But that which I intend thereby, is that they would keep bound:

And meddle not with Gon'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

score.

Indeed, I really believe, it's not your business,

To meddle with the church of God in matters more or less."
In another part of his "Looking Glass"❞—

"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.
"T is easy to provoke the LORD to send among us war;
"T is easy to do violence, to envy and to jar;

To show a spirit that is high; to scold and domineer;
To pride it out as if there were no Gop 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 with all my heart.
From Sherbonton, where now I dwell, my name I do put
here,

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 1622. 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 bardly, yet without complaint,
On vilest cates: the dainty Indian-maize
Was eat with clamp-shells out of wooden trayes,
Under thatched huts, without the cry of reut,
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 formed 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,
Were comelier wear, our wiser fathers thought,
Than the last 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.

"T was ere the neighboring 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, whose hest verses appear in his book on the Indian languages, NATHANIEL PITCHER, and many others were in this period known as poets. The death of PITCHER was cecelebrated in some verses entitled "Pitchero Threnodia," in which he was compared to PINDAR, HORACE, and other poets of antiquity.

The most remarkable character of his age in this country was the Reverend COTTON MATHER, D.D. and F. R. S., who was born in Boston on the ninth of February, 1662. When twelve years of age he was qualified for admission to the college at Cambridge; at sixteen composed systems of logic and physics; and on receiving his master's degree, chose for his thesis "Puncta Hebraica sunt originis divinæ." The president, in his Latin oration, at commencement, said, "MATHER is named COTTON MATHER. What a name! but I am wrong: I should have said, what names! I shall say nothing of his reverend father, since I dare not praise him to his face; but should he represent and resemble his venerable grandfathers, JOHN COTTON and RICHARD MATHER,* in piety, learning, and elegance of mind, solid judgment, prudence, and wisdom, he will bear away the palm; and I trust that in him COTTON and MATHER will be united and flourish again." In his eighteenth year he was invited to become a colleague of his father in the ministry of the "North Church," but declined the place for three years. In 1684 he was married, and from this period devoted himself with untiring assiduity to professional and literary duties. During the last days of the disgraceful administration of Sir EDMUND ANDROS he took an active part in politics, and twice by his eloquence and wisely temperate counsels saved the city from riot and revolution. In 1692 he was unfortunately conspicuous in the terrible scenes connected with the witchcraft superstition, and he has been unjustly ridiculed and condemned for the credulity and cruelty he then manifested. But he was no more credulous or cruel than under similar circumstances were Sir MATTHEW HALE, and many others, whose intellectual greatness and moral excellence are unquestioned; and in an age when tens of thousands believe in the puerile, ridiculous, and contemptible stuff called "spiritualism," the silliest and most disgusting delusion that ever illustrated the weakness of the human understanding, it certainly should not be a cause of surprise that the strange phenomena which he undoubtedly witnessed led MATHER into the far more respectable as well as time-honored error of a visible and punishable complicity of men and women with devils. In the reaction of the popular excitement an attempt was made to show that he was responsible for the excesses which had tarnished the fame of the colony; but a candid examination of the subject will lead to a different conclusion; participating, as it must be confessed he did, in the melancholy infatuation, he yet counselled caution and moderation, and evinced a willingness to sacrifice his convictions as to demoniacal interference rather than hazard the lives of any of the accused.

Although his mind was not of the first order for clearness and solidity, he was nevertheless a man of genius, and of extraordinary erudition, facility in literary execution, and perseverance. He wrote readily in seven languages, and was the author of

* An epitaph upon RICHARD MATHER runs thus:

"Under this stone lies RICHARD MATHER,
Who had a son, greater that his father,
And eke a grandson greater than either."

three hundred and eighty-three separate publications, besides unpublished manuscripts sufficient for half a dozen folio volumes. The Magnalia," "Christian Philosopher," "Essays to do Good," "Wonders of the Invisible World," and many more, however disfigured by those striking faults of style which at the time were a prevailing fashion, contain passages of eloquence not less attractive than peculiar. With all their pedantry, their anagrams, puns, and grotesque conceits, they are thoughtful and earnest, and abound in original and shrewd observations of human nature, religious obligation, and providence.

