In the works of Mrs. ANNE BRadstreet, wife of one and daughter of another of the early governors of Massachusetts, we have illustrations of a genius suitable to grace a distant province while the splendid creations of Spenser and Shakspere were delighting the metropolis. A comparison of the productions of this celebrated person with those of Lady Juliana Berners, Elizabeth Melvill, the Countess of Pembroke, and her other predecessors or contemporaries, will convince the judicious critic that she was superior to any poet of her sex who wrote in the English language before the close of the seventeenth century.

She was born in 1613, while her father, Thomas Dudley-who had been educated in the family of the Earl of Northampton, and had served creditably with the army in Flanders-was steward to the Earl of Lincoln, in which situation he remained with a brief interruption from twelve to sixteen years, and in which he appears to have been succeeded by Mr. Simon Bradstreet, of Emanuel College-subsequently for a short time steward to the Countess of Warwick - who in 1629 married the future poetess, then about sixteen years of age, and in the following year came with the Dudley family and other nonconformists to New England.

It does not appear that Mrs. Bradstreet had written anything, which has been printed, before her arrival in America. Here was completed her education, under the care of her husband, and his friends among the learned men who then presided over the society of Cambridge and Boston; and by her experience and observation in this country nearly all her poems seem to have been suggested. The first collection of them was printed at Boston, in 1640, under the title of "Several Poems, compiled with great variety of Wit and Learning, full of delight; wherein especially is contained a compleat Discourse and Description of the Four Elements, Constitutions, Ages of Man, and Seasons of the Year, together with an exact Epitome of the Three First Monarchies, viz., the Assyrian, Persian,

and Grecian; and the beginning of the Roman Commonwealth to the end of their last King; with divers other Pleasant and Serious Poems: By a Gentlewoman of New England." In 1650 this volume was reprinted in London, with the additional title of "The Tenth Muse, lately sprung up in America ;" and in 1678 a second American edition came from the press of John Foster, of Boston, corrected by the author, and enlarged by the addition of several other poems found among her papers after her death.”

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The writer of the preface to the first edition, who was probably her brother-in-law, John Woodbridge, of Andover, says: "Had I opportunity but to borrow some of the author's wit, 't is possible I might so trim this curious work with such quaint expressions as that the preface might bespeak thy further perusal ; but I fear 't will be a shame for a man that can speak so little, to be seen in the titlepage of this woman's book, lest by comparing the one with the other the reader should pass his sentence that it is the gift of the woman not only to speak most but to speak best. I shall have therefore to commend that, which with any ingenious reader will too much commend the author, unless men turn more peevish than women and envy the inferior sex. I doubt not but the reader will quickly find more than I can say, and the worst effect of his reading will be unbelief, which will make him question whether it can be a woman's work, and ask, 'Is it possible?' If any do, take this as an answer, from him that dares avow it: It is the work of a woman, honored and esteemed where she lives, for her gracious demeanor, her eminent parts, her pious conversation, her courteous disposition, her exact diligence in her place, and discreet managing of her family occasions; and more than so, these poems are the fruit but of some few hours, curtailed from her sleep and other refreshments.... This only I shall annex: I fear the displeasure of no person in publishing these poems, but the author, without whose knowledge and contrary to whose ex

pectation I have presumed to bring to public view what she resolved in such a manner should never see the sun."

It is evident, from some lines upon it by Mrs. Bradstreet, that Spenser's Faery Queen was not unknown in Massachusetts, but the fashionable poet of that period was Du Bartas,* translations of whose works, in cumbrous quartos and folios, were read by every person in the country pretending to taste or piety, though they seem to have evinced little genius and still less religion. Among the verses prefixed to Mrs. Bradstreet's volume are some by Nathaniel Ward, of Ipswich, the witty author of The Simple Cobbler of Agawam, who, puzzled by a comparison of his heroine with the recognised model of the age, declares that

Mercury showed Apollo Bartas' book, Minerva this, and wished him well to look And tell uprightly which did which excel : He viewed and viewed, and vowed he could not tell. But Mrs. Bradstreet herself was more modest, and, in the prologue to one of her longer pieces, says―

