The oldest rhythmical composition from the hand of a colonist which has come down to us is believed to have been written about the year 1630. The name of the author has been lost:

"New England's annoyances, you that would know them,
Pray ponder these verses which briefly do show them.
"The place where we live is a wilderness wood,
Where grass is much wanting that's fruitful and good:
Our mountains and hills and our valleys below
Being commonly cover'd with ice and with snow:
And when the northwest wind with violence blows,
Then every man pulls his cap over his nose:
But if any 's so hardy and will it withstand,
He forfeits a finger, a foot, or a hand.

"But when the spring opens, we then take the hoe,
And make the ground ready to plant and to sow;
Our corn being planted and seed being sown,
The worms destroy much before it is grown;
And when it is growing some spoil there is made
By birds and by squirrels that pluck up the blade;
And when it is come to full corn in the ear,
It is often destroy'd by raccoon and by deer.
"And now do our garments begin to grow thin,
And wool is much wanted to card and to spin;
If we get a garment to cover without,
Our other in-garments are clout upon clout:

Our clothes we brought with us are apt to be torn,
They need to be clouted soon after they 're worn;
But clouting our garments they hinder us nothing,
Clouts double are warmer than single whole clothing.
If fresh meat be wanting, to fill up our dish,

We have carrots and pumpkins and turnips and fish:
And is there a mind for a delicate dish,

We repair to the clam banks, and there we catch fish.
'Stead of pottage and puddings and custards and pies,
Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies:
We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins at noon;
If it was not for pumpkins we should be undone.

"If barley be wanting to make into malt,

We must be contented and think it no fault;
For we can make liquor to sweeten our lips

Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips.....
"Now while some are going let others be coming,
For while liquor's boiling it must have a scumming;
But I will not blame them, for birds of a feather,
By seeking their fellows, are flocking together.
But you whom the LORD intends hither to bring,
Forsake not the honey for fear of the sting;
But bring both a quiet and contented mind,
And all needful blessings you surely will find."

The first book published in British America was "The Psalms, in Metre, faithfully Translated, for the Use, Edification and Comfort of the Saints, in Public and Private, especially in New England," printed at Cambridge, in 1640. The version was made by THOMAS WELDE, of Roxbury, RICHARD MATHER, of Dorchester, and JOHN ELIOT, the famous apostle to the Indians. The translators seem to have been aware that it possessed but little poetical merit. "If," say they, in their preface, "the verses are not always so smooth and elegant as some may desire and expect, let them consider that God's altar needs not our polishings; for we have respected rather a

the sweetness of any paraphrase, and so have attended to conscience rather than elegance, and fidelity rather than poetry, in translating Hebrew words into English language, and DAVID's poetry into English metre." COTTON MATHER laments the inelegance of the version, but declares that the Hebrew was most exactly rendered. After a second edition had been printed, President DUNSTER,* of Harvard College, assisted by Mr. RICHARD LYON, a tutor at Cambridge, attempted to improve it, and in their advertisement to the godly reader they state that they "had special eye both to the gravity of the phrase of sacred writ and sweetness of the verse." DUNSTER'S edition was reprinted twenty-three times in America, and several times in Scotland and England, where it was long used in the dissenting congregations. The following specimen is from the second edition:

PSALM CXXXVII.

"The rivers on of Babilon
There when wee did sit downe,
Yea, even then, wee mourned when
Wee remembered Sion.

"Our harp wee did hang it amid,

Upon the willow tree,

Because there they that us away
Led in captivitee

"Requir'd of us a song, and thus
Askt mirth us waste who laid,
Sing us among a Sion's song,

Unto us then they said.

"The LORD'S Song sing can wee, being
In stranger's land? then let
Lose her skill my right hand if I
Jerusalem forget.

Let cleave my tongue my pallate on
If mind thee doe not I,

If chiefe joyes o're I prize not more Jerusalem my joy.

Remember, LORD, Edom's sons' word,
Unto the ground, said they,

It rase, it rase, when as it was
Jerusalem her day.

"Blest shall he be that payeth thee,

Daughter of Babilon,

Who must be waste, that which thou hast
Rewarded us upon.

