No blight had fallen on old Essex; all was prosperity
and riches, healthfully distributed. Before us lay our native town,
extending from the foot of the hill to the harbor, level as a chess
board embraced by two arms of the sea, and filling the whole peninsula
with a close assemblage of wooden roofs, overtopped by many a spire,
and intermixed with frequent heaps of verdure, where trees threw up
their shade from unseen trunks. Beyond was the bay and its islands,
almost the only objects, in a country unmarked by strong natural
features, on which time and human toil had produced no change.
Retaining these portions of the scene, and also the peaceful glory and
tender gloom of the declining sun, we threw, in imagination, a veil of
deep forest over the land, and pictured a few scattered villages,
and this old town itself a village, as when the prince of hell bore
sway there. The idea thus gained of its former aspect, its quaint
edifices standing far apart, with peaked roofs and projecting stories,
and its single meeting-house pointing up a tall spire in the midst;
the vision, in short, of the town in 1692, served to introduce a
wondrous tale of those old times.
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