ANNE BRADSTREET.

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 pred-rected by the author, and enlarged by the ecessors or contemporaries, will convince the addition of several other poems found among judicious critic that she was superior to any her papers after her death.” poet of her sex who wrote in the English language before the close of the seventeenth century.

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 "" corthe press of John Foster, of Boston,

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 print

ed, 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 espe

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

cially is contained a compleat Discourse and hours, curtailed from her sleep and other reDescription of the Four Elements, Constitu

tions, Ages of Man, and Seasons of the Year, fear the displeasure of no person in publishtogether with an exact Epitome of the Three ing these poems, but the author, without First Monarchies, viz., the Assyrian, Persian,

freshments. . . . This only I shall annex: 1

2

whose knowledge and contrary to whose ex

12

ANNE BRADSTREET.

pectation I have presumed to bring to pub-
lic 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 mod-
est, 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 indicating the position of the author and her associations, but as illustrative of the taste and culture of the time in the city which still claims to be our literary capital. Benjamin Woodbridge, the first graduate of Harvard college, exclainis

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 .590. 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, wh declared this "peerless gentlewoman" to b "the mirror of her age and glory of her sex, said in a funeral ode that could Virgil hea 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
Do not old men rejoice their dates did last,
And blame their fates they were not born before.
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 lege, addressed to her one of the finest poems Rogers, one of the presidents of Harvard colwritten 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 gal lant than critical; but we perceive from Mrs. Bradstreet's poems that they are not destitute of imagination, and that she was thor oughly instructed in the best learning of her age; and from the general and profound re- | gret manifested on the occasion of her death,