark to be scene so the wo- 
 mans Lik to see the frount and all peopel 
 Loves to see them as the quakers will Com 
 and peape slyly and say houe the doue frind 
 father Jorge Washeton is in the senter king 
 Addoms at the Rite hand the present king 
 at the Left hand father gorge with his hat 
 on the other hats of the middel king with 
 his sword king Addoms with his Cane in a 
 grand poster Adtetoude turning his fass to 
 wards the first king as if thay was on sum 
 politicks king our present king he is stands 
 hearng being yonger and very deafe in 
 short being one grat felosfer Looks well 
 East & west and North & south deafe & 
 very deafe the god of Nater has dun very 
 much for our present king and all our former 
 ones thay are all good 1 want them to Live 
 for Ever and I beleave thay will it is hard 
 work to be A king — I say it is harder then 
 tilling the ground I know it is for I find it is 
 hard work to be A Lord I dont desier the 
 sound but to pleas the peopel at Large Let 
 it gou to brak the way it dus for A sort 
 ment* to help a good Lafe to Cour the sick 
 
 there still, Washington in a cocked hat, and '• king Addoms' 
 and the " grat felosfer" Jefferson, uncovered. 
 *it dus JOT a sort merit. It does for an assortment. This 
 
THE KNOWING ONES. 15 
 
 spleney goutey dul frames Lik my selfe 
 with the goute and so on make merry a 
 Chealy Christon is for me only to be onnest 
 No matter what thay worshep son monne 
 or stars or there wife or miss if onnest Live 
 for Ever money wont gitt thous figers* so 
 fast as I wish 1 have senc to Leg horn for 
 many mr bourrf is one Amonks many 
 others 1 sent in the grand Crecham thous 3 
 kmgs Are plane white Leead colow at 
 present the Royal Arch & figers cost 39 
 pomid wate silver the hiest Councaton 
 order in the world so it is sade by the know- 
 ing ones I have only 4 Lions & 1 Lam up 
 the spread EagelJ has bin up 3 years upon 
 the Coupalay I have 13 billors front in strat 
 Row for 13 states when we begun 3 in the 
 Rear 15 foot hie 4 more on the grass see 2 
 the same hath at the Rite of the grand Arch 
 2 at the left wing 15 foot hie the Arch 17 
 foot hie the my hous is 3 sorey upwards of 
 290 feet Round the hous Nater has formed 
 the ground Eaquel to what you would wish 
 
 seems to have been a cant phrase with our author, and much 
 in keeping with his character, smacking so strongly of the 
 shop. We find in a subsequent page, " A sort ment is good 
 in a shop," 
 
 * thous figers. Those figures, his statues, which the 
 sculptor could not carve with a dispatch equal to Dexter's 
 impatience. 
 
 t mr bourr. Aaron Burr. 
 
 t the spread Eagel. The spread eagle was placed on top 
 of the cupola, where it served the purpose of a weather-vane. 
 
16 A PICKLE FOB 
 
 for the Art by man Eaqiiei to a Solomun the 
 onerbel Jonathan Jackson one of the first in 
 this Country for tast borne a grat man by 
 Nater then the best of Lurning what sot me 
 fored* for my plan having so gran spot the 
 hool of the word Cant Excead this to thoiis 
 that dont know would think I was Like 
 halfe the world a Lier I have traveled good 
 deale but old steady men sayeth it is the 
 first that it is the first best in this Contry 
 & others Contrey I tell you this the trouth 
 that None of you all great men needent be 
 A frunted at my preseadens & I spare Now 
 Cost in the work I have the tempel of Rea- 
 son in my garding 3 years past with a toume 
 under it on the Eage of the grass see it cost 
 98 gineys besids the Coffen panted whit in 
 side & out side touched with green Nobel 
 trimings uncommon Lock so I can tak the 
 kee in side and have fier works in the 
 toume pipes & tobacker & A speaking 
 trumpet and a bibel to read & sum good 
 songs 
 
