A multitude of people from my
parish. A decent solemnity."
"January 16, 1765. Mr. Foxcroft was ordained at New Gloucester. We had a
pleasant journey home. Mr. L. was alert and kept us all merry. A jolly
ordination. We lost sight of decorum."
This Mr. L., by the by, who was so alert on this occasion, it appears by
a note, was Stephen Longfellow, the great-grandfather of the poet.
Those who enjoy the poet's acquaintance will probably testify that the
property of social alertness has not evaporated from the family in the
lapse of so many years.
It is recorded of Dr. Griffin, that, when President of the Andover
Theological Seminary, he convened the students at his room one evening,
and told them he had observed that they were all growing thin and
dyspeptical from a neglect of the exercise of Christian laughter, and he
insisted upon it that they should go through a company-drill in it then
and there. The Doctor was an immense man,--over six feet in height, with
great amplitude of chest and most magisterial manners. "Here," said he
to the first, "you must practise; now hear me!" and bursting out into a
sonorous laugh, he fairly obliged his pupils, one by one, to join, till
the whole were almost convulsed. "That will do for once," said the
Doctor, "and now mind you keep in practice!"
New England used to be full of traditions of the odd sayings of Dr.
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