and there are four verses in her poem on "The Four Seasons" which have more than once been cited as examples of her poetry at its best:

"The fearful bird his little nest now builds

In trees and walls, in cities and in fields;
The outside strong, the inside warm and neat,
A natural artificer complete."

But if these be the best, what can be said about the large remainder?

Her chief work is a series of four compositions, on "The Four Elements," "The Four Humours in Man's Constitution," "The Four Ages of Man," "The Four Seasons of the Year.' They are all of one design each Element, each Humour, each Age, each Season, is represented as discoursing of itself, setting forth its own good and evil qualities. The scheme is prosaic, but it admits of a great variety of theme and of the display of an unusual amount of knowledge on many subjects. The imitation of Du Bartas is manifest, but it serves rather to enhance the merit of his verses than to secure excellence for those of his admirer. B*

Mrs. Bradstreet has nothing of the

energy and abundance of his vein, nothing of the picturesqueness of his broad stream of verse, and her acquisitions-large, even remarkable for a woman in her time and circumstances-were inconsiderable in comparison with his vast if superficial learning. The best of her longer poems is called "Contemplations." It is a series of simple religious reflections on the beauty of nature, the goodness of God, the transiency of man's life and of earthly things. Several of its stanzas of seven lines have grace and ease, and occasional metrical felicity; and had all her work possessed like excellence it might still be read with pleasure. But while the greater part of her poems show good sense and good feeling, and, at times, something of ingenuity and skill, they are devoid of inspiration, and even of the lower enthusiasm of the understanding. They are generally bald and prosaic, and their reader readily accepts her assertion concerning them:

"And for the same I hours not few did spend,

And weary lines, though lank, I many penn'd."

Mrs. Bradstreet's modest consciousness of the slenderness of her poetic outfit is, indeed, such as to show that she was a better judge of her verses than

The first edition of her

her too partial friends. poems was published in London in 1650, by her brother-in-law, the Rev. John Woodbridge of Andover, then on a visit to the old country. He says in his preface to the volume, "I fear the displeasure of no person in the publishing of these poems but the Author's, without whose knowledge, and contrary to her expectation, I have presumed to bring to public view what she resolved should never in such a manner see the sun." In a little piece entitled "The Author to her Book," written apparently with. a view to a second edition of it, and which has more fancy in it than any other which she ever wrote, Mrs. Bradstreet expresses with a pretty simplicity her feeling at seeing in print "the ill-formed offspring of her feeble brain." Let the reader turn to this little poem, and he will gain a very kindly feeling for the gentle lady who wrote it, while its last verses will interest him as a native specimen of the "Envoy" with which the poets of the day were wont to send forth their work.

"In better dress to trim thee was my mind,

But naught save home-spun cloth i' th' house I find;

In this array, 'mongst vulgar mayst thou roam,
In critics' hands beware thou dost not come;
And take thy way where yet thou art not known;
If for thy Father askt, say, thou hadst none,
And for thy Mother, she, alas, is poor,

Which caus'd her thus to send thee out of door." 1

Some of Mrs. Bradstreet's occasional poems possess a charm of natural and simple feeling which still touches the heart. They are the expressions of her domestic sentiment, addressed to her husband or to her children; or hymns in which she utters the devout aspirations and desires of her soul. In a little paper of religious experiences, which she prepared late in life as a legacy to her children, there is a passage which makes one wish that she had put more of her own personal experience into her verse. She says: "About sixteen the Lord laid his hand sore upon me and smote me with the smallpox. When I was in my affliction I besought the Lord, and con

1 These verses recall those of Spenser "To his Book," prefixed to the "Shepherds' Calendar":

"But if that any ask thy name

Say thou wert base begot with blame."

fessed my pride and vanity, and He was entreated of me and again restored me; but I rendered not to Him according to the benefit received. After a short time I changed my condition, and was married, and came into this country, where I found a new world and new manners, at which my heart rose. But after I was convinced it was the way of God I submitted to it and joined the church at Boston." Would that she had told us of the trials of that time, and why it was that her heart rose against the new world and the new manners to which she had come!

Her

Besides this reference to this early hard experience, there is nothing in Mrs. Bradstreet's papers to indicate that she suffered, as so many of the women of her time and later suffered, from the black doctrine which made their lives dark with its shadow. religious meditations have remarkable sweetness and simplicity, and express a confidence in the mercies of God which it was seldom given to the tenderhearted in those days to attain. Something of this spirit no doubt was due to the native serenity and tranquillity of her disposition.

She even fronted

with calmness the dreadful peril of atheism which dismayed so many souls, and she says very simply