USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. II > Part 59
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" North. - Jane Colman, during the eight years of her wedded life, was no doubt happy ; and in a calm spirit of happiness must have indited the soft, sweet, and simple close of an imitation of Horace.
" Shepherd .- O' Horace? Could she read Latin ?
" North .- Why not? - daughter, wife, of a clergyman ?
No stately beds my humble roof adorn, No costly purple by carved panthers borne ; Nor can I boast Arabia's rich perfumes,
Diffusing odours through our stately rooms ; For me no fair Egyptian plies the loom. But my fine linen all is made at home. Though I no down or tapestry could spread, A clean, soft pillow shall support your head, Filled with the wool from off my tender sheep, On which with ease and safety you may sleep; The nightingale shall call you to your rest, And all be calm and still as is your breast.
" Shepherd. - Far mair simplicity o' language seems to hae had the young leddies o' New Eng- land in thae days, Sir, than them o' Auld Eng- land o' the present age."- Noctes Ambrosiana, iii. 169, 170, 171.
1 The Monthly Anthology, 1810, P. 327.
2 Kettell, Specimens of American Poetry ; Loring, Hundred Boston Orators.
8 Knapp, Biographical Sketches of Eminent Men. Pope, Poetical Works, edited by Roscoe.
4 Johnathan Belcher, writing from Whitehall to Isaac Watts, Jan. 8, 1730, said : " In New Eng- land I have often regaled myself with your in- genious pieces, and I can assure you (without a compliment) all Dr. Watts' works are had in great esteem among us."-Milner, Life, Times, and Correspondence of the Rev. Isaac Watts, D.D., 469. Zabdiel Boylston, writing to Dr. Watts from Boston, Aug. 12, 1732, said: "I thankfully ac- cept your extraordinary performances ; viz., four- teen sermons on various subjects, that on King
431
THE PRESS OF THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
The most ambitious typographical and literary work attempted on the continent previous to the Revolution, was issued from the press in Boston, in 1762. It was a large quarto in 116 pages, and bore the title " PIETAS ET GRATULATIO COLLEGII CANTABRIGIENSIS APUD NOVANGLOS. BOSTONI- MASSACHUSSETTENSIUM. TYPIS, J. GREEN & J. RUSSELL. MDCCLXI."
Sir Francis Bernard, Governor, then newly arrived in this country, and full of loyal enthusiasm, had the year before suggested that Harvard Col- lege, as the chief seat of learning in America, fol- Boston Cat 5. yG Fra Bernard lowing the example of the English Universities, should publish a suitable memorial of the death of King George II., and the accession of King George III. to the throne. President Holyoke
assented to the proposal, and prizes were offered for a Latin oration and other contributions in Latin and, English verse. The candidates were to be all members of the college, or those who had taken a degree within seven years, -a condition not strictly complied with. The
January 18 . 1738. Edward Holyoke
contributions are all metrical, three in Greek, eleven in Latin, twelve in English. The typography was very beautiful, and far surpassed anything of the kind attempted on the continent in the last century. The Greek type was the same which Thomas Hollis gave to the college in 1718. This was the first and last time it was used, being lost in the burning of Harvard Hall two years later. The contributions were printed anonymously; but with few exceptions the authorship has been carefully and no doubt accurately traced.1 Governor Bernard was the only contributor not educated at the
George's death, your Four Catechisms, and an Humble Attempt to Revive Religion, etc. All which, as indeed every piece that drops from your golden pen, meet a joyful acceptance from those who see them here in New England, as well as those at home."- Ibid., 469. [There are friendly letters of Watts to Cotton Mather contained in a volume of MSS. in the Historical Society's cabinet. In one of these he writes of sending to
his New England friend the " fruits of some easy hours this last year (1717), wherein I have not sought poetic flourish, but simplicity of style and verse, for the use of vulgar Christians."-ED. ] 1 Pietas et Gratulatio ; an inquiry into the authorship of the several pieces. By Justin Win- sor, Librarian of the University. [From the Bulletin of the Library of the University, March, 1879.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
university. The list included the names of President Holyoke, John Lovell, Stephen Sewall, Benjamin Church, John Lowell, afterward eminent as a statesman and jurist, James Bowdoin, scholar and statesman, Peter Oliver, Samuel Cooper, John Winthrop, Hollis professor of mathematics, and others who afterward acquired distinction. The literary character of the collection was not especially brilliant. The Greek and Latin verses are said to be accurate and proper. The English verse is forced, wanting animation and real life. English critics at the time spoke of the book with much con- descension.1 Copies of it are now rarely offered for sale, and are mainly confined to the large libraries.
