and for their delicious descriptions of the beautiful in nature. Following upon the poets more distinctively belonging to the Elizabethan Age, with their fancifulness, their pretty, tiresome conceits, their quaint analogies, and farfetched similes, the poets of the reign of James, while they retained many of their faults, were much less artificial. These poets, who have been classified as pastoral, satirical, theological, metaphysical, and humorous, indicate by their number, and by the excellence of many of their writings, the literary spirit of the age. They were generally antiPuritans, and we may well doubt if Mrs. Bradstreet could have read them with much pleasure, as her scruples and belief would have received many a rude shock over their pages. Wither and Quarles, however, were peculiarly Calvinistic; the former becoming afterwards one of Cromwell's major-generals, and the latter being in manner and matter, if not in spirit, a Puritan. Their works were extremely popular with the Puritans, not only at the period of which we are now speaking, but also long after. Quarles' "Emblems," to be sure, did not appear in print until 1635, but his gloomy poems must have already saddened the heart of many an honest Nonconformist. Quarles appears to have had some correspondence with the NewEngland men. Josselyn, in his account of his visit to Boston in 1638, speaks of "presenting my respects to Mr. Winthorpe the Governour, and to Mr. Cotton, the Teacher of Boston Church, to whom I delivered from Mr. Francis Quarles the poet, the Translation of the 16, 25, 51, 88, 113, and 137. Pfalms into English Meeter for his approbation."" This period, so prolific in versifiers, was not without its * Josselyn's "Two Voyages," p. 20. historians and antiquaries. Speed, Archbishop Usher, the learned primate of Ireland, Sir Robert Cotton, and Sir Henry Spelman, flourished about this time. Knolles published his history of the Turks in 1603, to whom Johnson, in one of his "Ramblers" (122), has awarded the first place among English historians, being borne out in his judgment by Hallam.* The illustrious Camden's "Brittannia" and "Annales Rerum Anglicarum regnante Elizabetha" had appeared early in the century, and the learned author had. been long numbered with the dead. There was also the Latin historian and poet of Scotland, Buchanan, who had been the tutor of King James. Sir Walter Raleigh had occupied twelve weary years of imprisonment in writing his "History of the World," published in 1614, the most important of the works of that distinguished soldier and navigator. Bacon, the great philosopher, the able historian, the accomplished orator, who combined in himself most of the varied powers of his noted contemporaries, had been degraded from the exalted post of Lord Chancellor. Shorn of his honors, after devoting the leisure which his retirement afforded to his favorite studies, he died on the 9th of April, 1626, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, a victim of the science he loved so fondly.† A recent English writer has remarked: "In one sense the reign of James is the most religious part of our history; for religion was then fashionable. The forms of state, the king's speeches, the debates in parliament, and the current literature, were filled with quotations from scripture and quaint allusions to sacred things." Super * Craik's English Literature. New York: 1863. Vol. I. p. 619. ficial as the current of real piety is acknowledged to have been, we find, in addition to all the secular books above referred to, a mass of sermons, books of devotion, religious tracts, and controversial pamphlets. Many productions, too, of more importance and of greater size and pretensions, were the results of deeper delvings in theology and divinity. The "Ecclesiastical Polity" of the illustrious Hooker had been in part published, the whole work complete not appearing until 1632, the author himself having died at the beginning of the century. There were also, besides Archbishop Usher, Andrews, and Donne, the "humble and heavenly minded" Dr. Richard Sibbs, whose sermons, collected under the title of "The Saint's Cordial," were highly prized by the Puritans; the "English Seneca," Bishop Hall, a thorough Calvinist, whose "pious Meditations are still a household volume read by all classes, published in all forms."* One reason for the small number of strictly sectarian, Puritan, or Calvinistic works during this period was, that the censorship of the press, the right of licensing books, was almost entirely arrogated to himself by the untiring enemy of the Nonconformists, Laud, Bishop of London, whose watchful eye few heretical writings could escape. Some such, however, managed to satisfy some of the more liberal censors, and thus appeared with the "cum privilegio;" while many of the most ultra pamphlets and tracts were the fruits of foreign presses, secretly introduced into the country without the form of a legal entry at Stationers' Hall.† * Marsden's "Early Puritans," p. 393. † Craik's English Literature. New York: 1863. - Masson's Life of Milton. London: 1859. Vol. I. ch. vi. - Bohn's Bibliographer's Manual, &c., &c. In I have thus, at the risk of trying the patience of the reader, given a very imperfect summary of what the years. immediately preceding and including those in which our author was growing up produced in the way of writers. It must not be forgotten either, that it was in the early part of this century that the circulation of the blood was discovered by Dr. Harvey, and logarithms were introduced by Napier; creating new eras in medicine and mathematics. such an age of literary activity, Mrs. Bradstreet passed the first eighteen years of her life. With literary tastes and the advantages which, without doubt, she enjoyed at the Earl of Lincoln's castle of Sempringham, she must have felt, and, at the same time, been able easily to satisfy, a craving for poetical and historical studies. It should be remembered, however, that she was only eighteen when she was called to leave her native country, with its manifold attractions, and her pleasant home, with its tender associations, to take up her abode in a wilderness. Even then she would be exposed to all the cares consequent upon her position as a wife, and that, too, the wife of a busy magistrate who was frequently called to be absent from home, leaving her no solace except her meditations on what she had once read or experienced. At the early age of sixteen, she was married to Simon Bradstreet, the son of a Nonconformist minister of the same name, of Lincolnshire. Bradstreet's father was the son of a well-to-do Suffolk gentleman, was one of the first Fellows of Emmanuel College, had preached at Middleburgh, in the Netherlands, and was, like Dudley, a friend of the Rev. Mr. Cotton and Dr. Preston. Young Bradstreet was born at Horbling, March, 1603, and was educated at the C grammar school, where he studied until the death of his father, when he was fourteen years old, made it necessary for him to leave. Two or three years after this he was taken into the family of the Earl of Lincoln, where he was under the care of Dudley. He remained there, until, at the suggestion of Dr. Preston, who had been the Earl's tutor, he was sent by the Earl to Emmanuel College, in the capacity of governor to Lord Rich, son of the Earl of Warwick. As the young lord gave up the idea of acquiring an education at the University, Bradstreet continued there only a year; having had, as he himself wrote, a very pleasant but unprofitable time, in the society of the Earl of Lincoln's brother, and of other companions. Notwithstanding, he took his bachelor's degree in 1620, and his master's four years later. On the removal of Dudley to Boston, Bradstreet succeeded to his place as steward. He afterwards became steward of the Countess of Warwick, and was in that position at the time of his marriage. † Under Bancroft, as Archbishop of Canterbury, the Nonconformists had suffered severely, many of the ministers being silenced and deprived of their livings, while others were driven into exile. The effect of this harsh treatment was to strengthen the sufferers in their belief, and to bind them more closely together by the common tie of affliction. The succession of the austere Abbot, who had much of the Puritan in his creed and manners, gave them some respite; although the canons requiring the due observance of those forms and ceremonies in worship to which the Nonconformists most strongly objected, were as rigidly enforced as *Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts. Boston: 1846. p. 125, note. Mather's Magnalia, Bk. ii. p. 19. |