During Plain Dealing's reign, that worthy stud
Of the ancient planters' race before the flood,
Then times were good, merchants cared not a rush
For other fare than jonakin and mush.
Although men fared and lodged very hard,
Yet innocence was better than a guard.

'T was long before spiders and worms had drawn
Their dingy webs, or hid with cheating lawne
New England's beautys, which still seem'd to me
Illustrious in their own simplicity.

'Twas ere the neighbouring Virgin-Land had broke
The hogsheads of her worse than hellish smoak.
'T was ere the Islands sent their presents in,
Which but to use was counted next to sin.
'T was ere a barge had made so rich a fraight
As chocolate, dust-gold, and bitts of eight.
Ere wines from France and Muscovadoe too,
Without the which the drink will scarsely doe.
From western isles ere fruits and delicasies
Did rot maids' teeth and spoil their handsome faces.
Or ere these times did chance, the noise of war
Was from our towns and hearts removed far.
No bugbear comets in the chrystal air
Did drive our Christian planters to despair.

No sooner pagan malice peeped forth

But valour snib'd it. Then were men of worth
Who by their prayers slew thousands, angel-like;
Their weapons are unseen with which they strike.
Then had the churches rest; as yet the coales
Were covered up in most contentious souls:
Freeness in judgment, union in affection,

Dear love, sound truth, they were our grand protection.
Then were the times in which our councells sate,
These gave prognosticks of our future fate.

If these be longer liv'd our hopes increase,
These warrs will usher in a longer peace.-
But if New England's love die in its youth,
The grave will open next for blessed truth.
This theame is out of date, the peacefull hours
When castles needed not, but pleasant bowers.
Not ink, but bloud and tears now serve the turn
To draw the figure of New England's urne.
New England's hour of passion is at hand;
No power except divine can it withstand.
Scarce hath her glass of fifty years run out,
But her old prosperous steeds turn heads about,
Tracking themselves back to their poor beginnings,
To fear and fare upon their fruits of sinnings.
So that the mirror of the Christian world
Lyes burnt to heaps in part, her streamers furl’d.
Grief sighs, joyes flee, and dismal fears surprize
Not dastard spirits only, but the wise.
Thus have the fairest hopes deceiv'd the eye
Of the big-swoln expectant standing by:
Thus the proud ship after a little turn,
Sinks into NEPTUNE's arms to find its urne :
Thus hath the heir to many thousands born
Been in an instant from the mother torn:
Even thus thine infant cheeks begin to pale,
And thy supporters through great losses fail.
This is the Prologue to thy future woe,
The Epilogue no mortal yet can know.

THOMSON died in April, 1714, aged 74. He wrote besides his “great epic,” three shorter poems, neither of which have much merit.

ROGER WILLIAMS, Chief Justice SEWALL, NATHANIEL WARD, of Ipswich, JOHN OSBORN, NATHANIEL PITCHER, and many others were in this period known as poets. The death of PITCHER was celebrated in some verses entitled "Pitchero Threnodia," in which he was compared to PINDAR, HORACE, and other great writers of antiquity.

The most celebrated person of his age in America was COTTON MATHER. He was once revered as a saint, and is still regarded as a man of great natural abilities and profound and universal learning. It is true that he had much of what is usually called scholarship: he could read many languages; and his memory was so retentive that he rarely forgot the most trivial circumstance; but he had too little genius to comprehend great truths; and his attainments, curious rather than valuable, made him resemble a complicate machine, which, turned by the water from year to year, produces only bubbles, and spray, and rainbows in the sun. He was industrious, and, beside his three hundred and eighty-two printed works, left many manuscripts, of which the largest is called "Illustrations of the Sacred Scriptures," on which he laboured daily more than thirty years. It is a mere compilation of ideas and facts from multitudinous sources, and embraces nothing original, or valuable to the modern scholar. His minor works are nearly all forgotten, even by antiquaries. The "Magnalia Christi Americana" is preserved rather as a curiosity than as an authority; for recent investigations have shown that his statements are not to be relied on where he had any interest in misrepresenting acts or the characters of persons. His style abounds with puerilities, puns, and grotesque conceits. His intellectual character, however, was better than his moral; for he was wholly destitute of any high religious principles, and was ambitious, intriguing, and unscrupulous. He fanned into a flame the terrible superstition in regard to witchcraft, and when the frenzy was over, hypocritically endeavoured to persuade the people that instead of encouraging the proceedings, his influence and exertions had been on the side of forbearance and caution. Failing to convince them of this, he attempted to justify his conduct, by inventing various personal histories, to show that there had been good cause for the atrocious persecutions.

