USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. II > Part 56
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During the greater part of the time covered by this review, the press was regarded with extreme jealousy. It was not until 1755 that the old restric- tions practically ceased to exist. The titles, News-Letter, Gazette, Courant, Chronicle, Fournal, indicated their original purpose. They were intended mainly to collect and spread abroad current information. The printers and publishers had for a time no purpose beyond. They were not men of mark in the community, and they had no thought of extending their influence by this method. Such original contributions as they made were, in the main,
1 Sabine, Loyalists, i. 534.
408
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
personal, trivial, and mercenary. If the editor was moved to express an opinion on important affairs, he was apt to disguise it in the form of a letter purporting to be addressed to him by another person, either for the purpose of giving it additional importance, or of avoiding responsibility. By degrees actual correspondents claimed attention, and many of them from 1730 to 1776 wrote with great dignity and power. But the managers of the press, so far as they were known, commanded no special consideration, either from the practical or the scholarly men in the community. Yet, humble as its beginnings were, the press of the eighteenth century was honest, sincere, laborious, and during the later years of the period under review was in- spired with a wise and earnest public spirit.1
There is little to be said of the magazines before the Revolution.2 The Boston Weekly Magazine, first printed March 2, 1743, by Rogers and Fowle,
VIEW OF BOSTON, 1743.
had no reason for being, and expired in four weeks. It was largely re- printed from the London magazines, some of them of recent date, extracts from the newspapers, and such miscellany as was available.
The Christian History, begun at the same time (March 5, 1743), had a more definite purpose. It was printed every Saturday, in numbers of eight octavo pages each, for two years, and contained accounts of the great revi- val, following the first visit of Whitefield to this country, and reports of
1 The language of the press was often elevat- ing and prophetic, as it portrayed what a great country, rich in all the fountains of human feli- city, would be with union and a free constitution. Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, p. 166.
2 Benjamin Franklin published in Philadel- phia, in 1741, the first magazine in this country,
called The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for all the British Plantations in Amer- ica. It had for its frontispiece the coronet and plume of the Prince of Wales, with the motto Ich Dien. It was published only six months. It contained prose essays, original poems, and extracts from new books.
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THE PRESS OF THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
religious progress throughout the English-speaking world. Thomas Prince, Jr., was the publisher, and the Rev. Thomas Prince, his father, its largest contributor. It is now highly prized by collectors and antiquaries for its biographical and personal sketches, and by investigators and scholars for its clear and just representation of an important phase of the life and spirit of that period. No accurate record of the time can be written without the help of the Christian History.
The American Magazine and Historical Chronicle was set afloat the same year, Oct. 20, 1743. It contained 45 octavo pages, and was published monthly, by Samuel Eliot and Joshua Blanchard, and printed by Rogers and Fowle, in Court Street.1 Jeremy Gridley, lately released from the Rehearsal, employed his ingenious and brilliant pen in its editorship. It was a creditable enterprise, and was designed to furnish intelligent readers with the best thought and literature. It was in imitation of the London Magazine, and lived three years and four months.2
The New England Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure, the first num- ber issued Aug. 3d, 1758, was printed irregularly, and with little purpose. It was carelessly made, and only three or four numbers were printed. Ben- jamin Mecom, a nephew of the Franklins, was the publisher and printer. He had a house in Cornhill where he printed pamphlets and sold books on a small scale. He had many eccentricities, one of which was a habit of wearing a powdered bob-wig, ruffles, and gloves, even while working at his press, - a habit which led the printers of that day to give him the name of " Queer Notions," borrowed from one of the departments of his magazine.
The Censor, begun Nov. 23, 1771, and continued during the following year, was a weekly publication, entirely political, designed to defend the British rule in America. It was printed by Ezekiel Russell, in Marlboro' Street.3 Lieut .- Governor Oliver, Dr. Benjamin Church, and other loyalists were its leading writers. The first number reprinted from the Massachusetts Spy the then famous letter of Mucius Scavola (Joseph Greenleaf ) attack- ing Governor Hutchinson, and answered it with vehemence and spirit. In succeeding numbers the controversy was prolonged with increasing bitter- ness, and at last became intensely personal. The articles were written with great ability, and were unquestionably inspired by the officers of the Crown. But the sentiment of the community was too hot for such an enterprise, and it was suspended before the close of its first year.4
The Royal American Magazine, a Universal Repository of Instruction and Amusement, was begun, after elaborate preparation, in January, 1774. It was published by Isaiah Thomas for a few months, and then passed into
1 [The titlepage of vol. i. has a view of Boston, counted upon, he did nothing specially worthy which is given herewith (p. 408), this engraved of record. part of the title being a copper plate. - ED.]