 What is presedent answer A king bonne 
 partey the gratf has as much power as A 
 
 *sot me fared. Set me forward. 
 
 t bonne partey the grat. Our author here makes a desperate 
 grapple with the knotty question of politics which convulsed 
 then, as it does now every quarter of the country. " Bonne 
 partey the grat" was not yet Emperor of the French, yet the 
 sagacity of Lord Timothy could discover that he had " as 
 much power as Any king for grate ways back." The whole 
 of this paragraph may be read with special edification. Our 
 author disposes of the matter with the decision if not the 
 
THE KNOWING ONES. 17 
 
 king and ort to have ifc it is a massey he 
 has for the good of mankind he has as much 
 power as Any king for grat ways back there 
 must be A head sum whare or the peopel is 
 Lost Lik wild gees when they Lous the 
 head gander two Leged wants A head 
 if fore Leged both 60 2 Leged fouls the 
 Name of presedent is to please the peopel at 
 Large the sound souts best Now in the 
 south give way the North the North give 
 way to the south or by & by you will brake 
 what falers* be wise or keep the Links to 
 gether and if you cant A gree Consoalatedf 
 to a kingly power for you must keep to 
 gether at the wost hear it Labers ye les see 
 there is so many men wants be the all 
 offesersj & Now sogers poor king Every 
 day wants A bone sum more then other the 
 king cant Live without the feald wee have 
 had our turne grat good father Addoms 
 turne & turne A bout Rest Easey you all 
 will be pleased with the present king give 
 time all did I say Now but the magor part 
 fore fifths at least 
 
 Timothy Dexter 
 
 profundity of a Machiavel. The allusion to the " head gander" 
 will be thought particularly applicable at the present day. 
 
 *falers. Fellows. 
 
 t Consolidated. 
 
 tso many men rcants to be the all offesers. Office huntings 
 then, appears to have been prevalent in our author's day as 
 well as at the present moment. Alas ! there is nothing new 
 under the sun ! 
 
 2* 
 
18 A PICKLE FOR 
 
 Lord Dexter depicts the evil results of making Two 
 Towns of One ; advises against Office-Seeking and 
 College-Learning. 
 
 Friends hear me 2 granadears* goss up 
 in 20 days fourder friends 1 will tell the A 
 tipe of man kind what is that 35 or 36 years 
 gone A town caled Noubryf ail won the 
 Younited states Noubry peopel kept to 
 gether quiet till the Larned groed strong 
 the the farmers was 12 out of 20 thay 
 wanted to have the offesers in the Contrey 
 the Larned in the see port wanted to have 
 them there geering A Rose groued Avorme 
 fite thay wood in Law thay went the Jnrel 
 Cort to be sot of finely thay got there Eands 
 Answered the see port caled Newbury Port 
 600 Eakers of Land out of thirty thousand 
 Eakers of good Land so much for mad 
 peopel of Larning makes them mad if thay 
 had kept to gether thay wood have bin the 
 sekent town in this slat A bout halfe of 
 boston Now men mad to be in offess it hurts 
 the peopel at Large Like Carying the In- 
 
 * 2 granadears. These were gigantic fellows carved in wood 
 that stood sentry with enormous muskets in part of Dexter's 
 yard. 
 
 + A town caled Noubry. Our author here gives us the his- 
 tory of the separation of Newburyport from Newbury, when 
 the inhabitants of the " water-side" with 600 acres of territory 
 out of 30,000 obtained an act of incorporation as a distinct 
 town, or in the language of tlie learned Dexter, " went to the 
 Jnrel Cort to be sot of," i. e. went to the General Court to be 
 set ofif. 
 
