USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. II > Part 58
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rose well nigh into a son of thunder ; and there are passages in some of his printed sermons which, for impressiveness and power, and awful solem- nity, are almost unrivalled." - Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, i. 226.
1 The Life and Character of the Reverend Benjamin Colman, D.D., by his son-in-law, the Rev. Ebenezer Turell, of Medford. [See Dr. Mckenzie's chapter in this volume. - ED.]
2 Eliot, Biographical Dictionary.
8 "Death, judgment, and eternity were the subjects of his preaching."- Eliot, Biographical Dictionary.
4 " He had more knowledge of the Arabic than any man in New England before him except President Chauncy and his disciple, the first Mr. Thatcher." - Rev. Dr. Stiles.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
a master in logic, metaphysics, philosophy, theology, and ecclesiastical his- tory ; 1 Joshua Gee, the indolent though persistent Calvinist ; 2 " the good Dr. Sewall," who seemed to breathe the air of heaven; Thomas Foxcroft, fer- vent and zealous, and one of the most notable contributors to the Whitefield controversy ; and Dr. Chauncy, his colleague, minister of the First Church sixty years (1727-1787). Dr. Chauncy made a profound impression upon the literature and life of New England. Sixty or more of his sermons, - a few of them extended into volumes, -remain. He was devout, learned, and much inclined to controversy. His style was severely plain. He hated affectation; emotional religion did not interest him; enthusiasm excited his suspicion. He wrote and published much against Whitefield and the revivalists. Later in his ministry, he resisted by argument and appeal the introduction of bishops into the colonies by the British govern- ment.3 The exciting controversy over the introduction of the bishops, in the time of Governor Shute, enlisted the best minds in the province, and gave a marked impulse to the literary spirit. Besides Dr. Chauncy, Dr. Mayhew 4 of the West Church, Dr. Caner of King's Chapel, and the leading theologians in other towns and colonies took part in it. Andrew Eliot, long a minister of the new North Church, published, in 1774, near the close of his active service in the ministry, a volume of twenty practical discourses, funeral sermons, election and thanksgiving sermons, Dudleian and Thursday lectures,5 all distinguished for their sound sense and with many graces of thought and style. He had always been much averse to printing; but, as he said in sending to the printer a sermon preached at his son's ordination, " turned fool in his old age." He took a prominent and aggressive part in the Episcopal controversy, and was a friend and correspondent of many learned men.
1 " He was a very eminent preacher. He wrote in a style strong, argumentative, and elo- quent. With great powers of mind and exten- sive learning, he united a zeal which flamed."- Allen, Biographical Dictionary.
2 Prince, Christian History.
3 Memorials of the Chaunceys, including Presi- dent Chauncy, his ancestors and descendants ; By William Chauncey Fowler.
4 " The very reverend Dr. Jonathan Mayhew, graduated 1774, settled in Boston, of a noble genius, acquainted with the best learning, a most laborious student, a polite writer, a strong de- fender of the rights and liberties of the State and Church, and notwithstanding his different senti- inents from ine, I esteem him a truly pious, be- nevolent, and useful man."- Rev. J. Barnard, in I Mass. Hist. Coll., x. 168.
5 The Thursday lecture, dating from the or- dination of the Rev. John Cotton in 1633, was continued with occasional interruptions, and through many trying vicissitudes, until 1775, the siege then interrupting. On occasions of special joy or sorrow, and in times of great popular
commotion, it was made a day of thanksgiving or of fasting, and the topics were chosen accord- ingly. The Rev. R. C. Waterston in his lecture Dec. 14, 1843, says :-
" Here stood the patriarch Wilson, the first pastor of Boston. Here Cotton pleaded with holy faith and fervor. Here were the voices of Norton, and Bailey, and Wadsworth, and Bridge, and Allen, and Mather often heard. Here did the venerable Davenport preach, who was invited in connection with Cotton to the great assembly of divines at Westminster. Here Oxenbridge paused in this very lecture to be carried to his death-bed. Here also labored Eliot and Lathrop, Hooper and Langdon. Here stood Chauncy in the defence of the faith, the bold and consistent advocate of the principles of the Reformation. Here, in later days, was heard the voice of Buck- minster ; and here too have we listened to those who have so recently departed, - Channing and Ware and Greenwood. Oh, that once more those inspiring voices might be heard at this altar !" See Vol. I. p. 515. [See Dr. McKen- zie's chapter in this volume. - ED.]
