compiled by Nathaniel Morton (who, for the peace of his soul, should not be confused with the ribald Thomas of the same name), and they are included here as curious but only partially representative relics of that bygone time.

Last of the set, is the lament for the hero of the ill-starred "Bacon's Rebellion," a composition written about 1676, in which ingenuity is replaced by deep feeling that at points gives rise to real eloquence. This lay unread among the so-called "Burwell Papers" for many generations until printed in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, Series 2, Vol. I, and reprinted with corrections in the Proceedings of the Mass. Hist. Soc. of 1866-1867.

MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH (1631-1705)

The author of "The Day of Doom" was born in England in 1631. He was brought to America in 1638, was sent to Harvard, and received his A.B. in 1657. He had originally planned to become a physician, but changed toward the end of his college course, and during the years just following, while he was a tutor, he prepared for the ministry. From 1656 till his death he was nominally pastor of the church in Malden, just outside of Boston, although during seventeen years of ill health, interspersed between 1663 and 1686, the duties were performed by younger men. From 1686 to 1705 he was in active service both as minister and doctor. "The Day of Doom" was published in 1662, and "Meat out of the Eater, or Meditations concerning Affliction," in 1669. A third poem, "God's Controversy with New England," written in the year of a great drought, 1662, was not published until 1871.

I. Texts.

The day of doom; or a poetical description of the great and last judgment: with other poems. With a memoir by J. W. Dean. Edited by W. H. Burr. New York, 1867.

Other editions appeared in 1662, 1673 (two others before 1700), 1701, 1711, 1715, 1751, 1811, 1828.

God's Controversy with New England. Pub. Mass. Hist. Soc., May, 1871, pp. 83-98.

Meat out of the eater: or meditations concerning the necessity, end and usefulness of afflictions, etc. Fourth edition. Boston, 1689.

II. Biography.

Memoir of, by J. W. Dean. Second edition. Albany, 1871.

M. W.* earliest poet among Harvard graduates. S. A. Greene. Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., Jan., 1895.

In Biographical Sketches of graduates of Harvard University. Cambridge, 1873, I, pp. 259-286.

"The Day of Doom," the work on which the Reverend Michael Wigglesworth's fame is most securely founded, gave the title to a little duodecimo of 1662, in which it was the chief work. The full title reads, "The Day of

Doom / or, a / Description / Of the Great and Last / Judgment. / with a short discourse / about / Eternity. Eccles. 12.14 / For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." It was printed, probably, in Cambridge. In the edition of 1773, "The Day of Doom" itself occupies sixty-seven pages of eight-lined ballad stanzas. Then comes a little meditation in heroic couplets, 115 lines. Then the "Discourse on Eternity," then a "Postscript to the Reader," and finally "A Song of Emptiness to fill up the Empty Pages following Vanity of Vanities." In all these successive addenda, the type grows progressively smaller, until the reader, whose eyes dim under the accumulating task, deciphers with difficulty the last line of the last page,

Delight thyself in that which worthless is.

"The Day of Doom" is composed of 224 stanzas. After an invocation to Christ, rather than to the Muses, whom the poet abominates, the day of doom is announced, the hosts appear before Christ enthroned, the sheep are placed on His right, and the doctrine of Election expounded, and the goats on His left appear in successive groups for trial. Each plead in turn-hypocrites, civil honest men, those who died in youth, those who were misled by the example of the elect, those who could not interpret the Scriptures aright, those who, while living, feared martyrdom more than hell torment, those who saw no good in attempting to deserve a salvation which no good works could assure, and, finally, those who died in infancy. All are answered and controverted from the throne, and all are swept off to a common damnation, save the infants, for whom a relenting Providence reserves "the easiest room in hell."

Three-fourths of this is undiluted theology in jingling rhyme. From the beginning of the trial to the concluding wholesale verdict (stanzas xxi-cciv), there is not a tableau of any sort, and not a figure of speech which had not been made familiar by constant pulpit iteration. With the opening and closing stanzas, about twenty at each end, there is some dramatic quality in action and staging, though not enough to account for the popularity of the verses for the next hundred years. This popular liking of the thing was quite unliterary, but depended on a combination of two salient features: "The Day of Doom" expressed the deepest convictions of a consecrated people, and it appealed to the ballad appetite of a folk who were otherwise starved for any nourishment of that sort. They repeated the stanzas as they might have repeated "Chevy Chase" or "Johnny Armstrong"; they believed them with an intensity of devotion which had already impelled them to brave the wrath of the church and the terrors of an unknown sea. So it became the "best seller" of its century, was memorized together with the catechism, and became "the solace," as Lowell says with a twinkle, "of every fireside, the flicker of the pine-knots by which it was conned perhaps adding a livelier relish to its premonitions of eternal combustion."