THE KNOWING ONES. 1% 
 
 negent* Lam to slarter Now it would doue 
 to dewide the North from the south all won 
 what I have Leade down but Now keep to 
 gether it is Like man and wife in troue 
 Love Now gaving death in the grander you 
 will sous the glory I say keep to gether 
 dont brak the Chane Renoue brotherle Love 
 Never fade Like my box in my garding be 
 one grat familey give way to one A Nother 
 thous changes is the tide hie warter & Loue 
 warter hie tids & Loue tids for my part I 
 have Liked all the kings all three all our 
 broken marchantsf cant have heaths of 
 profFett gone and till the ground gone to 
 work is all that has bin to Coleage goue 
 with slipers and promis to pay and Never 
 pay only with A Lye I gess 4 fifths is 
 Coleage Lant or devel Lant or pretended to 
 be onnest free masione but are to the Contry 
 forgive me for gessing I hope it is Not so 
 the Leaned is for LoovsJ & Littel fishes 
 moses was but a man and Aaron thay had 
 sum devel Like my selfe man is the same 
 give him power I say the Cloak Cukement 
 maters the wost of cheats we hant got any 
 
 * Innocent. 
 
 t broken marchants. What ! were there broken merchants 
 too, in those days ? Alas ! for the good old times ! We have 
 strong misgivings that they were not a great deal better than 
 the present, for we shall find in the next line a complaint of 
 " promis to pay and Never pay only with A Lye." 
 
 t Loaves. 
 
20 A PICKLE FOR 
 
 N Port wee are Noted to be the first in the 
 North sabed Day is Not half A Nuf ^ Night 
 meataiis it maks work for the Docters and 
 Nuses Ceaching Could but them that Lives 
 breed fast to mak up for them that dies poor 
 creaters I pittey them so preast Riden it is 
 wickard to leave poor sols in to the grave 
 all our ministere are imported Very good men 
 foull of pie house Love I kep them A mit 
 Amen at present 
 
 Magnanimity of Lord Dexter^ 
 
 The yong man that doth most all my 
 Carving his work is much Liked by our 
 grat men I felt founneyf one day I thort I 
 would ask sade young man whare he was 
 bone J he sade Now whare what is all that 
 Now whare was your mother over shaded 
 I says my mother was if I was to gess No 
 I tell in Now town borne o on the water I 
 says you beat me and so wee Lafed and it 
 shuk of the spleane^ shoue him A Crows 
 
 * sabed Day is Not half A Nuf, i. e. Sabbath day is not 
 half enough. A hit at the ultra devotion of the people of 
 Newburyport, who have long been noted for their disposition 
 to make more than one " sabed day," out of seven, as well as 
 for their attachment to " Night meatens," 
 
 + Funny. 
 
 t Born. 
 
 § so wee Lafed and it skuk of the spleane. This laughing: 
 
THE KNOWING ONES. 21 
 
 Neast he can carve one A fine fellow — I 
 shold had all marbel if any bodey could to 
 me the prise so I have sent for 8 busts for 
 kings and grat men and 1 Lion & 2 gray 
 hounds I hope to hear in foue* Days to all 
 onnest men Timothy Dexter 
 
 Lord Dexter's Dissertation on Man. 
 
 mister printter I must gou sum fouderf I 
 have got one good pen my fortin has bin 
 hard very hard that is I have had hard 
 Noks on my head 4 difrent times from a boy 
 to this Day twice taken up for dead two 
 beatings was a Lawyer then he put me 
 blind 7 days 2 tockters he was mad be Case 
 the peopel at Large Declared me Lord 
 Dexter king of Chester this at my Con trey 
 seet 26 mils from N Port my plase there is 
 
 the fist from solt water to Canedey this 
 
 Lawyer that broused me was Judg Live- 
 more son Arther the same Creator borid 
 200 dolors sum monts be fore this & then 
 Oaded me he beat his bene factter it has bin 
 
 to shake off the spleen, fully corroborates what our philos- 
 opher says in a preceding page, that he found it " hard work 
 to be A Lord." A humiliating confession, but which shows 
 die magnanimity of Lord Timothy. Greatness, it seems, 
 did not make him happy ! 
 *Few. t Further. 
 