COTTON MATHER'S verses, scattered through a great number of his works, are not superior to those of many of his contemporaries. The following lines from his "Remarks on the Bright and the Dark Side of that American Pillar, the Reverend Mr. William Thomson," show his customary manner

APOLLYON Owing him a cursed spleen
Who an APOLLOS in the church had been,
Dreading his traffic here would be undone
By num'rous proselytes he daily won,
Accused him of imaginary faults,
And push'd him down so into dismal vaults:
Vaults, where he kept long ember-weeks of grief,
Till Heaven alarmed sent him a relief.

Elegy on the death of THOMAS SHEPARD, minister of Charlestown:

Art, nature, grace, in him were all combined
To show the world a matchless paragon;
In whom of radiant virtues no less shined,
Than a whole constellation; but hee's gone!

Hee's gone, alas! down in the dust must ly
As much of this rare person, as could die.
To be descended well, doth that commend?
Can sons their fathers' glory call their own?
Our SHEPARD justly might to this pretend,
(His blessed father was of high renown,

Both Englands speak him great, admire his name,)
But his own personal worth's a better claim.
His look commanded reverence and awe,
Though mild and amiable, not austere :
Well humour'd was he, as I ever saw,

And ruled by love and wisdom more than fear.
The muses and the graces too, conspired,
To set forth this rare piece to be admired.
He breathed love, and pursued peace in his day,
As if his soul were made of harmony:
Scarce ever more of goodness crowded lay
In such a piece of frail mortality.

Sure Father WILSON's genuine son was he,
New-England's PAUL had such a TIMOTHY.
My dearest, inmost, bosome friend is gone!
Gone is my sweet companion, soul's delight!
Now in a huddling crowd, I'm all alone,
And almost could bid all the world good-night,

Blest be my rock! GOD lives: O! let him be
As he is all, so all in all to me.

At that period the memory of every eminent person was preserved in an ingenious elegy, epitaph, or anagram. SHEPARD, mourned in the above verses by OAKES, on the death of JOHN WILSON, “the Paul of New England," and "the greatest annagrammatizer since the days of LYCOPHRON," wrote

John Wilson, anagr. John Wilson. O, change it not! No sweeter name or thing, Throughout the world, within our ears shall ring. THOMAS WELDE, a poet of some reputation in his day, wrote the following epitaph on SAMUEL DANFORTH, a minister of Roxbury, who died soon after the completion of a new meeting-house :

Our new-built church now suffers too by this, Larger its windows, but its lights are less. PETER FOULGER, a schoolmaster of Nantucket, and the maternal grandfather of Doctor FRANKLIN, in 1676 published a poem entitled "A Looking-glass for the Times," addressed to men in authority, in which he advocates religious liberty, and implores the government to repeal the uncharitable laws against the Quakers and other sects. He says

The rulers in the country I do owne them in the LORD; And such as are for government, with them I do accord. But that which I intend hereby, is that they would keep bound;

And meddle not with God's worship, for which they have no ground.

And I am not alone herein, there's many hundreds more, That have for many years ago spoke much more upon that Indeed, I really believe, it's not your business, [score. To meddle with the church of GOD in matters more or less.