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425
THE PRESS OF THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
- During this period the clergy of some of the neighboring parishes were employing the Boston press to excellent purpose. In 1710 there was printed in Boston The Churches' Quarrel Espoused, written by John Wise, the famous Ipswich minister, a mighty man of God. It was an eloquent, learned, and witty answer to Questions and Proposals, a work issued some years before, presumably by the Mathers, and designed to establish the will of the clergy as supreme over the laity in all the churches of New England. Seven years later, in a work entitled A Vindication of the Government of the Churches of New England, Mr. Wise pursued the subject in a broader field and with much eloquence, striking with all the force of his great intellect a blow for liberty of thought as the true basis of all ecclesiastical as well as of all civil government. It was one of the great literary achievements of this generation. Sixty years later, when the revolution was impending, the prophetic voice of John Wise was still heard through the lips of sagacious men whom his books inspired.
Two ministers who filled a marked and honorable place in this century remain to be mentioned, - Thomas Prince and Mather Byles. Thomas Prince shares with Cotton Mather the reputation of being the most learned man in New England in the eighteenth century. He far surpassed all the Mathers in the method, accuracy, and usefulness of his writings. His pub- lications began with his settled ministry in his thirty-first year (1718). He had travelled extensively in Europe and acquired a wide knowledge of men, of books, and of the world. For half a century his literary labors contin- ued without cessation. He printed upward of fifty separate publications, consisting of discourses on surprising natural phenomena, on occasions of public crisis or misfortune, on the life and character of men and women whose memory was worth preserving, and other occasional papers, - all luminous with the spirit and life of the time. Drake pays him well-merited praise in saying that " nothing came from his pen that does not now possess historical value." 1 He wrote at the same time for the Christian History, the New England Weekly Fournal, and other periodical publications, through which his active intellect and public spirit exercised great influence upon current opinion.
His chief work was The New England Chronology,2 - an unfinished work, beginning with a minute chronology of the world from the creation of Adam to the death of Queen Elizabeth and the accession of James the Scotchman to the throne of England, followed by a faithful history of English settle- ment in America from that time (1602-3) to Aug. 5, 1633. His inten- tion was to continue the annals to his own time; but the history, issued in
1 Samuel G. Drake's Memoir of Thomas Prince. See also W. H. Whitmore's " Life and labors of Thomas Prince " in North American Review, October, 1860.
2 A Chronological History of New England in the form of Annals. By Thomas Prince, M.A. Boston : Printed by Kneeland and Green for S. VOL. II. - 54.
Gerrish. MDCCXXXVI. [The Boston names which can be picked from the list of subscribers ap- pended to this work show pretty nearly the limit of the book-buying part of the community. The family connections and inherited stations of these subscribers have been traced in successive vol- umes of the N. E. Hist. and Gencal. Reg. - ED.].
426
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
fragments, was not well enough received to encourage him to pursue the task. The first volume, bringing the history to 1630, was published in 1736.1 It was continued twenty years later to the date above given, and the whole was republished in 1826. Though wanting in proper historical perspective and proportion, the work was undertaken and prosecuted in the true his- torical spirit.2 Mr. Prince was a close student and diligent explorer in the- ology, philosophy, and literature, as well as in general history. His last work, or rather recreation, done in the intervals of his manifold labor, was a revisal of the New England Psalms in metre, which, in the words of Dr. Eliot, reveals his acquaintance with the Oriental languages, but not a glow of fancy nor the least glimmer of genius. "A man may be a good historian and no poet." 3
Mr. Prince has still another claim to affectionate remembrance. He has been well called the Father of American Bibliography.4 Even while at school he began to make his remarkable collection of books and papers relating to the civil and religious history of New England, which continued to grow in magnitude and value until his death. The Mather family and Governor Hutchinson alone approached him in the extent and variety of their books and manuscripts. He had two distinct libraries, - the South Church collection and the New England library,-and by his will bequeathed both to the Old South Church; the former to be kept in its library for- ever in the care of one of the pastors, the latter for the benefit of such persons interested in history and public affairs as the pastor and deacons for the time being might think worthy to use it. Both collections fared hardly after his death. Stored in a neglected loft under the belfry, exposed to the pestilence that walketh in darkness and the destruction that wasteth at noon-day; decimated by the ravages of war, and worse than decimated by the curiosity and cupidity of more peaceful times, - they were in a fair way to disappear from the face of the earth, when, in 1814, a portion of the New England library, with several valuable manuscripts, were placed in the custody of the Historical Society, and the rest of the collections were re- moved for safe keeping to the house of the minister. Both parts are now reunited in the keeping of the Boston Public Library.