22 A PICKLE FOR 
 
 my Luck to be yoused ten times wos by 
 them I done the most for I have Lost first 
 and Last as much as a tun of silver grose 
 my wife that was had 400 wut of silver 
 Abraham bishvip that maried my dafter ten 
 years gone him & shee sence then & my 
 son Samuel L Dexter upwards seventeene 
 thousands Dolors the Rest by hamsher Col 
 by Rougs^ has gokbeyf handed preasts Dea- 
 kens gruntters whimers Every foue minnets 
 A sithj or A groune I thinks sum times the 
 saving solt <fc smoak & solt peater will in 
 time be very dear if it is yous the more 
 smoak or the preasts will be out of work 
 Littel Like sister france I Lade out a blan 
 to have holerdays one Day in ten 24 years 
 gone I thort it would save the Natision great 
 deale of money sir in one sentrey then the 
 prests wood have time to studdery then 
 hamer dowm smartly make the sulffer smoak 
 in their Nostels under the Cloak of pie eatty 
 the hipecricks Cloven foots thay Done it to 
 git power to Lie and Not be mistrusted all 
 wars mostly by the suf the broken marchents 
 are fond of war for they hant Nothing to 
 Lous & the minesters in all wars the Case o 
 god Leave the Divel out when it is all Divel 
 If you can bare the trouth I wall tell the 
 trouth man is the best Annemal and the 
 
 ♦Rogues. t Jockey^ tSigh.. 
 
THE KNOWING ONES. "23 
 
 worst all men are more or Less the Divel 
 but there is sit of ods* sum halfe sum three 
 quarters the other part of beast of Difrent 
 kind of beasts sum one thing and sum a 
 Nother sum Like a Dog sum Lik horses sum 
 bare s Cat sum Lion sum lik ouls sum a 
 monkey sum wild Cat sum Lam sum a 
 Dove sum a hogg sum a oxe sum a snake I 
 want Deseponsf to be Dun A way but they 
 wont Never be as Long as prist Riden what 
 Doue the preast preach to the Divel for all 
 there hearaesj old and youn more or Less 
 the Divel I Liked to sade so Divel preaches 
 to Divels Rebouking sin keep it up up sayeth 
 the hipacrits mockers of god habits an Cos- 
 tom is the ods ods make the diffrence I sees 
 god in all plases the god of Nater in all 
 things wee Live and move in god he is the 
 god of Nateer all Nater is god take one Elle- 
 ment from us one of the fore take the fier 
 or the water or or Eare or Earth wee are 
 gone so wee Live in god Now Less us all be 
 good children doue all things Rite the strong 
 must bare the Infremiteys of the wicked 
 shildren keep up tite Laws Draw the Ranes 
 Littel harder stop theavs as fast as you can 
 bad trade sheuuing Nine Numbers was Rot§ 
 in 23 owers when I had hold of the pen five 
 houres & 35 minuets A sort ment A sort 
 ment is good in A sht)p 
 
 * sit of ods, a sight of odds. t Deceptions, 
 
 t Hearers, § Wrote. 
 
24 A PICKLE FOR 
 
 the preasts fixes there goods six days 
 when the open shop on Sundays to sell there 
 goods sum sets them of better than others 
 bolerhed when a man is so week he wont 
 done for a Lawyer mak a preast of him for 
 week thing to goue with week things the 
 bUnd to Lead the bhnd so that they may 
 fall into one Dich and so they goue throue 
 the world darkiness but foue peopel have A 
 pinon of there one Not one in twenty as to 
 this world goods and so it is as to the other 
 world to Inquire the way goue to a fryer 
 our peopel a bout the same only call it 
 sumthing Else in Rum* of a king call it 
 presedent but preasts have money to save 
 sols I want to know what a sole is I wish to 
 see one Not a gizard I thinks the sole is the 
 thinking part there is grat minds & Littel 
 minds grat sols & Littel sols great minus & 
 littel minds According to the hevdey boddeys 
 that has the power of our boddeys the same 
 mother and the same father and six children 
 how thay will differ in Looks complexions 
 and axons sum for grat thing sum for littel 
 thing sumthing Nouw I say I say my figers 
 will pay Intress moneyf prove it first going 
 
 * Room. 
 
 t my figers will pay Intress money. He means to say his 
 statues will pay him for their cost by bringing strangers to 
 Newbury port to look at them ; thus increasing the toll over 
 Essex Merrimack Bridge, where Dexter was a large Stock- 
 holder, and raising the rent of his houses. 
 
