her various maladies as tokens of the divine displeasure at her thoughtlessness or wrong-doing. She says that her religious belief was at times shaken; but her doubts and fears were soon banished, if, indeed, they were not exaggerated in number and importance by her tender conscience. Her children were constantly in her mind. It was for them that she committed to writing her own religious experiences, her own feelings of joy or sorrow at the various changes which brightened or darkened her life. Her most pointed similes are drawn from the familiar incidents of domestic life, especially the bringing-up of children. From some of these references it would seem as if she had found among her own children the most diverse traits of character; that some of them were obedient and easily governed, while others were unruly and headstrong; and that she derived an intense satisfaction. from contemplating the virtues of some, while she deplored the failings of others. Notwithstanding the comfort she took in her children, notwithstanding the happiness of her married life, she continually dwells on the vanity of all worldly delights, the shortness of life, and the great ills to which humanity is subject. She found, however, a never-failing solace for all her troubles in prayer. "I have had," she writes, "great experience of God's hearing my Prayers, and returning comfortable Answers to me, either in granting ye Thing I prayed for, or else," she adds, with a charming frankness, "in satisfying my mind without it."*

In November, 1657, her son Samuel, her eldest child, sailed for England.† He graduated at Harvard College

in the year 1653, but his age is not known, though at that time he could not have been more than twenty. Mrs. Bradstreet says, "It pleafed God to keep me a long time. without a child, which was a great grief to me, and coft mee many prayers and tears before I obtaind one." Samuel was,

"The Son of Prayers, of vowes, of teares,
The child I ftay'd for many yeares." †

and she was very loth to part with him, but she committed him at last to the care of Providence, and was rewarded by welcoming him home safe, in July, 1661.‡

Her husband's mission to England in January, 1661–2, must have been an event of great importance in her life. Devotedly attached to him as she was, and unhappy when separated from him for even a short time, the circumstances. under which he went were such as to make her particularly anxious during his absence. The news of the restoration of Charles II. to the throne had been somewhat coldly received by the Massachusetts colonists. They were justly apprehensive that their indifference, if not actual hostility, to his cause during the Civil War, their severe treatment of the Quakers, and their assumption of the powers of an independent state, might now be brought up against them, and result in a serious diminution of the privileges they had up to that time enjoyed. The complaints of the Quakers, and the exertions of those who had suffered by or who were disaffected with the Massachusetts men, were so violent, and met with such success, that the latter were obliged, by the order of the King, to send agents to plead See page 28.

+ See page 24.

*See page 5.

their cause and repel these attacks at Court. The unwillingness of the Government to send these Commissioners was only equalled by the distaste of those upon whom their choice had fallen-Mr. Bradstreet and the Rev. Mr. Norton for this delicate and unpleasant duty. Mr. Norton was particularly disinclined to have any thing to do with the matter, but his scruples were finally overcome. Having recovered from a severe attack of sickness, whose sudden approach delayed their departure, Norton embarked with Bradstreet on the 10th of February. On the following morning they set sail for England, John Hull, the mintmaster of the Colony, being a fellow-passenger with them. They arrived in London the last of March, and were successful in their endeavors, -to divert the anger of the king, to put a favorable construction on the past acts of the Colony, and to secure for it an extension of the royal favor. On the 3d of September, they returned in the ship "Society," bringing with them a letter from the King, in which the charter privileges were confirmed, and all past errors pardoned. The satisfaction which this gave was more than counterbalanced by the rest of the letter, which enjoined a fuller establishment of the King's authority, and contained other matter equally distasteful to the people. The consequence was, that the two agents became extremely unpopular, and this cold treatment was thought to have hastened the death of Norton, who grew very melancholy, and died on the 5th of the following April. While they were in England, fears were entertained for their safety, and reports came in private letters that they had been detained, and that Mr. Norton was in the Tower. And, according to Sewel, the Quaker historian, who gives no very flatter

ing account of their conduct in London, they were really in some danger.

Mrs. Bradstreet had from time to time been writing under the name of "Meditations" some apothegms, suggested mainly by the homely events of her own experience. This was done at the request of her son Simon, to whom they were dedicated March 20, 1664.† The "Meditations" display much more ability, much greater cultivation of mind, and a deeper thoughtfulness than most of her other works. She shows in them a more correct taste than in her "Poems." We must take her word for their originality. "I have avoyded," she says, "incroaching upon others conceptions because I would leave you nothing but myne owne, though in value they fall fhort of all in this kinde." And again she reminds him that "There is no new thing vnder ye fun, there is nothing that can be fayd or done, but either that or fomething like it hath been both done and sayd before.” ‡

In July, 1666, by the burning of the house at Andover, her papers, books, and many other things of great value to her, were destroyed. She had intended to complete her poetical account of "The Roman Monarchy," and had spent much time in preparing a continuation of it, but the loss of what she had already finished made her abandon the work altogether. § Her son Simon thus notices this disaster in his diary, and represents his father's loss as very great:

"July. 12. 1666. Whilft I was at N. London my fathers houfe at Andover was burnt, where I loft my Books, and many of my

*See pages 32-9.

Hutchinson's History, Vol. i. pp. 201-5; Hull's Diaries, Arch. Amer., Vol. iii. pp. 153-4, and 204-8; History of the Quakers, by William Sewel. London: 1725, pp. 279-80.

+ See page 47.

See page 53.

H

§ See pages 40 and 329.

clothes, to the valeiu of 50 or 60 H at least; The Lord gaue, and the Lord hath taken, bleffed bee the Name of the Lord. Tho: my own loffe of books (and papers efpec.) was great and my fathers far more being about Soo, yet ye Lord was pleased gratiously many wayes to make up y fame to us. It is therefore good to truft in the Lord."

There could have been little of variety to call Mrs. Bradstreet aside from the daily routine of her quiet country life. Attendance on the frequent and long-protracted religious meetings, and the duties of her household, must have occupied her time when she was well. She had evidently exposed herself to the criticism of her neighbors by studying and writing so much. The fact of a woman's being able to compose any thing possessing any literary merit was regarded with the greatest surprise by her contemporaries, and was particularly dwelt upon by her admirers.* In the "Prologue" she says:

'I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
Who fays my hand a needle better fits,
A Poets pen all fcorn I fhould thus wrong,

For fuch despite they caft on Female wits:

If what I do prove well, it won't advance,

They'l fay it's ftoln, or else it was by chance." †

* See pages 83-92. There is a paragraph in Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall's sketch of Miss Hannah More (probably written by Mrs. Hall) which shows that public opinion changed quite slowly on this point.

"In this age, when female talent is so rife, when, indeed, it is not too much to say women have fully sustained their right to equality with men in reference to all the productions of the mind, it is difficult to comprehend the popularity, almost amounting to adoration, with which a woman writer was regarded little more than half a century ago. Mediocrity was magnified into genius, and to have printed a book, or to have written even a tolerable poem, was a passport into the very highest society." "Art Journal." London: 1866. p. 187. † See page 101.