Saddest of all among these deaths must have been that of the Lady Arbella, of whom Mather in a later day, wrote: "She came from a paradise of plenty and pleasure, in the family of a noble earldom, into a wilderness of wants, and took New England in her way to heaven." There had been doubt as to the expediency of her coming, but with the wife of another explorer she had said: "Whithersoever your fatal destiny shall drive you, either by the waves of the great ocean, or by the manifold and horrible dangers of the land, I will surely bear you company. There can no peril chance to me so terrible, nor any kind of death so cruel, that shall not be much easier for me to abide, than to live so far separate from you."

Weakened by the long voyage and its perpetual hardships, and dismayed, if may be at the sadness and privations of what they had hoped might hold immediate comfort, she could not rally, and Anne Bradstreet's first experience of New England was over the grave, in which they laid one of the closest links to childhood and that England both had loved alike.

Within a month, Winthrop wrote in his journal: "September 30. About two in the morning, Mr. Isaac Johnson died; his wife, the lady Arbella, of the house of Lincoln, being dead about one month before. He was a holy man and wise, and died in sweet peace, leaving some part of his substance to the Colony."

"He tried To live without her, liked it not and died."

Still another tragedy had saddened them all, though in the press of overwhelming business, Winthrop wrote only: "Friday, July 2. My son Henry Winthrop drowned at Salem," and there is no other mention of himself till July 16, when he wrote the first letter to his wife from America.

The loss was a heavy one to the colony as well as the father, for Henry Winthrop, though but twenty-two, had already had experience as a pioneer, having gone out to Barbadoes at eighteen, and became one of the earliest planters in that island. Ardent, energetic, and with his fathers deep tenderness for all who depended on him, he was one who could least be spared. "A sprightly and hopeful young gentleman he was," says Hubbard, and another chronicle gives more minute details. "The very day on which he went on shore in New England, he and the principal officers of the ship, walking out to a place now called by the Salemites, Northfield, to view the Indian wigwams, they saw on the other side of the river a small canoe. He would have had one of the company swim over and fetch it, rather than walk several miles on foot, it being very hot weather; but none of the party could swim but himself; and so he plunged in, and, as he was swimming over, was taken with the cramp a few roods from the shore and drowned."

The father's letter is filled with an anguish of pity for the mother and the young wife, whose health, like that of the elder Mrs. Winthrop, had made the journey impossible for both.

"I am so overpressed with business, as I have no time for these or other mine own private occasions. I only write now that thou mayest know, that yet I live and am mindful of thee in all my affairs. The larger discourse of all things thou shalt receive from my brother Downing, which I must send by some of the last ships. We have met with many sad and discomfortable things as thou shalt hear after; and the Lord's hand hath been heavy upon myself in some very near to me. My son Henry! My son Henry! Ah, poor child! Yet it grieves me much more for my dear daughter. The Lord strengthen and comfort her heart to bear this cross patiently. I know thou wilt not be wanting to her in this distress."

Not one of the little colony was wanting in tender offices in these early days when a common suffering made them "very pitiful one to another," and as the absolutely essential business was disposed of they hastened to organize the church where free worship should make amends for all the long sorrow of its search.

A portion of the people from the Arbella had remained in Salem, but on Friday, July 3Oth, 1630, Winthrop, Dudley, Johnson and Wilson entered into a church covenant, which was signed two days after by Increase Nowell and four others—Sharpe, Bradstreet, Gager and Colborne.

It is most probable that Anne Bradstreet had been temporarily separated from her husband, as Johnson in his "Wonder-working Providence," writes, that after the arrival at Salem, "the lady Arrabella and some other godly women aboad at Salem, but their husbands continued at Charles Town, both for the settling the Civill Government and gathering another Church of Christ." The delay was a short one, for her name stands thirteenth on the list. Charlestown, however, held hardly more promise of quiet life than Salem. The water supply was, curiously enough, on a peninsula which later gave excellent water, only "a brackish spring in the sands by the water side ... which could not supply half the necessities of the multitude, at which time the death of so many was concluded to be much the more occasioned by this want of good water."

Heat was another evil to the constitutions which knew only the equable English temperature, and could not face either the intense sun, or the sudden changes of the most erratic climate the earth knows. In the search for running-water, the colonists scattered, moving from point to point, "the Governor, the Deputy-Governor and all the assistants except Mr. Nowell going across the river to Boston at the invitation of Mr. Blaxton, who had until then been its only white inhabitant."

Even the best supplied among them were but scantily provided with provisions. It was too late for planting, and the colony already established was too wasted and weakened by sickness to have cared for crops in the planting season. In the long voyage "there was miserable damage and spoil of provisions by sea, and divers came not so well provided as they would, upon a report, whilst they were in England, that now there was enough in New England." Even this small store was made smaller by the folly of several who exchanged food for beaver skins, and, the Council suddenly finding that famine was imminent "hired and despatched away Mr. William Pearce with his ship of about two hundred tons, for Ireland to buy more, and in the mean time went on with their work of settling."

The last month of the year had come before they could decide where the fortified town, made necessary by Indian hostilities, should be located. The Governor's house had been partly framed at Charlestown, but with the removal to Boston it was taken down, and finally Cambridge was settled upon as the most desirable point, and their first winter was spent there. Here for the first time it was possible for Anne Bradstreet to unpack their household belongings, and seek to create some semblance of the forsaken home. But even for the Dudleys, among the richest members of the party there was a privation which shows how sharply it must have fared with the poorer portion, and Dudley wrote, nine months after their arrival, that he "thought fit to commit to memory our present condition, and what hath befallen us since our arrival here; which I will do shortly, after my usual manner, and must do rudely, having yet no table, nor other room to write in than by the fireside upon my knee, in this sharp winter; to which my family must have leave to resort, though they break good manners, and make me many times forget what I would say, and say what I would not."

No word of Mistress Dudley's remains to tell the shifts and strivings for comfort in that miserable winter which, mild as it was, had a keenness they were ill prepared to face. Petty miseries and deprivations, the least endurable of all forms of suffering, surrounded them like a cloud of stinging insects, whose attacks, however intolerable at the moment, are forgotten with the passing, and either for this reason, or from deliberate purpose, there is not a line of reference to them in any of Anne Bradstreet's writings. Scarcity of food was the sorest trouble. The Charlestown records show that "people were necessitated to live upon clams and muscles and ground nuts and acorns, and these got with much difficulty in the winter-time. People were very much tried and discouraged, especially when they heard that the Governor himself had the last batch of bread in the oven."

All fared alike so far as possible, the richer and more provident distributing to the poor, and all watching eagerly for the ship sent back in July in anticipation of precisely such a crisis. Six months had passed, when, on the fifth of February, 1631, Mather records that as Winthrop stood at his door giving "the last handful of meal in the barrel unto a poor man distressed by the wolf at the door, at that instant, they spied a ship arrived at the harbor's mouth with provisions for them all." The Fast day just appointed became one of rejoicing, the first formal proclamation for Thanksgiving Day being issued, "by order of the Governour and Council, directed to all the plantations, and though the stores held little reminder of holiday time in Old England, grateful hearts did not stop to weigh differences. In any case the worst was past and early spring brought the hope of substantial comfort, for the town was 'laid out in squares, the streets intersecting each other at right-angles,' and houses were built as rapidly as their small force of carpenters could work. Bradstreet's house was at the corner of 'Brayntree' and Wood Streets, the spot now occupied by the familiar University Book- store of Messrs. Sever and Francis on Harvard Square, his plot of ground being 'aboute one rood,' and Dudley's on a lot of half an acre was but a little distance from them at the corner of the present Dunster and South Streets." Governor Winthrop's decision not to remain here, brought about some sharp correspondence between Dudley and himself, but an amicable settlement followed after a time, and though the frame of his house was removed to Boston, the town grew in spite of its loss, so swiftly that in 1633, Wood wrote of it:

"This is one of the neatest and best compacted Towns in New England, having many fair structures, with many handsome contrived streets. The inhabitants most of them are very rich and well stored with Cattell of all sorts."

Rich as they may have appeared, however, in comparison with many of the settlements about them, sickness and want were still unwelcome guests among them, so that Dudley wrote: "there is not a house where there is not one dead and in some houses many. The natural causes seem to be in the want of warm lodging and good diet, to which Englishmen are habituated at home, and in the sudden increase of heat which they endure that are landed here in summer, the salt meats at sea having prepared their bodies thereto; for those only these two last years died of fevers who landed in June and July; as those of Plymouth, who landed in winter, died of the scurvey, as did our poorer sort, whose houses and bedding kept them not sufficiently warm, nor their diet sufficiently in heart."