In another part of his "Looking Glass" he says

Now loving friends and countrymen, I wish we may be wise;

'T is now a time for every man to see with his own eyes.
'Tis easy to provoke the LORD to send among us war;
'Tis easy to do violence, to envy and to jar;
To show a spirit that is high; to scorn and domineer;
To pride it out as if there were no GoD to make us fear;
To covet what is not our own; to cheat and to oppress;
To live a life that might free us from acts of righteousness;
To swear and lie and to be drunk, to backbite one another;
To carry tales that may do hurt and mischief to our bro-
ther;

To live in such hypocrisy, as men may think us good,
Although our hearts within are full of evil and of blood.
All these, and many evils more, are easy for to do;
But to repent and to reform we have no strength thereto.
The following are the concluding lines:

I am for peace, and not for war, and that's the reason why I write more plain than some men do, that use to daub and lie.

But I shall cease and set my name to what I here insert: Because to be a libeller, I hate it with my heart. [here, From Sherbontown, where now I dwell, my name I do put Without offence, your real friend, it is PETER FOULGER.

Probably the first native bard was he who is described on a tombstone at Roxbury as "BENJAMIN THOMSON, learned schoolmaster and physician, and ye renowned poet of New England." He was born in the town of Dorchester, (now Quincy,) in 1640, and educated at Cambridge, where he received a degree in 1662. His principal work, "New England's Crisis," appears to have been written during the famous wars of PHILIP, Sachem of the Pequods, against the colonists, in 1675 and 1676. The following is the prologue, in which he laments the growth of luxury among the people:

The times wherein old POMPION was a saint,
When men fared hardly yet without complaint,
On vilest cates; the dainty Indian-maize
Was eat with clamp-shells out of wooden trayes,
Under thatch'd huts without the cry of rent,
And the best sawce to every dish, content.
When flesh was food and hairy skins made coats,
And men as well as birds had chirping notes.
When Cimnels were accounted noble blood;
Among the tribes of common herbage food.
Of CERES' bounty form'd was many a knack,
Enough to fill poor ROBIN's Almanack.
These golden times (too fortunate to hold)
Were quickly sin'd away for love of gold.
'T was then among the bushes, not the street,
If one in place did an inferior meet,
"Good-morrow, brother, is there aught you want?
Take freely of me, what I have you ha'nt."
Plain Tom and Dick would pass as current now,
As ever since "Your servant, Sir," and bow.
Deep-skirted doublets, puritanick capes,
Which now would render men like upright apes,
Was comlier wear, our wiser fathers thought,
Than the cast fashions from all Europe brought.
'T was in those dayes an honest grace would hold
Till an hot pudding grew at heart a cold.
And men had better stomachs at religion,
Than I to capon, turkey-cock, or pigeon;
When honest sisters met to pray, not prate,
About their own and not their neighbour's state.

During Plain Dealing's reign, that worthy stud
Of the ancient planters' race before the flood,
Then times were good, merchants cared not a rush
For other fare than jonakin and mush.
Although men fared and lodged very hard,
Yet innocence was better than a guard.

"T was long before spiders and worms had drawn
Their dingy webs, or hid with cheating lawne
New England's beautys, which still seem'd to me
Illustrious in their own simplicity.

'Twas ere the neighbouring Virgin-Land had broke
The hogsheads of her worse than hellish smoak.
'Twas ere the Islands sent their presents in,
Which but to use was counted next to sin.
'T was ere a barge had made so rich a fraight
As chocolate, dust-gold, and bitts of eight.
Ere wines from France and Muscovadoe too,
Without the which the drink will scarsely doe.
From western isles ere fruits and delicasies
Did rot maids' teeth and spoil their handsome faces.
Or ere these times did chance, the noise of war
Was from our towns and hearts removed far.
No bugbear comets in the chrystal air
Did drive our Christian planters to despair.

