While Mrs. Bradstreet had steadily pursued her studious, literary work, there is no sign that for all those years of labor at Ipswich she sought any recompense by the publication of her poems, either for profit or to satisfy a laudable ambition. No doubt her near friends were aware of her learning and her poetic genius. Nathaniel Ward, her Ipswich minister, and John Cotton, the minister of Boston, both men of culture and acquirements and near and intimate friends of hers, were made cognizant of many of her best efforts. But Anne Bradstreet seems to have been perfectly indifferent to the applause of the multitude, she lived with her family and for them only. Not till her relative, Rev. John Woodbridge, urged upon her the importance and the desirability of their publication, did she consent thereto, and then most doubtfully and reluctantly. As Mr. Woodbridge was in 1647 about to return to England, a copy of her poems for publication was committed to his care. After many delays they were printed and published at London in 1650, and a fac simile copy of the title page of the first edition is presented to the readers of this volume.

She moved to Ipswich before she was twenty-two years of age, her husband's and her father's family being among the first settlers of that town, the church of Ipswich being the ninth church of the Colony. One writer says as to this Ipswich home, "The loneliness and craving of her Ipswich life, had forced her to composition as a relief, and the major part of her poems were written before she was thirty years of age." If this statement be true, that the loneliness of her Ipswich life, whether caused by the long absence of her husband from home, or because Ipswich was at that time particularly exposed to attacks from the hostile Indians, and therefore she was forced to seek relief by study and composition, it agrees with the melodious utterances of Cicero in praise of literature, "that other occupations do not belong alike

to every time, or age, or place. These instruct our youth, delight
our age; they adorn prosperity, they bestow a refuge and solace
in time of adversity." The absence of her husband, Governor
Simon Bradstreet, on public business at Boston, Newe Towne or
Cambridge, was a severe trial to her, and she writes several pieces
thereon, some parts of which we copy in this publication.
four lines we insert here.

My head, my heart, mine eyes, my life, my more,
My joy, my magazine of earthly store,

If we be one, as surely thou and I,

How stayest thou there whilst I at Ipswich lie?

These

There were other things which perhaps she may have objected to in Ipswich. It was a frontier or border town, and by land and water liable to invasion from the Indians. The ocean on the east rolled three thousand miles away to her English home and friends, the north and west was a wild wilderness stretching away to Canada, only enemies in that direction; no roads or drives, an Indian trail led away out of Ipswich through these primitive forests. The prowling wolves and dashing bears, venomous rattlesnakes and lurking red man in ambush everywhere. Even her servants were in many instances the native Indian women from the neighborhood. The deer and moose, as also the wild turkeys and other such game, furnished abundant food, while fish in great quantities were in every stream, river and inlet.

From her rude home on High Street she could look south on a fair and rich landscape, no doubt with many cultivated fields. "The river moving on its ceaseless way,

The verdant reach of meadows fair and green,
And the blue hills that bound the sylvan scene."

In 1614 Captain John Smith visiting this place, called then Agawam, says of it, "Here are many rising hills, and on their

tops and descents are many corne fields and delightfull groves. There are also okes, pines, walnuts, and other woods to make this place an excellent habitation, with many faire high groves of mulberry trees."

Anne Bradstreet was among friends at Ipswich, her father and mother lived here. It had many leading officials residing there; General Daniel Dennison married her sister, Governor Winthrop the younger must have been well known to her, Governor Symonds lived at the Argilla district, Nathaniel Ward, the author of the "Simple Cobbler of Agawam," and the first settled pastor of the Ipswich church, was a friend of her father's, as also of her husband, and her minister, as well as a very learned teacher, and one who could give to Anne, intellectual as well as religious and spiritual aid. The Ipswich settlement was full of wise, learned and genial men and women.

Cotton Mather, speaking of Ipswich in 1638, says, "Here was a renouned church, consisting mostly of such illuminated Christians, that their pastors, in the exercise of their ministry, might in the language of Jerome, 'perceive that they had not disciples so much as judges.'"

Johnson remarks, "The peopling of this towne Ipswich is by men of good rank and quality, many of them having the yearly revenue of large lands in England."

Many comfortable associations made it a home desirable. In the epitaph which was placed upon her father's grave, among other things it is said of him that he was

"A table talker rich in sense,

And witty without wit's pretense."

To entertain at the table must have been a favorite gift, even among the Puritans, a sort of an "Autocrat of the breakfast table." Perhaps Oliver Wendell Holmes, who descended from

the Dudleys and Bradstreets, also inherited that popular quality, "A table talker rich in sense."

In moving away from Ipswich to Andover, Anne Bradstreet went deeper into the wilderness, among beasts, reptiles and Indians. A log house was erected at Andover, consisting of four large rooms, where the Bradstreets resided till their new large house was ready to receive them, then the log house was sold to one Richard Sutton, a name not unknown to Ipswich, where Richard Suttons have long and for successive generations been known. I know not if this Sutton who bought the log house be ancestor to the Ipswich Suttons.