USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Narragansett > South county studies of some eighteenth century persons, places & conditions in that portion of Rhode Island called Narragansett > Part 5
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These remonstrances are offered from one who boasts that "I doe Endeavor allways what I can approve my Self a Real Englishman," and the recent accident is candidly commended to the governor's expectant med- itations,
"It speaks to you in midst of all your Glory
How fraile you are, how weak, how transitory."
South County Studies
Repeated references to his hostile relations with Dud- ley appear in his notes, which breathe a robust in- dignation. We take up his private life in Bristol after his quarrel with Governor Dudley had driven him into retirement. The retired official concentrated himself upon the local affairs to which Dudley's enmity had restricted him, and his unflagging energies found a channel in the interests of speculation in Bristol and Narragansett lands. He was seized with the same greed which possessed many of the early emigrants. The Englishman of middle class, transplanted to a coun- try in which he might with fabulous ease develop into a landed proprietor, was dazzled by the ambitious vision; and not till a new generation grew up with a more mod- erate estimation of land, as an equivalent to power, did the keenness of this hereditary zeal disappear.
Judge Saffin held shares in the Taunton Iron Works, founded about 1656, and he was employed in the set- tlement of his father-in-law's large estate. His figure, which shows somewhat dim and distant in the Bos- ton records, stands out clearly, and comes within touch, as studied in the Bristol annals. Here he found leisure to fill that note-book by which we know him most in- timately, and in which by the changes in the script from firm and full to feeble and uncertain characters, we trace the writer's vicissitudes, through old age and decline. The artless revelations of this compilation fur- nish a study of Puritan manners, a map of the Puritan mind. It represents the literary industry and moral elevation of a man whose scholarly aspirations have helped to keep his pages free from more than an oc- casional hint of that coarseness which constantly re-
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curs in the memoirs of his time, and forms one of the inevitable signs of likeness between the Old England and the New. The writer thus describes his work : "In this manuscript is promiscuously set down an epitomy of various readings of the author on divers subjects of Divinity, Law, History, Arts and Sciences; some of them poetical fancies of his own written in his youth (as well as later years) which he found scattered here and there in loose papers, and as a diversion at leisure put them as they came to hand into this mixed med- ley. Some of them Satiricall tho the most are rather Amorous or Encomiastich, which were most agreeable to his genius." The seventeenth century mind loved apothegms and moral narrations; and such passages, probably culled from the libraries of Saffin's learned friends, Mather and Lee, fill many of his pages. Among the items of fact is this curious entry: "There was a Morris-Dance of Ten men of the Welsh-side, which made 1000 years between them. The Fiddler, Philip Squire, and Bess Grimm, the Maid Marian, were above 100 years apiece." Saffin does not give his au- thority for this story, which was worthy of the mel- ancholic extravagance of a Hawthorne. He quotes Bacon, Raleigh, Wotton, Sir Thomas More, Boyle, Bishop Usher, and Lord Falkland, makes legal cita- tions and copies passages from Sermons, one by Rev. Mr. Wolsworth having been preached in 1632.
He indulges in some breathings against the Church of England, but he records the Arabella Letter, and even transcribes some "Maxims taken out Governor Pen's book," which look toward religious toleration. His early associations in Plymouth might temper a
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little the sterner Puritanism imbibed in Boston. The credulity of our ancestors was not wholly expended upon matters of religious superstition. The belief in witchcraft, for instance, was natural enough to a people who put faith in the repulsive receipts which were not confined to household medicine, but were the prescriptions of the most learned physicians of the age. Saffin collected many of these formulas, from among other authorities George Monk, the keeper of the famous Blue Anchor Tavern, Boston, Mrs. Eliot, wife of the Apostle to the Indians, and Rev. Samuel Lee, an Oxford scholar who was styled "the Glory of both Englands." A dissertation on "Climatericall years and Criticall Days" details the very hours when the several "Humours" most prevail. Notes on astrology are in keeping with his exact record of the hours of his children's births, evidently made with regard to the planetary influences. Two prophecies in verse, one of which "hath been in MS. in the Lord Powes his family for 60 years," furnish further hints of his taste for the marvellous. Some mer- cantile tales are found in his pages, but more space is allotted to an "Artificiall Divination of Numbers," and heraldry is a subject which is embellished with outlines of shields. Frequent extracts on questions of govern- ment, public speaking, and literary study illustrate his ambitions; while his personal prejudices are thinly veiled under moralizings and character-sketches, or are more broadly indicated by his repetitions of caustic say- ings upon the traits of foreigners, and the follies of English travellers who are corrupted by foreign asso- ciations.