The greatest loss literature had sustained in this community was occa- sioned at this time (1764) by the burning of the College library. Five thousand volumes were consumed. The day following this disastrous fire, a carefully prepared account of the losses appeared in a broadside printed on this side of the river.2 This was a period of general business disturb.
1 "This collection cannot boast of poems written in Arabic, Etruscan, Syriac, or Palmy- rene; it is not, however, without Greek poetry, of which there are an elegy and an ode not inferior to other modern Greek poems. It must be ac- knowledged after all that this New England col- lection, like other public offerings of the same kind, contains many indifferent performances; but these, though they cannot be so well excused when they come from ancient and established seats of learning, may at least be connived at here ; and what we could not endure from an illustrious university we can easily pardon in an infant seminary." - London Monthly Review, July, 1763, xxix. 22.
2 Belknap Papers (in the cabinet of the Mass. Hist. Society), contain a copy of this broad- side, from which the following extract is made : "The Library contained -the Holy Scriptures in almost all languages, with the most valua- ble Expositors and Commentators, ancient and modern ; the whole Library of the late learned Dr. Lightfoot, which at his death he bequeathed to this College, and contained the Targums, Talmuds, Rabbins, Polyglot, and other valu- able tracts relative to Oriental literature which is taught here; the Library of the late eminent Dr. Theophilus Gale; all the Fathers, Greek and Latin, in their best editions ; a great num- ber of tracts in defence of revealed religion, wrote by the most masterly hands, in the last and present century; sermons of the most celebrated English divines, both of the estab- lished national church and Protestant dissenters ; tracts upon all the branches of polemic divinity ; the donation of the venerable Society for prop- agating the gospel in foreign parts, consisting of a great many volumes of tracts against Popery, published in the Reigns of Charles II. and James II., the Boylean lectures, and other
most esteemed English sermons; a valuable collection of modern theological treatises, pre- sented by the Right Rev. Dr. Sherlock, late Lord Bishop of London, the Rev. Dr. Hales, F.R.S., and Dr. Wilson, of London; a vast number of philological tracts, containing the rudiments of almost all languages, ancient and modern ; the Hebrew, Greek, and Roman antiquities; the Greek and Roman Classics, presented by the late excellent and catholic- spirited Bishop Berkeley, most of them the best editions; a large Collection of History and Biographical Tracts, ancient and modern; dis- sertations on various Political subjects ; the Transactions of the Royal Society, Academy of Sciences in France, Acta Eruditorum, Miscella- nea curiosa, the works of Boyle and Newton, with a great variety of other mathematical and philo- sophical treatises; a collection of the most ap- proved Medical Authors, chiefly presented by Mr. James, of the Island of Jamaica, to which Dr. Mead and other Gentlemen made very con- siderable additions; also Anatomical cuts and two compleat Skeletons of different sexes ; . . .. a few ancient and valuable Manuscripts in different languages ; a pair of excellent new Globes of the largest size, presented by An- drew Oliver, Jr., Esq .; a variety of Curiosi- ties, natural and artificial, both of American and foreign produce; a font of Greek types (which, as we ] had not yet a printing-office, was deposited in the Library), presented by our great benefactor the late worthy Thomas Hollis, Esq., of London, whose picture, as large as the life, and institutions for two Professor- ships and ten Scholarships, perished in the flames. Some of the most considerable addi- tions that had been made of late years to the library, came from other branches of this gene- rous Family. The library contained above five
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THE PRESS OF THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
ance and depression, but of unusual intellectual spirit and activity. The schools were excellent. Newspapers were increasing in ability and influence. Bookshops were flourishing. John Mein, the enterprising Scotchman, " by the repeated request of a number of gentlemen, the friends of literature," established (November, 1765), in King Street, a circulating library of twelve hundred volumes,1 and at the same time advertised for sale ten thousand volumes, "just imported."