Thus far there were small inducements for further emigration. The tide poured in steadily, but only because worse evils were behind than semi-starvation in New England. The fairest and fullest warning was given by Dudley, whose letter holds every strait and struggle of the first year, and who wrote with the intention of counteracting the too rosy statements of Higginson and Graves: "If any come hither to plant for worldly ends that can live well at home, he commits an error, of which he will soon repent him; but if for spiritual, and that no particular obstacle hinder his removal, he may find here what may well content him, viz., materials to build, fuel to burn, ground to plant, seas and rivers to fish in, a pure air to breathe in, good water to drink till wine or beer can be made; which together with the cows, hogs and goats brought hither already, may suffice for food; for as for fowl and venison, they are dainties here as well as in England. For clothes and bedding, they must bring them with them, till time and industry produce them here. In a word, we yet enjoy little to be envied, but endure much to be pitied in the sickness and mortality of our people. And I do the more willingly use this open and plain dealing, lest other men should fall short of their expectations when they come hither, as we to our great prejudice did, by means of letters sent us from hence into England, wherein honest men, out of a desire to draw over others to them, wrote something hyperbolically of many things here. If any godly men, out of religious ends, will come over to help us in the good work we are about, I think they cannot dispose of themselves nor their estates more to God's glory and the furtherance of their own reckoning. But they must not be of the poorer sort yet, for divers years; for we have found by experience that they have hindered, not furthered the work. And for profane and debauched persons, their oversight in coming hither is wondered at, where they shall find nothing to content them."

This long quotation is given in full to show the fair temper of the man, who as time went on was slightly less in favor than in the beginning. No one questioned his devotion to the cause, or the energy with which he worked for it, but as he grew older he lost some portion of the old urbanity, exchanging it disastrously for traits which would seem to have been the result of increasing narrowness of religious faith rather than part of his real self. Savage writes of him: "a hardness in publick and ridgidity in private life, are too observable in his character, and even an eagerness for pecuniary gain, which might not have been expected in a soldier and a statesman." That the impression was general is evident from an epitaph written upon him by Governor Belcher, who may, however, have had some personal encounter with this "rigidity," which was applied to all without fear or favor.

"Here lies Thomas Dudley, that trusty old stud, A bargain's a bargain and must be made good."

Whatever his tendencies may have been they did not weigh heavily on his family, who delighted in his learning and devoted spirit, and whose affection was strong enough to atone for any criticism from outsiders.

Objectionable as his methods may sometimes have been—sour as his compatriots now and then are said to have found him, "the world it appears, is indebted for much of its progress, to uncomfortable and even grumpy people," and Tyler whose analysis of the Puritan character has never been surpassed, writes of them: "Even some of the best of them, perhaps, would have seemed to us rather pragmatical and disputatious persons, with all the edges and corners of their characters left sharp, with all their opinions very definitely formed, and with their habits of frank utterance quite thoroughly matured. Certainly ... they do not seem to have been a company of gentle, dreamy and euphemistical saints, with a particular aptitude for martyrdom and an inordinate development of affability."

They argued incessantly, at home and abroad, and "this exacting and tenacious propensity of theirs, was not a little criticized by some who had business connections with them." Very probably Governor Belcher had been worsted in some wordy battle, always decorously conducted, but always persistent, but these minor infelicities did not affect the main purposes of life, and the settlement grew in spite of them; perhaps even, because of them, free speech being, as yet, the privilege of all, though as the answering became in time a little too free, means were taken to insure more discretion.

In the meantime Cambridge grew, and suddenly arose a complaint, which to the modern mind is preposterous. "Want of room" was the cry of every citizen and possibly with justice, as the town had been set within fixed limits and had nearly doubled in size through the addition in August, 1632, of the congregation of the Rev. Thomas Hooker at Chelmsford in the county of Essex, England, who had fallen under Laud's displeasure, and escaped with difficulty, being pursued by the officers of the High Commission from one county to another, and barely eluding them when he took ship for New England.

One would have thought the wilderness at their doors afforded sense of room enough, and that numbers would have been a welcome change, but the complaint was serious enough to warrant their sending out men to Ipswich with a view of settling there. Then for a time the question dropped, much to the satisfaction, no doubt, of Mistress Dudley and her daughter, to whom in 1633, or '34, the date being uncertain, came her first child, the son Samuel, who graduated at Harvard College in 1653, and of whom she wrote long after in the little diary of "Religious Experiences":

"It pleased God to keep me a long time without a child, which was a great greif to me, and cost mee many prayers and tears before I obtained one, and after him gave mee many more of whom I now take the care."

Cambridge still insisting that it had not room enough, the town was enlarged, but having accomplished this, both Dudley and Bradstreet left it for Ipswich, the first suggestion of which had been made in January, 1632, when news came to them that "the French had bought the Scottish plantation near Cape Sable, and that the fort and all the amunition were delivered to them, and that the cardinal, having the managing thereof, had sent many companies already, and preparation was made to send many more the next year, and divers priests and Jesuits among them—-called the assistants to Boston, and the ministers and captains, and some other chief men, to advise what was fit to be done for our safety, in regard the French were like to prove ill neighbors, (being Papists)."

Another change was in store for the patient women who followed the path laid open before them, with no thought of opposition, desiring only "room for such life as should in the ende return them heaven for an home that passeth not away," and with the record in Winthrop's journal, came the familiar discussion as to methods, and the decision which speedily followed.

Dudley and Bradstreet as "assistants" both had voice in the conclusions of the meeting, the record of which has just been given, though with no idea, probably, at that time, that their own movements would be affected. It was settled at once that "a plantation and a fort should be begun at Natascott, partly to be some block in an enemy's way (though it could not bar his entrance), and especially to prevent an enemy from taking that passage from us.... Also, that a plantation be begun at Agawam (being the best place in the land for tillage and cattle), least an enemy, finding it void should possess and take it from us. The governor's son (being one of the assistants) was to undertake this, and to take no more out of the bay than twelve men; the rest to be supplied, at the coming of the next ships."

That they were not essential to Cambridge, but absolutely so at this weak point was plain to both Dudley and Bradstreet, who forthwith made ready for the change accomplished in 1634, when at least one other child, Dorothy, had come to Anne Bradstreet. Health, always delicate and always fluctuating, was affected more seriously than usual at this time, no date being given, but the period extending over several years, "After some time, I fell into a lingering sickness like a consumption, together with a lameness, which correction I saw the Lord sent to humble and try me and do me Good: and it was not altogether ineffectual."

Patient soul! There were better days coming, but, self-distrust was, after her affections, her strongest point, and there is small hint of inward poise or calmness till years had passed, though she faced each change with the quiet dauntlessness that was part of her birthright. But the tragedy of their early days in the colony still shadowed her. Evidently no natural voice was allowed to speak in her, and the first poem of which we have record is as destitude of any poetic flavor, as if designed for the Bay Psalm- book. As the first, however, it demands place, if only to show from what she afterward escaped. That she preserved it simply as a record of a mental state, is evident from the fact, that it was never included in any edition of her poems, it having been found among her papers after her death.

UPON A FIT OF SICKNESS, Anno. 1632. Aetatis suce, 19.

Twice ten years old not fully told since nature gave me breath, My race is run, my thread is spun, lo! here is fatal Death. All men must dye, and so must I, this cannot be revoked, For Adam's sake, this word God spake, when he so high provoke'd. Yet live I shall, this life's but small, in place of highest bliss, Where I shall have all I can crave, no life is like to this. For what's this life but care and strife? since first we came from womb, Our strength doth waste, our time doth hast and then we go to th' Tomb. O Bubble blast, how long can'st last? that always art a breaking, No sooner blown, but dead and gone ev'n as a word that's speaking, O whil'st I live this grace me give, I doing good may be, Then death's arrest I shall count best because it's thy degree. Bestow much cost, there's nothing lost to make Salvation sure, O great's the gain, though got with pain, comes by profession pure. The race is run, the field is won, the victory's mine, I see, For ever know thou envious foe the foyle belongs to thee.

This is simply very pious and unexceptionable doggerel and no one would admit such fact more quickly than Mistress Anne herself, who laid it away in after days in her drawer, with a smile at the metre and a sigh for the miserable time it chronicled. There were many of them, for among the same papers is a shorter burst of trouble:

UPON SOME DISTEMPER OF BODY.

In anguish of my heart repleat with woes, And wasting pains, which best my body knows, In tossing slumbers on my wakeful bed, Bedrencht with tears that flow from mournful head, Till nature had exhausted all her store, Then eyes lay dry disabled to weep more; And looking up unto his Throne on high, Who sendeth help to those in misery; He chas'd away those clouds and let me see, My Anchor cast i' th' vale with safety, He eas'd my soul of woe, my flesh of pain, And brought me to the shore from troubled Main.

The same brooding and saddened spirit is found in some verses of the same period and written probably just before the birth of her third child, the latter part containing a touch of jealous apprehension that has been the portion of many a young mother, and that indicates more of human passion than could be inferred from anything in her first attempt at verse.

All things within this fading world hath end, Adversity doth still our joys attend; No tyes so strong, no friends so dear and sweet But with death's parting blow is sure to meet. The sentence past is most irrevocable A common thing, yet oh, inevitable; How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend, How soon 't may be thy Lot to lose thy friend! We both are ignorant, yet love bids me These farewell lines to recommend to thee, That when that knot's untyed that made us one, I may seem thine, who in effect am none. And if I see not half my dayes that's due, What nature would, God grant to yours and you; The many faults that well you know I have, Let be interred in my oblivious grave; If any worth or virtue were in me, Let that live freshly in thy memory, And when thou feel'st no grief as I no harms, Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms: And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains Look to my little babes my dear remains, And if thou love thyself, or loved'st me, These O protect from step-Dames injury. And if chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse, With some sad sighs honor my absent Herse; And kiss this paper for thy love's dear sake Who with salt tears this last farewell did take. —A. B.



