But few towns in Massachusetts offer to summer visitors as many attractions as does Princeton.  The air is clear and bracing, the landscape charming, and the pleasant, shady woodroads afford opportunities for drives through most picturesque scenery.  Near at hand is the lake, and above it towers Wachusett.  It has been proposed to run a railroad up to and around the mountain, but thus far, fortunately, nothing has come of it.  A fine road of easy ascent winds up the mountain, and on the summit is a good hotel which is annually patronized by thousands of transient visitors.

The view from here is magnificent on a clear day.  The misty blue of the Atlantic, the silver thread of the Connecticut, Mounts Tom and Holyoke, and cloud-clapped Monadnock, the cities of Worcester and Fitchburg—­all these and many other beautiful objects are spread out before the spectator.  But it cannot be described—­it must be seen to be appreciated; and the throngs of visitors that flit through the town every summer afford abundant evidence that the love of the beautiful and grand in nature still lives in the hearts of the people.

Brief is the sketch of this beautiful mountain town, which is neither large nor possessed of very eventful history:  but in its quiet seclusion dwell peace and prosperity, and its worthy inhabitants are most deeply attached to the beautiful heritage handed down to them by their ancestors.

[Footnote 2:  History of Worcester County.  Worcester:  1793.]

* * * * *

WASHINGTON AND THE FLAG.

By Henry B. Carrington.

  “Strike, strike!  O Liberty, thy silver strings!”

NOTE—­On a pavement slab in Brighton Chapel, Northamptonshire, England, the Washington coat-of-arms appears:  a bird rising from nest (coronet), upon azure field with five-pointed stars, and parallel red-and-white bands on field below; suggesting origin of the national escutcheon.

I.

  Strike, strike!  O Liberty, thy silver strings;
  And fill with melody the clear blue sky! 
  Give swell to chorus full,—­to gladness wings,
  And let swift heralds with the tidings fly! 
  Faint not, nor tire, but glorify the record
  Which honors him who gave the nation life;
  Fill up the story, and with one accord
  Our people hush their conflicts—­end their strife!

II.

  Tell me, ye people, why doth this appeal
  Go forth in measure swift as it has force,
  To quicken souls, and make the nation’s weal
  Advance, unfettered, in its onward course,
  Unless that they who live in these our times
  May grasp the grand, o’erwhelming thought,
  That he who led our troops in battle-lines,
  But our best interests ever sought!

III.