"O happie hee shall surely bee
That taketh up, that eke
The little ones against the stones
Doth into pieces breake.

Mrs. ANNE BRADSTREET, "the mirror of her age and glory of her sex," as she is styled by a contemporary admirer, came to America with her husband, Governor SIMON BRADSTREET, in 1630,

HENRY DUNSTER was the first president of Harvard College, and was inaugurated on the twenty-seventh of August, 1640. In 1654 he became unpopular on account of his public advocacy of anti-pædobaptism, and was com pelled to resign. When he died, in 1659, ho bequeathed legacies to the persons who were most active in causing his separation from the College. In the life of DUNSTER, In the Magnalia, is the following admonition, by Mr. SHEPHERD, to the authors of the New Psalm Book: "You Rorb'ry poets keep clear of the crime Of missing to give us very good rhyme. And you of Dorchester, your verses lengthen, But with the texts' own words you will them strengthen.'

and ten years afterward published her celebrated volume of "Several Poems, compiled with great variety of wit and learning, full of delight; wherein especially is contained a compleat Discourse and Description of the four Elements, Constitutions, Ages of Man, and Seasons of the Year, together with an exact Epitome of the Three First Monarchies, viz.: the Assyrian, Persian, and Grecian; and the Roman Commonwealth, from the beginning, to the end of the last King; with divers other Pleasant and Serious Poems." NORTON declares her poetry so fine that were MARO to hear it be would condemn his own works to the fire; the author of the "Magnalia" speaks of her poems as a "monument for her memory beyond the stateliest marble;" and JOHN ROGERS, one of the presidents of Harvard College, in some verses addressed to her, says -

"Your only hand those poesies did compose:

Your head the source, whence all those springs did flow: 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 frame Shall great Colossus be, to your eternal fame."

Of her history She died in September, 1672. and writings a more ample account may be found in my "Female Poets of America."

WILLIAM BRADFORD, the second governor of Plymouth, who wrote a " History of the People and Colony from 1602 to 1647," composed also A Descriptive and Historical Account of New England, in Verse," which is preserved in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

When JOHN COTTON, an eminent minister of Boston, died, in 1652, BENJAMIN WOODBRIDGE, the first graduate of Harvard College, and afterward one of the chaplains of CHARLES the Second, wrote an elegiac poem, from a passage in which it is supposed FRANKLIN borrowed the idea of his celebrated epitaph on himself. WOODBRIDGE, was

COTTON, says

Yea, though with dust thy body soiled be,
Yet at the resurrection we shall see

A fair edition, and of matchless worth,
Free from erratas, new in heaven set forth;
'Tis but a word from God the great Creator,
It shall be done when he saith Imprimatur."

The excellent President URIAN OAKES, styled "the LACTANTIUS of New England," was one cí the most distinguished poets of his time. The following verses are from his elegy on the death of THOMAS SHEPARD, minister of Charlestown : "Art, nature, grace, in him were all combined To show the world a matchless paragon; In whom of radiant virtues no less shined, Than a whole constellation; but hee's gone! Hee's gone, alas! down in the dust must ly As much of this rare person, as could die. "To be descended well, doth that commend? Can sons their fathers' glory call their own? Our SHEPARD justly might to this pretend, (His blessed father was of high renown,

Both Englands speak him great, admire his name,;
But his own personal worth's a better claim
"His look commanded reverence and awe,
Though mild and amiable, not austere:
Well humour'd was he, as I ever saw,
And ruled by love and wisdom more than fear.
The muses and the graces too, conspired,
To set forth this rare piece to be admired.

"He breathed love, and pursued peace in his day,
As if his soul were made of harmony:
Scarce ever more of goodness crowded lay
In such a piece of frall mortality.

Sure Father WILSON's genuine son was he,
New-England's PAUL had such a TIMOTHY.
"My dearest, inmost, bosome friend is gone!
Gone is my sweet companion, soul's delight!
Now in a huddling crowd, I'm all alone,
And almost could bid all the world good-night
Blest be my rock! GoD lives: 0! let him be
As he is all, so all in all to me."

