limited to an oration and poem, and the entertainment of a dinner, in which it alternates with the Association of the Alumni, so that each has its exercises every second year. Edward Everett was for several years its President at Harvard. Its literary exercises have been distinguished by many brilliant productions. Joseph Bartlett pronounced his poem on 66 Physiognomy" in 1799; Everett's poem, on American Poets," was delivered in 1812; Bryant's "Ages" in 1821; Sprague's Curiosity" in 1829; Dr. Holmes's "Metrical Essay on Poetry" in 1836.

66

In the religious opinions of its conductors, and its plan of education, Harvard has faithfully represented the times, during the long period through which it has passed. A glance at its catalogue will show its early proficiency in the studies connected with sacred literature and natural philosophy. Though always producing good scholars, its polished Belles Lettres training has been comparatively of recent growth. When the first catalogue of the library was printed in 1723, it contained not a single production of Dryden, the literary magnate of its period; of the accomplished statesman and essayist, Sir William Temple, of Shaftesbury, Addison, Pope, or Swift."* It has, to the present day, largely supplied the cultivation of Massachusetts, and for a long time, from its commencement, the whole of New England, furnishing the distinguished men of the State and its professions. Its new professorships of the Classics, of Rhetoric, of the Modern Languages, of Law, of Science, mark the progress of the world in new ideas. Though for the most part ostensibly founded with conservative religious views, our colleges have not been generally very rigid guardians of opinion. Their course has rather been determined by influences from without. Established in old Puritan times, Harvard has suffered, of course, a disintegration of the staunch orthodoxy of its old Chauncys and Mathers. About the beginning of the century, it passed over virtually into its present Unitarianism, though the officers of instruction and government are of nearly all denominations.

This narrative might be pursued at great length, following out the details of bequests and legacies, the dates of college buildings, the foundation of scholarships and professorships through long series of incumbents more or less eminent. President Quincy, who is not a diffuse writer, has not extended the subject beyond the interest or sympathies of his intelligent reader, in his two large octavo volumes. For the minutiae of administration, and other points of value in the history of education and opinion in America, we may refer to his work-to the faithful but not so extensive chronicle of Benjamin Peirce, the librarian of the University, who closes his account with the presidency of Holyoke, to the sketch of the history of the College by Samuel A. Eliot, and to the judicious History of Cambridge by Abiel Holmes.

THE BAY PSALM BOOK.

THE first book of consequence printed in the country was what is called The Bay Psalm

Peirce's History of Harvard Univ. 109.

Book. "About the year 1639," says Cotton Mather, in the Magnalia, “the new English Reformers resolving upon a new translation [of the Psalms], the chief divines in the country took each of them a portion to be translated; among whom were Mr. Welde and Mr. Eliot of Roxbury, and Mr. Mather of Dorchester. The Psalms thus turn'd into Metre were printed at Cambridge, in the year 1640.**

The Rev. Thomas Welde was the first minister of Roxbury, where he was the associate of Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians. He returned to England with Hugh Peters, and became the author of two tracts in vindication of the purity of the New England worship. Mr. Richard Mather was the father of Cotton, who goes on to add-" These, like the rest, were of so different a genius for their poetry, that Mr. Shepard of Cambridge, on the occasion, addressed them to this

purpose.

You Roxbury Poets, keep clear of the crime
Of missing to give us a very good rhyme.
And you of Dorchester your verses lengthen,
And with the text's own word you will them
strengthen.

The design was to obtain a closer adherence to the sense than the versions of Ainsworth, which they chiefly employed, and of Sternhold and Hopkins offered. The preface to the new book set this forth distinctly as a motive of the collection, because every good minister hath not a gift of spiritual poetry to compose extemporary psalmes as he hath of prayer.

** Neither let any think, that for the metre sake we have taken liberty or poetical licence to depart from the true and proper sense of David's words in the Hebrew verses, noe; but it hath been one part of our religious care and faithful endeavour, to keepe close to the original text.

