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1631 AD (search for this): chapter 2
take snuff. Tyler, II. p. 267. The New England divine, who had a horror of fine art, could not keep his hand from the making of bad verses. It was, to be sure, a sort of poetry in Sunday clothes which he allowed himself to cultivate. He loved to record his religious fears and ecstasies in thumping doggerel, and to set his grim sermons to a taking jingle. Michael Wigglesworth. The writer who better than Anne Bradstreet or any one else represents this class, is Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1705). His most famous work was The Day of Doom; or, A Poetical Description of the great and last Judgment. A sufficient taste of its quality may be given by quoting the last words of the verdict upon those who have died in infancy:--A crime it is; therefore in bliss You may not hope to dwell; But unto you I shall allow The easiest room in Hell. A generation which found it possible to accept such a passage without feeling it to be either revolting or ridiculous, could not be expected to prod
1663 AD (search for this): chapter 2
ohn Milton. Puritan prose. The literary instinct of New England Puritanism by no means exhausted itself in verse. In prose as well as in poetry the most effective work of the period was the product of Puritan zeal and Puritan narrowness. Two names stand out prominently as representative of this school of prose writing, mighty names in their day which have not yet ceased to echo in our memories: those of Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards. Cotton Mather. Cotton Mather was born in 1663, the third and greatest of the four Mathers who morally and intellectually dominated America for more than a century. From his cradle he was petted and flattered into what his best critic calls a vast literary and religious coxcomb. He was a Harvard freshman at eleven, a Master of Arts at eighteen. At twenty-two, as assistant to his distinguished father, he had entered the pastorate of the North Church of Boston, in which he remained until his death in 1728. All that was most acute, most
1702 AD (search for this): chapter 2
n that greatest book of his, the formidable Magnalia Christi Americana, Its sub-title was The Ecclesiastical history of New England from its first planting, in the year 1620, unto the year of our Lord 1698. It was first published in London in 1702. can now be read only by the special student of history. He was, says Professor Tyler, the last, the most vigorous, and therefore the most disagreeable representative of the fantastic school in literature; he prolonged in New England the methods e is most apt to touch our hearts and delight our ears. We find in Mather, for instance, this rhythmical beauty when he describes the career of Thomas Shepard, the first minister of Cambridge, as a trembling walk with God, or gives this picture (1702) of what he calls The conversation of gentlemen : There seems no need of adding anything but this, that when gentlemen occasionally meet together, why should not their conversation correspond with their superior station? Methinks they shoul
1612 AD (search for this): chapter 2
indeed, represents a second step toward a type of writing which should be in some sense American in quality as well as in birthplace. Though born in England, she became absolutely identified with American thought and life, exerted an immense influence in her day, and was the ancestor of five especially intellectual families in New England, counting among her descendants William Ellery Channing, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Richard Henry Dana, Wendell Phillips, and Andrews Norton. She was born in 1612 of Puritan stock, her father being steward of the estates of the Puritan nobleman, the Earl of Lincoln. She was married at sixteen and came to America with her husband, Governor Bradstreet, in 1630. It is evident that, in spite of her Puritan sense of duty, she could not leave England for the raw life of the colonies without a pang. After a time, she wrote many years later, I changed my condition and was married, and came into this country, where I found a new world and new manners, at whi
1625 AD (search for this): chapter 2
parture for America he was sped by a rhymed tribute from Michael Drayton, exhorting him to go on with the same work in Virginia:-- Entice the Muses thither to repair; Entreat them gently; train them to that air, he urges. It was a rude air. To the ordinary privations of the pioneer, and the wearing routine of official duties, were added the sudden horrors of the James River massacre (March, 1622), and the stress of the troubled days which followed. Yet when Sandys returned to England in 1625, he brought with him the ten books which completed his version of the Metamorphoses. This translation lived to be much admired by Dryden and Pope, and, what is more important, undoubtedly had great influence upon their method of versification. The not altogether admirable distinction, therefore, belongs to Sandys of having laid the foundation for the form of heroic couplet which became a blight upon English poetry in the eighteenth century. At all events, the accident of his having lived f