1 [The Journal of the House of Representa- tives, under date of Jan. 12, 1736, records Mr. Prince's visit to the Legislature, and his giving to the house his first volume, " which at no small expense and pains I have composed and pub- lished for the instruction and good of my country."- ED. ]
2 "Of the New England Chronology, so far as it extends, there has been no difference of opinion. It is distinguished for its accuracy and caution. . . . It is a work of the greatest utility, and almost necessary to one who would form an intimate acquaintance with the history of the first planting of New England."- North Ameri- can Review, October, 1826, p. 463-65.
3 Nathan Prince, younger brother of Thomas, and " the greater man of the two," as Dr. Chaun- cy wrote to Dr. Stiles, was noted for a time in our literary annals. He was especially learned in mathematics and natural philosophy. His eccentric and wayward habits led to his separa- tion from the college and the loss of his pro- fessorship, and clouded his later life. See a letter in the Cotton and Prince Papers, No. 34; and Quincy, Harvard University, ii. 30.
4 Winsor's Introduction to the Catalogue of the Prince Library. " During this period of our colonial history, the Mather family and Gover- nor Hutchinson are alone to be compared with Prince as collectors of books and manuscripts."
427
THE PRESS OF THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
Mather Byles was too wayward and eccentric a genius to make a very permanent impression, though he had remarkable literary gifts, and a fancy which in his earlier years knew no bounds. Besides his essays and poems in the New England Weekly Fournal, he published sermons on special occasions, and maintained intimate relations with the scholars and literary men of both hemispheres. Dr. Watts was a most friendly correspondent, and sent him his works as fast as they were printed. Pope was delighted with his vivacity and genius, and gave him a luxurious copy of the Odyssey. Lord Lansdowne, who also affected a taste for letters, was fascinated by his writings, and formed a close friendship with the brilliant and witty New Englander. He early obtained eminence in the pulpit, and in spite of his literary interests and the sharpness of his tongue, he maintained cordial re- lations with his church until the Revolution separated them, Dr. Byles taking the losing side. The traditions of his overflowing wit are now the most vivid part of his reputation, and doubtless do less than justice to his piety, ability, and learning.
The new charter and the changes it involved in all judicial proceedings made the study of law a necessity; but the profession of law was very slowly established. Men of learning and genius saw little chance for repu- tation or influence in so unpromising a field. One of the first to make the trial was John Read, a great man, whose name deservedly holds a high place among New John Read England worthies. His contributions to liter- ature are limited to a Latin Grammar,1 printed in 1734, and a few political essays.2 But the example and stimulus of a life like his was worth to literature more than libraries of books. James Otis spoke of him as " the greatest common lawyer the country ever saw." John Adams styled him " that great Gamaliel," and William Brattle compared him to Justinian as " a reformer of the law and the pleadings." 3
Jeremiah Gridley, like his great contemporary Read, studied theology and general literature to qualify himself for the pulpit. But the bar offered a field of greater activity for his daring and fearless spirit. In the pursuit of his profession he was not content with a " pitiful accuracy," but went up to first principles and " placed the science upon the immutable foundations of truth and justice." He became one of the most eminent lawyers of the Province, especially on account of his extensive and accurate learning. He wrote with ease and elegance; but after his early and brilliant venture as a journalist he published little. At the bar his speech was rough, his manner hesitating but energetic, and his words forcible and emphatic.4 His emi-
1 Sketch of the Life of the Hon. John Read, of Boston. By George B. Reed.
2 1 Mass. Hist. Coll., iii.
8 " Distinguished for genius, beloved by the votaries of literature, reverenced by the con- temporary patriots of his country, the pride of the bar, the light of the law, and chief among
the wise, the witty, and the eloquent."- Knapp, Biographical Sketches of Eminent Lawyers, etc.