*If, therefore, the verses are not always so smooth and elegant as some may desire or expect; let them consider that God's altar needs not our polishings, Er. 20: for we have respected rather a plain translation, than to smooth our verses with the sweetness of any paraphrase, and so have attended conscience rather than elegance, fidelity rather than poetry, in translating the Hebrew words into English language, and David's poetry into English metre, that so we may sing in Sion the Lord's songs of praise according to his own will; until he take us from hence, and wipe away all our tears, and bid us enter into our master's joy to sing eternal Hallelujahs.

As specimens of this version we may give the following, not remarkable for grace or melody, however distinguished for fidelity.

Magnalia, iii. 100. We take the title from the copy in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Library, which, from an entry on a fly-leaf, was one of the books belonging to "the New England Library," begun to be collected by Thomas Prince, upon his entering Harvard College July 6, 1703. The Whole Book of Psalms faithfully translated into English metre. Whereunto is prefixed a discourse declaring not only the lawfulness, but also the necessity of the heavenly ordinance of singing Scripture Psalms in the Churches of God. Imprinted 1640.

+ Henry Ainsworth was a native of England, a leader of the Brownists, and a man of eminent learning. He retired, on the banishment of the sect, to Holland, where he published his "Book of Psalms" in Amsterdam in 1612. The Puritans brought it with them to Plymouth. Sternhold and Hopkins's version of a portion of the Psalms was made in England as early as 1549.

PSALME 18. *

6. I in my streights, cal'd on the Lord, and to my God cry'd: he did heare from his temple my voyce, my crye, before him came, unto his eare.

7. Then th' earth shooke and quak't and mountaines

roots moov'd, and were stir'd at his ire..

8. Up from his nostrils went a smoak,
and from his mouth devouring fire:
By it the coales inkindled were.

9. Likewise the heavens he downe-bow'd,
and he descended, and there was
under his feet a gloomy cloud..

10. And he on cherub rode, and flew ;
yea he flew on the wings of winde.
11. His secret place hee darknes made
his covert that him round confinde,
Dark waters, and thick clouds of skies.

PSALME 123.

A Song of degrees.

1. Blessed is every one

that doth Jehovah feare;
that walks his wayes along.

2. For thou shalt eate with cheere thy hands labour:

blest shalt thou bee,

it well with thee

shall be therefore.

3. Thy wife like fruitful vine
shall be by thine house side:
the children that be thine
like olive plants abide
about thy board.

4. Behold thus blest
that man doth rest,

that feares the Lord. 5. Jehovah shall thee blesse from Sion, and shall see Jerusalem's goodness

6.

all thy life's days that bee. And shall view well

thy children then

with their children,

peace on Isr'ell.

In a second edition of the work in 1647, were added a few spiritual songs. This is a specimen of the latter from the "Song of Deborah and Barak."

Jael the Kenite, Heber's wife
'bove women blest shall be,
Above the women in the tent

a blessed one is she.

He water ask'd, she gave him milk:
in lordly dish she fetch'd
Dim butter forth: unto the nail

she forth her left hand stretched:

Her right hand to the workman's maul

and Sisera hammered:

She pierced and struck his temples through, and then cut off his head.

He at her feet bow'd, fell, lay down,

he at her feet bow'd where

He fell whereas he bowed down
he fell distroyed there.

VOL. 1.-2

"A little more art," says Mather, was found to be necessary to be employed upon this version, and it was committed for revision to the President of Harvard, the Rev. Henry Dunster, who was assisted in the task by Richard Lyon, an oriental scholar, who came over to the colony as the tutor to the son of Sir Henry Mildmay. The versification improved somewhat under their hands.

