Rambles about Portsmouth. Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents. By Charles W. Brewster.

REV. SAMUEL M'CLINTOCK. 165
not surprising when we consider the troubled times in
which those men were educated in violent struggle for
civil and religious liberty, when even their prejudices
seemed sanctified by their blood. Men who had so long
followed the pillar of fire might easily forget that there
were souls who needed the refreshing shadow of the cloud.
The opinions of Dr. McClintock were however much milder
in the later portion of his life, but he was always strenuous
in his appeals, with something of the enthusiasm and the
better part of the perseverance of his Scotch ancestors.
Full of simplicity and honesty, it is not too great praise to
say that if his head sometimes erred his heart was nearly
always right.
History informs us that during the battle of Bunker Hill
this venerable clergyman knelt on the field, with hands
upraised, and grey head uncovered; and, while the bullets
whistled around him, prayed for the success of the compatriots, and the deliverance of his country. This rare
incident prompted the following beautiful ode from the pen
of Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney.
THE PEALYEI O:N BUNOKEtRD IZLL,
"It was al hour of fear and dreadHigh rose the battle-cry,
And round, in heavy volumes, spread
The war-cloud to the sky.'Twas not, as when in rival strength
Contending nations meet,
Or love of conquest madly hurls
A monarch from his seat:' Yet one was there, unusel to tread
The path of mortal strife,
Who but the Saviour's flock had fed
Beside the fount of life.
He knelt him where the black smoke wreathe4His head was bowed and bare,While, for an infant land he breathed
The agony of prayer., The column, red with early morn,
May tower o'er Bunker's height,
And proudly tell a race unborn