But when my wondering eyes and envious heart
Great Bartas' sugared lines do but read o'er,
Fool! I do grudge the muses did not part
"Twixt him and me their overfluent store.
A Bartas can do what a Bartas will-
But simple I, according to my skill.
The "
copies of verses" which are prefixed
to these poems are curious, not only as indi-
cating the position of the author and her as-
sociations, but as illustrative of the taste and
culture of the time in the city which still
elaims to be our literary capital. Benjamin
Woodbridge, the first graduate of Harvard
college, exclaims-

Now I believe Tradition, which doth call
The muses, virtues, graces, females all;
Only they are not nine, eleven, nor three—
Our authoress proves them but one unity.
And further on, to his own sex-

In your own arts confess yourselves outdone-
The moon doth totally eclipse the sun :
Not with her sable mantle muffling him,
But her bright silver makes his gold look dim.

* William de Salluste du Bartas, the most celebrated French poet of his age, was born in 1544, and died in 1590. He was the friend and companion in-arms of Henri IV., and wrote a canticle upon his victory of Yvri His works were nearly all, by various hands, translated into English, and one of them, "Gulielmi Sallusti Bartassii, Hebdomas," etc., passed through more than thirty editions in six years. The translation which was probably best known in this country is that of Sylvester, published in London, in a thick folio, in 1632.

The learned and pious John Norton, who declared this "peerless gentlewoman" to be "the mirror of her age and glory of her sex," said in a funeral ode that could Virgil hear her works he would condemn his own to the fire, and that—

Praise her who list, yet he shall be a debtor,
For art ne'er feigned, nor nature formed, a better;
Her virtues were so great, that they do raise
A work to trouble Fame, astonish Praise;
When, as her name doth but salute the ear,
Men think that they Perfection's abstract hear.
Her breast was a brave palace, a broad street,
Where all heroic, ample thoughts did meet;
Where Nature such a tenement had ta'en
That other souls to hers dwelt in a lane.
Beneath her feet pale Envy bites the chain,
And poisoned Malice whets her sting in vain.
Let every laurel, every myrtle bough,

Be stripped for leaves t' adorn and load her brow:
Victorious wreaths, which, for they never fade,
Wise elder times for kings and poets made.
Let not her happy memory e'er lack
Its worth in Fame's eternal almanac,
Which none shall read but straight their loss deplore
And blame their fates they were not born before.
Do not old men rejoice their dates did last,
And infants too that theirs did make such haste,
In such a welcome time to bring them forth
That they might be a witness to her worth?

Dr. Cotton Mather in the Magnalia alludes to her works as a "monument to her memory beyond the stateliest marble;" and John Rogers, one of the presidents of Harvard college, addressed to her one of the finest poems written in this country before the Revolution, in which he says:

Your only hand those poesies did compose; [flow; Your head, the source whence all those springs did Your voice, whence change's sweetest notes arose ; Your feet, that kept the dance alone, I trow; Then veil your bonnets, poetasters, all: Strike lower amain, and at these humbly fall, And deem yourselves advanced to be her pedestal. Should all with lowly congees laurels bring, Waste Flora's magazine to find a wreath, Or Pineus' banks, 't were too mean offering. Your muse a fairer garland doth bequeath To guard your fairer front; here 't is your name Shall stand immarbled; this-your little frameShall great Colossus be to your eternal fame. These praises run into hyperbole, and prove, perhaps, that their authors were more gallant than critical; but we perceive from Mrs. Bradstreet's poems that they are not destitute of imagination, and that she was thoroughly instructed in the best learning of her age; and from the general and profound regret manifested on the occasion of her death,

we may believe she was personally deserving of unusual respect.

Her husband was frequently absent from his home, upon official duties, and several poems which she addressed to him in these periods have the fervor and simplicity of the sincerest passion. In one of them she says: If ever two were one, then surely we; If ever man were loved by wife, then thee; If ever wife were happy in a man, Compare with me, ye women, if ye can.