CHAPTER V.

OLD FRIENDS AND NEW.

In spite of the fits of depression evident in most of the quotations thus far given, there were many alleviations, as life settled into more tolerable conditions, and one chief one was now very near. Probably no event in the first years of Anne Bradstreet's life in the little colony had as much significance for her as the arrival at Boston in 1633, of the Rev. John Cotton, her father's friend, and one of the strongest influences in the lives of both English and American Puritans. She was still living in Cambridge and very probably made one of the party who went in from there to hear his first sermon before the Boston church. He had escaped from England with the utmost difficulty, the time of freedom allowed him by King James who admired his learning, having ended so thoroughly that he was hunted like an escaped convict. Fearless and almost reckless, the Colonial ministers wondered at his boldness, a brother of Nathaniel Ward saying as he and some friends "spake merrily" together: "Of all men in the world, I envy Mr. Cotton of Boston, most; for he doth nothing in way of conformity, and yet hath his liberty, and I do everything in that way and cannot enjoy mine."

The child born on the stormy passage over, and who in good time became Anne Bradstreet's son-in-law, marrying her daughter Dorothy in 1654, appeared with the father and mother at the first public service after his arrival, and before it was positively decided that he should remain in Boston. The baptism, contrary to the usual custom of having it take place, not later than ten days after birth, had been delayed, and Winthrop gives a characteristic picture of the scene: "The Lord's day following, he (Mr. Cotton) exercised in the afternoon, and being to be admitted, he signified his desire and readiness to make his confession according to order, which he said might be sufficient in declaring his faith about baptism (which he then desired for their child, born in their passage, and therefore named Seaborn). He gave two reasons why he did not baptize it at sea (not for want of fresh water, for he held sea-water would have served): 1st, because they had no settled congregation there; 2d, because a minister hath no power to give the seals, but in his own congregation."

Some slight question, as to whether Boston alone, or the colony at large should be taxed for his support was settled with little difficulty, and on Sept. 10, another gathering from all the neighboring towns, witnessed his induction into the new church a ceremony of peculiar solemnity, preceded by a fast, and followed by such feasting as the still narrow stores of the people admitted.

No one can estimate the importance of this occasion, who does not realize what a minister meant in those first days, when the sermon held for the majority the sole opportunity of intellectual stimulus as well as spiritual growth. The coming of John Cotton to Boston, was much as if Phillips Brooks should bestow himself upon the remotest English settlement in Australia, or a missionary station in northern Minnesota, and a ripple of excitement ran through the whole community. It meant keener political as well as religious life, for the two went side by side. Mather wrote later of New England: "It is a country whose interests were most remarkably and generally enwrapped in its ecclesiastical circumstances," and he added: "The gospel has evidently been the making of our towns."

It was the deacons and elders who ruled public affairs, always under direction of well-nigh supreme authority vested in the minister. There was reason for such faith in them. "The objects of much public deference were not unaware of their authority; they seldom abused it; they never forgot it. If ever men, for real worth and greatness, deserved such pre-eminence, they did; they had wisdom, great learning, great force of will, devout consecration, philanthropy, purity of life. For once in the history of the world, the sovereign places were filled by the sovereign men. They bore themselves with the air of leaderships; they had the port of philosophers, noblemen and kings. The writings of our earliest times are full of reference to the majesty of their looks, the awe inspired by their presence, the grandeur and power of their words."

New England surely owes something of her gift of "ready and commanding speech," to these early talkers, who put their whole intellectual force into a sermon, and who thought nothing of a prayer lasting for two hours and a sermon for three or even four. Nathaniel Ward, whose caustic wit spared neither himself nor the most reverend among his brethren, wrote in his "Simple Cobbler": "We have a strong weakness in New England, that when we are speaking, we know not how to conclude. We make many ends, before we make an end.... We cannot help it, though we can; which is the arch infirmity in all morality. We are so near the west pole, that our longitudes are as long as any wise man would wish and somewhat longer. I scarce know any adage more grateful than 'Grata brevitas'."

Mr. Cotton was no exception to this rule, but his hearers would not have had him shorter. It was, however, the personality of the man that carried weight and nothing that he has left for a mocking generation to wonder over gives slightest hint of reason for the spell he cast over congregations, under the cathedral towers, or in the simple meeting house in the new Boston. The one man alive, who, perhaps, has gone through his works conscientiously and hopefully, Moses Coit Tyler, writes of John Cotton's works: "These are indeed clear and cogent in reasoning; the language is well enough, but that is all. There are almost no remarkable merits in thought or style. One wanders through these vast tracts and jungles of Puritanic discourse—exposition, exhortation, logic- chopping, theological hair-splitting—and is unrewarded by a single passage of eminent force or beauty, uncheered even by the felicity of a new epithet in the objurgation of sinners, or a new tint in the landscape-painting of hell."

Hubbard wrote, while he still lived: "Mr. Cotton had such an insinuating and melting way in his preaching, that he would usually carry his very adversary captive, after the triumphant chariot of his rhetoric," but "the chariot of his rhetoric ceased to be triumphant when the master himself ceased to drive it," and we shall never know the spell of his genius. For one who had shown himself so uncompromising in action where his own beliefs were concerned, he was singularly gentle and humble. Followed from his church one day, by a specially sour and peevish fanatic, who announced to him with a frown that his ministry had become dark and flat, he replied:

"Both, brother—it may be both; let me have your prayers that it may be otherwise."

Such a nature would never revolt against the system of spiritual cross-questioning that belonged to every church, and it is easy to see how his hold on his congregation was never lost, even at the stormiest episode in his New England career.

The people flocked to hear him, and until the removal to Ipswich, there is no doubt that Anne Bradstreet and her husband met him often, and that he had his share in confirming her faith and stimulating her thought. Dudley and he remained friends to the end, and conferred often on public as well as private matters, but there are no family details save the record of the marriage in later years, which united them all more closely, than even their common suffering had done.

Health alone, or the want of it, gave sufficient reason for at least a shadow of gloom, and there were others as substantial, for fresh changes were at hand, and various circumstances had brought her family under a general criticism against which Anne Bradstreet always revolted. Minute personal criticism was the order of the day, considered an essential in holding one another in the straight path, and the New England relish for petty detail may have had its origin in this religious gossip. As usual the first trouble would seem to have arisen from envy, though undoubtedly its originator strenuously denied any such suspicion. The houses at Cambridge had gradually been made more and more comfortable, though even in the beginning, they were the rudest of structures, the roofs covered with thatch, the fire-places generally made of rough stones and the chimneys of boards plastered with clay. To shelter was the only requisite demanded, but Dudley, who desired something more, had already come under public censure, the governor and other assistants joining in the reproach that "he did not well to bestow such cost about wainscotting and adorning his house in the beginning of a plantation, both in regard to the expense, and the example."

This may have been one of the "new customs" at which poor Anne's "heart rose, for none of the company, not even excepting the governor, had come from as stately and well-ordered a home as theirs, the old castle still testifying to the love of beauty in its ancient owners." Dudley's excuse was, however, accepted, "that it was for the warmth of his house, and the charge was but little, being but clapboards nailed to the wall in the form of wainscot."

The disagreement on this question of adornment was not the only reason why a removal to Ipswich, then known as Agawam, may have seemed desirable. Dudley, who was some thirteen years older than the Governor, and whose capacity for free speech increased with every year, had criticised sharply the former's unexpected removal to Boston, and placable as Winthrop always was, a little feeling had arisen, which must have affected both families. The first open indication of Dudley's money-loving propensities had also been made a matter of discussion, and was given "in some bargains he had made with some poor members of the same congregation, to whom he had sold seven bushels and a half of corn, to receive ten for it after harvest, which the governor and some others held to be oppressing usury."

Dudley contested the point hotly, the governor taking no "notice of these speeches, and bore them with more patience than he had done upon a like occasion at another time," but the breach had been made, and it was long before it ceased to trouble the friends of both. With all his self-sacrifice, Dudley desired leadership, and the removal to Ipswich gave him more fully the position he craved, as simply just acknowledgment of his services to the Colony, than permanent home at Cambridge could have done. Objections were urged against the removal, and after long discussion waxing hotter and hotter Dudley resigned, in a most Puritan fit of temper, leaving the council in a passion and "clapping the door behind him." Better thoughts came to all. The gentle temper of both wife and daughter quieted him, and disposed him to look favorably upon the letter in which the council refused to accept his resignation, and this was the last public occasion upon which such scandal arose. But Ipswich was a safe harbor, and life there would hold fewer thorns than seemed sown in the Cambridge surroundings, and we may feel sure, that in spite of hardships, the long-suffering Anne and her mother welcomed the change, when it had once been positively decided upon.