The booksellers early found their account in promoting the literary spirit, though the century was far advanced before they learned the modern art of advertising. Hezekiah Usher and John Usher, his son,2 were the pioneers in the trade. John Dunton, the authority for much of the book- selling lore of the close of the seventeenth century, came to Boston in 1686, with a large consignment of books suitable for the Boston market. During the year following his arrival he sold his stock in Boston and Salem, and cul- tivated an intimate acquaintance with the trade and with all the leading men and women of the Province. He remained here eight months. In 1705, having fallen into misfortune and being driven to his pen for a livelihood, he turned his recollections to account in The Life and Errors of John Dun- ton, Late Citizen of London, written by himself in Solitude. He gives in this book an account of his voyage to Boston, of his residence here, of the acquaintances he found or made among the book-makers and the book- sellers of the town. He was a man of original humor and enterprise, and" has recorded much interesting information.
From 1680 to 1720 Samuel Phillips was a large dealer in books, and occa- sionally published them. He was young at the time of Dunton's visit, who describes him as " the most Beautiful Man in the Town of Boston," and " blest with a pretty, obliging Wife." The descendants of Samuel Phillips continued the bookselling business in Cornhill till after the Revolution.3 Richard Wil- liams, " near the Town House," and Joseph Browning or Brunning, " at the corner of Prison Lane," traded largely in books during the closing years of the century. Nicholas Buttolph, " next to Guttridge's Coffee-House," and Benjamin Elliot, " under the Exchange, King Street," were contemporaries in 1690, and continued so for nearly half a century. Nicholas Boone (1704), " at the Bible in Cornhill," first publisher of the Boston News-Letter, was an eminent bookseller, and many books written in America were published by him. Eleazer Phillips, 1711, sold books in Newbury Street, afterward in
thousand volumes, all which were consumed, except a few books in the hands of the members of the house." [This description is given more at length in Quincy's History of Harvard Uni- versity, ii. 481, as part of an account which appeared in the Massachusetts Gazette, Feb. 2, 1764. Quincy also gives, ii. p. 484, the record of the gifts which came in to repair the loss; and in the Public Library there is another list of contri- butors in the handwriting of Prof. John Win- throp, which differs somewhat - ED.]
VOL. II. - 55.
1 Yearly subscribers paid £1 8s .; quarterly IOS. 8d.
2 "This Trader makes the best figure in Bos- ton ; he's very Rich, adventures much to Sea ; but has got his Estate by Bookselling."- John Dunton, Life and Errors. [See Vol. I. of this history, p. 500. - En.]
8 Thomas, Ilistory of Printing, ed. 1874, ii. 207. Phillips, following the custom of the book- sellers of the last century, traded also in English goods.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
King Street, and removed in 1715 to Charlestown, the only bookseller who settled on that side of the river before the Revolution. Daniel Henchman, 1713, "Cornhill, corner of King Street," is called by Thomas the most emi- nent and enterprising bookseller that appeared in Boston, or indeed in all British America, before 1775. Books were printed for him in London and Boston. It is alleged that the first Bible printed in America in the English language was printed for him.1 He furnished the capital for printing Samuel Willard's great posthumous work, The Body of Divinity. He built the first paper-mill in New England,2 and in the intervals of his engrossing occupa- tions bore his full share of the public burden like a good citizen.3
John Checkley won a place in the guild for a season, though he does not appear to have been regularly in the trade. He published in London and sold in Boston an octavo volume entitled, A Short and Easie Method with the Deists.4 It was sold " at the sign of the 'Crown and Blue-Gate,' over against the west end of the Town House." Checkley was prosecuted for publishing and selling a " false and scandalous libel," was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of fifty pounds. He left the place soon after. The book was a plea for the Church of England, and represented the Congre- gational churches and ministers as schismatics, but was otherwise quite harmless. Thomas Hancock, the opulent and public-spirited merchant, kept a book-store, 1726-30, in " Anne Street, near the Drawbridge." He afterward attended to general merchandise, acquired a fortune, and became "one of the principal commercial persons in New England."5 He was the uncle of Governor Hancock, to whom his estate descended. From this time till 1760 booksellers increased in number and importance. Oldmixon, writing in 1740, said there were five printing-houses in Boston, and the presses were generally full of work, which was in great measure owing to the college and schools for useful learning in New England. The Town House or Exchange was surrounded with booksellers' shops. Among the later booksellers preceding the Revolution were James Rivington, who through an agent introduced the most valuable English books into this market; John Mein, who for three years, 1766-69, kept a flourishing " Lon-
1 [This first American Bible appeared about 1749, and to avoid the consequences of violating English statutory regulations was given a false imprint, - " London, Printed by Mark Baskett, Printer to the King's most excellent Majesty." Kneeland and Green printed it, in quarto, in very close imitation of the English authorized edi- tions. See O'Callaghan, List of Editions of Holy Scriptures, p. xiii; Thomas, History of Printing. Bancroft, United States, v. 266, with good reason, doubts the existence of such an edition, of which five or six hundred are said to have been printed. - ED.]
