[B] This prohibition could only have regard to the period of his life
time and was occasioned by that extreme modesty which always rendered it
painful to the Doctor to be held up to the public notice.
[C] These remarks refer to the period of Dr. Holyoke's residence in
Salem, preceding the revolution.
Dr. Holyoke during his whole life, it is said, was never fifty miles
distant from the spot where he was born. He was the first person to
receive the degree of M.D. from Harvard College; was the first president
of the Massachusetts Medical Society; and he made in the course of his
life three hundred and twenty-four thousand professional visits.
ANTIQUITY OF NURSERY RHYMES.--Many of these productions have
a very curious history, if it could only be traced. Some of
them probably owe their origin to names distinguished in our
literature; as Oliver Goldsmith, for instance, is believed
in his earlier days to have written such compositions. Dr.
E.F. Rimbault gives us the following particulars as to some
well-known favorites: "Sing a Song of Sixpence," is as old
as the sixteenth century. "Three Blind Mice" is found in a
music-book dated 1609. "The Frog and the Mouse" was licensed
in 1580. "Three Children Sliding on the Ice" dates from
1633. "London Bridge is Broken Down" is of unfathomed
antiquity. "Girls and Boys come out to play" is certainly
old as the reign of Charles II.; as is also "Lucy Locket
lost her Pocket," to the tune of which the American song of
"Yankee Doodle" was written. "Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, where
have you been?" is of the age of Queen Bess. "Little Jack
Horner" is older than the seventeenth century. "The Old
Woman Tossed in a Blanket" is of the reign of James II., to
which monarch it is supposed to allude.
_Salem Gazette._
* * * * *
Some British opinions of Benedict Arnold.
"The good whigs of America," says a late paper, "may be
assured, that the infamous BENEDICT ARNOLD'S mansion is the
very next to TYBURN,--a well chosen habitation for such an
abandoned traitor: A step or two conveys him to that fatal
spot, where the most guilty of all the miserable beings who
have ever suffered, was perfectly innocent compared with
him.--He lives despised by the nobility and gentry, and
execrated by the people at large--countenanced by none
excepting their Britannic and Satanic Majesties, and such of
their adherents, respectively, who are looking for promotion
under their royal masters."
By a gentleman from the southward we learn that it is
expected Congress will fix their permanent residence at
Philadelphia.
_Salem Gazette,_ Feb. 26, 1784.
* * * * *
NEW-YORK, November 16.
By very recent accounts from St. John, Nova-Scotia, we are
informed that _Benedict Arnold_, having attempted to JOCKY
some of the inhabitants out of their property, but being
detected, and the people being much exasperated, offered to
deliver him up to the Americans for ten dollars; but alas!
before the bargain was firmly agreed on, he made his escape
to Halifax, and there got protection from the populace.
We are informed that Benedict Arnold lately sailed from
New-Brunswick for London. It is said that his residence in
America, even among the provincial Loyalists, was rather
uncomfortable; he therefore wisely preferred being
enveloped in the atmosphere of London to residing on a
continent which had been the theatre of his traitorous acts,
and consequently the occasion of more frequent reflections
on the infamy of his crimes.
_Massachusetts Gazette,_ November, 1786.
* * * * *
Receipt for apple-pudding, in 1788, with the apple and the pudding left
out.
_For the_ HERALD _of_ FREEDOM.