The most serious objection arose from the more exposed situation of Ipswich and the fact that the Indians were becoming more and more troublesome. The first year, however, passed in comparative quiet. A church was organized, sermons being the first necessity thought of for every plantation, and "Mr. Wilson, by leave of the congregation of Boston whereof he was pastor, went to Agawam to teach the people of that plantation, because they had yet no minister," to be succeeded shortly by Nathaniel Ward, a man of most intense nature and personality, who must have had marked effect on every mind brought under his influence. A worker of prodigious energy, he soon broke down, and after two years of pastorship, left Ipswich to become a few years later, one of the commission appointed to frame laws for the Colony and to write gradually one of the most distinctive books in early American literature, "The Simple Cobbler of Agawam." That he became the strong personal friend of the Bradstreet family was natural, for not only were they of the same social status, but sympathetic in many points, though Simon Bradstreets' moderation and tolerant spirit undoubtedly fretted the uncompromising Puritan whose opinions were as stiff and incisive as his way of putting them. An extensive traveller, a man of ripe culture, having been a successful lawyer before the ministry attracted him, he was the friend of Francis Bacon, of Archbishop Usher and the famous Heidelberg theologian, David Pareus. He had travelled widely and knew men and manners, and into the exhortations and expoundings of his daily life, the unfoldings of the complicated religious experience demanded of every Puritan, must have crept many a reminiscence of old days, dear to the heart of Anne Bradstreet, who, no matter what theory she deemed it best to follow, was at heart, to the end of her life a monarchist. We may know with what interest she would listen, and may fancy the small Simon and Dorothy standing near as Puritan discipline allowed, to hear tales of Prince Rupert, whom Nathaniel Ward had held as a baby in his arms, and of whom he wrote what we may be sure he had often said: "I have had him in my arms; . . . I wish I had him there now. If I mistake not, he promised then to be a good prince; but I doubt he hath forgot it. If I thought he would not be angry with me, I would pray hard to his Maker to make him a right Roundhead, a wise-hearted Palatine, a thankful man to the English; to forgive all his sins, and at length to save his soul, notwithstanding all his God-damn-me's."

Even in these early days, certain feminine pomps and vanities had emigrated with their owners, and much disconcerted the energetic preacher. Anne Bradstreet had no share in them, her gentle simplicity making her always choose the least obtrusive form of speech and action, as well as dress, but she must have smiled over the fierceness with which weaker sisters were attacked, and perhaps have sought to change the attitude of this chronic fault- finder; "a sincere, witty and valiant grumbler," but always a grumbler, to whom the fashions of the time seemed an outrage on common sense. He devotes a separate section of his book to them, and the delinquencies of women in general because they were "deficients or redundants not to be brought under any rule," and therefore not entitled to "pester better matter with such stuff," and then announces that he proposes, "for this once to borrow a little of their loose-tongued liberty, and mis-spend a word or two upon their long-waisted but short-skirted patience." "I honor the woman that can honor herself with her attire," he goes on, his wrath rising as he writes; "a good text always deserves a fair margent, but as for a woman who lives but to ape the newest court- fashions, I look at her as the very gizzard of a trifle, the product of a quarter of a cipher, the epitome of nothing; fitter to be kicked, if she were of a kickable substance, than either honored or humored. To speak moderately, I truly confess, it is beyond the ken of my understanding to conceive how those women should have any true grace or valuable virtue, that have so little wit as to disfigure themselves with such exotic garbs, as not only dismantles their native, lovely lustre, but transclouts them into gaunt bar-geese, ill-shapen, shotten shell-fish, Egyptian hieroglyphics, or at the best into French flirts of the pastry, which a proper English woman should scorn with her heels. It is no marvel they wear trails on the hinder part of their heads; having nothing it seems in the forepart but a few squirrels' brains to help them frisk from one ill-favored fashion to another.... We have about five or six of them in our colony; if I see any of them accidentally, I cannot cleanse my fancy for a month after.... If any man think I have spoken rather merrily than seriously, he is much mistaken; I have written what I write, with all the indignation I can, and no more than I ought."

Let it be remembered, that these ladies with "squirrels brains," are the "grandmothers" whose degenerate descendants we are daily accused of being. It is an old tune, but the generations have danced to it since the world began, each with a profound conviction of its newness, and their own success in following its lead. Nor was he alone in his indignation, for even in the midst of discussions on ordnance, and deep perplexities over unruly settlers, the grave elders paused, and as Winthrop records:

"At the lecture in Boston a question was propounded about veils. Mr. Cotton concluded, that where (by the custom of the place) they were not a sign of the woman's subjection, they were not commanded by the apostle. Mr. Endecott opposed, and did maintain it by the general arguments brought by the apostle. After some debate, the governor, perceiving it to grow to some earnestness, interposed, and so it brake off." Isaiah had protested, before Nathaniel Ward or the Council echoed him, but if this is the attitude the sturdy preacher held toward the women of his congregation, he must have found it well to resign his place to his successor, also a Nathaniel, Nathaniel Rogers, one of the row of "nine small children," still to be seen in the New England Primer, gazing upon the martyr, John Rogers, the famous preacher of Dedham, whose gifts of mind and soul made him a shining mark for persecution, and whose name is still honored in his descendants.

Of less aggressive and incisive nature than Nathaniel Ward, he was a man of profound learning, his son and grandson succeeding him at Ipswich, and the son, who had accompanied him from England becoming the President of Harvard College. His sympathy with Simon Bradstreet's moderate and tolerant views, at once brought them together, and undoubtedly made him occasionally a thorn in the side of Governor Dudley, who felt then, precisely the same emotions as in later life were chronicled in his one attempt at verse:

"Let men of God in Courts and Churches watch, O'er such as do a Toleration hatch, Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice To poison all with Heresie and Vice."

Nathaniel Rogers has left no written memorial save a tract in the interest of this most objectionable toleration, in which, while favoring liberty and reformation, he censured those who had brought false charges against the king, and as a result, was accused of being one of the king's agents in New England. Anne Bradstreet's sympathies were even more strongly with him than those of her husband, and in the quiet listening to the arguments which went on, she had rarest opportunity for that gradual accumulation of real worldly wisdom to be found in many of her "Reflections" in prose.

At present there was more room for apprehension than reflection. Indian difficulties were more and more pressing, and in Sept., 1635, the General Court had included Ipswich in the order that no dwelling-house should be more than half a mile from the meeting- house, it being impossible to guard against the danger of coming and going over longer space. The spring of 1636-7 brought still more stringent care. Watches were kept and no one allowed to travel without arms. The Pequot war was the culmination for the time, the seed of other and more atrocious conflicts to come, and whatever the judgment of to-day may be on the causes which brought such results, the terror of the settlers was a very real and well- grounded fact. As with Deerfield at a later date, they were protected from Indian assaults, only by "a rude picketted fort. Sentinels kept guard every night; even in the day time, no one left his door-steps without a musket; and neighborly communication between the houses was kept up principally by underground passages from cellar to cellar."

Mr. Daniel Dennison, who had married Anne Bradstreet's sister, was chosen captain for Ipswich and remained so for many years. As the Indians were driven out, they concentrated in and about New Hampshire, which, being a frontier colony, knew no rest from peril day and night, but it was many years before any Massachusetts settler dared move about with freedom, and the perpetual apprehension of every woman who dreaded the horrible possibilities of Indian outrage, must have gone far toward intensifying and grinding in the morbid sensitiveness which even to-day is part of the genuine New England woman's character. The grim details of expeditions against them were known to every child. The same impatience of any word in their favor was shown then, as we find it now in the far West, where their treachery and barbarity is still a part of the story of to-day, and Johnson, in his "Wonder- Working Providence," gives one or two almost incredible details of warfare against them with a Davidic exultation over the downfall of so pestilent an enemy, that is more Gothic than Christian.

"The Lord in mercy toward his poor churches, having thus destroyed these bloody, barbarous Indians, he returns his people in safety to their vessels, where they take account of their prisoners. The squaws and some young youths they brought home with them; and finding the men to be deeply guilty of the crimes they undertook the war for, they brought away only their heads."

Such retribution seemed just and right, but its effect on Puritan character was hardly softening, and was another unconscious factor in that increasing ratio of hatred against all who opposed them, whether in religious belief, or in the general administration of affairs. In these affairs every woman was interested to a degree that has had no parallel since, unless it may be, on the Southern side during our civil war. Politics and religion were one, and removal to Ipswich had not deadened the interest with which they watched and commented on every fluctuation in the stormy situation at "home," as they still called England, Cotton taking active part in all discussions as to Colonial action.

It was at this period that she wrote the poem, "A Dialogue between Old England and New," which holds the political situation at that time. Many of the allusions in the first edition, were altered in the second, for as Charles II. had then begun his reign, loyalty was a necessity, and no strictures upon kings could be allowed. The poem, which is rather a summary of political difficulties, has its own interest, as showing how thoroughly she had caught the spirit of the time, as well as from the fact that it was quoted as authority by the wisest thinkers of the day, and regarded with an awe and admiration we are hardly likely to share, as the phenomenal work of a phenomenal woman.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN OLD ENGLAND AND NEW, CONCERNING THEIR PRESENT TROUBLES. Anno, 1642.

NEW ENGLAND.

Alas, dear Mother, fairest Queen and best, With honour, wealth and peace happy and blest; What ails thee hang thy head and cross thine arms? And sit i' th' dust, to sigh these sad alarms? What deluge of new woes thus overwhelme The glories of thy ever famous Realme? What means this wailing tone, this mournful guise? Ah, tell thy daughter, she may sympathize.

OLD ENGLAND.