In the vein of historical comment he notes with
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particularity the oppression of France under the abso- lute rule of "Lewis the 14th," and passes to the lack of encouragement in England for "that· ingenious con- trivance of the penny post" begun by "that worthy citi- zen, Mr. Dochmore," who was deprived of all benefit of his services by that "bigotted king James II." In a list of the kings of England, Saffin introduces charac- teristic touches. Charles I "Was beheaded in a Court of Justice by his subjects, against whom he had levied armies, and made war divers years." James II "endeav- oured to bring in Papacy, and indeed slavery, for he kept an army of 30,000 men, but fearing to face the Prince of Orange, fled beyond sea." William and Mary 'were crowned with all the solemnity, magnificence, pomp, and splendor of a willing nation." In "A Thank- full Memoriall," written during the reign of Anne, he repeats the same sentiments respecting "the Glorious Belgick Star," and other sovereigns, and relates that "by Divine Assistance I have seen seven Regencies before the present Queen." Under the colonial data he records "Prodigious Appearances in the World," as in anno Domini 1664. "This year a Blazing Star and Comett in New England appeared, in the 9th, 10th, 11th, and the beginning of the 12th month; in all lyklyhood it was visible to all the inhabitants of the Earth, for the blaze thereof did Beame to all the Quar- ters of the World; it was no fierie Meteor caused by exhalation, but was sent by God to Awaken the secure World." The awestruck observer subjoins some ex- tracts from a sermon on the comet, by Rev. Daniel Danforth. Another "Prodigee," which, from the rude sketch appended, seems to have been an eclipse that
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was seen, and special notes taken of, by divers cred- ible persons, in anno Domini 1681. Upon the view of this portent Saffin bursts into verse:
" Behold the angrie frown of the Most High Gainst mortals is perspicuous in the skie The sable clouds encircling, Roll about, The unstring'd Bow, that Phaelous doth surmount, The dismal Darkness, moist with direful glare."
The poet warns his countrymen of
"God's Dreadfull vengeances their overthrow, Which from the Almighty swiftly shall be sent, Unless they timely truly doe repent."
Another subject which fires this fervent versifier is "New England's Lamentation of her present State"- in the year 1708. Boston merchants complain of losses by shipwreck; the "Countrymen" of the "Rates"; the "Soldiers" are cheated; the "Courts" are meanly fitted; some of the judges are partial, and sundry of the law- yers sit and quaff in taverns and are no better than devouring "Catterpillars." These "Varlets" boast they get three hundred pounds a year, and three times more is spent upon them than had formerly served to main- tain the government. The vagrant and vicious classes exhaust the public store, and the community becomes partially dependent upon supplies from other colonies. Extravagance in the citizens was never more glaring; but as the moralist sensibly decides, with regard to all these offenders,
"No more of them, they 'd surely think it better
To lay this by, and Read the next News Letter."
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His most crushing rebuke falls upon "the Female Frame," who flaunt in luxury and idleness.
"Come down proud Dames put on garments of Shame Sit in the dust Daughters of Babilon."
Truly this is a strain that never tires. But plain deal- ing with New England from another pen, possibly the sharp instrument wielded by Lechford, gives dire offence. From an epigram "On a Rogue that abused the people of N. E. in a printed Scurrillous pamphlet," we learn that with our sturdy satirist, "Indigent" and "Romantich" are epithets expressive of equal degrees of contempt. He has severer terms in store for "one Lyford, a pretended Minister," who proved himself "a hypocriticall wretch," to the scandal of the people of Plymouth. "And Oldham was another, an impru- dent proud fellow, who also conspired with Lyford and others, seeking to Ruin this poor but hopefull Planta- tion, but they both came to untimely Ends. Especially Oldham, who was cutt off and Slayn by Indians, the Pequots or Peqods." The entries of a strictly autobio- graphical character are few, although a childish vanity is conspicuous among the traits of our compiler. But the egotism of the seventeenth century diarist was dis- tinct from self-consciousness, in the modern sense. Saf- fin artlessly reveals the curious and grotesque phases of his mental personality in his voluminous verse, which occasionally affords quite a different sort of de- light from that which was fondly anticipated by the poet. Some of his elegiac effusions attained the dignity of print, and all were much admired by the judicious friends, few of whom could have been omitted in life
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or in death from his poetical addresses. On glancing over his pages we find not only elegies and epitaphs inflicted upon the memories of scholars, divines, and statesmen, and clothed in such verse as the harsh Pu- ritanic muse was pleased to bestow, but some produc- tions appear which seem to be of a more lively char- acter, until a closer observation proves them all to wear the same sad-colored livery. Acrostics, valentines, and madrigals are all taking their pleasure sadly, and scarcely differ in style from the elegies, or the lamen- tations over the evils of New England. Departed elders are embalmed in such tributes as that tendered to Wilson,
"A Lion To Foes of this our little Zion,"
or to him of whom we read
"Here lyes the Darling of his time, Mitchell, expired in his Prime. Who five years short of fourty-seven Was found full Ripe, and plucked for Heaven."
