NOTES

WILLIAM MORRELL

(1) NEW-ENGLAND. Lines 133-70. The text is that of the 1625 edition, from a photographic facsimile by The Club of Odd Volumes. ¶ 15. greeces=degrees ("ordine" in the Latin version); the meaning seems to be that the hair varied in length on different parts of the head, from a close cut to the scalp lock. ¶ 29. Pinsen a kind of shoe; here, moccasins.

ANONYMOUS

(2) THE WHOLE BOOKE OF PSALMES. Commonly known as The Bay Psalm Book. The text is that of the 1640 edition, from a copy in the John Carter Brown Library, Brown University. "If therefore the verses are not alwayes so smooth and elegant as some may desire or expect, let them consider that Gods Altar needs not our polishings (Ex. 20), for wee have respected rather a plaine translation then to smooth our verses with the sweetnes of any paraphrase, and soe have attended Conscience rather then Elegance, fidelity rather then poetry, in translating the hebrew words into english language, and Davids poetry into english meetre, that soe wee may sing in Sion the Lords songs of prayse according to his owne will."— Preface.

(3) THE WONDER-Working Providence of SIONS SAVIOUR IN NEW-ENGLAND. Stanzas 1, 21, 22, of chap. 9. The text is from the 1654 edition.

(4) 9. Here - hear

=

ANNE BRADSTREET

The text, with the exceptions noted, is that of the 1678 edition ("Corrected by the Author"), checked by the 1650 edition, from copies in the Harris Collection. Brown University Library.

(4) THE PROLOGUE. 8. Bartas: a French poet (1544-99), whose poem on the Creation, either in the original or in Sylvester's translation, was a great favorite among the Puritans.

(5) 19. that fluent sweet-tongu'd Greek: Demosthenes, who, to cure himself of a lisp, practiced speaking with a pebble in his mouth. 47. ure=ore.

(5) OF THE FOUR AGES OF MAN. Lines 1-60. 1. four other: in the origina editions this poem is preceded by poems on the four elements (fire, air, earth, water) and the four humors of man (choleric, sanguine, melancholy, phlegmatic); see the next eight lines, in which the relation of the four ages of man to these elements and humors is indicated

(7) THE FOUR SEASONS OF THE YEAR. Lines 1-84.

(8) 27. Pleiades their influence: italicized in the original editions because a sort of quotation from Job 38:31, "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades ?"

(9) THE FOUR MONARCHYES. From "The Second Monarchy," ll. 78–124 of the section "Xerxes."

(10) 21. Artubanus: Artabanus was the chief general of Xerxes. 36. discovered = showed. 43-46. Greece was then prostrate under the cruel rule of Turkey. Cf. Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, II. lxxiii.

(14) 136. had: apparently a misprint for "have" or "have had." ¶ 158. Thetis house: the ocean; Thetis was a sea goddess.

(15) 190. prevent = anticipate.

(16) 225-30. Cf. Spenser's "Ruines of Time," stanza 14:

High towers, faire temples, goodly theaters,
Strong walls, rich porches, princelie pallaces,
Large strectes, brave houses, sacred sepulchers,
Sure gates, sweete gardens, stately galleries
Wrought with faire pillours and fine imageries,
All those (O pitie!) now are turnd to dust,
And overgrowen with blacke oblivions rust.

And Shakspere's Sonnets, lxv.1-8:

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?

(17) 230-32. See Rev. 2:17: "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written."

(17) A LETTER TO HER HUSBAND. First published in J. H. Ellis's edition of Mrs. Bradstreet's works, in 1867, from which the text is taken.

(18) LONGING FOR HEAVEN. First published in Ellis's edition, from which the text is taken.

CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM

Mercury shew'd Apollo Bartas Book,

Minerva this, and wisht him well to look,
And tell uprightly which did which excell:

He view'd and view'd and vow'd, he could not tel.

They bid him Hemisphear his mouldy nose
With 's crackt leering glasses, for it would pose
The best brains he had in 's old pudding-pan,
Sex weigh'd, which best, the Woman or the Man?

He peer'd and por'd and glar'd, & said for wore,
"I 'me even as wise now as I was before."

They both 'gan laugh, and said it was no mar'l:
The Auth'ress was a right Du Bartas Girle.
"Good sooth," quoth the old Don, "tell ye me so?
I muse whither at length these Girls will go.
It half revives my chil frost-bitten blood

To see a Woman once do ought that 's good:
And, chode by Chaucers Boots and Homers Furrs,
Let Men look to 't least Women wear the Spurrs.