Previously to the publication of this edition, to assist it with the people, came forth the Rev. John Cotton's treatise, “Singing of Psalms a Gospel ordinance," urging the duty of singing aloud in spiritual meetings, the propriety of using the examples in Scripture, and the whole congregation joining in the duty; and meeting the objections to the necessary deviation from the plain text of the Bible. The circumstance that Popish churches used chants of David's prose helped him along in the last particular. The difficulties to be met show a curious state of religious feeling. That the use of the Psalms of David in religious worship, should be vindicated, in preference to dependence upon the special spiritual inspirations of this kind on the occasion, such as the state of New England literature at that time afforded, is. something notable in the Puritan history. Another scruple it seems was in permitting women to take part in public psalmody by an ingenious textual argument which ran this way. By a passage in Corinthians it is forbidden to a woman to speak in the church-"how then shall they sing?" Much less, according to Timothy, are they to prophesy in the Church-and singing of Psalms is a kind of prophesying. Then the question was raised whether "carnal men and pagans" should sing with Christians and Church-members. Such was the illiberal casuistry which Cotton was required to meet. He handled it on its own grounds with breadth and candor, in the spirit of a scholar and a Christian. "Though spirituali gifts," he wrote, "are necessary to make melody. to the Lord in singing; yet spiritual gifts are. neither the only, nor chief ground of singing; but the chief ground thereof is the moral duty lying upon all men by the commandment of God: If any be merry to sing Psalms. As in Prayers, though spiritual gifts be requisite to make it acceptable, yet the duty of prayer lieth upon all men by that commandment which forbiddeth atheism it is the fool that saith in his heart there is no God: of whom it is said they call not upon the Lord, which also may serve for a just argument and proof of the point."

The Bay Psalm Book was now adopted and was almost exclusively used in the New England Churches. It passed through at least twentyseven editions by 1750.

The first American edition of Sternhold and Hopkins's version was published at Cambridge in 1693.

Cotton Mather, in 1718, published a new literal version of the Psalins-"The Psalterium Americanum," of which a notice will be found in the account of that author. The Rev. Thomas Prince, the antiquarian, revised the Bay Psalm Book with care. It was published in 1758 and introduced into the Old South Church, of which he had been pastor, in October of that year, the Sunday after his death.

Dr. Watts's Hymns were first published in

ties.

NATHANIEL WARD.

Nut & Wards

THE most quaint and far-fetched in vigorous expression of the early political and religious tracts generated in New England, is that piece of pedantic growling at toleration, and pungent advice to British Royalty, inclosing a satire on the fashionable ladies of the day, the production of Nathaniel Ward, Pastor of the Church at Ipswich, which is entitled the Simple Cobler of Agawam. This was written in America in 1645, when the author was seventy-five. It has a home thrust or two at the affairs and manners of the colony, showing where it was written, but is mainly levelled at the condition of England. The style is for the most part very affected, a Babylonish Dialect;" full of the coinage of new words,—

Words so debas'd and hard, no stone Was hard enough to touch them onpassing, however, into very direct nervous English in the appeal to the King, then at war with his subjects.

Theodore de la Guard, the name assumed by the author, addresses his remarks "to his native country." Ward was born in England in 1570, at Haverhill, in Suffolk. His father Samuel, the "painful minister" of that place, had four sons in the Church, of whom, according to Dr. Fuller in his "Worthies," people used to say that all of them put together would not make up his abili

*A History of Music in New England, by George Hood. Boston: 1846. Much interesting matter has been collected by Mr. Hood, who gives specimens of the writers. Moore's Encyclopædia of Music and Psalmody.

+ The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America, willing to help 'mend his native country, lamentably tattered, both in the upper-leather and sole, with all the honest stitches he can take. And as willing never to be paid for his work, by old English wonted pay.

It is his trade to patch all the year long, gratis,
Therefore I pray, Gentlemen, keep your purses.

By Theodore de la Guard. In rebus arduis ac tenui spe,
fortissima quaque consilia tutissima sunt. Cic. In English,
When bootes and shoes are torne up to the lefts,
Coblers must thrust their awls up to the hefts.
This is no time to feare Apelles gramm:
Ne Sutor quidem ultra crepidam.

London: Printed by J. D. & R. I. for Stephen Bowtell, at the signe of the Bible in Pope's Head Alley, 1647.

Fuller has also preserved his Latin Epi

Quo si quis scivit scitius,
Aut si quis docuit doctius;
At rarus vixit sanctius,
Et nullus tonuit fortius:

and thus translated it :

Grant some of knowledge greater store,
More learned some in teaching;
Yet few in life did lighten more,

None thundered more in preaching.