With comments on this work, the poetic doom of Michael Wigglesworth is usually pronounced, with attempts at supercilious epigram; or, if any further attention is conceded him, appeal is made on the one side to "The Bay Psalm Book," or on the other to his "Meat Out of the Eater," for

evidence that the Puritan parson as a genus was incapable of writing poetry of any kind, or even passable verse. What could be expected of a mind which could evolve such stuff as this?

Make out for help in time

Lest by some subtile will,

Or hidden craft to thee unknown,
The Serpent thee beguile.
Temptations are like poyson,
Provide an Antidote:

'Tis easier mischief to prevent,
Than cure it when 'tis got.1

Yet, in the never quoted lines immediately following "The Day of Doom"-a poem, without a title, on the vanity of human wishes-Michael Wigglesworth gives proofs of human kindliness and of poetic power. In these earnest lines, Wigglesworth shows a mastery of fluent verse, a control of poetic imagery, and a gentle yearning for the souls' welfare of his parishioners, which is the utterance of the pastor rather than of the theologian. For a moment, God ceases to be angry, Christ stands pleading without the gate, and the good pastor utters a poem upon the neglected theme, "The Kingdom of God is within you":

Fear your great Maker with a child-like awe,
Believe his Grace, love and obey his Law.
This is the total work of man, and this

Will crown you here with Peace and there with Bliss.

This poem is much the best of all that Wigglesworth wrote, although, like all his others, it cannot be read and understood without thought of the New England generation for which it was written. Yet it proves beyond peradventure that "The Day of Doom" was a concession to popular taste in both form and content, and that the man who wrote it was capable of finer things. He was not a great poet, but he was in truth a man of poetic feeling who was hardened and repressed by the temper of his age.

R. LEWIS (Dates Unknown)

Of the author of the "Journey from Patapsco to Annapolis" almost nothing is certainly known. We may be fairly certain, however, that he was born about the beginning of the century, was educated at Eton, and, possibly, had some training at Oxford. He was a friend of Governor Benedict Leonard Calvert, and came to Annapolis, probably about 1727, perhaps through the Governor's inducements, to become there a teacher of Latin and Greek. Among his works, we may list the following:

Muscipula: The Mouse Trap, or the Battle of the Cambrians & the Mice; a poem by Edward Holdsworth, translated into English by R. Lewis. Annapolis, 1728. (Reprinted in the Maryland Historical Society Fund Publication, No. 36. in 1899.)

A Journey from Patapsco in Maryland to Annapolis, April 4, 1730. Wigglesworth, "Light in Darkness," Song VIII, Stanza 7.

(Printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for March, 1732, Vol. II, pp. 669-671. Reprinted in Eustace Budgell's Bee for April 7 to 14, 1733, Vol. I, pp. 323-404; again in Carey's American Museum for 1791, Vol. IX, Appendix I, pp. 9-16; and also in Edward D. Neill's "Terra Maria" (1867), pp. 239-252-see also p. 214. The text here reprinted is that of the Gentleman's Magazine.)

Carmen Seculare. (Printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for April and May, 1733, Vol. III, pp. 209-210 and 264.)

A Rhapsody. (Printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1734, Vol. IV, p. 385. This poem is almost certainly by Lewis.)

For other poems possibly by Lewis, though probably not his, see the Gentleman's Magazine, VII, 760; XI, 603; XII, 653-654, and XIII, 46.

There is an interesting preface on Lewis in the reprint of the "Muscipula," and brief but enthusiastic appreciations of the "Journey" in Budgell's Bee (I, 393), and in Neill's "Terra Mariæ," p. 214. Dr. Bernard C. Steiner has published in the Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. III, pp. 191-227, 283-342, an article on Governor Benedict Leonard Calvert, which throws incidental light on Lewis and his environment. Aside from the brief discussion of the "Muscipula" in Otis's "American Verse, 16251807" (pp. 258-260), Lewis's work seems to be unmentioned by recent writers on American literature.