2 [See note to Mr. Scudder's chapter in this volume .- ED.]
: 3 [Daniel Neal, History of New England, thus speaks of this trade in 1719: "The Ex-
change is surrounded with Booksellers' Shops, which have a good trade. There are five Printing Presses in Boston, which are generally full of work, by which it appears that Humanity and the knowledge of letters flourish more here than in all the other English Plantations put together ; for in the City of New York there is but one Bookseller's Shop, and in the Planta- tions of Virginia, Maryland, Carolina, Barba- does, and the Islands none at all."-ED.]
4 [This was, perhaps, the famous book by Charles Leslie, which has been often reprinted, and was much famed in its day. The notices of Checkley, however, seem to imply that it was a different publication. - ED.]
5 Thomas, History of Printing, ii. 222. He built the Hancock House on Beacon Street.
435
THE PRESS OF THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
don Book Store, north side of King Street; " and Henry Knox,1 whose history belongs to the Revolutionary period.
For the most part the interests of literature were favored by the magis- trates who ruled over the Province. Governor Dudley was a conspicuous friend of learning and of letters. Besides his interest in politics and natural science, he was accomplished in the best literature of Queen Anne's reign. In his commissions he gave the preference uniformly to graduates of the college and other men of learning. He entertained the clergy with learned discourse in divinity, philosophy, and textual criticism.2 The highest praise his admirers could give him was that "he Truly Honor'd and Lov'd the Religion, Learning, and Vertue of New England, and was himself a worthy Patron and Example of them all."3 Next to Governor Dudley, Governor Burnet, the eldest son of Bishop Burnet, was the most highly cultivated magistrate whom the Government had sent to Massachusetts. Governor Hutchinson speaks of him as "the delight of men of sense and learning." He had read much and had easy command of his acquirements. His library was rich and varied, and was reputed to be the best in the Province. He contributed to the Transactions of the Royal Society, and was not averse to theological speculation and controversy.
Governor Belcher, though less highly educated than his predecessors, had many accomplishments. His inclination would have led him to cultivate the society and the interests of men of letters, if his showy and aspiring nature had not overshadowed it. When he was transferred from Massachu- setts to New Jersey, he became the devoted and useful friend of Princeton College, and its chief patron and benefactor. Governor Shirley, one of the ablest of the governors of the Province, left in manuscript a full account of the expedition against Louisburg,4 but otherwise made no very distinct literary mark during his term of office.5 Governor Pownall's magistracy fell upon stormy times, and it was his misfortune to find some of the best writers of the Province arrayed against him. But he was a man of gen- erous acquirements and instinctive sympathy with every one who had a claim to recognition for intellectual qualities. He pursued his own studies in many directions, and both before and after the Revolution published much relating to America, besides making excursions in archaeology, anti- quities, and general politics.
1 [He was an apprentice of Daniel Hench- man. - ED.]
2 Dr. Colman, Funeral Sermon, 1720.
8 Boston News-Letter, April 11, 1720. [Quincy shows his relations to the College, and says he was most influential in giving its constitution a permanent character. History of Harvard Uni- versity, i. ch. viii. - ED.]
4 1 Mass. Hist. Coll. Allen, Drake, Allibone, and others speak of Governor Shirley as the author of plays; but it seems clear that Will- iam Shirley, the contemporary playwright in England, was a different person, of quite oppo-
site characteristics. See Baker, Biographia Dramatica ; Davies, Dramatic Miscellany ; Murphy, Life of Garrick, etc.