THE KNOWING ONES. 25 
 
 over my brige sum more tole then helping the 
 markett of the town Leeting hoses tavern 
 keepers costom the honnor of the town & 
 my selfe Timothy Dexter 
 
 one thing fourder I have bin convarted 
 upwards 30 years quite Ressned* for the 
 day the grat day I wish the preast Node as 
 much as I think I doue there harts would 
 Leap up to glory to be so Reader for the 
 time of Regoicing to goue to be maried to 
 what a fine widow with her Lamp bourning 
 the Lamps trimmed with glorey the shaking 
 quickers after they git convarted and thare 
 sins washed A way they stay at home & 
 Let thous go unclene and so it is much so 
 with m.e I stay at home praying for theavs 
 and Rougs to be saved Day and Night pray- 
 ing for siners poour creaters my hous keeper 
 is in the dark wos then badf Crasey to be 
 saved shee says shee has sind A gainst the 
 holey gost I have Asked her what is shee 
 says it is sumthing but cant find out way 
 sends for the preast coms what is the mater 
 gost gost Dear sir & the minester makes a 
 prayer the gost went of mostly not all part 
 strayed behind shee has bin crasey Ever 
 sence the preast cant Lay the serpont houe 
 many Nick Names three things have so say- 
 eth the preacher Amen Amen see fath I dii 
 
 ♦Resigned, t Worse than bad. 
 
26 A PICKLE FOR 
 
 Lord Dexter against Colleges and Priests. 
 
 NouE mister printer sir I was at Noue 
 haven 7 years and seven monts past at com- 
 mencement Degress on 40 boys was tuck 
 degrees to done good or Not good the old 
 man with the hat on told them to sueday 
 houeman Nater* walk as A band of broth- 
 ers from that time to this day I thort that 
 all thoiis that was brot up to Coleage the 
 meaning was to git there Liveing out of the 
 Labeer If the Coleages was to continer one 
 sentry and keep up the game recken the cost 
 of all from there cradel to 22 years old all 
 there fathers and gurdEandsf to Lay out 
 one houndred years intress upon intress gess 
 at it &- cast it see houe many houndred 
 thousand millions of Dolors it would com to 
 to make Rougs and thieves to plunder the 
 Labering man that sweats to get his bread 
 good common Laning is the best sum good 
 books is best well imder stoud be onnest 
 dont be preast Riden it is a cheat all be 
 onnest in all things Now feare Let this 
 goue as you find it my way speling houe is 
 the strangest man T Dexter 
 
 fourder mister printer for a minister to git 
 the tone is a grat pint when I lived in ham- 
 sher one Noue Lit babstis:|: babler sobed A 
 
 ♦ Study human nature. t Guardians. 
 
 I New Light Baptist. 
 
THE KNOWING ONES. 
 
 27 
 
 way just fineshiiig his sermon he says o 
 good lord I hop you will consider what foue 
 hints I have given and I will cleare it up 
 sum time hence I am much wore down Now 
 the wether being very worme to day Less 
 bray* & so Avent on fire fire & brimstone 6c 
 grunting & sithing and tryed tocry & snufel 
 & blow the sconks home and sum the old 
 fouls & yong fouls sot to crying I tuck my 
 hat and went out hone mankind and wo- 
 man kind is in posed upon all over the world 
 more or less by preast craft o for shame o 
 for shame I pittey them be onnest doue as 
 you would wish others to doue unto you in 
 all thinsrs Now fear of Death, A men 
 
 TD'r 
 
 fourder what diffrent wous we have of 
 this world & the other world two good wo- 
 men Lived in a town whare 1 once lived 
 one was sick of a consumsion Near Death 
 both belonged to the Church very onnest 
 only the well woman was weak in wous & 
 thing says unto the sik woman I thinks you 
 will see my housbon doue tell him 1 and my 
 son A greus very well and wee are all vyell 
 and the sow is piged and got seaven pritty 
 pigs and fare you well sister this I belieave 
 is serting troue & so fare the well — I shall 
 com A gane in Littel while 
 
 * i^ * * * 
 
 ♦ Let us pray. 
 