Art ignorant indeed of these my woes? Or must my forced tongue my griefs disclose? And must myself dissect my tatter'd state, Which mazed Christendome stands wond'ring at? And thou a child, a Limbe, and dost not feel My fainting weakened body now to reel? This Physick purging portion I have taken, Will bring Consumption, or an Ague quaking, Unless some Cordial, thou fetch from high, Which present help may ease my malady. If I decease, dost think thou shalt survive? Or by my wasting state dost think to thrive? Then weigh our case, if't be not justly sad; Let me lament alone, while thou art glad.

NEW ENGLAND.

And thus (alas) your state you much deplore, In general terms, but will not say wherefore; What medicine shall I seek to cure this woe If th' wound so dangerous I may not know? But you, perhaps, would have me ghess it out, What hath some Hengist like that Saxon stout, By fraud or force usurp'd thy flow'ring crown, Or by tempestuous warrs thy fields trod down? Or hath Canutus, that brave valiant Dane, The Regal peacefull Scepter from the tane? Or is't a Norman, whose victorious hand With English blood bedews thy conquered land? Or is't Intestine warrs that thus offend? Do Maud and Stephen for the crown contend? Do Barons rise and side against their King, And call in foreign aid to help the thing? Must Edward be deposed? or is't the hour That second Richard must be clapt i' th' tower? Or is't the fatal jarre again begun That from the red white pricking roses sprung? Must Richmond's aid, the Nobles now implore, To come and break the Tushes of the Boar? If none of these, dear Mother, what's your woe? Pray do you fear Spain's bragging Armado? Doth your Allye, fair France, conspire your wrack, Or do the Scots play false behind your back? Doth Holland quit you ill for all your love? Whence is the storm from Earth or Heaven above? Is't drought, is't famine, or is't pestilence, Dost feel the smart or fear the Consequence? Your humble Child intreats you, shew your grief, Though Arms nor Purse she hath for your relief, Such is her poverty; yet shall be found A Suppliant for your help, as she is bound.

OLD ENGLAND.

I must confess, some of those sores you name, My beauteous body at this present maime; But forreign foe, nor feigned friend I fear, For they have work enough, (thou knowst) elsewhere. Nor is it Alce's Son nor Henrye's daughter, Whose proud contention cause this slaughter; Nor Nobles siding to make John no King, French Jews unjustly to the Crown to bring; No Edward, Richard, to lose rule and life, Nor no Lancastrians to renew old strife; No Duke of York nor Earl of March to soyle Their hands in kindred's blood whom they did foil. No crafty Tyrant now usurps the Seat, Who Nephews slew that so he might be great; No need of Tudor Roses to unite, None knows which is the Red or which the White; Spain's braving Fleet a second time is sunk, France knows how oft my fury she hath drunk; By Edward third, and Henry fifth of fame Her Lillies in mine Arms avouch the same, My sister Scotland hurts me now no more, Though she hath been injurious heretofore; What Holland is I am in some suspence, But trust not much unto his excellence. For wants, sure some I feel, but more I fear, And for the Pestilence, who knows how near Famine and Plague, two Sisters of the Sword, Destruction to a Land doth soon afford. They're for my punishment ordain'd on high, Unless our tears prevent it speedily.

But yet I answer not what you demand To shew the grievance of my troubled Land? Before I tell the Effect I'le shew the Cause, Which are my sins, the breach of sacred Laws, Idolatry, supplanter of a nation, With foolish Superstitious Adoration, Are liked and countenanced by men of might The gospel trodden down and hath no right; Church offices were sold and bought for gain, That Pope had hoped to find Rome here again; For Oaths and Blasphemies did ever Ear From Belzebub himself such language hear? What scorning of the saints of the most high, What injuries did daily on them lye, What false reports, what nick-names did they take Not for their own but for their Master's sake?

And thou, poor soul, wert jeer'd among the rest, Thy flying for the truth was made a jest For Sabbath-breaking, and for drunkenness, Did ever loud profaneness more express? From crying blood yet cleansed am not I, Martyrs and others, dying causelessly. How many princely heads on blocks laid down For nought but title to a fading crown! 'Mongst all the crueltyes by great ones done, Of Edward's youths, and Clarence hapless son, O Jane, why didst thou dye in flow'ring prime? Because of royal stem, that was thy crime. For bribery, Adultery and lyes, Where is the nation I can't parallize? With usury, extortion and oppression, These be the Hydraes of my stout transgression. These be the bitter fountains, heads and roots, Whence flowed the source, the sprigs, the boughs, and fruits, Of more than thou canst hear or I relate, That with high hand I still did perpetrate; For these were threatened the woful day I mockt the Preachers, put it far away; The Sermons yet upon Record do stand That cri'd destruction to my wicked land; I then believed not, now I feel and see, The plague of stubborn incredulity.

Some lost their livings, some in prison pent, Some fin'd from house and friends to exile went. Their silent tongues to heaven did vengeance cry, Who saw their wrongs, and hath judg'd righteously, And will repay it seven fold in my lap; This is forerunner of my After clap. Nor took I warning by my neighbors' falls, I saw sad Germany's dismantled walls, I saw her people famish'd, nobles slain, The fruitful land a barren Heath remain. I saw immov'd her Armyes foil'd and fled, Wives forc'd, babes toss'd, her houses calimed. I saw strong Rochel yielded to her Foe, Thousands of starved Christians there also I saw poor Ireland bleeding out her last, Such crueltyes as all reports have passed; Mine heart obdurate stood not yet aghast. Now sip I of that cup, and just't may be The bottome dreggs reserved are for me.

NEW ENGLAND.

To all you've said, sad Mother, I assent, Your fearful sins great cause there's to lament, My guilty hands in part, hold up with you, A Sharer in your punishment's my due. But all you say amounts to this affect, Not what you feel but what you do expect, Pray in plain terms what is your present grief? Then let's joyn heads and hearts for your relief.

OLD ENGLAND.

Well to the matter then, there's grown of late 'Twixt King and Peers a Question of State, Which is the chief, the law or else the King. One said, it's he, the other no such thing. 'Tis said, my beter part in Parliament To ease my groaning land, shew'd their intent, To crush the proud, and right to each man deal, To help the Church, and stay the Common-weal So many obstacles came in their way, As puts me to a stand what I should say; Old customes, new prerogatives stood on, Had they not held Law fast, all had been gone; Which by their prudence stood them in such stead They took high Strafford lower by the head. And to their Land be't spoke, they held i' th' tower All England's Metropolitane that hour; This done, an act they would have passed fain No Prelate should his Bishoprick retain; Here tugged they hard (indeed), for all men saw This must be done by Gospel, not by law. Next the Militia they urged sore, This was deny'd (I need not say wherefore), The King displeas'd at York himself absents, They humbly beg return, shew their intents; The writing, printing, posting too and fro, Shews all was done, I'll therefore let it go;

But now I come to speak of my disaster, Contention grown, 'twixt Subjects and their Master; They worded it so long, they fell to blows, That thousands lay on heaps, here bleeds my woes; I that no wars so many years have known, Am now destroy'd and slaughter'd by mine own; But could the Field alone this strife decide, One Battle two or three I might abide. But these may be beginnings of more woe Who knows but this may be my overthrow? Oh, pity me in this sad Perturbation, My plundered Towns, my houses devastation, My weeping Virgins and my young men slain; My wealthy trading fall'n, my dearth of grain, The seed times come, but ploughman hath no hope Because he knows not who shall inn his Crop! The poor they want their pay, their Children bread, Their woful—Mothers' tears unpittied. If any pity in thy heart remain, Or any child-like love thou dost retain, For my relief, do what there lyes in thee, And recompence that good I've done to thee.

NEW ENGLAND.

Dear Mother, cease complaints and wipe your eyes, Shake off your dust, chear up and now arise, You are my Mother Nurse, and I your flesh, Your sunken bowels gladly would refresh, Your griefs I pity, but soon hope to see, Out of your troubles much good fruit to be; To see those latter days of hop'd for good, Though now beclouded all with tears and blood; After dark Popery the day did clear, But now the Sun in's brightness shall appear; Blest be the Nobles of thy Noble Land, With ventur'd lives for Truth's defence that stand; Blest be thy Commons, who for common good, And thy infringed Laws have boldly stood; Blest be thy Counties, who did aid thee still, With hearts and States to testifie their will; Blest be thy Preachers, who did chear thee on, O cry the Sword of God and Gideon; And shall I not on them with Mero's curse, That help thee not with prayers, Arms and purse? And for myself let miseries abound, If mindless of thy State I ere be found. These are the dayes the Churches foes to crush, To root out Popelings, head, tail, branch and rush; Let's bring Baals' vestments forth to make a fire, Their Mytires, Surplices, and all their Tire, Copes, Rotchets, Crossiers, and such empty trash, And let their Names consume, but let the flash Light Christendome, and all the world to see, We hate Romes whore, with all her trumpery.

Go on, brave Essex, with a Loyal heart, Not false to King, nor to the better part; But those that hurt his people and his Crown, As duty binds, expel and tread them down, And ye brave Nobles, chase away all fear, And to this hopeful Cause closely adhere; O Mother, can you weep and have such Peers, When they are gone, then drown yourself in tears, If now you weep so much, that then no more The briny Ocean will o'erflow your shore. These, these are they I trust, with Charles our King, Out of all mists, such glorious days shall bring; That dazzled eyes beholding much shall wonder, At that thy settled peace, thy wealth and splendor. Thy Church and weal establish'd in such manner, That all shall joy, that then display'st thy Banner; And discipline erected so I trust, That nursing Kings shall come and lick thy dust.

