The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees | Page 6

continue in America, expecting the payment of £200,000, I
advise him by all means to return to Europe, and to give up his present
expectations."
When acquainted by his friend Percival with this frank statement,
Berkeley accepted the blow as a philosopher should. Brave and
resolutely patient, he prepared for departure. His books he left as a gift
to the library of Yale College, and his farm of Whitehall was made over
to the same institution, to found three scholarships for the
encouragement of Greek and Latin study. His visit was thus far from
being barren of results. He supplied a decided stimulus to higher
education in the colonies, in that he gave out counsel and help to the
men already working for the cause of learning in the new country. And
he helped to form in Newport a philosophical reunion, the effects of
which were long felt.
In the autumn of 1731 he sailed from Boston for London, where he
arrived in January of the next year. There a bishopric and twenty years
of useful and honourable labour awaited him. He died at Oxford,
whence he had removed from his see at Cloyne, on Sunday evening,

January 14, 1753, while reading aloud to his family the burial service
portion of Corinthians. He was buried in the Cathedral of Christ
Church.
Of the traces he left at Newport, there still remain, beside the house, a
chair in which he was wont to write, a few books and papers, the organ
presented by him to Trinity Church, the big family portrait, by
Smibert--and the little grave in Trinity churchyard, where, on the south
side of the Kay monument, sleeps "Lucia Berkeley, obiit., the fifth of
September, 1731." Moreover the memory of the man's beautiful,
unselfish life pervades this section of Rhode Island, and the story of his
sweetness and patience under a keen and unexpected disappointment
furnishes one of the most satisfying pages in our early history.
The life of Berkeley is indeed greater than anything that he did, and one
wonders not as one explores the young preacher's noble and endearing
character that the distraught Vanessa fastened upon him, though she
knew him only by reputation, as one who would make it his sacred duty
to do all in his power to set her memory right in a censorious world.

THE MAID OF MARBLEHEAD
Of all the romantic narratives which enliven the pages of early colonial
history, none appeals more directly to the interest and imagination of
the lover of what is picturesque than the story of Agnes Surriage, the
Maid of Marblehead. The tale is so improbable, according to every-day
standards, so in form with the truest sentiment, and so calculated to
satisfy every exaction of literary art, that even the most credulous might
be forgiven for ascribing it to the fancy of the romancer rather than to
the research of the historian.
Yet when one remembers that the scene of the first act of Agnes
Surriage's life drama is laid in quaint old Marblehead, the tale itself
instantly gains in credibility. For nothing would be too romantic to fit
Marblehead. This town is fantastic in the extreme, builded, to quote
Miss Alice Brown, who has written delightfully of Agnes and her life,

"as if by a generation of autocratic landowners, each with a wilful bee
in his bonnet."[1] For Marblehead is no misnomer, and the early
settlers had to plant their houses and make their streets as best they
could. As a matter of stern fact, every house in Marblehead had to be
like the wise man's in the Bible: "built upon a rock." The dwellings
themselves were founded upon solid ledges, while the principal streets
followed the natural valleys between. The smaller dividing paths led
each and every one of them to the impressive old Town House, and to
that other comfortable centre of social interests, the Fountain Inn, with
its near-by pump. This pump, by the bye, has a very real connection
with the story of Agnes Surriage, for it was here, according to one
legend, that Charles Henry Frankland first saw the maid who is the
heroine of our story.
[Illustration: AGNES SURRIAGE PUMP, MARBLEHEAD, MASS.]
The gallant Sir Harry was at this time (1742) collector of the port of
Boston, a place to which he had been appointed shortly before, by
virtue of his family's great influence at the court of George the Second.
No more distinguished house than that of Frankland was indeed to be
found in all England at this time. A lineal descendant of Oliver
Cromwell, our hero was born in Bengal, May 10, 1716, during his
father's residence abroad as governor of the East India Company's
factory. The personal attractiveness of Frankland's whole family was
marked. It is even said that