He describes "the little market town on the river, from whence the boats plied weekly to New York with produce," as a "pestilent little place [in 1793] for running races, pitching quoits, and wrestling for gin-slings," but adds: I must do it credit to say that it is now [1S28] a very orderly town, sober and quiet, save when Parson Mathias, who calls himself a Son of Thunder, is praying in secret so as to be heard across the river. It so happened that of all the days in the year, this was the very day [one Tuesday in November] a rumour had got into the town that I myself, the veritable writer of this true story, had been poisoned by a dish of souchong tea. There was not a stroke of work done in the village that day. The shoemaker abandoned his awl, the hatter his bowstring, the tailor his goose, and the forge of the blacksmith was cool from dawn till nightfall. Silent was the sonorous harmony of the big spinning wheel, silent the village song, and silent the fiddle of Master Timothy Canty, who passed his livelong time in playing tuneful measures and catching bugs and butterflies.

It may not be out of place to let the careful Duyckinck supply the grain of salt with which he warns us that Paulding should be enjoyed: In almost all the writings of Paulding there is occasionally infused a dash of his peculiar vein of humorous satire and keen sarcastic irony. . . . It is sometimes somewhat difficult to decide when he is jesting and when he is in earnest. This is on