In 1718 Doctor MATHER published "Psalterum
Americanum: the Book of Psalms, in a Transla-
tion exactly conformed to the Original, but all in
Blank Verse, fitted unto the Tunes commonly used
in our Churches: Which pure Offering is accom-
panied with Illustrations, digging for hidden Trea-
sures in it, and Rules to employ it upon the glo-
rious Intentions of it." Other poetical "compo-
sures" are scattered through nearly all his works,
and they are generally as harsh and turgid as the
worst verses 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," are characteristic:
"APOLLYON, owing him a cursed spleen
Who an APOLLOS in the church had been-
Dreading his traffic here would be undone
By numerous proselytes he daily won-
Accused him of imaginary faults,

And pushed him down, so, into dismal vaults-
Vaults, where he kept long ember-weeks of grief,
Till Heaven, alarméd, sent him a relief.
Then was a DANIEL in the lion's den,

A man, oh, how beloved of GoD and men!
By his bedside an Hebrew sword there lay,.
With which at last he drove the devil away.
Quakers, too, durst not bear his keen replies,
But fearing it, half-drawn, the trembler flies.
Like LAZARUS, new-raised from death, appears
The saint that had been dead for many years.
Our NEHEMIAH said, Shall such as I
Desert my flock, and like a coward fly!'
Long had the churches begg'd the saint's release;
Released at last, he dies in glorious peace.
The night is not so long, but Phosphor's ray
Approaching glories doth on high display.
Faith's eye in him discerned the morning star,
His heart leap'd: sure the sun cannot be far.
In ecstacies of joy, he ravish'd cries,
'Love, love the LAMB, the LAMB!' in whom he dies."

There are however glimpses of nature even in the poems of COTTON MATHER. After having mentioned the sad fate of the Lady ARBELLA JOHNSON, whose religious ardor brought her to America, and who sunk under the fatigues and privations of exile, he adds, with touching pathos: "And for her virtuous husband, ISAAC JOHNSON,

"he tried

To live without her-liked it not-and died!"

COTTON MATHER himself died on the thirteenth of February, 1724, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.

ROGER WOLCOTT, a major-general at the capture of Louisburg, and afterward governor of Connecticut, published a volume of verses at New London, in 1725. His principal work is "A Brief Account of the Agency of the Honorable

After the "sheep" have received their reward, the several classes of "goats" are arraigned before the judgment-seat, and, in turn, begin to excuse themselves. When the infants object to damnation on the ground that

"Adam is set free
And saved from his trespass,
Whose sinful fall hath spilt them all,

And brought them to this pass,"

the Puritan theologist does not sustain his doctrine very well, nor quite to his own satisfaction even: and the judge, admitting the palliating circum stances, decides that although

lished, from the original manuscript in my possession, by the Pennsylvania Historical Society, in 1848. It is exceedingly curious. The author says:

"I have often travelled up and down, And made my observations on each town; The truth of matters I well understand,

And thereby know how to describe this land;"
and after nearly a thousand lines in this style
gives us the following pleasant picture of the
state of the country:

"Poor people here stand not in fear
The nuptial knot to tie;

The working hand in this good land
Can never want supply.

"If children dear increase each year
So do our crops likewise,

Of stock and trade such gain is made
That none do want supplies.

"Whoe'er thou art, take in good part
These lines which I have penned;
It is true love which me doth move
Them unto thee to send.

"Some false reports hinder resorts

Of those who would come here;
Therefore, in love, I could remove

That which puts them in fear,
"Here many say they bless the day
That they did see PENN's wood;
To cross the ocean back home again
They do not think it good.

"But here they 'll bide and safely hide

Whilst Europe broils in war;

The fruit of the curse, which may prove worse
Than hath been yet, by far.

"For why should we, who quiet be,

Return into the noise

Of fighting men, which now and then
Great multitudes destroys?

"I bid farewell to all who dwell

In England or elsewhere,
Wishing good speed when they indeed

Set forward to come here."

