National Inexperience of America.

stationary, the change between the earlier years of the seventeenth century and its close was surprisingly less marked than was the change in England. A little thought will show what this means. Although the type of character which planted itself in New England during the first quarter of the seventeenth century was very Puritan and therefore, from the point of view of its contemporary English literature, very eccentric, it was truly an Elizabethan type. One conclusion seems clear: the native Yankees of 1700 were incalculably nearer their Elizabethan ancestors than were their contemporaries born in the mother country.

In this fact we come to a consideration worth pondering. Such historical convulsions as those which declared themselves in the England of the seventeenth century result from the struggle of social and political forces in densely populated regions. Such slow social development as marks the seventeenth century in New England is possible only under conditions where the pressure of external fact, social, political, and economic, is relaxed. Such changes as the course of history brought to seventeenthcentury England are changes which must result to individuals just as much as to nations themselves from something which, for want of a more exact word, we may call `experience. Such lack of change as marks the America of the seventeenth century indicates the absence of this. Yet even in the America of the seventeenth century a true nation, the nation of which we are a part, was growing towards maturity. Though the phrase seem paradoxical, it is surely true that our national life in its beginnings was something hardly paralleled in other history,-a century of national inexperience.

IV

LITERATURE IN AMERICA FROM 1600 TO 1700

REFERENCES

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH

WORKS: Smith's Works, ed. Edward Arber, 2 vols., Westminster: Constable, 1895 (“The English Scholar's Library,” No. 16).

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM: W. G. Simms, Life of Captain John Smith, New York: Cooledge, 1846; *C. D. Warner, A Study of the Life and Writings of John Smith, New York: Holt, 1881.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Smith's Works, ed. Arber, I, cxxx-cxxxii; Winsor's America, III, 161–162, 211-212; Channing and Hart, Guide, §§ 97 and 109.

SELECTIONS: Hart, Contemporaries, I, Nos. 62, 90; Stedman and Hutchinson, I, 3–17.

BRADFORD

WORKS: History, ed. Charles Deane, Boston, 1856 (4 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., III). Also (same year and place) as a separate publication. Another edition, Boston: Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1898.

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM: Tyler, I, 116-126; Winsor's America, III, Chapter viii.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Winsor's America, III, 283-289; Channing and Hart, Guide, 88 111-112.

SELECTIONS: Hart, Contemporaries, I, Nos. 49, 97-100, 117; Stedman and Hutchinson, I, 93-115.

WINTHROP

WORKS: The best edition of Winthrop's History of New England is that by James Savage, 2 vols., Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1853. There is an earlier edition by Savage, 2 vols., Boston, 1825-26.

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM: *R. C. Winthrop, Life and Letters of John Winthrop, 2 vols., Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1864; J. H. Twitchell, John Winthrop, New York; Dodd, Mead & Co., 1891; *Tyler, I, 128–136. Bibliography: Winsor's America, III, 357–358; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 117.

SELECTIONS: Hart, Contemporaries, I, Nos. 107, 118; Stedman and Hutchinson, I, 291–309.

SEWALL

WORKS: Sewall's Diary, 3 vols., Boston, 1878-82 (5 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., V-VII).

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM: N. H. Chamberlain, Samuel Sewall and the World he lived in, Boston: DeWolfe, Fiske & Co., 1897; *Tyler, II, 99-103; H. C. Lodge, “A Puritan Pepys," Studies in History, Boston: Houghton, 1892, 21-84.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Winsor's America, V, 167-168.

SELECTIONS: Hart, Contemporaries, I, No. 149; II, Nos. 18, 103; Stedman and Hutchinson, II, 188-200.

BAY PSALM BOOK

TEXT: A literal reprint of the first edition was published privately at Cambridge in 1862 under the direction of Dr. N. B. Shurtleff. More accessible is the reprint edited by Wilberforce Eames, New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1903.

CRITICISM: Tyler, I, 274-277; Winsor's Memorial History of Boston, I, 458-460.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Winsor (see reference above); Wilberforce Eames, A List of Editions of the "Bay Psalm Book," New York: Privately printed, 1885.

