Historical Address Delivered on the Occasion of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Town of Middleborough, Massachusetts July 5, 1919 (Classic Reprint)

Download or read book Historical Address Delivered on the Occasion of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Town of Middleborough, Massachusetts July 5, 1919 (Classic Reprint) written by Albert H. Washburn and published by . This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Historical Address Delivered on the Occasion of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Town of Middleborough, Massachusetts July 5, 1919 Delivered on the Occasion of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Town of Middleborough, Massachusetts, July 5, 1919, By Albert H. Washburn. "The Royal Oak it was the Tree, That saved his Royal Majestie." These lines of the New England Primer, for more than a hundred years the approved text book of the Pilgrim and Puritan dissenter, were doubtless droned on many a leaden school day by our forbears at an age when their meaning was but dimly guessed. This and the slightly variant companion stanza, "The Royal Oak our King did save, From fatal stroke of Rebel Slave," which is to be found in the "Child's Guide," another nightmare of only lesser fame, suggests the early Colonial idea of the beginner's lesson in patriotism. Whether poetry such as this, as stiff and wooden as the oak covers which held it together, produced quite the effect its authors intended or whether it stired in youthful breasts a reactionary spirit of rebellion and of secret sympathy for the rebel, we may not certainly know. The allusion was, of course, to the Second Charles. For a time, Cromwell, that "stern enemy of kings," hunted him hard, but presently the Commonwealth crumbled and the House of Stuart was restored. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.