The death of John Hull, the respectable trader and goldsmith, is lamented by the pedantic poet, who in- vokes
"That saddest She The ancients call the Muse Melpomene."
So lofty a dame will scarcely condescend to enlighten us concerning the Boston citizen's habits, and touches of local color rarely mingle with her sober designs. We only gather that
"In the Throng of Business Every Day, Hee'd set apart some Select time to pray,"
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and we glean one historical allusion from the farewell utterance put in the mouth of Hull :
"I smile at sorrows past, and am secure From the wrath of men and Devils, to be sure Beyond the reach of Ran-Do, and all those That puff at me-N. Englands open foes."
Some explanation of the poverty of old writings in similar references may be noted in the partial suppres- sion of the name of Randolph. Even in their private papers the early Colonists might sometimes be wary of expressing themselves freely on public disturbances. Our elegiac poet courts a lighter strain when he sings, "On presenting a rare book to Madam Hull," his "Vallintine,"
" Heres Witts extraction, Morall and Divine Presented to you, by your Vallintine."
He writes acrostics to "Mrs. Winifred Griffin," and to other young ladies. Addressing "Mrs. Abigail Collins," he offers her a highly labored compliment, of a genea- logical character:
"Fairest Sweet Virgin, Natures Master-Piece Beauty's Exemplar; Cupid's Mother's Niece."
But there are deeper self revealings in this book than such as show the diarist in the aspect of a student, citi- zen, or friend. Love and grief have left their impress upon it, and still appeal to us from its faded pages, for to scan them is to measure the pulses of emotion as they came warm from the heart of the writer. In his home life he merits our regard as a man of honest and
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healthy sentiments, however obscured by the quaint or exaggerated style of his century. The glow of feel- ing pierces through the forms of pedantry, and lets in a welcome light upon an obscure period of our annals. It is gratifying to know that the Puritan Magistrate could be as fond and indulgent in his home as the merriest prelatist that ever ate mince-pies at Christmas, or danced at Merry Mount of a May Day. Saffin was the poet laureate of a household queen, and among his most cherished effusions he preserves a "Wedding Song," and a dialogue in verse, in which Exonius and Plimothemia (otherwise plain John and Martha) lament the griefs of separation. In a rhymed epistle to his Martha, written on his return voyage from Vir- ginia, he rises to rhapsody:
" Sayle, gentle Pinnace, Zepherus doth not faile
With prosperous gales, Sayle, gentle Pinnace, Sayle."
His infant son is not forgotten by this homesick trav- eller:
"Sweet Babe! how doe I mind thy pleasing Smiles And pretty toys thou usest otherwhiles.
Methinks I hear thy Mother to thee prate, Like to Thyself, that thou mayest Imitate."
His signature recalls the style of Elizabethan melo- drama.
"Thine, or not his owne, J. S."
We learn that an illness contracted by Mrs. Saffin began with "a fall in a fainting fitt as she was goeing to meeting with her Mayd, Both on a Sabbath day."
