PREFATORY NOTE.

THIS Volume contains a record of the Proceedings of the MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY from November, 1882, to December, 1883, inclusive; the meetings in. July and August, as usual, having been omitted. The earlier portion of the book was edited by Mr. Clement Hugh Hill, who acted as Recording Secretary in the absence of the late Mr. George Dexter.

During the past year the Society commemorated the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of Luther; and the public addresses on that occasion, which were issued separately in pamphlet form, are printed in this volume. There are also included here four Memoirs: that of the Hon. Seth Ames, by E. Rockwood Hoar; that of George B. Emerson, LL.D., by Robert C. Waterston; that of George Ticknor, LL.D., by William W. Greenough; and that of the Rev. Chandler Robbins, D.D., by Charles C. Smith.

Ten illustrations accompany these pages, several of which have been furnished without cost to the Society. For the engraved likeness of Mr. Ticknor we are indebted to Mrs. Ticknor; for that of Mr. Emerson, to R. C. Waterston; that of Dr. Robbins is a gift of Mrs. Robbins; while Mr. Goodell has presented the fac-similes

of the early court seals of Massachusetts, and of the Witchcraft Act of 1711. In addition to these, there are maps of Rhode Island and the Carolina coast, a heliotype of Lafayette, and a copy of an autograph page of Irving.

The present volume, which is the twentieth, closes the First Series of the Proceedings of the Society; and a Consolidated Index to the whole is now in course of preparation.

CAMBRIDGE, March 28, 1884.

EDWARD J. YOUNG.