In the library of the Mass. Historical Society there is an old London quarto of the seventeenth century, entitled “A Warning Piece to all Drunkards and Health Drinkers," which contains a "collection of some part of a Sermon long since preached" by Mr. Samuel Ward, of Ipswich, entitled, A Wo to Drunkards. "He lived," continues this old writer, "in the days of famous King James, and was like righteous Lot, whose soul was vexed with the wicked conversation of the Sodomites. He published divers other good sermons. His text was in Proverbs xxiii. 29, 32. To whom is woe? to whom is sorrow? to whom is strife? In the end it will bite like a serpent, and sting like a cockatrice. He begins thus:

"Seer, art thou also drunk or asleep? or hath a spirit of slumber put out thine eyes? Up to thy watch-tower, what descriest thou? Ah, Lord! what end or number is there of the vanities which mine eyes are weary of beholding? But what seest thou? I see men walking like the tops of trees shaken with the wind, like masts of ships reeling on the tempestuous seas: drunkenness, I mean, that hateful night bird; which was wont to wait for the twilight, to seek nooks and corners, to avoid the howting and wonderment of boys and girls; now as if it were some eaglet, to dare the sun-light, to fly abroad at high noon in every street, in open markets and fairs, without fear or shame. * # Go to then now ye Drunkards, listen, not what I or any ordinary hedge-priest (as you style us) but that most wise and experienced royal preacher hath to say unto you. * You promise yourself mirth, pleasure and jollity in your cups; but for one drop of your mad mirth, be sure of gallons and tons of woe, gall, wormwood and bitterness, here and hereafter. Other sinners shall taste of the cup, but you shall drink off the dregs of God's wrath and displeasure. * You pretend you drink healths and for health; but to whom are all kind of diseases, infirmities, deformities, pearled faces, palsies, dropsies, headaches, if not to drunkards."

*

His son Nathaniel was educated at Cambridge, was bred a lawyer, travelled on the Continent with some merchants in Prussia and Denmark, becoming acquainted with the learned theologue Paræus at Heidelberg, and influenced by his authority, devoted himself to divinity. Returning to England he took orders and procured a parish in Hertfordshire. He had some connexion with the Massachusetts Company in 1629, got into difficulty as a nonconformist in 1631, was silenced as a preacher and came to America in the summer of 1634, where he was set up as pastor of the church at Ipswich, formerly the Indian town of Agawam. He had John Norton, on his arrival from England the next year, as his associate. He soon after resigned this situation, and

appears to have been clerical and political assistant in general to the country. His legal training enabled him to prepare a draft of laws, called for by the people of the province, which was more constitutional than the theocratical propositions of John Cotton. His suggestions were mostly included in the code entitled "Body of Liberties," of which he was the author. It was the first code of laws established in New England, being adopted in 1641. It is not to be confounded with the "Abstract of Laws" prepared by Cotton. Many of its provisions and omissions are sagacious, and its statutes are tersely worded. A manuscript copy of the "Liberties" was some time since discovered by Mr. Francis C. Gray, of Boston, who has published the work in the Mass. Hist. Society Collections, accompanied by a judicious review of the early legislation.* Ward's Code exhibits, he says, throughout the hand of the practical lawyer, familiar with the principles and securities of English liberty; and though it retains some strong traces of the times, is in the main far in advance of them, and in several respects in advance of the Common Law of England at this day." Ward returned to England, where, shortly after his arrival in 1647, he published The Simple Cobler, which he had written iu America. He obtained an English parish the next year, at Shenfield in Essex, where he died in 1653. Fuller celebrates his reputation for wit in England, as one who, "following the counsel of the poet,

Ridentem dicere verum,
Quis vetat?

What doth forbid but one may smile,
And also tell the truth the while?

hath, in a jesting way, in some of his books, delivered much smart truth of the present times."t Cotton Mather, in the Magnalia, has written the life of his son who settled at Haverhill, on the Merrimack, and has given a few lines to the father's memory as "the author of many composures full of wit and sense; among which, that entituled The Simple Cobler (which demonstrated him to be a subtle statesman), was most considered;" and in his Remarkables of his father, Increase Mather, he alludes to Ward's hundred witty speeches, with an anecdote of the inscription over his mantelpiece, the four words engraved Sobrie, Juste, Pie, Late.