No sooner pagan inalice peeped forth

But valour snib'd it. Then were men of worth
Who by their prayers slew thousands, angel-like;
Their weapons are unseen with which they strike.
Then had the churches rest; as yet the coales
Were covered up in most contentious souls:
Freeness in judgment, union in affection,

Dear love, sound truth, they were our grand protection.
Then were the times in which our councells sate,
These gave prognosticks of our future fate.
If these be longer liv'd our hopes increase,
These warrs will usher in a longer peace.-
But if New England's love die in its youth,
The grave will open next for blessed truth.
This theame is out of date, the peacefull hours
When castles needed not, but pleasant bowers.
Not ink, but bloud and tears now serve the turn
To draw the figure of New England's urne.
New England's hour of passion is at hand;
No power except divine can it withstand.
Scarce hath her glass of fifty years run out,
But her old prosperous steeds turn heads about,
Tracking themselves back to their poor beginnings,
To fear and fare upon their fruits of sinnings.
So that the mirror of the Christian world
Lyes burnt to heaps in part, her streamers furl'd.
Grief sighs, joyes flee, and dismal fears surprize
Not dastard spirits only, but the wise.
Thus have the fairest hopes deceiv'd the eye
Of the big-swoln expectant standing by:
Thus the proud ship after a little turn,
Sinks into NEPTUNE's arms to find its urne :
Thus hath the heir to many thousands born
Been in an instant from the mother torn:
Even thus thine infant cheeks begin to pale,
And thy supporters through great losses fail.
This is the Prologue to thy future woe,
The Epilogue no mortal yet can know.

THOMSON died in April, 1714, aged 74. He wrote besides his "great epic," three shorter poems, neither of which have much merit.

ROGER WILLIAMS, Chief Justice SEWALL, NATHANIEL WARD, of Ipswich, JOHN OSBORN, NATHANIEL PITCHER, and many others were in this period known as poets. The death of PITCHER was celebrated in some verses entitled "Pitchero Threnodia," in which he was compared to PINDAR, HORACE, and other great writers of antiquity.

The most celebrated person of his age in America was COTTON MATHER. He was once revered as a saint, and is still regarded as a man of great natural abilities and profound and universal learning. It is true that he had much of what is usually called scholarship: he could read many languages; and his memory was so retentive that he rarely forgot the most trivial circumstance; but he had too little genius to comprehend great truths; and his attainments, curious rather than valuable, made him resemble a complicate machine, which, turned by the water from year to year, produces only bubbles, and spray, and rainbows in the sun. He was industrious, and, beside his three hundred and eighty-two printed works, left many manuscripts, of which the largest is called "Illustrations of the Sacred Scriptures," on which he laboured daily more than thirty years. It is a mere compilation of ideas and facts from multitudinous sources, and embraces nothing original, or valuable to the modern scholar. His minor works are nearly all forgotten, even by antiquaries. The Magnalia Christi Americana" is preserved rather as a curiosity than as an authority; for recent investigations have shown that his statements are not to be relied on where he had any interest in misrepresenting acts or the characters of persons. His style abounds with puerilities, puns, and grotesque conceits. His intellectual character, however, was better than his moral; for he was wholly destitute of any high religious principles, and was ambitious, intriguing, and unscrupulous. He fanned into a flame the terrible superstition in regard to witchcraft, and when the frenzy was over, hypocritically endeavoured to persuade the people that instead of encouraging the proceedings, his influence and exertions had been on the side of forbearance and caution. Failing to convince them of this, he attempted to justify his conduct, by inventing various personal histories, to show that there had been good cause for the atrocious persecutions.

66

COTTON MATHER's verses, scattered through a great number of his works, are not superior to those of many of his contemporaries. The following lines from his "Remarks on the Bright and the Dark Side of that American Pillar, the Reverend Mr. William Thomson," show his customary manner

APOLLYON Owing him a cursed spleen
Who an APOLLOS in the church had been,
Dreading his traffic here would be undone
By num'rous proselytes he daily won,
Accused him of imaginary faults,
And push'd him down so into dismal vaults:
Vaults, where he kept long ember-weeks of grief,
Till Heaven alarmed sent him a relief.