stone; the hopes of the rising settlement; the massacre that dispersed it; the hearth-stone, empurpled with the blood of the beautiful babes of Jeanson; the frantic wife and mother snatched from the scene of slaughter by her brother, and borne through the waters of French River, to the garrison at Woodstock ;—all these traces seemed as vivid in her mind as if her eyes had witnessed them. The traditions connected with the massacre were doubtless more strongly deepened in her memory, from the circumstance that the champion who rescued his desolated sister from the merciless barbarians was her own ancestor, Mr. Andrew Sigourney, and the original settler of Oxford.

Other narrations she had also preserved, of the troubles that preceded the flight of the exiles from France, and of the obstacles to be surmounted ere that flight could be accomplished. The interruptions from the soldiery to which they were subject, after having been shut out from their own churches, induced them to meet for divine worship in the most remote places, and to use books of psalms and devotion, printed in so minute a form, that they might be concealed in their bosoms, or in the folds of their head-dresses. One of these antique volumes is still in the possession of the descendants of Gabriel Bernon, a most excellent and influential man, who made his permanent residence at Providence, though he was originally in the settlement at Oxford.

Mrs. Butler mentioned the haste and discomfort in which the flight of their own family was made. Her grandfather told them imperatively, that they must go, and without delay. The whole family gathered together, and with such preparation as might be made

in a few moments, took their departure from the home of their birth, "leaving the pot boiling over the fire!" This last simple item reminds of one, with which the poet. Southey deepens the description of the flight of a household, and a village, at the approach of the foe.

"The chesnut loaf lay broken on the shelf."

Another Huguenot, Henry Fransisco, who lived to the age of more than one hundred, relates a somewhat similar trait of his own departure from his native land. He was a boy of five years old, and his father led him by the hand from their pleasant door. It was winter, and the snow fell, with a bleak, cold wind. They descended the hill in silence. With the intuition of childhood, he knew there was trouble, without being able to comprehend the full cause. At length, fixing his eyes on his father, he begged, in a tremulous voice, to be permitted "just to go back, and get his little sled," his favourite, and most valued possession.

A letter from the young wife of Gabriel Manigault, one of the many refugees who settled in the Carolinas, is singularly graphic. "During eight months we had suffered from the quartering of the soldiers among us, with many other inconveniences. We therefore resolved on quitting France by night. We left the soldiers in their beds, and abandoned our house with its furniture. We contrived to hide ourselves in Dauphiny, for ten days, search being continually made for us, but our hostess, though much questioned, was faith, ful and did not betray us.'

These simple delineations, more forcibly than the dignified style of the historian, seem to bring to our ears the haughty voice of Ludovico Magno, in his in

strument revoking the edict of Henry IV.; "We do most strictly repeat our prohibition, unto all our subjects of the pretended reformed religion, that neither they, nor their wives, nor children, do depart our kingdom, countries, or lands of our dominion, nor transport their goods and effects, on pain, for men so offending of their being sent to the gallies, and of confiscation of bodies and goods, for the women."

The information derived from this ancient lady, who in all the virtues of domestic life was a worthy descendant of the Huguenots, added new interest to their relics, still visible, among the rural scenery of Oxford. On the summit of a high hill, commanding an extensive prospect, are the ruins of the Fort. It was regularly constructed with bastions, though most of the stones have been removed for the purposes of agriculture. Within its enclosure are the vestiges of a well. There the grape-vine still lifts its purple clusters, the currant its crimson berries, the rose its rich blossoms, the asparagus its bulbous head and feathery banner.

To these simple tokens which nature has preserved, it might be fitting and well were some more enduring memorial added of that pious, patient, and high-hearted race, from whom some of the most illustrious names in different sections of our country trace their descent with pleasure and with pride.

THE CHARTER-OAK, AT HARTFORD,

TO THE GREAT OAK OF GENESEO.

GLORIOUS Patriarch of the West!
Often have mine ears been blest
With some tale from traveller wight,
Of thy majesty and might,
Rearing high, on column proud,
Massy verdure toward the cloud,
While thy giant branches throw
Coolness o'er the vales below.
Humbler rank, indeed, is mine,
Yet I boast a kindred line,
And though Nature spared to set
On my head thy coronet,
Still, from history's scroll I claim
Somewhat of an honoured name;
So, I venture, kingly tree,
Thus to bow myself to thee.
Once there came, in days of yore,
A minion from the mother shore,
With men at arms, and flashing eye
Of predetermined tyranny,

High words he spake, and stretched his hand
Young Freedom's charter to demand

But lo! it vanished from his sight,
And sudden darkness fell like night,
While baffled still, in wrath and pain,
He, groping, sought the prize in vain ;
For a brave hand, in trust to me,
Had given that germ of liberty,
And like our relative of old,

Who clasped his arms serenely bold
Around the endangered prince, who fled
The scaffold where his father bled,
I hid it, safe from storm and blast,
Until the days of dread were past,
And then my faithful breast restored
The treasure to its rightful lord.

For this do pilgrims seek my side,
And artists sketch my varying pride,
And far away o'er ocean's brine,
An acorn or a leaf of mine

I hear are stored as relics rich
In antiquarian's classic niche.
Now if I were but in my prime,
Some hundred lustrums less of time
Upon my brow, perchance such charm
Of flattery might have wrought me harm,
Made the young pulse too wildly beat,
Or woke the warmth of self-conceit.
But age, slow curdling through my veins,
All touch of arrogance restrains.
For pride, alas! and boastful trust
Are not for trees, which root in dust,
Nor men, who ere their noontide ray,
Oft like our wind-swept leaves decay.