While looking over the notices of Ward which remain, and which are not so many as could be wished, it has been our good fortune to hold in our hands the copy of The Simple Cobler which belonged to Robert Southey, who, as is well known, was a diligent reader and warm appreciator of the American Colonial history and records. It is marked throughout with his peculiar pencillings on the margin, of the following among other fine passages: "the least truth of God's kingdom, doth in its place uphold the whole kingdom of his Truths; take away the least vericulum out of the world and it unworlds all potentially, and may

* Remarks on the Early Laws of Massachusetts Bay, with the Code adopted in 1641, and called the Body of Liberties, now first presented by F. C. Gray, LL.D., &c. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll, Third Series, viii. 191.

+ Fuller's Worthies, Ed. 1850, iii. 187.

unravel the whole texture actually, if it be not conserved by an arm of extraordinary power”— a sentence which has a very Coleridgean look. Again, an illustration worthy of Milton: "Non senescit veritas. No man ever saw a gray hair on the head or beard of any Truth, wrinkle or morphew on its face: the bed of Truth is green all the year long." This is very tersely expressed: "It is a most toilsome task to run the wild goose chase after a well-breath'd opinionist: they delight in vitilitigation: it is an itch, that loves a life to be scrub'd; they desire not satisfaction, but satisdiction, whereof themselves must be judges." In these more earnest thoughts he rises beyond his word-catching; but one portion of his book is very amusing in this way, that directed against the fashionable ladies of the time. The Cobler professes to be a solitary widower of twelve years' standing, on the look-out for a mate, and thinking of going to England for the purpose"but," says he, "when I consider how women have tripe-wifed themselves with their cladments, I have no heart to the voyage, lest their nauseous shapes, and the sea, should work too sorely upon my stomach. I speak sadly; methinks it should break the hearts of Englishmen to see so many goodly English-women imprisoned in French cages, peering out of their hood-holes for some men of mercy to help them with a little wit, and nobody relieves them." He tells us there are "about five or six" specimens of the kind in the colony: "if I see any of them accidentally, I cannot cleanse my fancy of them for a month after." On this matter the Cobler thus defines his position:-"It is known more than enough, that I am neither niggard nor cynic, to the due bravery of the true gentry: if any man mislikes a bully mong drosock more than I, let him take her for his labour: I honour the woman that can honour herself with her attire: a good text always deserves a fair margent: I am not much offended if I see a trim, far trimmer than she that wears it in a word, whatever Christianity or civility will allow, I can afford with London measure but when I hear a nugiperous gentledame inquire what dress the Queen is in this week what the nudiustertian fashion of the court, I mean the very newest; with egg to be in it in all haste, whatever it be; I look at her as the very gizzard of a trifle, the product of a quarter of a cypher, the epitome of nothing, fitter to be kickt, if she were of a kickable substance, than either honour'd or humour'd."

Like most of the Puritans, Ward was a bit of a poet, a cultivator of that crabbed muse who frowned so often on such votaries. But Ward was too sensitive a wit not to have suspicion of his own verses, and says modestly and truly enough of his attempts:-"I can impute it to nothing, but to the flatuousness of our diet: they are but sudden raptures, soon up, soon down." Here are some lines for King Charles's consideration which he appends to his book, and calls hobnails, such as the Martyrs were wont "driving in half a dozen plain honest country

wear."

There, lives cannot be good, There, faith cannot be sure, Where truth cannot be quiet, Nor ordinances pure.

to

No king can king it right,

Nor rightly sway his rod;
Who truly loves not Christ,
And truly fears not God.

He cannot rule a land,

As lands should ruled been,
That lets himself be rul'd

By a ruling Roman Queen.
No earthly man can be

True subject to this state;
Who makes the Pope his Christ,
An heretique his mate.
There peace will go to war,

And silence make a noise:
Where upper things will not
With nether equipoise.
The upper world shall rule,
While stars will run their race:
The nether world obey,

While people keep their place.*

To which we may add his

PREFATORY LINES TO THE POEMS OF ANNE BRADSTREET.

Mercury show'd Apollo, Bartas book,
Minerva this, and wish'd him well to look,
And tell uprightly, which did which excel:

He view'd and view'd, and vow'd he could not tell.
They bid him hemisphere his mouldy nose,
With's crack'd 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, and said for wore,
I'm 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 girl.
Good sooth, quoth the old Don, tell me ye so,
I muse whither at length these girls will go.
It half revives my chill frost-bitten blood,
To see a woman once do ought that's good;
And chode by Chaucer's boots and Homer's furs,
Let men look to't, lest women wear the spurs.

