CHAPTER III.

ANNE BRADSTREET AS LOVER AND WIFE.

ORN in 1612, married at sixteen, in 1628, emigrated and sailed for America on April 8, 1630, in the ship Arbella, or often spelled Arabella, a ship of goodly size for those times, being three hundred and fifty tons burden; with Governor Winthrop, Sir Richard Saltonstall, Isaac Johnson, author of "Wonder Working Providence,” and his wife, Lady Arbella, sister of the Earl of Lincoln, her father and mother and her husband, with others of fine education and culture, as passengers on the same ship. Lived in Charlestown, Newtowne or Cambridge, and Boston from the time of her landing till the removal to the settlement of Ipswich in 1634. Resided ten years in that town, and in 1644 or 1645 removed to North Andover, where she lived till her death in 1672.

In 1633 Anne Bradstreet gave birth to her first-born, Samuel, who graduated at Harvard College in 1653. He was likely born at Cambridge, before the removal to Ipswich. Five children following the first were born at Ipswich. She writes, "It pleased God to keep me a long time without a child, which was a great grief to me, and cost me many prayers and tears before I obtained one, and after I obtained one, and after him gave me many more of whom I now take the care." Dorothy came next, 1635, born at Ipswich.

Anne Dudley no doubt received careful training, as was the custom of such families. She studied the Scriptures at six and seven, and writes that, “In my young years, about six or seven, I

began to make conscience of my ways, and what I knew was sinful, as lying, disobedience to parents, I avoided."

"In a long fit of sickness which I had on my bed, I often communed with my heart and made my supplication to the Most High, who sett me free from that affliction." Again she writes of herself, just before her marriage and after she had recovered:

"But as I grew up to bee about forteen or fifteen I found my heart more carnall and sitting loose from God, vanity and the follys of youth take hold of me.

"About sixteen, the Lord layd his hand sore upon me and smott mee with the small-pox. When I was in my affliction, I besought the Lord, and confessed my Pride and Vanity and he was entreated of me, and again restored me. But I rendered not to him according to ye benefit received."

"Pride

Here is the only hint as to personal appearance. and Vanity, are more or less associated with a fair countenance, and though no record gives slightest detail as to form or feature, there is every reason to suppose that the event, very near at hand, which altered every prospect in life, was influenced in degree, at least, by considerations slighted in later years, but having full weight with both." That Thomas Dudley was a "very personable man," we know, and there are hints that his daughter resembled him, though it was against the spirit of the time to record mere accidents of coloring or shape. But Anne's future husband was a strikingly handsome man, not likely to ignore such advantages in the wife he chose, and we may think of her as slender and dark, with heavy hair and clear, thoughtful eyes.

She makes an entry in her journal or diary after reaching Boston, New England: "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 will of God, I submitted to it and