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This was probably the occasion on which a Mrs. Eddy was summoned from Plymouth, as appears by the rec- ords of that colony, which state that she was tried for Sabbath breaking, having walked to Boston when sent for, as her defence runs, by Mrs. Saffin who was nigh unto death, and did anxiously desire to see Mrs. Eddy. The Governor, though unable to recognize this plea, released the offender with a simple reprimand, instead of exacting the fine which he held justly due. It would be hard to discover a stronger instance of that lack of the finer moral perceptions which so often occasions the acts of rulers to exhibit the complete separation of the letter of the law from the spirit of the Gospel. John Saffin passed through his deepest experiences in the loss of his wife and children. His brief, stern record fails and pauses beneath the burden of one overwhelming sorrow, "And now alas; there lyes Interred in one Tombe att the higher end of the upper Burying-place in Boston My Dear Wife, Martha Saffin, and five of the eight sons she bore unto me." Two of the remaining sons were soon afterwards laid in the same tomb, and the last of the eight, dying in London, was buried in Stepney Churchyard, under the epitaph by his father that has become a classic in quaint funeral lore, hav- ing been copied by Addison into the "Spectator," com- mented on by Dr. Johnson, and referred to in Hutchin- son's Colonial History. We learn that the subject of it had begun to be "much favored by his Prince, James II." Small-pox was the chief destroyer that thus swept away a family, the father alone recovering among those attacked by that disease. He characterizes his children with this touching tribute : "John, a faire, comely, and
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cowardly child, and sensible unto his last. . . . Joseph a brave witty and as beautiful a child as one shall see amongst a thousand. ... My eldest tho second born son John, aged sixteen years, who was the Darling of his time for a sweet behaviour, and in the College was noted for his parts and learning above ye thirteen of his classe; But God took him also away by death to my amazing grief at ye loss of him and so many in so short a time." One of John's classmates, the Grindall Rawson afterwards known as a Puritan divine, sends to the mourning father some verses on his "much loved Friend."
There is a rude dignity of consolation in the close, which conveys a hope that the elegy
"May say to those who still survive Though John and Martha die, yet God 's alive."
The father dwells tenderly upon the descriptions of "Scimon, a faire-haired youth, had attained to a good degree of grammar, and almost a nonesuch for a natu- ral veine of Limning, to ye admiration of all yt saw him." This narrative of the last days of "My Sweet Son Scimon" reads like some kindred passage from the Magnalia, that Acta Sanctorum of the Puritan. This fair child of twelve years, a rare scion of English lin- eage and Puritan nurture, with his early talent flowing hardily in the chill atmosphere, was distinguished by the purity and sensibility which are always of most touching effect when associated with untimely suffer- ing and death. His looks expressed his mind.
"Lovely in 's feature, his complexion fair, Of comely stature; flaxen was his hair."
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His banefull illness was borne with patience, and his death was crowned with triumph. His testimony of childlike faith was given to his doctor (who found the patient's mind clear and tranquil), and "with Soul Ravishing Expressions," to his minister, Mr. Willard, until speech failed him. "And so," relates his father, "he passed Triumphiantly to Heaven. He often said 'Mother, Brother John, come away, make haste,' add- ing that Mr. Thatcher [his minister who was dead ] did look and wait for him, and that there was room enough for all in Heaven." They were soon to follow him, and the same hand that has recorded the children's deaths has traced many tributes to the memory of the mother; there remains an anagram on her name which is not without a rude pathos :
" Martha Saffin In hart am Safe or Ah! firm and fast In hart am Safe; Ah firm & fast To my Beloved, to my last."
If the pedantic mourner's eulogies of the beauty and graces of his wife, and the talents of his sons, may sometimes suggest the question whether he does not, to use his own word, "hyperbolize," yet the exhaust- less pathos of his afflictions touches keenly upon the springs of sympathy. Even after two hundred years the modest perfume of Martha Saffin's gentle house- hold virtues comes upon us with the deep assurance that the obscure story of a life dedicated to duty and hal- lowed by tenderness stands higher in spiritual value
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than the teachings of many a pretentious page of his- tory. Judge Saffin's last years were burdened with cares and disappointments, and deeply embittered by stern and lasting contentions with his neighbors and his fam- ily. The strongest lights upon his characteristics ema- natefrom two papers of the Bristol period. One of these, a famous passage in the town annals, is his retraction, in which nothing is retracted. By the writer it is vig- orously styled "the Portraiture of a pernicious Fac- tion," and is perhaps the most notable specimen of that crude ore of rhetoric which fashioned many a missile for the confusion of such as dared to cross his inflexible will. An extract can but faintly indicate the pungency of its spirit. Having been enjoined by arbitrators be- tween himself and sundry of his townsmen (among whom was Judge Byfield) to retract the statements made in a manuscript entitled "The Original of the Town of Bristol,""Now, in order thereunto, I do hereby own and declare unto all mankind, that if breach of promise to a person or people, in a matter of great con- cernment be so evil, if the chopping and changing of the town commons, to the great prejudice of the town; obstructing and stopping up several ways leading to men's lands (some of them that have been enjoyed above thirty years without molestation or disturbance) to be tolerable and not a nuisance strictly prohibited by the laws of our nation, then I am exceedingly to blame in charging with evil in so doing. If the grant- ing of land upon a good consideration, and upon the same promising to give a deed for the confirmation thereof, but delaying it and after eight or nine years quiet possession by the granter these grantors give a
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deed of the same land unto others, if this I say be just and righteous dealing, then I am exceedingly to blame in charging with evil in so doing."