Then justice shall in all thy courts take place, Without respect of person, or of case; Then Bribes shall cease, and Suits shall not stick long Patience and purse of Clients oft to wrong; Then high Commissions shall fall to decay, And Pursivants and Catchpoles want their pay. So shall thy happy nation ever flourish, When truth and righteousness they thus shall nourish, When thus in peace, thine Armies brave send out, To sack proud Rome, and all her Vassals rout; There let thy name, thy fame and glory shine, As did thine Ancestors in Palestine; And let her spoyls full pay with Interest be, Of what unjustly once she poll'd from thee, Of all the woes thou canst, let her be sped And on her pour the vengeance threatened; Bring forth the Beast that rul'd the World with 's beck, And tear his flesh, and set your feet on 's neck; And make his filthy Den so desolate, To th' astonishment of all that knew his state. This done, with brandish'd Swords to Turky goe, For then what is 't, but English blades dare do? And lay her waste for so 's the sacred Doom, And to Gog as thou hast done to Rome. Oh Abraham's seed lift up your heads on high, For sure the day of your Redemption 's nigh; The Scales shall fall from your long blinded eyes, And him you shall adore who now despise, Then fulness of the Nations in shall flow, And Jew and Gentile to one worship go; Then follows days of happiness and rest; Whose lot doth fall, to live therein is blest. No Canaanite shall then be found i' th' Land, And holiness on horses bell's shall stand; If this make way thereto, then sigh no more, But if it all, thou did'st not see 't before; Farewell, dear Mother, rightest cause prevail And in a while, you'll tell another tale.

This, like all her earlier work, is heavy reading, the account given by "Old Age" in her "Four Ages of Man," of what he has seen and known of Puritan affairs, being in somewhat more lively strain. But lively was an adjective to which Mistress Anne had a rooted objection. Her contemporaries indulged in an occasional solemn pun, but the only one in her writings is found in the grim turn on Laud's name, in the "Dialogue" just quoted, in which is also a sombre jest on the beheading of Strafford.

"Old Age" recalls the same period, opening with a faint—very faint—suggestion of Shakespeare's thought in his "Seven Ages."

"What you have been, even such have I before And all you say, say I, and somewhat more, Babe's innocence, youth's wildness I have seen, And in perplexed middle Age have been; Sickness, dangers and anxieties have past, And on this stage am come to act my last, I have been young and strong and wise as you; But now Bis pueri senes, is too true. In every age I've found much vanity An end of all perfection now I see. It's not my valour, honor, nor my gold, My ruined house now falling can uphold, It's not my learning Rhetorick wit so large, Hath now the power, death's warfare to discharge, It's not my goodly state, nor bed of downs That can refresh, or ease, if Conscience frown, Nor from Alliance can I now have hope, But what I have done well that is my prop; He that in youth is Godly, wise and sage, Provides a staff then to support his Age. Mutations great, some joyful and some sad, In this short pilgrimage I oft have had; Sometimes the Heavens with plenty smiled on me, Sometime again rain'd all Adversity, Sometimes in honor, sometimes in disgrace, Sometime an Abject, then again in place. Such private changes oft mine eyes have seen, In various times of state I've also been, I've seen a Kingdom nourish like a tree, When it was ruled by that Celestial she; And like a Cedar, others so surmount, That but for shrubs they did themselves account. Then saw I France and Holland say'd Cales won, And Philip and Albertus half undone, I saw all peace at home, terror to foes, But oh, I saw at last those eyes to close. And then methought the clay at noon grew dark, When it had lost that radiant Sunlike Spark; In midst of griefs I saw our hopes revive,

(For 'twas our hopes then kept our hearts alive) We changed our queen for king under whose rayes We joy'd in many blest and prosperous dayes. I've seen a Prince, the glory of our land In prime of youth seiz'd by heaven's angry hand, Which fil'd our hearts with fears, with tears our eyes, Wailing his fate, and our own destinies. I've seen from Rome an execrable thing, A Plot to blow up nobles and their King, But saw their horrid fact soon disappointed, And Land Nobles say'd with their annointed. I've Princes seen to live on others' lands; A royal one by gifts from strangers' hands Admired for their magnanimity, Who lost a Prince-dome and a Monarchy. I've seen designs for Ree and Rochel crost, And poor Palatinate forever lost. I've seen unworthy men advanced high, And better ones suffer extremity; But neither favour, riches, title, State, Could length their days or once reverse their fate.

I've seen one stab'd, and some to loose their heads, And others fly, struck both with gilt and dread; I've seen and so have you, for tis but late The desolation of a goodly state, Plotted and acted so that none can tell Who gave the counsel, but the Prince of hell. Three hundred thousand slaughtered innocents By bloody, Popish, hellish miscreants; Oh, may you live, and so you will I trust, To see them swill in blood until they burst.

I've seen a King by force thrust from his thrones And an Usurper subt'ly mount thereon; I've seen a state unmoulded, rent in twain, But ye may live to see't made up again. I've seen it plunder'd, taxt and soaked in blood, But out of evill you may see much good. What are my thoughts, this is no time to say. Men may more freely speak another day; These are no old-wives tales, but this is truth, We old men love to tell what's done in youth."

Though this is little more than rhymed chronology, there are curious reminders here and there of the spirit of the time. Gentle as was Anne Bradstreet's nature, it seemed to her quite natural to write of the "bloody, Popish, hellish miscreants"—

"Oh may you live, and so you will I trust, To see them swill in blood untill they burst."

There was reason it was true; the same reason that brings the same thought to-day to women on the far Western frontiers, for the Irish butcheries had been as atrocious as any Indian massacre our own story holds. The numbers butchered were something appaling, and Hume writes: "By some computations, those who perished by all these cruelties are supposed to be a hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand; by the most moderate, and probably the most reasonable account, they are made to amount to forty thousand—-if this estimation itself be not, as is usual in such cases, somewhat exaggerated."

Irish ferocity was more than matched by English brutality. Puritanism softened many features of the Saxon character, but even in the lives of the most devoted, there is a keen relish for battle whether spiritual or actual, and a stern rejoicing in any depth of evil that may have overtaken a foe. In spite of the tremendous value set upon souls, indifference to human life still ruled, and there was even a certain relish, if that life were an enemy's, in turning it over heartily and speedily to its proper owner, Satan. Anne Bradstreet is no exception to the rule, and her verses hold various fierce and unexpected outbursts against enemies of her faith or country. The constant discussion of mooted points by the ministers as well as people, made each man the judge of questions that agitated every mind, and problems of all natures from national down to town meeting debates, were pondered over in every Puritan home. Cotton's interest in detail never flagged, and his influence was felt at every point in the Colony, and though Ipswich, both in time and facilities for reaching it, was more widely separated from Boston than Boston now is from the remotest hamlet on Cape Cod, there is no doubt that Nathaniel Ward and Mr. Cotton occasionally met and exchanged views if not pulpits, and that the Bradstreet family were not entirely cut off from intercourse. When Nathaniel Ward became law-maker instead of settled minister, it was with John Cotton that he took counsel, and Anne undoubtedly thought of the latter what his grandson Cotton Mather at a later day wrote. "He was indeed a most universal scholar, and a living system of the liberal arts and a walking library."

Walking libraries were needed, for stationary ones were very limited. Governer Dudley's, one of the largest in the Colony, contained between fifty and sixty books, chiefly on divinity and history, and from the latter source Anne obtained the minute historical knowledge shown in her rhymed account of "The Four Monarchies." It was to her father that she owed her love of books. She calls him in one poem, "a magazine of history," and at other points, her "guide," and "instructor," writing:

"Most truly honored and as truly dear, If worth in me, or ought I do appear, Who can of right better demand the same? Then may your worthy self from whom it came?"

As at Cambridge, and in far greater degree, she was cut off from much that had held resources there. At the worst, only a few miles had separated them from what was fast becoming the center and soul of the Colony. But Ipswich shut them in, and life for both Mistress Dudley and her daughter was an anxious one. The General Court called for the presence of both Dudley and Bradstreet, the latter spending much of his time away, and some of the tenderest and most natural of Anne Bradstreet's poems, was written at this time, though regarded as too purely personal to find place in any edition of her poems. The quiet but fervent love between them had deepened with every year, and though no letters remain, as with Winthrop, to evidence the steady and intense affection of both, the "Letter to her Husband, absent upon some Publick employment," holds all the proof one can desire.

"My head, my heart, mine Eyes, my life, my more, My joy, my Magazine of earthly store. If two be one as surely thou and I, How stayest thou there, whilst I at Ipswich lie? So many steps, head from the heart to sever, If but a neck, soon would we be together; I like the earth this season mourn in black My Sun is gone so far in 's Zodiack, Whom whilst I joyed, nor storms nor frosts I felt, His warmth such frigid colds did cause to melt. My chilled limbs now nummed lye forlorn, Return, return sweet Sol, from Capricorn; In this dead time, alas, what can I more Than view those fruits which through thy heat I bore? Which sweet contentment yield me for a space, True, living Pictures of their Father's face. O strange effect! now thou art Southward gone, I weary grow, the tedious day so long; But when thou Northward to me shalt return, I wish my Sun may never set but burn Within the Cancer of my glowing breast. The welcome house of him my dearest guest. Where ever, ever stay, and go not thence Till nature's sad decree shall call thee hence; Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone, I here, thou there, yet both are one."