At that period the memory of every eminent person was preserved in an ingenious elegy, epiSHEPARD, mourned in the taph. or anagram. above verses by OAKES, on the death of JOHN WILSON, "the Paul of New England," and "the greatest anagrammatizer since the days of LyCOPHRON," wrote

"John Wilson, anagr. John Wilson. "O, change it not! No sweeter name or thing,

Throughout the world, within our ears shall ring." THOMAS WELDE, a poet of some reputation in his day, wrote the following epitaph on SAMUEL DANFORTH, a minister of Roxbury, who died soon after the completion of a new meeting-house:

"Our new-built church now suffers too by this, Larger its windows, but its lights are less." PETER FOULGER, a schoolmaster of Nantucket, and the maternal grandfather of Doctor FRANK. LIN, in 1676 published a poem entitled "A Looking-glass for the times," addresseumen in authority, in which he advocates religious liberty, and implores the government to repeal the uncharitable laws against the Quakers and other sects. He says

"The rulers in the country I do owne them in the LORD And such as are for government, with them I do accurd.

But that which I intend thereby, is that they would keep bound;

And meddle not with God's worship, for which they have no ground.

And I am not alone herein, there's many hundreds more, That have for many years ago spoke much more upon that

score.

Indeed, I really believe, it's not your business,

To meddle with the church of God in matters more or less."

In another part of his "Looking Glass"

"Now loving friends and countrymen, I wish we may be wise;

"T is now a time for every man to see with his own eyes.
"Tis casy to provoke the LORD to send among us war;
"T is easy to do violence, to envy and to jar;

To show a spirit that is high; to scold and domineer;
To pride it out as if there were no Gop to make us fear;
To covet what is not our own; to cheat and to oppress;
To live a life that might free us from acts of righteousness;
To swear and lie and to be drunk; to back bite one another;
To carry tales that may do hurt and mischief to our bro-
ther;

To live in such hypocrisy, as men may think us good,
Although our hearts within are full of evil and of blood.
All these, and many evils more, are easy for to do;
But to repent and to reforin we have no strength thereto."
The following are the concluding lines:

"I am for peace, and not for war, and that's the reason why
I white more plain than some men do that use to daub and lie.
But I shall cease and set my name to what I here insert:
Because to be a libeller, I hate with all my heart.
From Sherbonton, where now I dwell, my name I do put
here,

Without offence, your real friend, it is PETER FOULGER."

Probably the first native bard was he who is described on a tombstone at Roxbury as "BENJAMIN THOMSON, learned schoolmaster and physician, and ye renowned poet of New England." He was born in the town of Dorchester, (now Quincy,) in 1640, and educated at Cambridge, where he received a degree in 1622. His principal work, "New England's Crisis," appears to have been written during the famous wars of PHILIP, sachem of the Pequods, against the colonists, in 1675 and 1676. The following is the prologue, in which he laments the growth of luxury among the people:

The times wherein old POMPION was a saint,
When men fared hardly, yet without complaint,
On vilest cates: the dainty Indian-maize
Was eat with clamp-shells out of wooden trayes,
Under thatched huts, without the cry of reut,
And the best sawce to every dish, content.
When flesh was food and hairy skins made coats,
And men as well as birds had chirping notes;
When Cimnels were accounted noble blood,
Among the tribes of common herbage food,
Of CERES' bounty formed was many a knack,
Enough to fill poor ROBIN's Almanack.
These golden times (too fortunate to hold)
Were quickly sin'd away for love of gold.
"T was then among the bushes, not the street,
If one in place did an interior meet,
"Good-morrow, brother, is there aught you want?
Take freely of me, what I have you ha'nt."
Plain Toм and DICK would pass as current now,
As ever since," Your servant, Sir," and bow.
Deep skirted doublets, puritanick capes,
Which now would render men like upright apes,
Were comelier wear, our wiser fathers thought,
Than the last fashions from all Europe brought.
"I was in those dayes an honest grace would hold
Till an hot pudding grew at heart a cold,
And men had better stomachs at religion,

Than I to capon, turkey-cock, or pigeon;
When honest sisters met to pray, not prate,
About their own and not their neighbour's state.
During Plain Dealing's reign, that worthy stud
Of the ancient planters' race before the flood,
Then times were good, merchants cared not a rush
For other fare than jonakin and mush.
Although men fared and lodged very hard,
Yet innocence was better than a guard,
'Twas long before spiders and worms had drawn
Their dingy webs, or hid with cheating lawno
New England's beautys, which still seem'd to me
Illustrious in their own simplicity.

