Excerpt from Old Cambridge and New

This brief sketch of a few among the memorable antiquities of Cambridge was published in the July number of the New-England Historical and Genealogical Register. Under the impression that it may possess some interest for a wider circle than the readers of that Journal, with the consent of the editor it is now issued in a separate form. Some few additional particulars which have since been collected or which it seemed desirable to mention with a view to obtaining more full information with regard to them for future use, have been appended.

Circumstances altogether accidental first attracted the attention of the writer to the by-gones of New-England. Being in some respects favorably placed for the study of the subject, he listened rather to his own taste and inclination than to the suggestion forced constantly upon his mind that there were other antiquarians in the community far better qualified than himself to do it justice. He is not unmindful of what they have accomplished, or many more who have already finished their course. lie realizes that their abundant knowledge and superior ability have only been restrained by innate modesty and conscientious thoroughness from the field upon which he has ventured. Nothing indeed but the profoundest conviction that valuable information with regard to former days is constantly passing out of mind which future generations will be glad to possess and which no one else shows any disposition to preserve, could make him bold enough to brave the censure of the critical in lending a helping hand to rescue it from oblivion.

All are ready to admit that private life, with its varied interests and pursuits, is an important subject for study, not of course entitled to the same consideration as the course of political events, the province of the regular historian, but both alike contributing to a thorough knowledge of the past.

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