to two causes: 1. That learning was mostly confined to the clergy, and 2. That the mingling of various sects, in a time of strong relig. ious feeling, naturally provoked much theological discussion.*

Its chief literary representatives are Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards.

COTTON MATHER. 1663-1728.

Rev. Cotton Mather was one of the most learned and remarka ble men that New England has ever produced. He was born in 1663, graduated at Harvard at the age of fifteen, taught for some years, was ordained at twenty-one, and from that time till his death, in 1728, devoted himself with unflagging zeal to preaching and authorship. Like many other great men of that day, he was a firm believer in witchcraft, and assisted in the persecution of the poor wretches accused of it; but this was an error of the head, not of the heart; and he was, take him for all and all, one of the greatest and best men of his age.

His principal work is a history entitled Magnalia Christi Americana, from which we derive much of our knowledge of those times. The most celebrated of his other works are Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcraft, and The Wonders of the Invisible World, which is an account of several witch trials.

EXTRACT.

You are young and have the world before you; stoop as you go through it, and you will miss many a hard thump.*

EDWARDS. 1703-1758.

Rev. Jonathan Edwards, an eloquent preacher and profound metaphysician, was born in Connecticut in 1703, and died at Princeton, N. J., in 1758. He was for two years a tutor in Yale College, and at the time of his death was President of the College of New Jersey, but most of his life was spent in preaching. His

*This advice was given to Benjamin Franklin after he had bumped his head against a beam that extended across a passage-way in Mather's house.

great work, An Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will, is one of the profoundest metaphysical works ever written, and insures the author a permanent place among the great thinkers of the world Said Robert Hall, "I consider Jonathan Edwards the greatest of the sons of men."

EXTRACT.

Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts: the sight of the deepblue sky and the clustering stars above seems to impart a quiet to the mind.

OTHER AUTHORS OF THIS AGE.

JOHN ELIOT (1604-1690), "the apostle to the Indians," who translated the Bible into an Indian dialect. This was the first Bible printed in America. MRS. ANN BRADSTREET (1612-1672), wife of Gov. Bradstreet, the first American poetess, author of The Four Elements.

REV. INCREASE Mather (1635-1723), father of Cotton Mather, and author of Remarkable Providences, etc. He was a very learned man, and was for some years President of Harvard College.

JOHN WOOLMAN (1720-1773), a noted Quaker preacher. His principal work is his Journal, which has been edited by the poet Whittier.

ENGLISH CONTEMPORARIES.

This age is nearly coextensive with the ages of Milton, Dryden, and Pope. (See English Literature, pp. 17, 20, 21.)

PERIOD II.-REVOLUTIONARY AGE.
1760-1830.

(Embracing, in English history, the reigns of George III. and George IV.)

IN

N this age was fought, with tongue and pen and sword, the great battle of political independence. During all this period, before and during and after the Revolution, till our liberties were fully secured and established, the chief subjects of thought and discussion were the rights of man and the principles of government. As a consequence, the literature of the age, both in prose and poetry, is almost exclusively of a political and patriotic character.

The authors of this age will be divided into two classes:—

I. THE POETS, represented by Drake and Halleck.

II. THE PROSE WRITERS, represented by Franklin, Jefferson Hamilton, Dwight, and Audubon.

I. POETS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE.

DRAKE. 1795-1820.

Joseph Rodman Drake was a young poet of brilliant promise, who died in 1820, at the early age of twenty-five. He was the author of two celebrated poems, The American Flag and The Culprit Fay. The latter, which was written on a wager, in three days, is a fairy tale, the scene of which is laid on the banks of the Hudson.

EXTRACT

When Freedom, from her mountain height,
Unfurled her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,

And set the stars of glory there!
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure celestial white
With streakings of the morning light;
Then, from his mansion in the sun,
She called her eagle-bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land.

The American Flag.

NOTE. The last four lines of this poem, as written by Drake, were as fol

"And fixed as yonder orb divine

That saw thy bannered blaze unfurled,
Shall thy proud stars resplendent shine,
The guard and glory of the world.'

These were rejected, and the following, by Fitz-Greene Halleck, which are inferior to them, both in poetic beauty and clearness, were substituted:"Forever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us,

With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,
And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us?"

HALLECK. 1795-1867.

Fitz Greene Halleck, though he lived till a recent date, won all his literary celebrity before 1830, and therefore belongs in this age. He was an intimate friend of Drake's, and wrote some beautiful lines on his death. He was for many years confidential adviser to John Jacob Astor, and died in New York in 1867.

Halleck's poems are few, but of great excellence—clear, manly, and spirited. His principal poem, Marco Bozzaris, is one of the very finest heroic odes in the English language.

PHILIP FRENEAU (1752-1832), author of many political and miscellaneous poems.

JUDGE FRANCIS HOPKINSON (1737-1791), author of a once celebrated humorous poem, The Battle of the Kegs.

JUDGE JOSEPH HOPKINSON (1770-1842), son of the preceding, and author of Hail Columbia.

Robert Treat PAINE (1773-1811), author of the poem Adams and Liberty. FRANCIS SCOTT KEY (1779-1843), author of The Star-Spangled Banner. CLEMENT C. MOORE (1779-1863), author of A Visit from St. Nicholas ('T was the night before Christmas,” etc.); also of a Hebrew and Greek Lexicon, etc.

SAMUEL WOODWORTH (1785-1842), author of The Old Oaken Bucket.

MRS. MARIA BROOKS (1795-1845), surnamed by Southey "Maria del Occ)dente" (Maria of the West), author of Zophiel and other poems.

II. PROSE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE.

FRANKLIN. 1706–1790.

Benjamin Franklin, one of the finest examples of a self-made man that history affords, was born in Boston in 1706. Beginning life as a tallow-chandler's boy, he rose step by step until he became one of the greatest philosophers and statesmen of his age; and, having filled many high offices of profit and trust, and contributed powerfully to the establishment of our government and the improvement of mankind, he died in Philadelphia, full of honors as of years, in 1790.

His works fill several large volumes. They consist of his Autobiography, his moral, political, and philosophical Essays, and his Correspondence. Some of his short pieces, such as The Whistle, The Grindstone, and the Dialogue with the Gout, have found their way into a large number of school readers; and his wise sayings known as Poor Richard's Maxims, are as familiar as the Proverbs of Solomon.

EXTRACTS.
I.

God helps them that help themselves.

II.

If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing.

III.

If you would learn the value of money, go and try to borrow some, for he that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing.

IV.

There are two ways of being happy,-we may either diminish our wants or increase our means: either will do the result is the

same.

V.

Pride is as loud a beggar as Want, and a great deal more saucy. When you have bought one fine thing, you must buy ten more, that your appearance may be all of a piece; but it is easier to sup press the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it.