Such neglect, especially of the poem here reprinted, is unwarranted. The "Journey from Patapsco to Annapolis" is one of the best poems of its day in America. It is, of course, a frank and remarkably prompt imitation of Thomson's "Seasons." The "Seasons" came out during the years 1726-1730, and this poem, though published in 1732, bears the date of 1730 in its title. The one of the "Seasons" which the poem most resembles is "Summer" (1727), though "Spring" (1728), has possibly left a few traces of influence. In structure the poem follows the pattern of "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," and especially of "Summer," in presenting the pleasures of a day and a night. It begins with a picture of dawn and ends with the reflections of late evening. It has a certain advantage over its models in that it follows an easy, natural narrative order, instead of mixing narrative with reflection, as Thomson and Milton do. In selection and arrangement, the episodes of the poem are consciously, though not abjectly, parallel to those used in "Summer."

In form, the poem sticks to the couplet, instead of attempting the more unusual and more difficult blank verse of Thomson. The couplet, however, is not used in Pope's fashion; it is frequently varied by triplets, by run-on lines, and by shifting the pause in the fashion popularized by "Paradise Lost." The diction is at times reminiscent of Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, and, among others, Thomson especially; and yet the phrases are usually the honest, sincere registering of Lewis's own sense-impressions. Much of the conventional Latinization, many of the epithets that are interpretative rather than sensuous, are due to Milton and Thomson. Such are the "ambient air," the "languid tides," the hawk that "predestinates his prey," and many other phrases. More notable, however, are

the details that, to use the romantic catchword, bring back the eye to the object. Lewis is one of the earliest American poets to be predominantly sensuous in his appeal: the "floating foliage" of the pines struck by the rising sun, the iridescence of the humming bird, the pattering noise of the hail (Thomson's hail was "sonorous"), the fragrance of the sassafras buds -these are but a few of the exquisite sensations that Lewis records for us with convincing and unpretentious honesty,

In such a poem, these pictures-or better, these "images," as they would have been called in Lewis's day-are of supreme importance. The notable thing about the images here is that they are consistently and typically local. The English critics who were surprised to find Bryant's nature passages so easily transferable to English scenery, would have found Lewis satisfactorily American. He carefully turns his back on the flowers and trees of Thomson's "Spring" (lines 530 and following), and substitutes the pacone, the crowfoot, the cinque-foil, the red-bud and the sassafras; he delights in the restful green of wheat. His praise of the mocking bird and of the humming bird is sufficient evidence of his desire to celebrate the beauties of Maryland. Indeed, it is likely that these two birds, as well as many other bits of American nature, make their first appearance in poetry here. Lewis seeks not so much to report the look of these things as to express his keen enjoyment of them.

The poem is, then, aside from its thoroughly American details, significant in the history of American poetry. Before 1730, the Rev. Mather Byles, of Boston, had sworn allegiance to the poetry of Alexander Pope; here arise, probably, the first signs of the Thomson influence—which was, of course, to be more permanent and valuable than the Pope tradition. The promptness with which the provinces were imitating the popular poets of the mother country is interesting. It augurs an attention to things poetic not always ascribed to our ancestors. In fact, the whole career of Lewis, brief though it may have been, suggests that there may have been much more poetry written, in America in the 18th century than has been commonly supposed, and that the poetry written may have been much better than has been thought. It was mostly published in obscure nooks, or in England, and has not as yet been thoroughly reclaimed.

S.

THE ALMANACS OF NATHANIEL AMES

"The Essays, Humor and Poems of Nathaniel Ames, Father and Son, of Dedham, Massachusetts, from their Almanacks, 1726-1774. With notes and Comments, by Sam. Briggs. Cleveland, 1891."

The first half of the 18th century was relatively barren in poetry, even in America, where there had been little enough before. No volumes of verse seem to have been produced. Some work, such as that of Mr. Lewis, got into print through the columns of the English periodicals, and some through the American almanacs.

The almanac, "the most despised, most prolific, most indispensable of books .. the very quack, clown, pack-horse, and pariah of modern