4 Eliot, Biographical Dictionary ; Knapp, Biographical Sketches ; Buckingham, Reminis- cences ; Washburn, Judicial History of Massa- chusetts, which gives full sketches of the courts and lawyers of the province.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
nence and learning made his office a favorite place of resort for students of talent and ambition. James Otis, Oxenbridge Thacher, William Cushing, and Benjamin Pratt, afterward Chief-Justice of New York, were among those who received their first impulse toward a great career under his in- struction.
Robert Auchmuty, father and son, were learned lawyers, and left a dis- tinct and honorable impress upon their age. Paul Dudley, afterward Paul Dudley chief-justice, was a learned naturalist and theolo- gian, and wrote and published books in both de- partments. His scholarship was recognized in both hemispheres, and he was elected to the Royal Society at a time when such an election was a distinction. Thomas Newton, Dudley's successor as attorney-general, was for many years one of the prin- cipal lawyers of the Province, and acquired great influence. He collected the best law library then known on the continent.1 These were followed in the next generation by Otis, Thacher, Quincy, Adams, Dana, Sullivan, Lowell, and many more, who added to the volume of knowledge from their own great acquirements, or from the standard authorities in English law. The professional men of the generation preceding the Revolution, with their wide knowledge of public law and politics, and their familiarity with civil history, contributed immeasurably as they rode their circuits, as well as in the communities illuminated by their lives and conversation, to the growth of that sentiment of liberty which sustained the colonies when the time came for the great issue to be tried.
Provincial poetry, even the best of it, is sad reading at this day. Yet it was once greatly admired, and like much antique art is not wholly uninter- esting now. The poems of Anne Bradstreet were reprinted again and again during the two generations following her death; and Michael Wigglesworth threw the light of his baleful dark lantern far into the next century. The pious strains of John Wilson, John Cotton, Urian Oakes, and John Rogers were slowly dying away, when Cotton Mather and several of his contem- poraries sought to perpetuate them through the inspirations of their de- generate muse. Following them came Joseph Green and a company of wits who deemed everything like pretension or sanctimony a fair object of satire, and made victims of the most respectable characters of their time. Governor Belcher fared hardly at their hands, and members of the legislature and the clergy, notably Dr. Byles, were repeatedly vexed by their sharp
1 " Lawyers' libraries were then limited. Fifty or one hundred volumes at most were deemed a considerable collection. Whatever books they had were, of course, English books, and they were very few in number. Coke's Institutes were a high authority. Blackstone's Commen- taries were unknown. Brownlow's Entries and Plowden's Commentaries and Reports were the books on which the father of James Otis was bred to the law." - Washburn, Judicial History of Massachusetts, 196, 197. The inventory of John
Read's law books, made after his death in 1749, beginning with Coke's Entries, and ending with a Greek and Hebrew Bible, contained only forty- three titles, and the value was less than two hundred pounds. [In the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., Jan. 1858, p. 75, a list of Francis Brinley's books, 1713, shows sixty titles of law books, be- sides his miscellaneous library. He was a judge and resided partly in Rhode Island and partly in Boston, where he died in 1719, aged eighty-seven, and is buried in King's Chapel yard. - ED.]
429
THE PRESS OF THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
and coarse wit. Little is left, however, of Green and his contemporaries, except scraps of poetry, epigrams, and acrostics, printed in the magazines of the day, and revived from time to time as curiosities.1
John Adams, preacher and poet, was fortunate in having a large circle of friends who strewed his path to an early grave with all the flowers of com- pliment. His worthy uncle, Matthew Adams, who survived him and wrote his eulogy, described him as master of nine languages, and conversant with the most famous Greek, Latin, French, and Spanish authors, as well as with the noblest English writers. His admirers, a few years. later, collected his poems in a small volume, the only record we now have of them, containing paraphrases of the Scriptures, the whole book of Revelation in heroic verse, translations from Horace, and several original pieces. He died before the promise his friends saw in him was justified.2 Mather Byles coquetted with poetry from his youth, though he left little of value. While he lived, however, he enjoyed a great reputation as a poet, at home and abroad.3 Jane Turell, daughter of Dr. Colman and wife of the Rev. Ebenezer Turell, of Medford, was remarkably endowed. Her genius was held in the highest estimation, and was commemorated in a pathetic memoir prepared by her husband soon after her death.4 She began to write poems in her early childhood, and read under her father's direction at the same time history, divinity, philosophy, and political literature. In many lines of intellectual activity she came to be accomplished far beyond the habit of her time. The memoir by her husband preserves several of her poems, as well as of her letters to her father and other relatives, which display intense feeling and remarkable powers of expression.5
1 Kettell, Specimens of American Poetry ; Knapp, Biographical Sketches of Men of Letters. [Take this for an example of Green' epigram- matic point, written when there was a commotion in 1748, over granting the site of the school- house to afford ground for enlarging King's Chapel : -
"A fig for your learning ! I tell you the town,
To make the Church larger, must pull the school down. ' Unhappily spoken !' Exclaims Master Birch,
"Then learning it seems stops the growth of the Church!'"
