smart of this sudden blow, yet it reflected upon the whole land. He was singularly endowed with the tongue of the learned, enabled to speak a word in due season, not only to the wearied soul, but also a word of counsel to a people in necessity thereof, being not only a wise steward of the things of Jesus Christ, but also a wise statesman; so that the whole land sustained a great loss of him." All the customary tokens of respect were paid to his memory. The letters of his name IOHN NORTON, were fondly transposed, till they stood INTO HONNOR; whereunto he had gone to abide. Not content with this, his anagrammatizing friend, Mr. Wilson, first turned the name into Latin form, IO HANNES NORTONUS; and then turned the helpless letters over and over, till, with clever success, he brought them into satisfactory shape, as NONNE IS HONORATUS! Nor were there wanting some of those uncouth and rugged elegiacs which would have made Quinctilian "gasp and stare; and doubtless forced the agonized Muses to muffle their unfortunate ears. Rev. Thomas Shepard, of blessed memory, vented his sorrows in some metres, which abounded in sincerity in inverse proportion to their want of the spirit of poesy. We give a few of the least unendurable of his rhymes, those dried salt-fish from Helicon. Having compared Mr. Norton with the most famous of the scholastic doctors, very much to their disadvantage, he says of his hero; "Of a more heavenly strain his notions were, Among other commendations, he speaks of him as a father to all the churches ; "Zealous for order; very critical For what was truly Congregational." The good man's reputation must have been formed of lasting material to survive such excruciating praises. By his last will and testament it appears, that Mr. Norton left a brother William, living at Ipswich, Mass., where he cultivated a large farm; and that he had an aged mother, a brother Thomas, and three sisters, Martha, Mary and Elizabeth, residing at London. To the poor of his church he left a bequest of ten pounds. His widow, who was his second wife, as has been stated, gave to the Old South church in Boston, during her life-time, most of the valuable estate now held by that society; and nearly all the residue, she gave, by her will, after her decease. There is in the Probate Office an account of her funeral expenses, which is so singular, and so illustrates the customs of those days, that it is inserted here, at the risk of shocking the modern ideas of temperance and economy. 167 7-8, Jan. 20. Account of Funeral Charges of Mrs. Mary Norton. Jan. 20. 51 1-2 gallons of best carriage, at £10. 13. £10. 13. 50 1-2 ells of best broad Lutestring silk at 10 This enormous bill of seventy-three pounds currency, amounting to nearly two hundred and fifty dollars, contains but two necessary items, not much exceeding twelve dollars. The offering of gloves and refreshments to the mourning attendants was the usual practice. If each receiver of a pair of gloves had his share of the other articles provided for distribution, he would have had a strip of silk some five inches wide as a badge of his grief, and about a pint of Malaga for his consolation! The disposition to testify respect for the dead by extravagant and stately funerals is much abated among us; and it must be owned, that, in this one instance, the children, if less loving, are more wise than their fathers. In his natural temper, Mr. Norton was quick and somewhat irascible. Whitefield used to tell of "grace grafted on a crab-stock." And truly those trees which naturally yield the sourest and harshest fruit; when their crabbed branches are pruned away, and they are grafted with fairer scions, their fruit will often be the most abundant and the sweetest. Such was the effect of the engrafted grace of God in Mr. Norton's soul. He was noted for his affable and winning behavior, and became one of the most amiable of men. Some of his Another natural infirmity of this good man was a strong inclination to levity. humorous table-talk is on record; enough to indicate the hilarity of his temper. A single instance of this may suffice. Ann Hibbens, an unhappy woman, whose husband had been a magistrate, and a Boston merchant of note, and who was sister to Governor Bellingham, was arraigned for witchcraft in 1656. She appears to have heen a sad termagant. Her temper, naturally bad, was further soured by her husband's losses in business; and after his death, she became so violent, as to make herself extremely odious to her neighbors. She was excommunicated from the church for her strange malevolent behavior; which at last provoked against her the fatal charge under which Joan of Arc was doomed to die. The truth of the accusation was as much disputed in the case of Ann Hibbens as in that of the "Maid of Orleans." The jury brought her in guilty; the magistrates set aside the verdict; but the Deputies in the General Court confirmed it, and she was executed accordingly. She was the second person who died under this charge in Massachusetts. Mr. Beach, a minister in Jamaica, in a letter to Dr. Increase Mather, gives the fol. |