2 Drake, History of Boston, pp. 667, 668.
8 Russell was a rolling stone among printers ; and with the exception of the Censor, which doubtless made a greater sensation than he had
4 As the Censor languished, its printer made an effort to convert it into a newspaper ; but neither printer nor writers could give it any lasting vitality. Thomas, History of Printing, ii. 71, 72.
VOL. II .- 52.
410
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
the hands of Joseph Greenleaf,1 who sustained it with difficulty until April following.2 Its original contributions do not now seem specially instructive or entertaining; but they were quite unobjectionable in sentiment, and covered a great variety of interests. The magazine took no part in the
ISAIAH THOMAS.
1 Mr. Greenleaf was a resident of Abington, and a justice of the peace. Having marked talent as a popular writer, he came to Boston and gave it to the service of the Massachusetts Spy, then just started by Isaiah Thomas. The authorities paid him the compliment of annulling his commission. Dismissed from the magis- tracy in his old age, he resorted to printing for a livelihood.
2 [The fifteen numbers which were published
contained twenty-four plates, engraved by Paul Revere and J. Callendar, including portraits of Hancock and Samuel Adams, and a folding view of the town of Boston, given herewith slightly reduced. This view of the town must not be confounded with other engravings by Revere, described in Mr. Bynner's chapter. Hutchin- son's History was in part published with this magazine (pp. 1-152). Brinley Catalogue, No. 1698 .- ED.]
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FROM THE ROYAL AMERICAN MAGAZINE, 1774.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
political discussion then engrossing the public attention, and soon to be transferred to the field of battle; but it contained able dissertations on the cardinal virtues, prophecies of the future of America, discourses on the life and death of persons once famous but now forgotten, and a great variety of original and selected poetry.1
Nothing like a guild of writers or a literary class was known in America at the time of the second charter, nor for many years after. Such contri- butions as were made were in the line of professional duty, or were the forced product of very rare intervals in professional labor. There were no accessible collections of books in the country, and there was no book-buying class.2 Military, political, and social disturbances had impoverished the country. Harassed by Indian wars for nearly forty years; harassed by French invasion; harassed, in spite of their constant loyalty, by vexatious restraints on the part of the Crown; harassed by domestic disputes of various kinds ; harassed also by prevailing poverty, -there was little oppor- tunity or inducement to cultivate letters, or to keep pace with the literary progress of the world. Superstition, too, had come like a plague, and added to the general desolation. Under the most hopeful circumstances, there would have been slight chance for enlightened literature when many otherwise intelligent people believed that bewitched persons were struck dumb at the sight of the Assembly's Catechism and Cotton's Milk for Babes, but were restored to speech by certain forbidden Popish and Quaker books which had escaped the sharp eye of the official censor.3
Of educated men, however, there was no lack. The schools and the college were doing their best. Physical science had earnest votaries and disciples. The interest created by the Royal Society in London was early communicated to New England. Increase Mather formed a society for the study and investigation of natural history ; and his son, who took the universe for his province, collected and published The Last Discoveries in Nature, with Religious Improvements. Governor Dudley and Paul his son added to many other accomplishments an intelligent interest in these pursuits, and contributed to the Philosophical Transactions. Catching the spirit of the time, Bartholomew Green, the printer, on taking charge of the News-Letter, though he was neither an explorer nor a student, announced that he would
1 Other printers of this period who were constantly adding to the stock of native literature, but had no connection with the periodical press, were Daniel and John Kneeland, who printed almanacs, psalters, and spelling-books for the trade; William McAlpine, a Scotchman, who also bound and sold books on a small scale ; Seth Adams, the post-rider ; Nathaniel Davis, and perhaps others equally worthy of mention.