28 A PICKLE FOR 
 
 QuixoTANA : Lord Dexter'' s Pugilism — Rencontre with 
 a Lawyer — the Peer suffers ignominious Defeat. 
 
 This Cometh Greeting, mister printers 
 the Igrent* or the Nowing wons says I ort 
 to Doue as thay Doue to keep up Cheats or 
 the same thing Desephonsf to Deseave the 
 Igrent so wee may Cheat and Likewise have 
 wars and plunder my wish is all Liers may 
 have there part of fier and brimstone in this 
 world or least sum part part of it or Else the 
 gouement is Not good it will want pourging 
 soone if a Lawyer is to way Lay a man an 
 brouse him unmassely All most to Death A 
 sitteson that pays twentey fore Dolors for 
 Careags and more than one Dolor A week to 
 ment the hi ways and my being Libperel is 
 in part of this bloddey Afare No sauage 
 would beat a man as I was beaten almost to 
 Death I Did not know houe these men 
 Came to keep sade Lawyer from quit kiling 
 of me till sum time After three men saw the 
 Axon of the blodey seene without massay 
 and carried sade Dexter in to the house sun 
 fainting or Neare to it se and behold the 
 olful site bleading and blind of one Eye 
 twoue brousings in two hours at Least Now 
 Laws in this part of the world Now part of 
 the world A man of money to Live those I 
 lend money to sind A Lawyer and others 
 
 * Igaorant. t Deceptions. 
 
THE KNOWING ONES. 29 
 
 thay yonse me the wost it maks Inemye 
 then those Rogs if there is Any that call me 
 A foull and pick A Qualrel with me A bout 
 my Nous papers so as to pay the Lawyer 
 Craft to make up the molton Calf Not an Ox 
 Now the town of Chester has Lost two 
 hundred loate of silver at Least I beleuv 
 more money Now thay may have me in the 
 town or A Lawyer Chouse for yourselves 
 my frinds and felow mortals pease be with 
 you All A men selagh finely brethren sum 
 
 thing more Coming 
 
 Timothy Dexter. 
 Chester Sept the 29 1796 
 
 Lord Dexter discourses very learnedly on Bridges ; ar- 
 rives to the conclusion that Newburyport will double 
 its population in thirty years, and ends with a splendid 
 donation to the town to be remembered in his will. 
 
 I SAY to houme in may consarne Now to 
 our Rulers for a hearing in the first plase 
 Dexter and others consarned in the first 
 brigge on the merremak* it has payed to 
 the town of N Port and Cuntry at large 
 
 * This chapter is taken up with the " bridge question," 
 which related to the three bridges over the Merrimack, name- 
 ly, Essex Merrimack Bridge, which our author sometimes 
 calls " Dexters Brigg," the bridge at Haverhill, and the Rocks 
 Bridge, between these two. 
 
 3* 
 
30 A PICKLE FOR 
 
 twenty per sent, one thirde to each party, 
 the owners one thirde of twenty per sent. 
 This is worrey of prase sense this brigge 
 was finished two more briges has been done 
 over A hove on the same River, the Rocks 
 brige is a wast of money and Laber if 
 there was no Rocks brigg the havrel brigg 
 would barly pay tlie undertakers in bilding 
 sade brigg Now no onnest men can burne at 
 the hart with gruging the proffets of any 
 one of thous brigges. The Rocks brigg is 
 most dun the money is Lost havvrel barly 
 pays the way when the Rocks brigg is Dun 
 and Now more Dexters brigg and others 
 oners doue but have half so much Intrest as 
 bankers the Repars & & & so on has bin 
 grate to finish the Repars back and fored to 
 next ougest is five thousand dolars in nine 
 or ten years or there A bouts and you all 
 know how money has been sum part of the 
 time very bad in worth 
 
 the town of N Port is likely to grow in 
 thirty years to Doubel be twelve thousand 
 peopel three thousand A hove this brigg 
 talked of 
 