In another, apostrophizing the sun: Phoebus, make haste-the day's too long-begone! The silent night's the fittest time for moan. But stay, this once-unto my suit give earAnd tell my griefs in either hemisphere: If in thy swift career thou canst make stay, I crave this boon, this errand, by the way: Commend me to the man, more loved than life: Show him the sorrows of his widowed wife; And if he love, how can he there abide? My interest's more than all the world beside.... Tell him the countless steps that thou dost trace That once a day thy spouse thou mayst embrace, And when thou canst not meet by loving mouth, Thy rays afar salute her from the south; But for one month, I see no day, poor soul! Like those far situate beneath the pole, Which day by day long wait for thy ariseO how they joy when thou dost light the skies! Tell him I would say more, but can not well; Oppressed minds abruptest tales do tell. Now part with double speed, mark what I say, By all our loves conjure him not to stay!

In the prospect of death:

How soon, my dear, death may my steps attend,
How soon 't may be thy lot to lose thy friend,
We both are ignorant; yet love bids me
These farewell lines to recommend to thee,
That when that knot's untied that made us one,
I may seem thine, who in effect am none.
And if I see not half my days that's due,
What Nature would, God grant to yours and you;
The many faults that well you know I have,
Let be interred in my oblivious grave;
If any worth or virtue is in me,

Let that live freshly in my memory;
And when thou feel'st no grief, as I no harms,
Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms;
And when thy loss shall be repaid, with gains,
Look to my little babes, my dear remains,

And if thou lovest thyself or lovest me,
These oh protect from stepdame's injury!
And if chance to thine eyes doth bring this verse,
With some sad sighs honor my absent hearse,
And kiss this paper, for thy love's dear sake,
Who with salt tears this last farewell doth take.

Some of her elegies are marked by similar beauties as this, upon a grandchild who died in 1665:

Farewell, dear child, my heart's too much content,
Farewell, sweet babe, the pleasure of mine eye,
Farewell, fair flower, that for a space was lent,
Then ta'en away into eternity.

Blest babe, why should I once bewail thy fate,
Or sigh, the days so soon were terminate,
Sith thou art settled in an everlasting state?
By nature, trees do rot when they are grown,
And plums and apples thoroughly ripe do fall,
And corn and grass are in their season mown,
And time brings down what is both strong and tall.
But plants new set, to be eradicate,

And buds new blown, to have so short a date,
Is by His hand alone, that nature guides, and fate.
And some verses upon the death of a daugh-
ter-in-law, in 1669, from which the follow-
ing is an extract:—

And live I still, to see relations gone,
And yet survive, to sound this wailing tone?
Ah, wo is me, to write thy funeral song
Who might in reason yet have lived so long!
I saw the branches lopped, the tree now fall;
I stood so nigh, it crushed me down withal;
My bruised heart lies sobbing at the root,
That thou, dear son, hast lost both tree and fruit;
Thou, then on seas, sailing on foreign coast,
Wast ignorant what riches thou hadst lost,
But oh, too soon those heavy tidings fly,
To strike thee with amazing misery!
Mrs. Bradstreet died on the 16th of Septem-
ber, 1672, in the sixtieth year of her age.
Her husband afterward married a sister of
Sir George Dunning, and lived to be called
the Nestor of New England, dying at Salem
in 1697, when he was nearly a century old.

Many of Mrs. Bradstreet's descendants have been conspicuous for their abilities. Among them is the noble poet Dana, who traces his lineage through one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

FROM THE PROLOGUE TO THE FOUR ELEMENTS.

I AM obnoxious to each carping tongue
That says my hand a needle better fits;
A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong,
For such despite they cast on female wits;

If what I do prove well, it won't advance-
They'll say, It's stolen, or else it was by chance.
But sure, the antique Greeks were far more mild;
Else of our sex why feigned they those Nine,
And Poesy made Calliope's own child?
So, 'mongst the rest, they placed the arts divine.