2 " Boston had not far from a thousand houses and seven thousand inhabitants, being much the most considerable place on the continent. Other principal commercial and fishing towns were Salem, Charlestown, Ipswich, Newbury, and
Scituate. The people were farmers, woodmen, fishermen, and merchants. With rare excep- tions they were all poor. No kind of busi- ness was flourishing ; scarcely, it seemed, could there be a more disheartening state of things." - Palfrey, History of New England, iv. 136, 1 37.
8 [It was doubtless with a certain coniplacent hilarity that Fleet at one time got hold of some bales of Papal bulls and indulgences which were taken by a cruiser during the Spanish war, and brought into Boston. He used them to print ballads on, the reverse being blank. Bucking- ham, Reminiscences, i. 142. - ED.]
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THE PRESS OF THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
extend his paper to a History of Nature, to the end that it might serve in some degree for the Philosophical Transactions of New England, as well as for its political and religious history. Classical scholars, masters in theology and metaphysics, were in much larger proportion than they are now. The clergy were the most widely cultivated men in the community. They were the only professional writers, and gave the early printers their chief employment. Their contributions, so greatly in excess of those from all other sources, gave to the earlier books of the provincial, as of the colonial, period a rather dismal and depressing character. But with advanc- ing years and the multiplication of interests, books came to be marked by a purer style, a broader spirit, and a more elevated and aspiring character. This was especially true when, toward the middle of the eighteenth century, thinking men shared more and more in the intellectual activity of the world. In freedom of thought, as well as in natural science and theology, in history and philosophy, and in the science of government, nowhere were more devoted and earnest scholars to be found.
Undoubtedly the change would have come sooner but for the excessive predominance of the clergy. Great as their abilities were, they were little inclined to the currents in which English thought and culture were then flowing. The remarkable literary revival of Queen Anne's reign was little observed or felt here. The earliest catalogues of books make little mention of the writers who were at that time giving imperishable glory to our language. The library of Harvard College in 1723 had not yet been illuminated by Addison or Bolingbroke, or Dryden, Pope, Prior, Steele, Swift, or Young. Locke had made a great name in English philosophy, but his books were not sought for here. The earliest edition of Shak- speare in the library was that of 1709, and the earliest of Milton was of 1720. Bishop Hooker, Sir William Temple, and Jeremy Taylor were there, and traces of their stately and magnificent style appear now and then in the best of the religious and controversial writing of the province. There also were Bacon, Barrow, Baxter, and Burnet; Chillingworth, Clarendon, Clarke, and Cudworth; Hale, Harrington, Hollingshead, and Herbert; Light- foot, More, Selden, Newton, and Raleigh; Sherlock, Stillingfleet, Stow, and Usher. The book-sellers had not begun to advertise their wares, except those of home production, and those were chiefly theological. John Dunton's venture in 1686 is described as consisting of " books of a class adapted to the Puritans;" but no list of them is given. He himself says, in his Life and Errors : "The Books I had were most of them Practical, and well suited to the genius of New England ; so that, my Ware- house being opened, they began to move apace."1 Mr. Palfrey mentions
1 That he had books of a different descrip- tion appears from a note on a previous page, where, describing his female friends and ac- quaintances in Boston, Dunton says : " The next is Mrs. H -, who takes as much state upon her as would have served six of Queen
Elizabeth's countesses ; and yet she is no Lady neither, unless it be of pleasure ; yet she looks high, and speaks in a majestic tone, like one acting the Queen's part in a Play. ... She was a good Customer to me, and whilst I took her money I humored her pride, and paid her (I
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
a catalogue of books on all the arts and sciences, printed in 1734 for T. Cox, bookseller, " at the Lamb on the South Side of the Town House," con- taining eight hundred titles, and comprising a fair collection of standard English books.1 Here were Dryden's Æneid, with his plays and miscel- laneous poems; Pope's Iliad; the collected writings of Locke and Addison ; Butler's Hudibras; Swift's Miscellanies, and the Tale of a Tub; the Tatler and Guardian, - but not the Spectator. Shakspeare and Milton were also wanting. Theology was represented by Patrick, Barrow, South, and Sherlock; History, by Burnet, Clarendon, and Kennett; Poetry and the Drama, by Prior, Otway, Shadwell, Vanbrugh, Rowe, and others now for- gotten; and there were a few copies of Congreve, Wycherley, and Mrs. Behn.2
