Excuse my not writing earlier; but I had not decided.
TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).
Concord, October 12, 1855.
Mr. Ricketson,—I fear that you had a lonely and disagreeable ride back to New Bedford through the Carver woods and so on,—perhaps in the rain, too, and I am in part answerable for it. I feel very much in debt to you and your family for the pleasant days I spent at Brooklawn. Tell Arthur and Walton[61] that the shells which they gave me are spread out, and make quite a show to inland eyes. Methinks I still hear the strains of the piano, the violin, and the flageolet blended together. Excuse me for the noise which I believe drove you to take refuge in the shanty. That shanty is indeed a favorable place to expand in, which I fear I did not enough improve.
On my way through Boston I inquired for Gilpin's works at Little, Brown & Co.'s, Munroe's, Ticknor's, and Burnham's. They have not got them. They told me at Little, Brown & Co.'s that his works (not complete), in twelve vols., 8vo, were imported and sold in this country five or six years ago for about fifteen dollars. Their terms for importing are ten per cent on the cost. I copied from the "London Catalogue of Books, 1846-51," at their shop, the following list of Gilpin's Works:—
| Gilpin (Wm.), Dialogues on Various Subjects. 8vo. 9s. | Cadell. |
| —— Essays on Picturesque Subjects. 8vo. 15s. | Cadell. |
| —— Exposition of the New Testament. 2 vols. 8vo. 16s. | Longman. |
| —— Forest Scenery, by Sir T. D. Lauder. 2 vols. 8vo. 18s. | Smith & E. |
| —— Lectures on the Catechism. 12mo. 3s. 6d. | Longman. |
| —— Lives of the Reformers. 2 vols. 12mo. 8s. | Rivington. |
| —— Sermons Illustrative and Practical. 8vo. 12s. | Hatchard. |
| —— Sermons to Country Congregations. 4 vols. 8vo. £1 16s. | Longman. |
| —— Tour in Cambridge, Norfolk, etc. 8vo. 18s. | Cadell. |
| —— Tour of the River Wye. 12mo. 4s. With plates. 8vo. 17s. | Cadell. |
| Gilpin (W. S. (?)), Hints on Landscape Gardening. Royal 8vo. £1. | Cadell. |
Beside these, I remember to have read one volume on "Prints;" his "Southern Tour" (1775); "Lakes of Cumberland," two vols.; "Highlands of Scotland and West of England," two vols.—N. B. There must be plates in every volume.
I still see an image of those Middleborough ponds in my mind's eye,—broad shallow lakes, with an iron mine at the bottom,—comparatively unvexed by sails,—only by Tom Smith and his squaw Sepit's "sharper." I find my map of the State to be the best I have seen of that district. It is a question whether the islands of Long Pond or Great Quitticus offer the greatest attractions to a Lord of the Isles. That plant which I found on the shore of Long Pond chances to be a rare and beautiful flower,—the Sabbatia chloroides,—referred to Plymouth.
In a Description of Middleborough in the Hist. Coll., vol. iii, 1810, signed Nehemiah Bennet, Middleborough, 1793, it is said: "There is on the easterly shore of Assawampsitt Pond, on the shore of Betty's Neck, two rocks which have curious marks thereon (supposed to be done by the Indians), which appear like the steppings of a person with naked feet which settled into the rocks; likewise the prints of a hand on several places, with a number of other marks; also there is a rock on a high hill a little to the eastward of the old stone fishing wear, where there is the print of a person's hand in said rock."
It would be well to look at those rocks again more carefully; also at the rock on the hill.