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First Newspaper, 1690.

Robert
Beverly.

James Blair.
John
Lawson.

William
Livingston.

unpoetical version of the Psalms, designed for use in the churches. Next in importance to the birth of the college in America is that of the newspaper. The first publication of the sort, called "Public Occurrences," appeared in Boston in the year 1690; but it was immediately suppressed. April 4, 1704, "The Boston News Letter" appeared, and for fifteen years this was the only newspaper in America. December 22, 1719, "The American Weekly Mercury" appeared in Philadelphia. A full account of these and other early journals is given in Professor Tyler's "History of American Literature," to which we are indebted for the facts in newspaper history given above.

Among the historical writings of the later colonial period should be mentioned the "History of Virginia," by Robert Beverly, London, 1705; a little book called "Present State of Virginia and the College," 1727, by James Blair, founder of William and Mary College; "History of North Carolina," by John Lawson; and "Review of the Military Operations in North America, 1753-1756," by William Livingston. This William Livingston was a man of a different type from many whom we have been studying. He lived in princely style at Elizabethtown, New Jersey; was a leader of thought and action during the French and Indian and Revolutionary wars; published a poem called "Philosophic Solitude or the Choice of a Rural Life"; and for a year conducted the "Independent Reflector," a weekly political and miscellaneous journal published in New York.

In the later years of this period and the earlier years of the next, John Bartram was living in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, planting and caring for his botanical garden, studying the plant life around him, and corresponding with Peter Collinson of London in regard to his botanical observations. His "Conversion to Botany," as it was told by himself, is preserved in the writings of Hector St. John de Crèvecœur, whose "Letters of an American Farmer" are perhaps the earliest expression, in the writings of an American, of the literary feeling for nature. Bartram has left the written record or journal of extensive travels in the interest of scientific observation of nature; and his son William has left writings of the same general character.

Sewall.

Probably the most readable book of all this period is one which its author never intended to publish. It is a diary kept in Boston and vicinity during the years 1673-1729, by Judge Samuel Sewall. It has Samuel been published in the transactions of the Massachusetts Historical Society, but has never been issued in a form suited to the general reader. Samuel Sewall was one of the leading citizens of Boston through the latter part of the seventeenth and the first part of the eighteenth centuries. As a judge he presided

at some of the trials for witchcraft, and in accordance with his understanding of the evidence, condemned some poor wretches to death. In later years he became convinced that the whole thing was a delusion, and relieved his troubled conscience by a formal confession which was read by the minister in church

Increase
Mather,

1639-1723.

while Judge Sewall stood with bowed head in the presence of the congregation. Sewall was promi

nent in public affairs and in church and college matters. He was three times married, and he carefully records the courtships which led to his second and third weddings. Thus his diary presents a vivid picture of the public and private life of the time, besides disclosing a singularly pure, manly, and gentle character.

If we were to judge by amount of production, two of the greatest authors who ever lived were Increase and Cotton Mather. It is the fashion to speak of the Mather dynasty, as there are four generations of ministers of that name. But really the first and the last were of no special influence or prominence. The second and third were mighty men of renown in old New England, perhaps the most perfect examples of the puritan minister to be found in history. Increase Mather was born at Dorchester, June 21, 1639, and received his name from the remarkable increase in the population of the colony that year. He was educated at Dublin University and began his ministry in England; but the Restoration of the Stuarts sent him back to New England, and he became pastor of the Old North Church in Boston. He was for a long time president of Harvard College, and was active and prominent in all public matters. He issued one hundred and "Illustrious thirty-six publications, most of which are forgotten. The one that is best known was entitled "An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences," pub

Provi

dences," 1684.

lished in Boston, 1684. It is filled with strange stories of witchcraft and other marvels.

Mather,

An even more imposing figure in the colonial period was Cotton Mather, the son of Increase. Cotton Born in 1663, he was a wonder of precocity. At 1663-1728. the age of eleven he was a Freshman at Harvard. At fifteen he took the degree of B.A., and at eighteen that of M.A., the subject of his thesis for the latter being "The Divine Origin of the Hebrew Vowel Points." His published works number three hundred and eighty-three titles. He was a marvel of multifarious learning and of industry, but he seems to have been inferior to his father in practical ability. Sewall appears not to have liked him very well; and perhaps this dislike was one of the principal hindrances in the way of his ambition to succeed his father in the presidency of Harvard. He was his father's associate and successor as pastor of the Old North Church. The wrong-headed character of much of his work is illustrated by his laborious translation of the Psalms of David from the Hebrew into English blank verse, probably of all possible forms the worst adapted to the rendering of the spirit of the original. His monumental work is the "Magnalia Christi Americana; or the Ecclesiastical "Magnalia History of New England from its First Plantation Americana," in the Year 1620 unto the Year of our Lord 1698." The book is an ill-digested, rambling collection of historical matter connected with Church and State and the personal lives of prominent ministers and officials. It is a book to be dug into by the

E

Christi

1702.

"More Won

ders of the Invisible World," 1705.

historian; not one to be enjoyed by the general reader.

There was one man of this period who seems never to have believed in the witchcraft phenomena, the accounts of which formed a considerable part of Robert Calef, the writings of the Mathers. Robert Calef, a Boston merchant, published in London, 1705, a book called "More Wonders of the Invisible World; or the Wonders of the Invisible World Displayed." It was an attack upon the publications of Increase and Cotton Mather on the subject of witchcraft, and an acute argument against the theory that the phenomena ascribed to witchcraft were the results of demoniac possession or of commerce with the devil. The book gave such offence that, by command of Increase Mather, it was publicly burned at Harvard Square. This is probably the only instance in American history of the official burning of an heretical book. Whittier has imagined a meeting between this clear-thinking merchant and the imperious puritan minister, and finely described it in one of his earlier poems, "Calef in Boston, 1692."

For a great many years, almanacs little books containing astronomical information, calendars, etc., combined with a great variety of historical, practical, and literary matter were found in almost all American homes. They have been an important educational influence; and one of the most famous of American writings, Benjamin Franklin's "Poor Richard," was issued in that form. These facts give importance to the issue of the

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