5 [There is in the College Library at Cam- bridge a specimen of Shirley's Latinity (unless indeed some one prepared it for him) preserved in more than one manuscript copy, - a speech delivered when he made his first visit to Cam- bridge as Governor. Quincy, Harvard Uni- versity, ii. 88, details the state in which he went, and describes the dinner that the Corporation gave him ; whose records call the speech " a very fine Latin " one. - ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Governor Bernard had exceptional literary endowments, and was deeply interested in books and learning. His memory was marvellous, and he prided himself on being able to repeat the whole of the plays of Shakspeare. He contributed handsomely to the relief of Harvard Col- lege after the fire of 1764, and made the plans after which Harvard Hall was rebuilt. Besides his Greek and Latin elegies in Pietas et Gratulatio, he wrote much on the trade and government of America. His confidential letters, written with too great freedom for critical times, were also published, to his great annoyance, and contributed in spite of himself to swell the tide of Revolutionary feeling then almost at the flood. Governor Hutchinson, the last of the royal governors, except Gage, will be remembered in the literature of the Province longer than any of his predecessors, on account of his judicious labors in the field of American History. His History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay is a standard work, and for more than a century has been a fountain to which all later historians have been com- pelled to repair. He made an invaluable collection of ancient and curious papers illustrating the early settlement of the country, part of which were destroyed in the Stamp-Act riots of 1765, and part were printed to support and elucidate the earlier portion of his History. Hutchinson also published several political pamphlets which, however, added nothing to his reputation, nor helped to break the force of his fall.
Nearly all the men who became eminent in literature before the Revolu- tion, or in professional and public life, except the governors of English birth, were educated at Cambridge, and fully educated up to the university standard of the time. The great writers of the past were familiar to them. The old and the recent classics they cultivated with zeal and affection. And when the last crisis drew near, all that the masters of style could teach of literary form and spirit, they loyally used in the service of the nation yet to be born.
Decano r. Goddard
CHAPTER XVI.
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
BY HORACE E. SCUDDER.
A' BOUT a hundred years after the death of John Winthrop, the second great historic Bostonian, Sam Adams, was entering upon his active manhood. He is sometimes called the last of the Puritans. He was also the first of the Democrats; and the Boston which gave him birth and furnished a field for his energy was a different Boston from that which used a barrel and a half of powder at the funeral of its illustrious founder. The town was leaving behind the traditions of the elders and looking toward the new condi- tions of a modern city. For a generation before the birth of Adams Massa- chusetts had been under officers appointed by the Crown, and Boston had been the local depositary of royal rule in New England ; when he came fairly upon the stage, the agitation had begun which was not to cease until the State could transfer its allegiance from the Crown to the Union, and readjust its lines of local self-government. His own oration at Commencement was on the thesis, "Whether it be lawful to resist the Supreme Magistrate, if the Commonwealth cannot be otherwise preserved." In his day politics had, in a measure, taken the place of theology as a field for mental activity ; and the change hints at a marked difference in the life of Boston in Adams's time from that of Winthrop's. In the family of Sam Adams, as in many other families in Boston, Puritan traditions prevailed, and manners and customs affected by considerations of religion still remained, transmitted from the life of early Boston. Nevertheless, the religion of the Puritans ceased to exercise a predominant influence in life. The establishment of the Church of England had modified this influence, and the Puritan Church itself had re- laxed its minute supervision ; the change in government had introduced a strong foreign element, for the England of Queen Anne was a foreign coun- try to the descendants of emigrants and exiles from the England of Charles I .; the growth of commerce and the extension of the market of Boston had further affected the character of the town, and there was no longer that isolation and self-content which had made a compact little settlement, in-
438
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
fused with a defensive spirit, a law to itself. The Boston of Sam Adams's manhood was a different Boston from that of John Winthrop's death, and the causes which induced the difference indicate somewhat the character of the change.
SAMUEL ADAMS.1
1 [Copley's portrait, now in the Art Museum, was painted in 1772, when Adams was forty- nine. It is engraved in Vol. III., and on steel in Wells's Life of Samuel Adams, i. It was painted, together with one of Hancock, and at the cost of Hancock, to signalize the reconciliation then recently brought about between those patriots ; and the twin pictures for nearly fifty years graced the walls of the Hancock House, before they became the property of the town. Two years after it was painted Paul Revere made a rude engraving of the head and shoulders for the Royal American Magazine, April, 1774, and this
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