simply poetical versions of what she had read. Accordingly, her facts and theories are often discordant with what the more accurate and thorough investigation of recent years has made certain or probable. To point out these differences wherever they occur would be at once a difficult and a useless task. Her poems make it evident that she had been a faithful student of history, an assiduous reader, and a keen observer of nature and of what was transpiring both at home and abroad. She mentions many of the principal Greek and Latin authors, such as Hesiod, Homer, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Aristotle, Virgil, Ovid, Quintus Curtius, Pliny, and Seneca; but there is no reason to suppose that she had read their works, either in the originals or in translations. A few scraps of Latin are to be found scattered through her writings; but they are such as any one might have picked up without knowing the language. "The Exact Epitomie of the Four Monarchies," which takes up considerably more than half of the volume of "Poems," was probably derived almost entirely from Sir Walter Raleigh's "History of the World,” Archbishop Usher's "Annals of the World," the Hebrew writings, Pemble's "Period of the Perfian Monarchie," perhaps from other historical treatises. She frequently

*See page 250, note.

and

William Pemble, a learned divine, was born in Sussex, or at Egerton, in Kent, in 1591, and died April 14, 1623. One of his works was entitled "THE PERIOD OF THE PERSIAN MONARCHIE, Wherein fundry places of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel are cleered. Extracted, contracted, and englished, (much of it out of Doctor Raynolds) by the late learned and godly Man Mr. WILLIAM Pemble, of Magdalen Hall in OxFORD." This is doubtless the book which Mrs. Bradstreet had seen. All of his works were separately printed after his death, and then collected in one volume, folio, in 1635, and reprinted four or five times.

refers to Raleigh and Usher; but it was to Raleigh that she was chiefly indebted, and she follows him very closely. A few parallel passages from her "Poems" and from Raleigh's "History of the World" will prove this, and will show, that, when she apparently gives the result of her own researches among the writers of antiquity, she is only quoting them indirectly through the English historians of her own time.

She thus describes the murder of the philosopher Callisthenes by Alexander the Great, in her account of the Grecian Monarchy :—

"The next of worth that fuffered after these,
Was learned, virtuous, wife Calisthenes,
VVho lov'd his Mafter more then did the reft,
As did appear, in flattering him the leaft;

In his esteem a God he could not be,
Nor would adore him for a Diety:
For this alone and for no other caufe,
Against his Sovereign, or against his Laws,
He on the Rack his Limbs in pieces rent,
Thus was he tortur'd till his life was fpent.
Of this unkingly act doth Seneca
This cenfure pafs, and not unwifely fay,

Of Alexander this th' eternal crime,

VVhich thall not be obliterate by time.

VVhich virtues fame can ne're redeem by far,

Nor all felicity of his in war.

VVhen e're 'tis faid he thousand thousands flew,

Yea, and Califthenes to death he drew.

The mighty Perfian King he overcame,

Yea, and he kill'd Califtthenes of fame.

All Countryes, Kingdomes, Provinces, he wan

From Hellifpont, to th' farthest Ocean.

All this he did, who knows' not to be true?

But yet withal, Califthenes he flew.

From Macedon, his Empire did extend

Unto the utmost bounds o' th' orient:

All this he did, yea, and much more, 'tis true,

But yet withal, Califthenes he flew."*

This passage, the quotation from Seneca included, is taken directly from Raleigh, whose words are lows:

6

as fol

"Alexander stood behind a partition, and heard all that was spoken, waiting but an opportunity to be revenged on Callisthenes, who being a man of free speech, honest, learned, and a lover of the king's honour, was yet soon after tormented to death, not for that he had betrayed the king to others, but because he never would condescend to betray the king to himself, as all his detestable flatterers did. For in a conspiracy against the king, made by one Hermolaus and others, (which they confessed,) he caused Callisthenes, without confession, accusation, or trial, to be torn asunder, upon the rack. This deed, unworthy of a king, Seneca thus censureth: [He gives the Latin, and thus translates it.] This is the eternal crime of Alexander, which no virtue nor felicity of his in war shall ever be able to redeem. For as often as any man shall say, He slew many thousand Persians; it shall be replied, He did so, and he slew Callisthenes: when it shall be said, He slew Darius; it shall be replied, And Callisthenes when it shall be said, He won all as far as to the very ocean, thereon also he adventured with unusual navies, and extended his empire from a corner of Thrace to the utmost bounds of the orient; it shall be said withal, But he killed Callisthenes. Let him have outgone all the ancient examples of captains and kings, none of all his acts makes so much to his glory, as Callisthenes to his reproach."†

* See pages 284-5.

History of the World." Oxford: 1829.

F

Bk. iv. ch 2, sec. 19.

Again, speaking of Cyrus, she says:

"But Zenophon reports, he dy'd in's bed,

In honour, peace, and wealth, with a grey head,
And in his Town of Pafargada lyes,
Where Alexander fought, in hope of prize,

But in this Tombe was only to be found
Two Sythian bowes, a fword, and target round;
Where that proud Conquereur could doe no lesse,
Then at his Herfe great honours to expreffe;'

using almost the same words as Raleigh:

"Wherefore I rather believe Xenophon, saying, that Cyrus died aged, and in peace.

"This tomb was opened by Alexander, as Quintus Curtius, 1 1. reporteth, either upon hope of treasure supposed to have been buried with him, (or upon desire to honour his dead body with certain ceremonies,) in which there was found an old rotten target, two Scythian bows, and a sword. The coffin wherein the body lay, Alexander caused to be covered with his own garment, and a crown of gold to be set upon it." †

Her account of the quarrel of Alexander and Cleitus, which resulted in the death of the latter, is evidently taken from Raleigh

"The next that in untimely death had part,
Was one of more esteem, but leffe defart;

Clitus, belov'd next to Epheftion,

And in his cups, his chief Companion;

When both were drunk, Clitus was wont to jeere;

Alexander, to rage, to kill, and sweare,

Nothing more pleafing to mad Clitus tongue,

Then's Masters god-head, to defie, and wrong;

* First edition, p. 89. See page 211.

"History of the World," Bk. iii., ch. 3. sec. 6.

Nothing toucht Alexander to the quick
Like this. against his deity to kick:
Upon a time, when both had drunken well,
Upon this dangerous theam fond Clitus fell;
From jeaft, to earnest, and at last fo bold,
That of Parmenio's death him plainly told.
Alexander now no longer could containe,
But inftantly commands him to be slaine;
Next day, he tore his face, for what he'd done,
And would have flaine himfelf, for Clitus gone.
This pot companion he did more bemoan,
Then all the wrong to brave Parmenio done."

Raleigh says:

66 we read of Alexander

how he slew him [Clytus] soon after, for valuing the virtue of Philip the father before that of Alexander the son, or rather because he objected to the king the death of Parmenio, and derided the oracle of Hammon; for therein he touched him to the quick, the same being delivered in public and at a drunken banquet. Clytus, indeed, had deserved as much at the king's hands as any man living had done, and had in particular saved his life, which the king well remembered when he came to himself, and when it was too late. Yet, to say the truth, Clytus's insolency was intolerable. As he in his cups forgat whom he offended, so the king in his (for neither of them were themselves) forgat whom he went about to slay; for the grief whereof he tore his own face, and sorrowed so inordinately, as, but for the persuasions of Callisthenes, it is thought he would have slain himself." †

In her sketch of Semiramis, we find this :

"The River Indus‡ fwept them half away,

The reft Staurobates in fight did flay;

* First edition, pp 145-6. See pages 283-4.
"History of the World," Bk. iv. ch. 2, sec. 19.
See page 186, note l.