The other paper, which bears upon the experiences of his latter years, is a letter of pastoral rebuke from Cotton Mather, dated "Boston, d, 19, m. 5, 1710." Mr. Saffin, after long disagreement with his third wife, chiefly because of his unfriendly relations with her family, had separated from her, and was lingering out the last days of a morose and desolate old age in his Bristol retreat. That inevitable mingling of the gro- tesque with the tragic-which is characteristic of Saffin's utterances-appears in the spirit of his "Re- vised Elegie" of this period, on Martha. "Thus I alone," he grieves, with a fine obliviousness of his later domes- tic conditions-
"thus I alone
These five and twenty years am left to mone My unimpaired loss in Her, since gone."
Cotton Mather's letter shows that dread figure in an ex- ceptionally pleasing light. Sound humanity and frank kindliness have prompted his act, though some sharp touches of remonstrance, and shrewd personal thrusts, show that the sketch is signed by the master's hand. Except for a shade of that pedantry inseparable from the New England Barton, it breathes a spirit almost modern, and is perhaps of all the utterances of the po- tent author, the most intelligible to the modern mind. Reading between the lines, we find Saffin's history in its allusions and warnings, and his epitaph in its hints of his better days and regrets over his decadence. He urges him in behalf of his wife to return to her, beg-
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ging him to avoid all further "embroelment," and es- pecially to refrain from any controversies with Madam on the subject of "Mr. George" (the brother-in-law), but to say directly to him whatever he has to say. "It is, you know, sir, better than I, the true spirit of a gentle- man to make his conversation easy to every one." In his former conduct toward this gentle woman he had not forgotten the laws of complaisance. "Good sir, hold to them." Mather intimates that by the outcome of his disputatious spirit he had despoiled himself of his es- tate, and was no longer furnished with means "to carry on the wars." He ought to secure Madam's interest from any further "molestation," and she, for her part, would do all in her power to render his old age com- fortable and honorable. All his friends look so anxiously to see him accept this offer that if he decline it he need hardly expect the offices of friendship from them. Meek- ness and repose of spirit dignify old age; other quali- ties, which are classed among its infirmities, are surely such as Mr. Saffin (of all men) is least ambitious to claim. Mather warns his aged friend of the approach of death, and solemnly summons him from the officious cares of his husbandry at Bristol, and from all world- liness, wrangling, and bitterness, to the duties of re- conciliations and religious devotion. "Good sir, throw all embitterments into a grave before you go into your own."
These warnings, which Mather's contemporaries would receive as prophetic, found their natural fulfil- ment in the death of the infirm, aged, and unhappy man to whom they were addressed. He made his will, "being Weak of Body, but of perfect mind and mem-
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ory," July 27, 1710, and two days later was no more, after a troubled life of seventy-eight years. Commenta- tors on his history have refused to believe that he ever received this letter, since he bequeathed five pounds to Cotton Mather, yet makes no mention of his wife. But it may be that the pastoral reproaches hastened his decline. The alienation from Mather, his last friend, and his spiritual guide, broke his heart, but no earthly influence could quell his indomitable will. The passion of self-will had grown into moral disease sofirmly fast- ened upon the man's nature, that death alone could re- lease him from its tortures. He had the magnanimity to bear with his pastor's counsels, but not the meekness to adopt them, and the silence toward Mather which, from Saffin's standpoint, may be esteemed generous, becomes pitifully unnatural when it includes his wife. Dying childless, he divided his Narragansett estate of one thousand acres among seven relations, connections, and friends, and left one hundred pounds to Martha, daughter of Andrew Willett of Boston Neck. She was the niece and namesake of the wife of his youth. Fifty pounds were distributed among legatees, including Cotton Mather and the minister of the town. Five pounds were bequeathed to the poor of Bristol, to be spent in books for their children, at the discretion of his executors. If there is something touching in the futile fervor of Saffin's literary ambition, there is in his testamentary purpose to serve the cause of learn- ing an honesty of homage which commands our hearty regard. Captain Andrew Willett of Boston Neck, his brother-in-law, was residuary legatee, and co-executor with Dr. Elisha Cooke of Boston, he who had minis-
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