1758 AD (search for this): chapter 2
eally very little in common, as to either character or experience. Edwards was modest and gentle in character, and simple to the point of bareness in style; and life was not arranged very smoothly for him. Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan Edwards was born, the son of a Connecticut minister, in 1703. He took his degree at Yale in 1720, and thereafter became college tutor, minister at Northampton, missionary to the Stockbridge Indians, and finally president of Princeton College. He died in 1758. As a child he showed ability in mental science and divinity. At twelve he displayed the acuteness and courtesy in speculative controversy which were to be his lifelong characteristics. Until he had fairly entered the ministry he manifested just as keen interest and intelligence in other fields. At seventeen he had somehow evolved a system of idealistic philosophy much like that which Berkeley was to make famous a few years later. In physics and astronomy, also, he had, before the end of
1630 AD (search for this): chapter 2
merican thought and life, exerted an immense influence in her day, and was the ancestor of five especially intellectual families in New England, counting among her descendants William Ellery Channing, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Richard Henry Dana, Wendell Phillips, and Andrews Norton. She was born in 1612 of Puritan stock, her father being steward of the estates of the Puritan nobleman, the Earl of Lincoln. She was married at sixteen and came to America with her husband, Governor Bradstreet, in 1630. It is evident that, in spite of her Puritan sense of duty, she could not leave England for the raw life of the colonies without a pang. After a time, she wrote many years later, I changed my condition and was married, and came into this country, where I found a new world and new manners, at which my heart rose. But after I was convinced it was the way of God, I submitted to it. She was of delicate constitution and refined instincts, and was to become the mother of eight children. Yet mo
Abraham Lincoln (search for this): chapter 2
ality as well as in birthplace. Though born in England, she became absolutely identified with American thought and life, exerted an immense influence in her day, and was the ancestor of five especially intellectual families in New England, counting among her descendants William Ellery Channing, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Richard Henry Dana, Wendell Phillips, and Andrews Norton. She was born in 1612 of Puritan stock, her father being steward of the estates of the Puritan nobleman, the Earl of Lincoln. She was married at sixteen and came to America with her husband, Governor Bradstreet, in 1630. It is evident that, in spite of her Puritan sense of duty, she could not leave England for the raw life of the colonies without a pang. After a time, she wrote many years later, I changed my condition and was married, and came into this country, where I found a new world and new manners, at which my heart rose. But after I was convinced it was the way of God, I submitted to it. She was of de
Bacon (search for this): chapter 2
such minor mention as their literary merit appears to warrant. Pure literature. But it is time, you may say, to define more specifically what literature is. No definition of it ever yet given has surpassed that magnificent Latin sentence of Bacon's which one marvels never to have seen quoted among the too scanty evidences that he wrote the works attributed to Shakespeare :-- It [literature] hath something divine in it, because it raises the mind and hurries it into sublimity, by conforming the show of things to the desires of the soul, instead of subjecting the soul to external things, as reason and history do. De Augmentis, Book II. It is only literature then, in Bacon's definition, which truly raises the mind and hurries it into sublimity. All else is reason (or reasoning) and history (or narrative). Where does literature find its source? Not in thought or feeling alone, else we should look to the cradle for our literature. Not even in the first impulses of
Jesus Christ (search for this): chapter 2
the simplest experiences of life with pious reflections: When he washed his hands, he must think of the clean hands, as well as pure heart, which belong to the citizens of Zion. . . . Upon the sight of a tall man, he said, Lord, give that man high attainments in Christianity; let him fear God above many. More characteristic than either of these instances, perhaps, is his remark on the occasion of a man going by without observing him, Lord, I pray thee help that man to take a due notice of Christ. He was an extraordinarily voluminous writer. He published fourteen books in one year, and a list of his known publications contains three hundred and eighty-three titles. Most of these titles, like — a large part of his writing, are fearfully and wonderfully made: Christianus per Ignem; or, a Disciple Warming of Himself and Owning his Lord Nails Fastened; or, Proposals of Piety Complied Withal; and so on. No theme appeared to be simple enough for Cotton Mather to treat simply; and in
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