Ward was also the author of a humorous satirical address in 1648, to the London tradesmen turned preachers, entitled Mercurius Anti-mechanicus, or the Simple Cobler's Boy,t in which he devotes twelve chapters of punning and exhortation to the Confectioner; the Smith; the Right and Left Shoe-Maker; the Needless Tailor from his working (im)posture; the Saddler; the Porter; the Labyrinthian Box-maker; the All-besmearing Soap-boiler or the sleepy Sopor; the Both-handed Glover; the White-handed Mealman; the Chicken-man; and the Button-maker. He extracts from each the quaint analogies and provocations of his particular calling, running riot in a profusion of puns and moralities, engrafted by his strong vigorous sense on his devotional ardor, study of the times, and collegiate

The Simple Cobler, in the old editions, is a scarce book. The old Boston reprint bears date 1713. It has been lately republished by Munroe & Co. in 1848, with an introductory notice by David Pulsifer. There is an article on Ward in the Monthly Anthology for May, 1869, from the pen of Dr. J. G. Cogswell.

Mercurius Anti-mechanicus, or the Simple Cobler's Boy. With his Lap-full of Caveats (or Take heeds), Documents, Advertisements and Promonitions, to all his honest fellowtradesmen-Preachers, but more especially a dozen of them, in or about the City of London. By Theodore de la Guarden. Indon: Printed for John Walker, at the Sign of the Starre -head Alley. 1648.

classicalities. The Cobler's boy proves himself as efficient at patching and mending souls as his sire. His pulpit-confectioner he warns against that "doctrine of indulgence," reminding him that "we must not speak things tooth-some but wholesome." "Coloquintida," says he, "must usher in ambrosia. Children would never eat so much raw and forbidden fruit (to vermiculate their intrals) if they could but remember that ever since Adam's time poma fuisse mala. If sugar-plums lead the van, scouring pills will challenge the rear. Too much diet-bread will bring a man to a diet drink; mack-roones will make room for (no good) luxury. Marmalade may marre my Lady, me it shall not. March pane shall not be my archbane." He then utters a meditation "that spice when it is bruised and small (being beat and heat), it sends up a sweet savour into the nostrils of the smiter: so a gracious man, the more his God bruises and beats him by afflictions, the more sinall he is broken in himself, the more fragrant and ravishing odours he sends up to heaven. The more the Lord brayes, the more he prayes." He reminds the Smith not to have too many irons in the fire, and that it is easier to make his anvil groan than the hearts of his hearers. A seared conscience, he says, "is like the smith's dog that hath been so addicted to sleep under the very anvil that no noise will convince him to an awakening." The Cobler's boy is of course at home with the shoe-maker, whom he warns "not to go beyond his last by seeking to be one of the first." The tailor's disposition, he says, “must be not more cross than his legs or shears." From the porter pursuing his trudging vocation abroad he draws this quaint conclusion, "that he walks abroad all day, but the evening brings him home: many a prodigal roames abroad all the day of prosperity; but the night of adversity brings him home to God. Therefore I shut up with an admiring question thus,-What a strange owl-eyed creature is man, who (for the most part) finds the way home best in the dark." The box-maker naturally recalls to so ingenious a witted person the pulpit: "but perhaps thou accountest a pulpit a box, and I'll tell thee a brief story to that effect. A little child being at a sermon and observing the minister very vehement in his words and bodily gesture, cried out, Mother, why don't the people let the man out of the box?" Then I entreat thee behave thyself well in preaching, lest men say truly this is Jack in a box!" His Chickenman is to learn "that many men woodcock-like live by their long bills." So he puns on through over fifty pages of typographical eccentricities in small quarto. He was a contemporary of Dr. Thomas Fuller, the admirable wit and Church and has much in common with his genius, though historian, who we have seen appreciated him, the one was suffering with the ecclesiastical establishment, which the other was bent upon destroying.

JOHN COTTON.-JOHN NORTON.

JOHN COTTON, "the great Cotton," whose general amiability, piety, political influence, and pastoral fidelity are memorable in the New England Churches, was born at Derby, in England, in 1585. He was an eminent student, and a fellow of Cam