pages of the diary, and one likes very much to think of Judge Sewall at this stage of his life, going to the old meetinghouse with his dear wife Hannah on his arm, to hear "our son Joseph put up a fine prayer," or "preach a stirring word.”

Then came the blow of the man's life, a blow from which he never fully recovered. For I cannot believe that the rather self-conscious old gentleman forever taking his own emotional temperature, so to speak, is Samuel Sewall at his best. But I readily enough forgive him his incessant self-analysis, inasmuch as by reason of it we get the only authentic picture we possess of the way in which the middle-aged wooings of colonial days were conducted.

Judge Sewall's wife Hannah died October 19, 1717. She had been for some time in a decline, aggravated, probably, by some sort of malarial fever; as far

back as July 3d her husband notes that he has been kept from commencement by his wife's being taken very sick the night before. "This is the second year of my absence from that solemnity."

So with the usual Puritan solemnities of prayer and fast, the household waited on this exemplary wife and mother, making her exit. "About a quarter of an hour past four, my dear wife expired in the afternoon, whereby the chamber was filled with a flood of tears. God is teachto lead a widower's

ing me a new lesson

life. Lord help me to learn, and be a sun and shield to me, now so much of my comfort and defence are taken away."

Next day he writes:

"I go to the public worship forenoon and afternoon. My son has much ado to read the note I put up, being overwhelmed with tears."

Sewall was sincere with all his great loving heart in his sorrow for this wife of his youth and strong manhood, and he kept her memory in love till his death's day in spite of repeated wooings to argue the contrary. But it was expected, with the rigour of a law in the Puritan land, that widows and widowers should remarry. They all did it, and not to do it was a social offence. Apparently they all helped each other to do it, and for a man in Judge Sewall's social station, there was no chance of escape. Nor, truth to say, did Sewall try to find one. Accordingly, we soon read of his attentions to Mrs. Dennison, who refused him because he wanted too liberal a settlement, -to Mrs. Tilly, another blooming widow, and even to other ladies of name and position. Mrs. Tilly was his final choice, however, and on October 29, 1719, these two were mar

ried, with the usual Puritan festivities, by the judge's son, Mr. Joseph Sewall. The judge was now chief justice of Massachusetts, and had been two long years a widower. Not to make further mention of a lady who, though his wife, seems to us to have been hardly more than a shadow in Sewall's real life, albeit she was an exemplary woman, it may be noted that she died suddenly May 26, 1720.

Sewall's opinion of this wife is in a letter:

"She, my wife, carries it very tenderly, and is very helpful to me, my children, and grandchildren."

After Mrs. Tilly's funeral there is no record of any marital movement on Sewall's part until October 1st-four months only of mourning now! - when he writes:

"Saturday I dine at Mr. Stoddard's;

from thence I went to Madam Winthrop's just at three. Spake to her, saying, my loving wife died so soon and so suddenly, 'twas hardly convenient (seemly) for me to think of marrying again; however I came to this resolution that I would not make any court to any person without first consulting with her. [Madam Winthrop.] Had a pleasant discourse about seven single persons sitting in the Fore Seat [of the Old South Meeting-House] Septt. 29 [the Sunday before], viz. Madam Rebecca Dudley, Catharine Winthrop [the lady before him], Bridget Usher, Deliverance Legg, Rebecca Loyd, Lydia Colman, Elizabeth Bellingham. She propounded one and another for me: but none would do, said Mrs. Loyd was about her age."

This conference with Mrs. Winthrop was the first of the many in this the most entertaining colonial courtship of which