"T was ere the neighboring Virgin-Land had broke
The hogsheads of her worse than hellish smoak.
"T was ere the Islands sent their presents in.
Which but to use was counted next to sin.
"I was ere a barge had made so rich a fraight
As chocolate, dust-gold, and bitts of eight:
Ere wines from France, and Muscovados toc,
Without the which the drink will scarsely doe:
From western isles ere fruits and delicasies
Did rot maids' teeth and spoil their handsome faces.
Or ere these times did chance, the noise of war
Was from our towns and hearts removed far.
No bugbear comets in the chrystal air
Did drive our Christian planters to despair.
No sooner pagan malice peeped forth

But valour snib'd it. Then were men of worth,
Who by their prayers slew thousands; angel-like,
Their weapons are unseen with which they striks.
Then had the churches rest; as yet the coales
Were covered up in most contentious souls:
Freeness in judgment, union in affection,
Dear love, sound truth, they were our grand protection
Then were the times in which our councells sate.
These gave prognosticks of our future fate.
If these be longer liv'd our hopes increase,
These warrs will usher in a longer peace.-
But if New England's love die in its youth,
The grave will open next for blessed truth.
This theame is out of date, the peacefull hours
When castles needed not, but pleasant bowers.
Not ink, but bloud and tears now serve the turn
To draw the figure of New England's urne.
New England's hour of passion is at hand;
No power except divine can it withstand.
Scarce hath her glass of fifty years run out,
But her old prosperous steeds turn heads about,
Tracking themselves back to their poor beginnings,
To fear and fare upon their fruits of sinnings.
So that the mirror of the Christian world
Lyes burnt to heaps in part, her streamers furl'd.
Grief sighs, joyes flee, and dismal fears surprize
Not dastard spirits only, but the wise.
Thus have the fairest hopes deceiv'd the eye
Of the big-swoln expectant standing by:
Thus the proud ship after a little turn,
Sinks into NEPTUNE'S arms to find its urne;
Thus hath the heir to many thousands born
Been in an instant from the mother torn:
Even thus thine infant cheeks begin to pale,
And thy supporters through great losses fail.
This is the Prologue to thy future woe,
The Epilogue no mortal yet can know."

THOMSON died in April, 1714, aged 74. He wrote besides his "great epic," three shorter poems, neither of which have much merit.

ROGER WILLIAMS, whose best verses appear in his book on the Indian languages, NATHANIEL PITCHER, and many others were in this period known as poets. The death of PITCHER was cocelebrated in some verses entitled "Pitchero Threnodia," in which he was compared to PINDAR, Ho. RACE, and other poets of antiquity.

The most remarkable character of his age in this country was the Reverend COTTON MATHER, D.D. and F.R. S., who was born in Boston on the ninth of February, 1662. When twelve years of age he was qualified for admission to the college at Cambridge; at sixteen composed systems of logic and physics; and on receiving his master's degree, chose for his thesis "Puncta Hebraica sunt originis divinæ." The president, in his Latin oration, at commencement, said, “MATHER is named COTTON MATHER. What a name! but I am wrong: I should have said, what names! I shall say nothing of his reverend father, since I dare not praise him to his face; but should be represent and resemble his venerable grandfathers, JouN COTTON and RICHARD MATHER,* in piety, learning, and elegance of mind, solid judgment, prudence, and wisdom, he will bear away the palm; and I trust that in him COTTON and MATHER will be united and flourish again." In his eighteenth year he was invited to become a colleague of his father in the ministry of the North Church," but declined the place for three years. In 1684 he was married, and from this period devoted himself with untiring assiduity to professional and literary duties. During the last days of the disgraceful administration of Sir EMUND ANDROS he took an active part in politics, and twice by his eloquence and wisely temperate counsels saved the city from riot and revolution. In 1692 he was unfortunately conspicuous in the terrible scenes connected with the witchcraft superstition, and he has been unjustly ridiculed and condemned for the credulity and cruelty he then manifested. But he was no more credulous or cruel than under similar circumstances were Sir MATTHEW HALE, and many others, whose intellectual greatness and moral excellence are unquestioned; and in an age when tens of thousands believe in the puerile, ridiculous, and contemptible stuff called "spiritualism," the silliest and most disgusting delusion that ever illustrated the weakness of the human understanding, it certainly should not be a cause of surprise that the strange phenomena which he undoubtedly witnessed led MATHER into the far more respectable as well as time-honored error of a visible and punishable complicity of men and women with devils. In the reaction of the popular excitement an attempt was made to show that he was responsible for the excesses which had tarnished the fame of the colony; but a candid examination of the subject will lead to a different conclusion; participating, as it must be confessed he did, in the melancholy infatuation, he yet counselled caution and moderation, and evinced a willingness to sacrifice his convictions as to demoniacal interference rather than hazard the lives of any of the accused.