 No 2 further please your honours there is 
 A bout Eight hundred Rodd in lenth to the 
 Deare Oilen* brigg & one hundred Rod in 
 weth to bring it square Nobel house Lotts 
 Number of bilding yards up to this Deare 
 
 ♦ Deer Island, at Essex Merrimack Bridge. 
 
THE KNOWING ONES. 31 
 
 Oilen Brigg and many plases for warfes 
 Nater has formed N Port and part of Noubry 
 as well for pease and war all together as 
 well as the Lord would wish to have it and 
 now lett us be wise in proving in proving it 
 in pease and godly love Not gruging one 
 Another if sixty three oners was now as at 
 first in Dear oilen brigg this hart burning 
 wodent be sot on fier Now but twenty five 
 oners such and such passons feels hurt pre- 
 tending there is tone much profets to Dexter 
 in petickler he has twelve per sent grate 
 mestake they chouse to Lye to hurt me 
 becose it is the most of my bread the best 
 Anker to my ship I have bought at fifty 
 pounds A share in twelve monts past, people 
 has ofFen asked me why I did not bye the 
 holl I have ofFen told them mankind was 
 mankind it wod not dou nor wod it dou for 
 a foue people to hold all the public seccoure- 
 teys for mankind was so much of what wee 
 Call the Devel or Rouring Lions or wouls. 
 
 No 3 fouder there is plenty of Complant 
 of the difficulty of pasing those briges Now 
 as it is troue if those giddy people have 
 Liberty to bould A brigg it wont pay but 
 three or four per sent at most then they 
 must have one halfe the passing of my brigg 
 as I call it A mad bisness Now as for A 
 turn pik from Newbrey brige to Epsswith* 
 
 * Ipswich. 
 
30 A PICKLE FOR 
 
 is not bad it may doue middling well six 
 one way half a Dozen tother way & from 
 Epsswith to beble* brigg and so on to Boston 
 Amen or from Dexters brige to mouldenf 
 brigg or Reather to None boston brigg it may 
 have its wate as much as Ever wee ant 
 Ripe for so many grate things wate seven 
 years Longer time 
 
 I say wate twelve years before you have 
 Any more briges within four miles of mere- 
 mack brigg I have it in contemplasion to 
 give twenty five shares to the town of N 
 Port to be kept at there expence in Repars 
 the Incom for mending streets in the town 
 of N Port for that sole yous to be fixed in 
 my last will — well Dun I meane this After 
 12 years for the town of N Port to hav 
 twenty five shars from march first day one 
 thousand Eigh hundred and two to be in 
 foull forse and power greeting I ones one 
 hundred ten shars there is two hundred in 
 the holl the the first Cost and Repars is A 
 bout forty thousand and seven hundred 
 Dollars 
 
 1 am a frind to all onnest men 
 
 Timothy Dexter 
 
 * Beverly. t Maiden. 
 
THE KNOWING ONES. 
 
 NOW WONDER* 
 
 T. Dexter says four things — Wants good 
 judgment to live in the world, in giving and 
 lending^ trusting and borrowing. For I 
 begin to see 1 have already given my wife, 
 that ivas^ and my son Samuel L. Dexter, 
 and B****p, more than ten thousand dol- 
 lars, in two years, and neither of them thank 
 me. Now to all men that owes me, be so 
 kind to themselves and me, as to pay me, in a 
 short time, or else call and pay squire Brad- 
 bury's son the lawyer in Newhuryport^ with- 
 out further trouble and cost. 
 
 Timothy Dexter. 
 
 [For the Impartial Herald.] 
 
