Among the early settlers of Massachusetts was Anne Bradstreet, a girl of 18. She was the daughter of Thomas Dudley, who became the second governor of Massachusetts. She was the person called the 'Tenth Muse" by Cotton Mather. Her poems, many of which were written before she came to America, are an interesting and curious memorial of the better educated colonists. She lived for most of her life at Andover in Middlesex County in Mas sachusetts Bay. The most diligent search in her poems shows hardly any reference to the outward aspect of the country in which she lived. Her flowers and her birds belong to the flora and fauna of England and not of Middle sex County. Between 1642 and 1700 Increase Mather and Cotton Mather are the names most often referred to as we look back on our literary history. Of Increase Mather we have in print 85 publications, mostly separate sermons. Of Cotton Mather the collection is much larger, the number of titles being 382. The modern fashion is to speak of the Mathers with a sneer as bigots and to dismiss them from the lofty consideration of our time. But whoever re members the duties to which they had to put their hands is disposed to regard them more favorably. There was but little subdivision of work for the men who had been educated to be the leaders of their country. And certainly some allowance is to be made for ignorance of the laws of electricity when the teacher whom you are judging has to study his electricity as Cotton Mather did while he encourages soldiers for warfare, while he checks the smallpox by inoculation, while he is writing the history of the past and is caring for the poverty of to-day. any value to the world, he owed it to Cotton Mather's son, that if he himself had been of any value to the world, he owed it to Cotton Mather's 'Essays to do Good.' It is rather hard to throw Cotton Mather overboard either as a quack or a fanatic when such a man as Franklin was willing to write for him such an epitaph. It is fortunate for this generation that at a comparatively early period of his hie Mather brought together in his 'Maalia> his torical papers which he had already written, some of which had been printed. The date of the first edition of the 'Magnalia) is 1702, but the work belongs almost entirely to the 17th century. Cotton Mather was himself born in the year 1663, so that a good deal of his record of the history of the first settlement is put on paper at second hand. Occasionally an unfor tunate error here has puzzled his readers. For instance, before the discovery of the einem) Bradford manuscript, we owed to Mather the statement that the Pilgrim Fathers came from Ansterfield in the county of Yorkshire. This proved to be the misprint of the London printer for Austerfield. It was only on the discovery of this error by the late William Hunter the the American pilgrimages to Scrooby and Aus terfield began. A good deal of injustice has been done Mather from what is in itself a com parative trifle, that his great book has not ye been edited by any competent editor. Even the detail that there is no decent index to it Ins greatly diminished its usefulness to historians in this generation. They ought to remember that he was but 39 years old when it was printed, and the corrections to his work which a man makes between 39 years of age and 6) nowhere appear in it. The reader is referred to the articles MATHER, INCREASE; MATHER COTTON, and MATHER, SAMUEL, which in the: place state what these men did for the growing colony during the period when it ceased to be a trading company and became really an inde pendent State.
Thomas Hutchinson, a governor of Massa chusetts, was a man of letters. And if he had not been the unfortunate governor whose dis loyalty to the State gained for him the hatred of those around him, he would have been re membered with gratitude as such. He was an enthusiast about the history of the Pilgrims and of the fathers of Massachusetts. The first
volume of his 'History of Massachusetts' was published in Boston in 1764, and the second volume in 1767. Alas, he was not equal to the duties of a great crisis, he deserted his country men, and by his country was branded as a traitor. But for this he would be named to-day as the first in the series of distinguished Amer ican historians.
The assiduous and successful attention which has been paid to the century of colonization has very naturally given to New England readers a better history of what passed in the 17th cen tury than we have of the first half of the 18th century. During that time the of the United States were involved in war with France. This meant for them a frontier war in which every savage was commissioned by French or Jesuit authorities to descend upon the borders of the English settlers. Excepting the stories of frontier warfare, there was not much to write history about. There are a few exceptions but in general the crown governors sent over by William and Mary, Queen Anne or by the first Georges were but a poor set They initiated nothing and were well pleased if they could avoid a quarrel with the colonial assemblies. The one distinguished royal gov ernor is William Shirley, who filled so well the duties almost unexpected of a commander-in chief of North America. So it happens that in reviewing the literature of the country we have no longer such unaffected and simple narrative. But we find ourselves more in the walks of religious speculation and of theology. In the front of the writers on such subjects is Jona than Edwards, who challenged the attention of the learned in the English-speaking world by studies and results which have become famous. In the penury of frontier villages, and living day by day in what seems very petty surround ings, this distinguished man elaborated his studies on the divine counsels and placed his poor limits on the infinite in methods and lan guage which will survive all other American literature of the first half of the century. It is inevitable perhaps that izi the midst of such discussions of the idea there shall appear on the other side of the horizon discussions of the fact, or of those realities which men can see with the eyes and hear with their ears. And in our case, Benjamin Franklin was born into the world in the year 1706. Before he was a man he was well advanced in those studies of the English language which gave him after ward his power to express himself to men. Long before he was a statesman and diplo matist, he was conducting his experiments on electricity, and when he drew the lightning from the skies, he attracted the attention of all the learned world of his time. When we speak of the American authors of those 50 years the fame of Edwards and Franklin overshadows all the rest. With the discussions attendant on the American Revolution, a new school of authorship began. It now seems clear enough that the more thoughtful leaders of English opinion were from the very beginning amused, not to say delighted, with the simple dignity with which such men as the Adamses, Franklin, Dickinson and the great Virginia statesmen conducted the discussions, whether of matters of trade, of taxation or of government.
°History, my Lord,' said Lord Chatham, in his famous address to the House of Lords, °has been my favorite study. . . . I must avow that in all my reading, and I have read Thu cydides and have studied and admired the master states of the world, for solidity of rea son, force of sagacity and wisdom of conclusion, no nation or body of men can stand in prefer ence to the General Congress at Philadelphia. The histories of Greece and Rome give us noth ing equal to it.' To this moment, indeed, no careful student of constitutional law or of the foundations of states can go forward in any intelligent inquiry without reading with care the work of the American statesmen of that time.