impress of modern thought on this interesting life.
Then there is the ruddy Dr. Newton, —Rev. William Wilberforce Newton,— rector of St. Stephen's Church. He is the author of "Priest and Nun," and a little book of poems entitled "Told Among the Hills."
The Agassiz Association, formed for the study of natural history, had its beginning in Lenox in 1875. Since then many auxiliaries have sprung up elsewhere. Mr. Harlan H. Ballard, of the Pittsfield Athenæum, is president and founder of this association. His article on "Greylock," published in the New England Magazine in 1891, contains an able discussion of the perplexing formation of the whole Berkshire region, which so puzzled Profs. Hitchcock and Dana and many other geologists. Mr. Ballard is a ready and constant writer for the periodicals.
Of longer association with Berkshire, perhaps, than those just mentioned is Mr. H. F. C. Smith, the historian of Pittsfield, and author of "Taghconic; or, The Romance and Beauty of the Hills," which has been mentioned. He remembers well the days when Longfellow, Holmes, and Melville were in Pittsfield, and Hawthorne and Fanny Kemble in Lenox. At one time he was offered by Mr. Bryant the associate editorship of the New York Evening Post.
The closing years in the life of Rose Terry Cooke were spent in Pittsfield. She died there in 1892.
Just north of Pittsfield is the charming town of Lanesboro. Here Mrs. Helen Campbell spends a long summer season. The house where she lives is not far from the old home and burial place of Josh Billings, and the little stone schoolhouse where Horace E. Scudder wrote his "Bodley Books." In her "Prisoners of Poverty," and other writings, Mrs. Campbell has done more than hold up her hands at the horrors in the existing social system. She has gone below the surface and addressed herself to remedies, with the purpose and warmth of the reformer. She is no less interesting as a novelist than as a writer on social reform.
Turning again to Williamstown, it is gratifying to note that John Bascom, LL. D., is again associated with the department of instruction in Williams College. He was first tutor, then professor, at Williams, and later, for a term of years, president of the University of Wisconsin. Eminent as a scholar and thinker, his writings cover a wide range in philosophy and social science.
Another Williams professor —in times past perhaps the most widely known of all— is Arthur Lapham Perry, the political economist. Genial and hearty, for more than a score of years the ring of his free-trade sentiments has challenged all political opponents. Next to his long and useful labors in the interests of the college, Prof. Perry has earned for himself a lasting niche in Berkshire's temple of fame by his tireless investigations along the lines of her topography and history. He belongs to the college, and he belongs to all Berkshire. For fifteen years he has been president of the Berkshire County Historical Society. His son, Prof. Bliss Perry, who has been recently called from Williams to the chair of oratory at Princeton, will be remembered as the author of "Broughton House."
You have seen a group of graceful vines and flowers, —a climbing rosebush, maybe,— planted just at the corner of some picturesque old country house, and, ever climbing upward, lending color and fragrance to the whole place. In some such relation do the child-poets of "Sky Farm," Elaine and Dora Goodale, stand to Berkshire. The "Farm" is snugly tucked away quite at the southwestern corner of the county. It is only the simple home of the farmer; yet, with its maple shade and its low roof, intertwined with rich woodbine and clematis, it is highly picturesque. Around is a wonderful landscape. There is the blue dome of Washington Mountain (more properly called the Dome of the Taconics) in the prospect, with the splash of far-famed Bash Bish Fall near at hand. Many a traveller's pen has been captivated by the sparkling splendor of these falls and the panoramic view from the Dome. Good old President Dwight of Yale, in his "Early Travels in
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