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It is not of hangings only and such direful solemnities that we read in Sewall's diary. Every ordinary duty—I cannot say pastime—of life is faithfully portrayed. We know the faults—sins they were considered—of his fourteen children; how they played at prayer-time or began their meals before grace was said, and were duly whipped for such transgressions. We know how the judge went courting when past middle age; how he gave the elderly Mrs. Winthrop China oranges, sugared almonds, and "gingerbread wrapped in a clean sheet of paper," and how he ingratiated himself into her esteem by hearing her grandchildren recite their catechism. He has a businesslike method of putting down the precise cost of the gifts he offered during the progress of his various wooings; for, in his own serious fashion, this gray-headed Puritan was one of the most amorous of men. A pair of shoe-buckles presented to one fair widow came to no less than five shillings threepence; and "Dr. Mather's sermons, neatly bound," was a still more extravagant cadeau. He was also a mighty expounder of the Scriptures, and prayed and wrestled with the sick until they