Green lived on School Street, just above the "Cromwell's Head." A portrait of him by Copley is owned by the heirs of the Rev. W. T. Snow. Tyler, American Literature, ii. 48. - ED.]
2 [Paul Dudley recorded of him : " A very ingenious scholar ; but for some time before he died much distempered in his brain, so that his candle went out .in a snuff. The character given of him in the newspaper is extravagant." N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., Jan. 1861, p. 58. - ED.]
8 Poems on Several Occasions ; by Mr. Byles, 1736; A Collection of Poems, by Several Hands ; Boston, 1744; Kettell, Specimens of American Poetry.
4 Memoir of the Life and Death of the Pious" and Ingenious Mrs. Jane Turell, . .. chiefly col- lected from her own Manuscripts ; Boston, New England; Printed in the year MDCCXXXV.
5 She is thus commemorated by Professor Wilson : -
" North. - Nearly a hundred years after the birth, and nearly forty after the death, of Anne Bradstreet, there was born in Boston Jane Col- man, daughter of a clergyman who was a school companion of Cotton Mather. At eleven she used to correspond with her worthy father in verse. On entering her nineteenth year she mar- ried a Mr. Turel, of Medford -
" Shepherd .- How can ye remember names in that wonderfu' way, Sir? ... ye forget naething.
" North. - and died, James, in 1735, at the age of twenty-seven, 'having faithfully fulfilled those duties which shed the brightest lustre on woman's name, -the duties of the friend, the daughter, the mother, and the wife.'
"Shepherd. - Hae ye ony o' her verses by heart, Sir ?
" North. - A paraphrase of a Psalm you know well.
" Shepherd. - I ken weel a' the Psalms.
430
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Benjamin Pratt, long a member of the Suffolk bar, a man of unusual B Rat acquirements and eloquence, wrote poetry which was highly prized.1 He was a student of the learned Judge Auchmuty, whose accomplished daughter he married. More eminent than any of these was the versatile and accomplished Dr. Benjamin Church. He had rich literary gifts, and con- tributed to current publica- Bey Church- tions essays in politics, phi- lology, and science. But he was chiefly known, outside of his profession in which he acquired eminence, by his occasional poems. While his sympathies were on the popular side, he wrote admirable patriotic verses.2 Occasional allu- sions in the writings of those who have been named, show that they were more or less familiar with the contemporary English poets. Francis Knapp, of Watertown, is credited with a poetical address to Mr. Pope, on his " Windsor Forest," dated June 7, 1715, beginning : -
" Hail, Sacred Bard ! a muse unknown before Salutes thee from the bleak Atlantic shore ; To our dark world thy shining page is shown, And Windsor's gay retreat becomes our own." 3
Dr. Watts was also well known in America, and was a friend and corre- spondent of Dr. Colman, Governor Belcher, Dr. Byles, and others.4
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" North. - The following flows plaintively : - From hearts oppress'd with grief did they require A sacred anthem on the sounding lyre ; Come now, they cry, regale us with a song, - Music and mirth the fleeting hours prolong. Shall Babel's daughter hear that blessed sound? Shall songs divine be sung in heathen ground ? No! Heaven forbid that we should tune our voice Or touch the !yre while slaves - we can't rejoice ! O Palestine, our once so dear abode ! Thou once wert blest with peace and love of God ; But now art desolate ! a barren waste! Thy fruitful fields by thorns and woods disgraced. If I forget Judea's mournful land
May nothing prosper that I take in hand !
" Shepherd. - I daur say, gin I could get the sound o' our ain mournfu' auld version out o' ma heart, that I sud like the lines unco weel; she marn ha been a gentle cretur.
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