The native literature of this time, such as it was, properly begins with the Mathers, father and son. During the first thirty years under the new charter they were the most prolific writers in America, if not in the world. Increase Mather was (1692) at the height of his reputation and influence. Surprising the learned doctors of Cambridge, in his seventeenth year, by a Latin oration fiercely assailing the philosophy of Aristotle ;3 preaching his first sermon with acceptance in his father's pulpit on his nineteenth birthday ; minister of the North Church in Boston at the age of twenty-five, and for sixty years afterward, taking part in all the greater affairs of the province, and in all the vital interests of its new society, - Increase Mather had, in his fifty-second year, come to be the most powerful individual force in America.4 His printed works cover almost every subject, occasional or permanent, concerning the time in which he lived. He was educated to the full capacity of his teachers, and in many things surpassed them. He had fair original powers of intellect, and " appalling capacity " for physical and mental endurance. His style was in the main clear, direct, energetic, and on great occasions powerful and uplifting.5 The year of his return
blush to say it) a mighty observance. The chief books she bought were Plays and Romances; which to set off the better she would ask for books of Gallantry."-John Dunton, Life and Errors, pp. 110, III.
1 Palfrey, History of New England, iv. 384.
2 The rapid progress, however, in the art of printing from the beginning of the eighteenth century tended to stimulate literary productive- ness of every kind. The Boston printers from 1692 to 1750 executed by far the greater part of the books published in America, consisting not only of original American publications, but of important European works, chiefly theological. Church libraries and private collections began early to be formed, and were continued during the entire century. Miller's Retrospect.
3 " His Latin oration at Commencement was so vigorous an assault upon the philosophy of Aristotle that President Chauncy would have stopped him, had not the Cambridge pastor,
Jonathan Mitchell, - a man of great authority, - cried out, in intercession : ' Pergat, quaeso, nam doctissime disputat !'"-Tyler, History of Amer- ican Literature, ii. 67.
4 [Mather published in March, 1700, his Order of the Gospel Professed and Practised by the Churches of Christ in New England Justified, which was printed by Bartholomew Green. " Sundry Ministers in New England " sought to answer him in Gospel Order Revived ; and they state that the press in Boston " is so much under the aw of the reverend author whom we answer, and his friends, that we could not obtain the printer there to print" their sheets, and so it was issued in New York. It heralded, how- ever, hand-bills and pamphlets, some of them by Cotton Mather, vindication and recrimina- tion, which all served to prepare the way for a greater freedom of the press. - ED.]
5 " His discourses were eminently practical and direct, abounding in historical illustrations,
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THE PRESS OF THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
from England with the charter, and the ninth year of his presidency, he was made Doctor of Divinity by Harvard College. It was the first doctorate conferred by the university, and for eighty years he had no successor. He was both patriarch and prophet, priest and servant of his people.
The number of his printed publications is variously given. Mr. Sibley has an accurate reproduction of one hundred and sixty-two titles.1 His more elaborate works were: Remarkable Providences, 1684; Cases of Conscience, 1693 ;2 Angelographia, a Discourse Concerning the Nature and Power of the Holy Angels, 1696; The Order of the Gospel Vindicated, 1700; Concerning Earthquakes, 1706. The rest consisted in great part of sermons, controversial pamphlets, and essays on the practical and religious interests of New England.
Cotton Mather was passionately devoted to books from his earliest youth. He began to preach at eighteen, though, like his father, he had disputed learnedly with the doctors before that time. He read with extraordinary rapidity, and absorbed as he read. He collected all kinds of literature, and his library came to be the largest private collection in America. He wrote in Latin, Spanish, and once or twice in Iroquois, as well as in English, and was familiar with Greek, Hebrew, and French. His printed works are legion. The printing-press from 1685 till his death in 1728 groaned under the de- · mands he made upon it. Sprague's list of his publications comprises three hundred and eighty-two titles, which Mr. Haven has expanded to four hun- dred and twelve.3
The most noted work from his laboratory, and the first book written in America that can be called in any sense great, was the Magnalia Christi, or Ecclesiastical History of New England,4 a grotesque jumble of occur-
sometimes quaint, sometimes highly eloquent. They show much learning and thought, but more than all a sincere and ardent piety. One might be tempted occasionally to smile at marks of credulity and instances of what, to our modern taste, seems grotesque in a sermon ; but a feel- ing deeper than that smile expresses would be the total effect of a careful and candid perusal of any one of his discourses, - a feeling of re- spect for the profound sincerity that pervades it, and the godly fear under which it was evi- dently written."- Dr. Chandler Robbins, History of the Second Church, pp. 27, 28.