 Messrs. Blunt and March — I say to whom 
 it may concern — to the majesty of the people 
 of Newburyport, Greeting — 
 
 It costs eight hundred dollars a year to 
 support a watch in this town, and yet 
 gentlemen's windows are broken, fences 
 pulled down and Cellars broken open, and 
 much other misdemeanors done at night. 
 Are the watch asleep, or are they afraid to 
 detect those who are guilty of such practices? 
 Boast not of it, if you call this Liberty and 
 
 * This piece and the following were advertisements, pub- 
 lished originally in the Impartial Herald, at Newburyport, 
 The spelling and punctuation are evidently none of our 
 author's. 
 
34 A PICKLE FOR 
 
 Equality. Newburyport has had the name 
 of being a very civil worthy place ; it is a 
 great pity some bad boys or young men 
 should disgrace it. I hope our worthy and 
 honorable rulers will bring those rude lads 
 to see themselves, and lick the dust like 
 serpents, and ask forgiveness of their betters, 
 and do so no more, but repent and live. 
 
 Now fellow citizens is it wisdom, is it 
 policy, to use a man or men so shocking bad 
 as to oblige them to leave the town where 
 they paid one Dollar a day to support 
 government 1 
 
 A friend to good order, honor to whom it 
 belongs, to great men a friend — to all good 
 citizens and honest men good bye. 
 
 Whereas many philosophers has judged 
 or guessed at many things about the world, 
 and so on Now I suppose I may guess as it 
 is guessing times. 1 guess the world is one 
 very large living creature, and always was 
 and always will be without any end from 
 everlasting to everlasting, and no end. What 
 grows on this large creature is trees and 
 many other things. In the room of hair the 
 rocks is moulds. This is called land where 
 the hair grows, the belly the sea — all kinds 
 of fish is the worms in the belly. This large 
 body wants dressing to get our living of this 
 creature and by industry we get a living— 
 
THE KNOWING ON£S. 35 
 
 We and all the animal creation is less than 
 fleas in comparison on the back or belly of 
 this very large immense body. Among the 
 hairs to work on this great body is that of 
 Nature, past finding out. All we know is 
 we are here, we come into the world crying 
 and gone out groaning. Mankind is the mas- 
 ter beast on the earth — in the sea, the whale 
 is the head fish — the great fish eat up the 
 little ones, and so men not only destroy one 
 another, but they are master over the whole 
 of beasts and fish, even over a lion, therefore 
 men is the masterly beast, and the worst of 
 the whole — they know the most and act the 
 worst according to what they know. Seeing 
 mankind so bad by nature, I think when 
 the candle goes out, men and women is 
 done, they will lay as dirt or rocks till the 
 great gun fires, and when that goes ofi" 
 the gun will be so large that the gun will 
 contain nine hundred million tons of the 
 best of good powder, then that will shake 
 and bring all the bones together, then the 
 world will be to an end. All kind of music 
 will be going on, funding systems will be 
 laid aside, the melody will be very great. 
 Now why can't you all believe the above 
 written as well as many other things to be 
 true, as well as what was set forth in the 
 last Centinel concerning digging up a frog 
 twenty feet below the surface, where it was 
 most as hard as a rock — there was his shape 
 
 \ 
 
'^/^; 
 
 A PICKLE, ETC. 
 
 like taking a stone out of a rock. This is 
 from a minister. Now why wont you be- 
 Ueve me as well. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 The follering peases are not my Riting 
 but very drole Timothy Dexter 
 
 [Here follow, in the original edition, a few pages apparently 
 nmde up of extracts from the newspapers of the day ; but aa 
 their merits in point of originality, although "very drole," 
 are not equal to the drollery of Lord Timothy himself, we have 
 thought it best to omit them.] 
 
 [Note to Dexter's Second Edition,] 
 
 fouder mister printer the Nowing ones 
 complane of my book the fust edition had 
 no stops I put in A Nuf here and thay may 
 peper and solt it as they plese 
 
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