Although it was reprinted from the second edition, there were numerous omissions of words, changes in the spelling, and other alterations of little importance.

In the present edition of the "Poems," the spelling and punctuation, and even the typographical mistakes, of the second edition have been retained. The headings to the pages are new, and the catch-words have been omitted. The paging of that edition is preserved in brackets in the margin. The corrections in the second edition were extensive. The spelling was, as a rule, modernized; although some words, especially proper names, have an older or more incorrect form of spelling in that than in the first edition. Grammatical mistakes were corrected; capitals were omitted from common nouns which had them in the first; the punctuation was improved; and a great many words, enclosed in brackets in the first edition, were without them in the second edition. But no rule is uniformly adhered to in any of these particulars. There is, in both editions, as Charles Lamb's old friend said of a black-letter text of Chaucer, "a deal of very indifferent spelling." A proper name is sometimes, on the same page, spelt in two different ways. I have marked the most important alterations in foot-notes. Mere transpositions of words, changes in punctuation and in the spelling of words other than proper names, and trifling corrections, not materially affecting the sense of a passage, have not been noted. I hope that I have let nothing pass which would have been of interest to any reader.

Some of these alterations may have been made by the publishers, after the author's death. In order to have shown all the changes, it would have been necessary to

have presented the text of the first edition entire. There are no foot-notes in either of the early editions.

worn.

The miscellaneous writings, which, under the titles of Religious Experiences and Occasional Pieces" and "Meditations," precede the "Poems" in this volume, are printed from a small manuscript book, which belonged to the author, and which has been kept, since her death, as a precious relic by her descendants. It is about six inches high and three and three-quarters inches broad. The covers are of common sheep-skin, and are very much soiled and The remnants of two small brass clasps still adhere to them. The paper is yellow, stained with water, blotted with ink, and bears marks of having been much read and handled. It has ninety-eight pages, the first forty-one of which are taken up with the "Meditations Diuine and morall," in Mrs. Bradstreet's handwriting. The fortysecond page is blank; but, from the forty-third to the sixtyseventh page inclusive, her son Simon has copied in the contents of another manuscript book left by her, which is now probably lost. Mrs. Bradstreet's handwriting is large and distinct; while that of her son is very small and delicate, though clear, and marred by few erasions or alterations. The sixty-eighth page is blank, and then follows a Latin translation of the first four "Meditations" and their dedication, by her great-grandson, the Rev. Simon Bradstreet, of Marblehead, Massachusetts. This covers only four pages. Six pages have been at some time cut out after these. next twenty-four pages are blank; and on the two sides of the last leaf there are some verses in Mrs. Bradstreet's handwriting, beginning, "As weary pilgrim, now at rest.” Several leaves, how many it is uncertain, have been torn

The

out at the end of the book. All the contents of this book are printed in this volume: the order, however, of the separate parts of which it is composed, has been changed. The portion in her son's handwriting, and the verses which I have mentioned as being at the end of the book, being in their nature biographical, I have placed first. The "Meditations," and the fragment of their translation into Latin by her great-grandson, come next.

The manuscript has been closely followed, except that abbreviations, such as "&," wth," "ye," "y'," and some of longer words, have been printed in full. These are very common in the portion written by her son, who probably tried to shorten his work of copying as much as possible. The author herself rarely uses any abbreviations. Punctuation has been supplied where it was defective; and in some of the poems, whose rhyme required it, the alternate verses have been indented, and some poems have been broken into stanzas. The manuscript has been scribbled over, apparently by a child; and a few corrections have been made since she wrote, in ink fresher than the original: these, of course, have been disregarded.

With these exceptions, the reader has an exact copy of the manuscript. A fac-simile of the first leaf of the volume may be found between pages 46 and 47.

Extracts from the manuscript, with some appropriate remarks on the author's life and character, were published by the Rev. William I. Budington, D.D., for many years pastor of the First Church in Charlestown, in his history of that church; and almost the whole of it appeared in a series of articles, under the title of "The Puritan Mother," contributed by the same gentleman to the first

volume of "The Congregational Visiter," a small monthly magazine published in Boston, in 1844, by the Massachusetts Sabbath-School Society. Several extracts have also been published, at various times, in newspapers, by Mr. Dean Dudley, who has written some very interesting pieces concerning the author and her works, and who is known as the indefatigable genealogist of the Dudley and Bradstreet families. A good notice of Mrs. Bradstreet is contained in Duyckinck's "Cyclopædia of American Literature."

The contents of the manuscript book are now, for the first time, printed entire. For the use of it, in preparing this volume for the press, and also for copies of the first three editions of the "Poems," all of which are now extremely rare, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Samuel Bradstreet, of Dorchester.

The engraving of Governor Bradstreet, in this volume, is taken from a plate belonging to Mr. S. G. Drake, which he was so good as to allow to be used for this purpose.

In editing Mrs. Bradstreet's works, I have had the benefit of the advice and suggestions of several of my friends; but I am especially obliged, for such favors, to Dr. John Appleton, Assistant Librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

CHARLESTOWN, Mass.,

Jan. 31, 1867.

JOHN H. ELLIS.