A second one is less natural in expression, but still holds the same longing.

Phoebus, make haste, the day's too long, be gone, The silent nights, the fittest time for moan; But stay this once, unto my suit give ear, And tell my griefs in either Hemisphere. (And if the whirling of thy wheels don't drown'd) The woeful accents of my doleful sound, If in thy swift Carrier thou canst make stay, I crave this boon, this Errand by the way, Commend me to the man more lov'd than life, Shew him the sorrows of his widowed wife; My dumpish thoughts, my groans, my brakish tears, My sobs, my longing hopes, my doubting fears, And if he love, how can he there abide? My Interest's more than all the world beside. He that can tell the Starrs or Ocean sand, Or all the grass that in the Meads do stand, The leaves in th' woods, the hail or drops of rain, Or in a corn field number every grain, Or every mote that in the sunshine hops, May count my sighs, and number all my drops: Tell him, the countless steps that thou dost trace, That once a day, thy Spouse thou mayst embrace; And when thou canst not treat by loving mouth, Thy rays afar salute her from the south. But for one month I see no day (poor soul) Like those far scituate under the pole, Which day by day long wait for thy arise, O, how they joy, when thou dost light the skyes. O Phoebus, hadst thou but thus long from thine, Restrained the beams of thy beloved shine, At thy return, if so thou could'st or durst Behold a Chaos blacker than the first. Tell him here's worse than a confused matter, His little world's a fathom under water, Nought but the fervor of his ardent beams Hath power to dry the torrent of these streams Tell him I would say more but cannot well, Oppressed minds, abruptest tales do tell. Now post with double speed, mark what I says By all our loves, conjure him not to stay."

In the third and last, there is simply an imitation of much of the work of the seventeenth century; with its conceits and twisted meanings, its mannerisms and baldness, but still the feeling is there, though Mistress Bradstreet has labored painfully to make it as unlike nature as possible.

"As loving Hind that (Hartless) wants her Deer, Scuds through the woods and Fern with hearkening ear, Perplext, in every bush and nook doth pry, Her dearest Deer might answer ear or eye; So doth my anxious soul, which now doth miss, A dearer Deer (far dearer Heart) than this. Still wait with doubts and hopes and failing eye; His voice to hear or person to descry. Or as the pensive Dove doth all alone (On withered bough) most uncouthly bemoan The absence of her Love and Loving Mate, Whose loss hath made her so unfortunate; Ev'n thus doe I, with many a deep sad groan, Bewail my turtle true, who now is gone, His presence and his safe return, still wooes With thousand doleful sighs and mournful Cooes. Or as the loving Mullet that true Fish, Her fellow lost, nor joy nor life do wish, But lanches on that shore there for to dye, Where she her captive husband doth espy, Mine being gone I lead a joyless life, I have a living sphere, yet seem no wife; But worst of all, to him can't steer my course, I here, he there, alas, both kept by force; Return, my Dear, my Joy, my only Love, Unto thy Hinde, thy Mullet and thy Dove, Who neither joys in pasture, house nor streams, The substance gone, O me, these are but dreams, Together at one Tree, O let us brouse, And like two Turtles roost within one house. And like the Mullets in one River glide, Let's still remain one till death divide. Thy loving Love and Dearest Dear, At home, abroad and everywhere. A.B."

Of a far higher order are a few lines, written at the same time, and with no suspicion of straining or of imitation in the quiet fervor of the words, that must have carried a thrill of deep and exquisite happiness to the heart of the man, so loved and honored.

"To my dear and loving Husband: If ever two were one then surely we, If ever man were loved by wife, then thee; If ever wife was happy in a man, Compare with me ye women if you can. I prize thy love more than whole Mines of Gold, Or all the riches that the East doth hold. My love is such that Rivers cannot quench, Nor ought but love from thee give recompense. Thy love is such I can no way repay, The heavens reward thee, manifold I pray. Then while we live in love let's so persevere, That when we live no more, we may live ever."

The woman who could feel such fervor as these lines express, owed the world something more than she ever gave, but every influence tended, as we have seen, to silence natural expression. One must seek, however, to discover why she failed even when admitting that failure was the only thing to be expected, and the causes are in the nature of the time itself, the story of literary development for that period being as complicated as politics, religion and every other force working on the minds of men.



CHAPTER VI.

A THEOLOGICAL TRAGEDY.

It was perhaps Anne Bradstreet's youth, and a sense that she could hardly criticise a judgment which had required the united forces of every church in the Colony to pronounce, that made her ignore one of the most stormy experiences of those early days, the trial and banishment of Anne Hutchinson. Her silence is the more singular, because the conflict was a purely spiritual one, and thus in her eyes deserving of record. There can be no doubt that the effect on her own spiritual and mental life must have been intense and abiding. No children had as yet come to absorb her thoughts and energies, and the events which shook the Colony to the very center could not fail to leave an ineffaceable impression. No story of personal experience is more confounding to the modern reader, and none holds a truer picture of the time. Governor Dudley and Simon Bradstreet were both concerned in the whole course of the matter, which must have been discussed at home from day to day, and thus there is every reason for giving it full place in these pages as one of the formative forces in Anne Bradstreet's life; an inspiration and then a warning. There are hints that Anne resented the limitations that hedged her in, and had small love of the mutual criticism, which made the corner stone of Puritan life. That she cared to write had already excited the wonder of her neighbors and Anne stoutly asserted her right to speak freely whatever it seemed good to say, taking her stand afterwards given in the Prologue to the first edition of her poems, in which she wrote:

"I am obnoxious to each carping tongue Who says my hand a needle better fits, A Poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong, For such despite they cast on Female wits; If what I do prove well, it won't advance, They'l say it's stol'n, or else it was by chance.

"But sure the antique Greeks were far more mild, Else of our Sexe, why feigned they those Nine And poesy made Callippi's own Child; So 'mongst the rest they placed the Arts Divine, But this weak knot they will full soon untie, The Greeks did nought but play the fools and lye."

This has a determined ring which she hastens to neutralize by a tribute and an appeal; the one to man's superior force, the other to his sense of justice.

"Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are, Men have precedency and still excell, It is but vain unjustly to wage warrs; Men can do best and women know it well, Preheminence in all and each is yours; Yet grant some small acknowledgement of ours."

Plain speaking was a Dudley characteristic, but the fate of Anne Hutchinson silenced all save a few determined spirits, willing to face the same consequences. In the beginning, however, there could have been only welcome for a woman, whose spiritual gifts and unusual powers had made her the friend of John Cotton, and who fascinated men and woman alike. There was reason, for birth and training meant every gift a woman of that day was likely to possess. Her father, Thomas Marbury, was one of the Puritan ministers of Lincolnshire who afterward removed to London; her mother, a sister of Sir Erasmus Dryden. She was thus related in the collateral line to two of the greatest of English intellects. Free thinking and plain speaking were family characteristics, for John Dryden the poet, her second cousin, was reproached with having been an Anabaptist in his youth, and Johnathan Swift, a more distant connection, feared nothing in heaven or earth. It is no wonder, then, that even an enemy wrote of her as "the masterpiece of women's wit," or that her husband followed her lead with a devotion that never swerved. She had married him at Alford in Lincolnshire, and both were members of Mr. Cotton's congregation at Boston.

Mr. Hutchinson's standing among his Puritan contemporaries was of the highest. He had considerable fortune, and the gentlest and most amiable of dispositions. The name seems to have meant all good gifts, for the same devoted and tender relation existed between this pair as between Colonel Hutchinson and his wife. From the quiet and happy beginning of their married life to its most tragic ending, they clung together, accepting all loss as part of the cross they had taken up, when they left the ease of Lincolnshire behind, and sought in exile the freedom which intolerance denied.

It is very probable that Anne Hutchinson may have known the Dudley family after their return to Lincolnshire, and certainly in the first flush of her New England experiences was likely to have had intimate relations with them. Her opinions, so far as one can disentangle them from the mass of testimony and discussion, seem to have been in great degree, those held by the early Quakers, but they had either not fully developed in her own mind before she left England, or had not been pronounced enough to attract attention. In any case the weariness of the long voyage seems to have been in part responsible for much that followed. Endless discussions of religious subtleties were their chief occupation on board, and one of the company, the Rev. Mr. Symmes, a dogmatic and overbearing man, found himself often worsted by the quick wit of this woman, who silenced all objections, and who, with no conception of the rooted enmity she was exciting, told with the utmost freedom, past and present speculations and experiences. The long fasts, and continuous religious exercises, worked upon her enthusiast's temper, and excited by every circumstance of time and place, it is small wonder that she supposed a direct revelation had come to her, the nature of which Winthrop mentions in his History.

"One Mrs. Hutchinson, a member of the church of Boston, a woman of a ready wit and bold spirit, brought over with her two dangerous errours:

"1. That the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person.