1 Sibley, Biographical Sketches of the Gradu- ates of Harvard University ; Thomas, History of Printing, ii. 317-97 ; and Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, i. 156, 157.
2 One of the cases of conscience which in- terested Dr. Mather, and greatly agitated the churches of New England, was whether a man might marry his deceased wife's sister. The ministers of Boston, Charlestown, and Dorchester, Dr. Mather at their head, answered this question in 1695 (as the English parliament answers it to this day) in the negative, publishing their judg-
ment and the argument in a printed tract of eight pages : The Answer of Several Ministers to that Case of Conscience whether it is Lawful for a man to Marry his Wife's own sister. 12mo., pp. 8, Boston : Printed by Bartholomew Green. The answer is signed by Increase Mather and eight other ministers. The General Court, at the May session following, passed a law " to prevent incestuous marriages," one provision of which was that every person offending against it "shall forever after wear a Capital I, of two inches long and proportionable bigness, cut out in cloth of a contrary color to their cloathes, and sewed upon their upper garments in the outside of their Arm, or on their back in open view." This law suggested the leading incident of Haw- thorne's Scarlet Letter.
8 Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, p. 194; Thomas, History of Printing, Ed. 1874, pp. 325-415; Samuel Mather, Life of Cotton Mather.
4 Magnalia Christi Americana, or the Ecclesi- astical History of New England, from its first planting in 1625 to the year 1698. In seven books. London, 1702, folio. [See Introduction to Vol. I. - ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
rences, biographies, and incidents of every kind, in which the chaff of gossip and superstition, and the pure wheat of history are poured out to- gether with direful volubility. The Magnalia was first published in London, and copies of this edition are highly prized by collectors and librarians. Next in celebrity to the Magnalia are the Memorable Providences (1689), and The Wonders of the Invisible World, or Observations, Historical and Theological, on the Nature, Number, and Operations of the Devils (1692), pub- lished in the heat of the witchcraft delusion, and often referred to as one of the chief encouragements of that strange folly.1
Better than either of these large and notorious books were many of his less ambitious undertakings. Bonifacius, an Essay on Well-Doing, is men- tioned by Franklin as largely directing his conduct through life, and doing much to make him a good citizen of the world.2 His Curiosa Americana commended him for membership of the Royal Society, regarded by him as one of the great honors of his life. It was from the philosophical transac- tions of this Society that Cotton Mather first discovered the advantages of
Communications to members of the Royal Society
From C.M. Currofa Americana- consumer
A woollon Snow. surprising Ju fluences of y moon. A smontrer
Boston, N.S. DEC.1. 1713
COTTON MATHER'S NOTES.3
inoculation for small-pox; and his publication of them first led Dr. Boylston to examine the subject, and was the beginning of that famous controversy in which Dr. Mather, Dr. Colman, and other clergymen suc- cessfully confronted the physicians and public opinion in defence of the new practice, with dignity, sagacity, and a certain sort of eloquence. Manuductio ad Ministerium, or Directions to a Candidate entering the Ministry, though overlaid with characteristic faults of style, is full of good counsel, and marks the point to which the learning and criticism of the time had risen. His printed works, like his father's, were mainly tracts, sermons, or controversial
-
[See Mr. Poole's chapter. - ED.]
Works of Benjamin Franklin, x. 83. 2
8 [This is the heading of the manuscript pre- served, with other papers, by Cotton Mather, in
a volume in the Cabinet of the Historical Society. It also shows three of the titles from the list of contents. For other contents of this MS. vol- ume see Mr. Poole's chapter. - ED.]
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