-N. Ward, prefatory poem in The Tenth Muse, 1650.

'T were extream folly should I dare attempt
To praise this Authors worth with complement;
None but her self must dare commend her parts,
Whose sublime brain 's the Synopsis of Arts.
Nature and skill here both in one agree
To frame this Master-piece of Poetry:

False Fame, belye their Sex no more; it can
Surpass or parallel the best of Man.

-C. B., prefatory poem in The Tenth Muse, 1650.

Twice have I drunk the Nectar of your lines,
Which high-sublim'd my mean-born phantasie,
Flusht with these streams of your Maronean wines

Above my self rapt to an extasie:

Methought I was upon Mount Hiblas top,

There where I might those fragrant flowers lop,

Whence did sweet odors flow and honey-spangles drop.

-J. Rogers (afterward president of Harvard College), prefatory poem in The Tenth Muse, 1678.

....

"Madam Ann Bradstreet, . . . . whose Poems, divers times Printed, have afforded a grateful Entertainment unto the Ingenious and a Monument for her Memory beyond the Stateliest Marbles."-Cotton Mather, Magnalia (1702), Book II, chap. 5.

MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH

(19) THE DAY OF DOOM. Stanzas 1-7, 20, 38, 51, 68-70, 144, 147, 148, 166, 167, 171, 180, 181, 195-201, 205, 219-24. The text is from the 1715 edition, except for a few readings from the 1751 edition. The poem is preceded by "A Prayer unto Christ, the Judge of the World," of which the following is a part:

Thee, thee alone I 'le invocate;

For I do much abominate

To call the Muses to mine aid,

Which is th' Unchristian use and trade

Of some that Christians would be thought,

And yet they worship worse then nought.

Oh! What a deal of Blasphemy

And Heathenish Impiety

In Christian Poets may be found

Where Heathen gods with praise are Crown'd:
They make Jehovah to stand by,

Till Juno. Venus, Mercury.

12. ure use.

With frowning Mars and thundering Jove
Rule Earth below and Heaven above.
But I have learnt to pray to none
Save unto God in Christ alone;
Nor will I laud, no not in jest,

That which I know God doth detest.
I reckon it a damning evil

To give Gods Praises to the Devil.

(20) 56. steads = places.

(25) 209. then than.

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(26) 257. Renate = reborn.

(27) GOD'S CONTROVERSY WITH NEW-ENGLAND. Stanzas 20-22, 25, 28, 61-64. The text is from the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, May, 1871, where it is printed from the manuscript.

CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM

"The sweet New-England poet."-Cotton Mather (?), in an elegy on Urian Oakes, 1682. "He Wrote several Composures, wherein he proposed the edification of such Readers as are for plain Truths dressed up in a Plain Meeter. These composures have had their Acceptance and Advantage among that sort of Readers; and one of them, the Day of Doom, which has been often Reprinted in both Englands, may find our Children till the Day itself arrive."-Cotton Mather, in a funeral sermon on Wigglesworth, 1705.

In Costly Verse and most laborious Rymes,
Are dish'd up here Truths worthy most regard:
No Toyes nor Fables (Poets wonted Crimes)
Here be, but things of worth with wit prepar'd.
Reader, fall too; and if thy taste be good,

Thou 'lt praise the Cook and say, "T is choicest Food."

-J. Mitchell, in prefatory poem to 1715 edition of "The
Day of Doom."

NEW ENGLAND ELEGIES

The first four elegies are taken from New-Englands Memoriall, by Nathaniel Morton. The text is that of the 1669 edition, from a copy in the John Carter Brown Library, Brown University.

(28) UPON THE TOMB OF THE MOST REVEREND MR. JOHN COTTON. Lines 29-54. 13. Apollos: "A certain Jew named Apollos, an eloquent man,

and mighty in the scriptures."-Acts 18:24.

(29) 21, 22. Cotton, a brilliant graduate of Cambridge University, and of growing fame as a preacher, was driven out of England, because of his Puritanism, by Archbishop Laud.

(29) LINES WRITTEN AT THE APPROACH OF DEATH. ¶ 20. Libertine = free thinker, heretic.

(30) A THRENODIA. Line 19-34. 1. See I Sam. 7:12. ¶ 2. Orient=clear, bright.