"2. That no sanctification can help to evidence to us our justification. From these two, grew many branches; as, 1st, Our union with the Holy Ghost, so as a Christian remains dead to every spiritual action, and hath no gifts nor graces, other than such as are in hypocrites, nor any other sanctification but the Holy Ghost himself. There joined with her in these opinions a brother of hers, one Mr. Wheelwright, a silenced minister sometime in England."

Obnoxious as these doctrines came to be, she had been in New England two years before they excited special attention. Her husband served in the General Court several elections as representative for Boston, until he was excused at the desire of the church, and she herself found constant occupation in a round of kindly deeds. She denied the power of works as any help toward justification, but no woman in the Colony, gave more practical testimony of her faith or made herself more beloved. Though she had little children to care for, she found time to visit and nurse the sick, having special skill in all disorders of women. Her presence of mind, her warm sympathy and extraordinary patience made her longed for at every sick bed, and she very soon acquired the strongest influence. Dudley had made careful inquiries as to her religious standing, and must have been for the time at least, satisfied, and unusual attention was paid her by all the colonists; the most influential among them being her chief friends. Coddington, who had built the first brick house in Boston, received them warmly. Her public teaching began quietly, her ministrations by sick beds attracting many, and it is doubtful if she herself realized in the least the extent of her influence.

Governor Vane, young and ardent, the temporary idol of the Colony, who had taken the place Governor Winthrop would have naturally filled, visited her and soon became one of her most enthusiastic supporters. Just and unprejudiced as Winthrop was, this summary setting aside by a people for whom he had sacrificed himself steadily, filled him with indignation, though the record in his Journal is quiet and dignified. But naturally, it made him a sterner judge, when the time for judgment came. In the beginning, however, her work seemed simply for good. It had been the custom for the men of the Boston church to meet together on Thursday afternoons, to go over the sermon of the preceding Sunday, of which notes had been taken by every member. No women were admitted, and believing that the same course was equally desirable for her own sex, Anne Hutchinson appointed two days in the week for this purpose, and at last drew about her nearly a hundred of the principal women of the Colony. Her lovely character and spotless life, gave immense power to her words, and her teaching at first was purely practical. We can imagine Anne Bradstreet's delight in the tender and searching power of this woman, who understood intuitively every womanly need, and whose sympathy was as unfailing as her knowledge. Even for that time her Scriptural knowledge was almost phenomenal, and it is probable that, added to this, there was an unacknowledged satisfaction in an assembly from which men were excluded, though many sought admission. Mrs. Hutchinson was obliged at last to admit the crowd who believed her gifts almost divine, but refused to teach, calling upon the ministers to do this, and confining herself simply to conversation. But Boston at last seemed to have gone over wholly to her views, while churches at other points opposed them fiercely. Up to this time there had been no attempt to define the character of the Holy Ghost, but now a powerful opposition to her theory arose, and furious discussions were held in meetings and out. The very children caught the current phrases, and jeered one another as believers in the "Covenant of Grace," or the "Covenant of Works," and the year 1636 came and passed with the Colony at swords points with one another. Every difficulty was aggravated by Vane, whose youth and inexperience made it impossible for him to understand the temper of the people he ruled. The rise of differences had been so gradual that no one suspected what mischief might come till the results suddenly disclosed themselves. That vagaries and eccentricities were to be expected, never entered the minds of this people, who accepted their own departure from authority and ancient ordinances as just and right, but could never conceive that others might be justified in acting on the same principle.

To understand even in slight degree the conflict which followed, one must remember at every turn, that no interests save religious interests were of even momentary importance. Every member of the Colony had hard, laborious work to do, but it was hurried through with the utmost speed, in order to have time for the almost daily lectures and expoundings that made their delight. Certain more worldly minded among them had petitioned for a shortening of these services, but were solemnly reproved, and threatened with the "Judgment of God on their frowardness."

With minds perpetually concentrated on subtle interpretations, agreement was impossible. Natural life, denied and set aside at every point, gave place to the unnatural, and every colonist was, quite unconsciously, in a state of constant nervous tension and irritability. The questions that to us seem of even startling triviality, were discussed with a fervor and earnestness it is well nigh impossible to comprehend. They were a slight advance on the scholastic disputations of the preceding century, but they meant disagreement and heart-burnings, and the more intolerant determined on stamping out all variations from their own convictions.

Any capacity for seeking to carry out Robinson's injunction in his final sermon at Leyden seems to have died once for all, in the war of words. "I beseech you," he had said, "remember that it is an article of your church covenant, that you be ready to receive whatever truth shall be made known to you from the written word of God." There was small remnant of this spirit even among the most liberal.

Dudley was one of the chief movers in the course resolved upon, and mourned over Cotton, who still held to Anne Hutchinson, and wrote and spoke of her as one who "was well beloved, and all the faithful embraced her conference, and blessed God for her fruitful discourses."

Mr. Welde, on the contrary, one of her fiercest opponents, described her as "a woman of haughty and fierce carriage, of a nimble wit and active spirit, and a very voluble tongue, more bold than a man, though in understanding and judgment inferior to many women."

How far the object of all this confusion realized the real state of things cannot be determined. But by January, 1637, dissension had reached such a height that a fast was appointed for the Pequot war and the religious difficulties. The clergy had become her bitterest enemies, and with some reason, for through her means many of their congregations had turned against them. Mr. Wilson, once the most popular minister in Boston, had been superseded by her brother,—Mr. Wheelwright, and Boston began the heretical career which has been her portion from that day to this.

Active measures were necessary. The General Court was still governed by the clergy, and by March had settled upon its future course, and summoned Wheelwright, who was censured and found guilty of sedition. Governor Vane opposed the verdict bitterly. The chief citizens of Boston sent in a "Remonstrance," and actual anarchy seemed before them. The next Court was held at Newtown to avoid the danger of violence at Boston, and a disorderly election took place in which the Puritan Fathers came to blows, set down by Winthrop as "a laying on of hands."

The grave and reverend Wilson, excited beyond all considerations of Puritanical propriety, climbed a tree, and made a vigorous speech to the throng of people, in which many malcontents were at work urging on an opposition that proved fruitless. Vane was defeated and Winthrop again made governor, his calm forbearance being the chief safety of the divided and unhappy colonists, who resented what they settled to be tyranny, and cast about for some means of redress. None was to be had. Exile, imprisonment and even death, awaited the most eminent citizens; Winthrop's entry into Boston was met by gloomy silence, and for it all, Welde and Symmes protested Anne Hutchinson to be responsible, and denounced her as a heretic and a witch.

She in the meantime seems to have been in a state of religious exaltation which made her blind and deaf to all danger. Her meetings continued, and she in turn denounced her opponents and believed that some revelation would be given to show the justice of her claims. There was real danger at last. If the full story of these dissensions were told in England, possession of charter, which had already been threatened, might be lost entirely. Dudley was worked up to the highest pitch of apprehension, believing that if the dissension went on, there might even be a repetition of the horrors of Munster. Divided as they were, concerted action against enemies, whether Indian or foreign, could not be expected. There was danger of a general league of the New England Indians, and "when a force was ordered to take the field for the salvation of the settlements, the Boston men refused to be mustered because they suspected the chaplain, who had been designated by lot to accompany the expedition, of being under a covenant of works."

Such a state of things, if known in full at home, would shut off all emigration. That men of character and means should join them was an essential to the continued life of the Colony. Setting aside any question of their own personal convictions, their leaders saw that the continuance among them of these disturbing elements meant destruction, and Winthrop, mild and reasonable as he sought to be, wrote: "He would give them one reason, which was a ground for his judgment, and that was, for that he saw that those brethren, etc., were so divided from the rest of the country in their judgment and practice, as it could not stand with the public peace, that they should continue amongst us. So by the example of Lot in Abraham's family, and after Hagar and Ishmael, he saw they must be sent away."

With August came the famous Synod of Cambridge, the first ever held in New England, in which the Church set about defining its own position and denouncing the Hutchinsonians. Eighty-two heresies were decided to have arisen, all of which were condemned, and this being settled, Cotton was admonished, and escaped exile only by meekly explaining away his errors. Wheelwright, refusing to yield, was sentenced to imprisonment and exile; Mrs. Hutchinson's meetings were declared seditious and disorderly, and prohibited, and the Synod separated, triumphant. The field was their own.

What they had really accomplished was simply to deepen the lines and make the walls of division still higher. In later years no one cared to make public the proceedings of the body, and there is still in existence a loose paper, described by the Rev. George E. Ellis in his "Life of Anne Hutchinson"; a petition from Mr. John Higginson, son of the Salem minister ... by which it appears that he was employed by the magistrates and ministers to take down in short hand, all the debates and proceedings of the Synod. He performed the work faithfully, and having written out the voluminous record, at "the expense of much time and pains," he presented it to the Court in May, 1639. The long time that elapsed may indicate the labor. The Court accepted it, and ordered that, if approved by the ministers, after they had viewed it, it should be printed, Mr. Higginson being entitled to the profits, which were estimated as promising a hundred pounds. The writer waited with patience while his brethren examined it, and freely took their advice. Some were in favor of printing it; but others advised to the contrary, "conceiving it might possibly be an occasion of further disputes and differences both in this country and other parts of the world."