SELECTIONS: Hart, Contemporaries, I, No. 138; Stedman and Hutchinson, I, 211-216.

WARD

WORKS: The Simple Cobbler of Aggawam in America, ed. David Pulsifer, Boston: James Munroe & Co., 1843.

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM: J. W. Dean, Memoir of the Rev. Nathaniel Ward, Albany: Munsell, 1868; Tyler, I, 227-241.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Winsor's America, III, 350 n.

SELECTIONS: Hart, Contemporaries, I, No. 112; Stedman and Hutchinson, I, 276-285.

WIGGLESWORTH

WORKS: The Day of Doom, ed. J. W. Dean, New York, 1867.

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM: J. W. Dean's Memoir of Wigglesworth, Albany: Munsell, 1871.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ward's Memoir, 140-151.

SELECTIONS: Stedman and Hutchinson, II, 3-19.

ANNE BRADSTREET

WORKS: Works, ed. J. H. Ellis, Charlestown: Abram E. Cutter, 1867; also ed. C. E. Norton, privately printed, 1897.

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM: Helen Campbell, Anne Bradstreet and Her Time, Boston: Lothrop, 1891; Tyler, I, 277-292.

SELECTIONS: Stedman and Hutchinson, I, 311-315.

Character

An instructive impression of the character of literature in America during the seventeenth century may be derived from Mr. Whitcomb's Chronological Outlines (pages 2−48). Speaking roughly, we may say that out of about two hundred and fifteen titles which he records, one hundred and ten are religious works, of which all but one were pro- General duced in New England. Next comes history, beginning with Captain John Smith's True Relation, 1608, which has no more right to be included in American literature. than would a book written in our own time by any foreign writer. Of these historical titles there are fifty-seven, of which thirty-seven belong to New England; the others, including the separate works of Captain John Smith, come either from Virginia or from the middle colonies. Twenty of Mr. Whitcomb's titles may be called political; of these only three are not from New England. Of nineteen other titles, including almanacs and scientific works 'which may best be called miscellaneous, all but two belong in New England. Finally, there are nine titles to which the name literature may properly be applied, if under this head we include not only the poems of Mrs. Bradstreet, but the "Bay Psalm Book," the Day of Doom, and the first New England Primer. Of these nine books the only one not from New England was the portion of Ovid's Metamorphoses which GEORGE SANDYS (1577-1644) translated in Virginia.

This rough classification shows: (1) that New England produced so large a proportion of American books during the seventeenth century that we hardly need consider the

Religious
Writings.

rest of the colonies; and (2) that of the books written in New England, the greater number were concerned with religious and historical matters. It will be worth while to consider the general traits of these two classes of books before we pass on to three of the nine works which may be called literature.

The religious writing, best represented by the works of Cotton Mather, who is the subject of our next chapter, includes also such works as those of THOMAS HOOKER (about 1586-1647), of Cambridge and later of Hartford, of THOMAS SHEPARD (1605-1649), who was Hooker's successor at Cambridge, and of JOHN COTTON (1585-1652) of Boston. Men like these, deeply learned in the Bible and books about the Bible, in the Greek and Latin classics as well, but very slightly influenced by contemporary Elizabethan writings, had enormous influence. Their words, preached or written, weighed only a little less than the Word of God itself. Their writings, mainly sermons and controversial pamphlets, are grim, unsparing applications of Calvinistic teaching to public affairs and to the smallest concerns of private life. These works have' little beauty of style; in plan they often seem hardly more than masses of Bible texts put together with a thin thread of comment. But, although disdainful of grace, these religious writings of seventeenth-century New England are heroically earnest, and occasionally they melt into a sombre tenderness of phrase which is far from unlovely.

The historical writing includes not only the two famous histories of the period, the annals Of Plymouth Plantation by Governor WILLIAM BRADFORD (1590-1657) of the Plymouth Colony and the History of New England by