About the year 1695 Mr. HENRY BROOKE, a son of Sir HENRY BROOKE, of York, was appointed to a place in the customs, at Lewiston, in Delaware, and for many years was much in the best society of Philadelphia. One of his poetical pieces is a "Discourse concerning Jests," addressed to RoBERT GRACIE, whom FRANKLIN describes as a young man of fortune-generous, animated, and witty fond of epigrams, and more fond of his friends. A specimen is here quoted:

"I prithee, BOB, forbear, or if thou must
Be talking still, yet talk not as thou do'st:
Be silent or speak well; and oh, detest
That darling bosom sin of thine, a jest.
Believe me, 't is a fond pretence to wit,
To say what's forced, unnatural, unfit,
Frigid, ill-timed, absurd, rude, petulant-

"T is so,' you say, 'all this I freely grant;'
Yet such were those smart turns of conversation,
When late our Kentish friends, in awkward fashion,
Grinned out their joy, and I my indignation.
Oh, how I hate that time! all, all that feast,
When, fools or mad, we scoured the city last!
All the false humour of our giddy club,

The tread, the watch, the windows, door, or tub.....

These, though my hate-and these God knows I hate
Much more than JONES or STORY do debate,

More than all shapes of action, corporation,
Remonstrances, a Whig or Tory nation,
Reviews, or churches, in or out of fashion,
The BRADBURYS, DINTONS, KIDPATHS, Observators,'
Or true-born DANIELS, unpoetic satyrs,-
From wine's enchanting power have some excuse;
But for a man in 's wits, unpoisoned with the juice,
To indulge so wilfully in empty prate,
And sell rich time at such an under-rate,
This hath no show nor colour of defence,
And wants so much of wit, it fails of common sense."

The entire performance is in the same respect able style. It is possible that one of the "Kentish friends" referred to was the author of "The Invention of Letters," of whom some account will be given on another page. That the excellences of BROOKE were appreciated by his literary associates is evident from a passage in a satire entitled "The Wits and Poets of Pennsylvania,"

"In BROOKE'S capacious heart the muses sit,
Enrobed with sense polite and poignant wit."

When FRANKLIN arrived in Philadelphia, in
1723, there were several persons in the city dis-
tinguished for talents and learning. ANDREW
HAMILTON, the celebrated lawyer, and JAMES
LOGAN, whose translation of CICERO'S "Cato
Major" is the most elegant specimen we have of
FRANKLIN'S printing, were now old men; but
THOMAS GODFREY, the inventor of the quadrant,
JOHN BARTRAM, who won from LINNEUS the
praise of being the "greatest natural botanist in
the world," and JOHN MORGAN, afterward a mem-
ber of the Royal Society, were just coming for-
ward;
and there were a large number of persons,
for so small a town, who wrote clever verses and
prose essays. GEORGE WEBB, an Oxford scholar
working in the printing office of KEIMER, whose
eccentric history is given in FRANKLIN's Memoirs,
was as confident as any succeeding Philadelphia
writer of the destined supremacy of the city, and
in a poem published in 1727 gives this expression
to his sanguine anticipations:

""T is here APOLLO does erect his throne:
This his Parnassus, this his Helicon;
Here solid sense does every bosom warm---
Here noise and nonsense have forgot to charm.
Thy seers, how cautious! and how gravely wise
Thy hopeful youth in emulation rise,
Who, if the wishing muse inspired does sing,
Shall liberal arts to such perfection bring,
Europe shall mourn her ancient fame declined,
And Philadelphia be the Athens of mankind."

In the same production he implores the goddess of numbers so to aid him that he may sing the attractions of his theme in verses

"Such as from BRIENTNALL'S pen were wont to flow, Or more judicious TAYLOR's used to show." FRANKLIN describes BRIENTNALL as "a great lover of poetry, reading every thing that come in his way, and writing tolerably well; ingenious in many little trifles, and of an agreeable conversation." JACOB TAYLOR, Schoolmaster, physician, surveyor, almanac-maker, and poet,

"With years oppressed, and compassed with woes,"

gave to the public the last and best of his works, Pennsylvania," a descriptive poem, in 1728. In