Although his mind was not of the first order for clearness and solidity, he was nevertheless a man of genius, and of extraordinary erudition, facility in literary execution, and perseverance. He wrote readily in seven languages, and was the author of

An pitaph upon RICHARD MATHER runs thus:
Under this stone lies RICHARD MATHER,
Who had a con, greater than his father,
And eie a orandson greater than either."

three hundred and eighty-three separate publications, besides unpublished manuscripts sufficient for half a dozen folio volumes. The Magnalia," "Christian Philosopher," Essays to do Good," "Wonders of the Invisible World," and many more, however disfigured by those striking faults of style which at the time were a prevailing fashion, contain passages of eloquence not less attractive than peculiar. With all their pedantry, their anagrams, puns, and grotesque conceits, they are thoughtful and earnest, and abound in original and shrewd observations of human nature, religious obligation, and providence.

In 1/18 Doctor MATHER published "Psalterum Americanum: the Book of Psalms, in a Transla tion exactly conformed to the Original, but all in Blank Verse, fitted unto the Tunes commonly used in our Churches: Which pure Offering is accompanied with Illustrations, digging for hidden Treasures in it, and Rules to employ it upon the glorious Intentions of it." Other poetical "composures" are scattered through nearly all his works, and they are generally as harsh and turgid as the worst verses of his contemporaries. The follo ving lines from his "Remarks on the Bright and the Dark Side of that American Pillar, the Reverend Mr. WILLIAM THOMSON," are characteristic:

"APOLLYON, owing him a cursed spleen
Who an APOLLOS in the church had been-
Dreading his traffic here would be undone
By numerous proselytes he daily won---
Accused him of imaginary faults,

And pushed him down, so, into dismal vaults-
Vaults, where he kept long ember-weeks of grief,
Till Heaven, alarmód, sent him a relief.
Then was a DANIEL in the lion's den,
A man, oh, how beloved of GoD and men!
By his bedside an Hebrew sword there lay,
With which at last he drove the devil away.
Quakers, too, durst not bear his keen replies,
But fearing it, half-drawn, the trembler flies.
Like LAZARUS, new-raised from death, appears
The saint that had been dead for many years.
Our NEHEMIAH said, Shall such as I
Desert my flock, and like a coward fly!'
Long had the churches begg'd the saint's release;
Released at last, he dies in glorious peace.
The night is not so long, but Phosphor's ray
Approaching glories doth on high display.
Faith's eye in him discerned the morning star,
His heart leap'd: sure the sun cannot be far.
In ecstacies of joy, he ravish'd cries,
'Love, love the LAMB, the LAMB!' in whom he dies."

There are however glimpses of nature even in the poems of COTTON MATHER. After having mentioned the sad fate of the Lady ARBELLA JOHNSON, whose religious ardor brought her to America, and who sunk under the fatigues and privations of exile, he adds, with touching pathos: And for her virtuous husband, ISAAC JOHNSON, "he tried

To live without her-liked it not-and died!"

COTTON MATHER himself died on the thirteen.th of February, 1724, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.

ROGER WOLCOTT, a major-general at the capture of Louisburg, and afterward governor of Connecticut, published a volume of verses at New London, in 1725. His principal work is "A Brief Account of the Agency of the Honorable