no one but Hon. J. Hammond Trumbull could now read an he would; also a
few histories of the Indian wars; and Thomas Prince published by
subscription an exceedingly dull chronological History of New England.
As he began his history with year 1, first month and sixth day--and
Adam, he had tired out even pious Bostonians by the time he reached New
England; and subscriptions and subscribers languished till the book died
unmourned just when the year 1633 had been caught up with. The "Simple
Cobler of Agawam" made a vast sensation with his scurrilous bombs. There
were a few volumes of poems printed; one by "the Tenth Muse," Anne
Bradstreet, of whose songs pious and cautious John Norton said (and
evidently believed what he said too) that if Virgil could have read them
he would have condemned his own work to the flames. Michael
Wigglesworth's "Day of Doom," that epic of hell-fire and damnation which
fairly chokes us with its sulphurous fumes, was widely read and deeply
venerated; in fact it was a great popular success. Fifteen hundred
copies were sold in the first year, one copy to each thirty-five
inhabitants of New England--a proportion showing a commercial success
unsurpassed in modern times. It was printed also on broadsides, in a
cheap form, and hawked over the country by chapmen in order to further
spread its lurid and baleful shadow. The dull but sympathetic "Meat out
of the Eater" by the same author quickly went through five editions.
"New England's Crisis," "A Posie from Old Mr. Dods Garden," "A Looking
Glasse for New England," and "The Origin of the Whalebone Petticoat--a
Satyr," end the monotonous list of poetry. Fully three-quarters of the
entire number of publications proceeded from the prolific Mather stock,
and of course bore the pompous, verbose, Mather traits of authorship.
Cotton Mather had the felicity of having published as his share of "New
England's First Fruits" a list to make a modern author green with
envy--three hundred and eighty-two different works; three hundred of
these may be seen in the library of the American Antiquarian Society:
not all were brought out in America, however. His "Magnalia" was printed
in England, and the exigences and vicissitudes of publication at that
time are fully told in his diary; also the exalted and idealized view
which he took of authorship. At the first definite plan which he
formulated in his mind of his history of New England, he "cried mightily
to God;" and he went through a series of fasts and vigils at intervals
until the book was completed, when he held extended exercises of secret
thanksgiving. Prostrate on his study floor, in the dust, he joyfully
received full assurance in his heart from God that his work would be
successful. But writing the book is not all the work, as any author
knows; and he then had much distress and many troubled fasts over the
best way of printing it, of transporting it to England; and when at last
he placed his "elaborate composures" on shipboard, he prayed an entire
day. No ascetic Papist ever observed fast days more vigorously than did
Cotton Mather while his book was on its long sea-voyage and in England.
He sent it in June in the year 1700, and did not hear from it till
December. What a thrill of sympathy one feels for him! Then he learned
that the printers were cold; the expense of publication would be £600, a
goodly sum to venture; it was "clogged by the dispositions" of the man
to whom it was sent; it was delayed and obstructed; he was left
strangely in the dark about it; months passed without any news. Still
his faith in God supported him. At last a sainted Christian came forward
in London, a stranger, and offered to print the book at his own expense
and give the author as many copies as he wished. That was in what
Carlyle called "the Day of Dedications and Patrons, not of Bargains with
Booksellers." In October, 1702, after two and a half long years of
waiting, one copy of the wished-for volume arrived, and the author and
his dearest friend, Mr. Bromfield, piously greeted it with a day of
solemn fasting and praise.
Can the contrast of that day with the present, can the character of
Cotton Mather be more plainly shown than by this story of the
publication of the "Magnalia?" Many anxious days did he pass over other
manuscripts. Some were lost in London for seven years. One book
disappeared entirely from his ken, but was recovered by his heirs. His
most important and largest work, the six folio volumes of his "Biblia
Americana," pursued by "Strange Frowns of Heaven" could not find a
publisher and still is unprinted. Cotton Mather survived his own era,
his congenial atmosphere, and, whether he was conscious of it or not,
was indeed, as Dexter called him, a literary dodo, an isolated relic of
early fantastic methods of composition. His work was not, as Prince
said, "agreeable to the Gust of his Age." Even the name of Mather,
all-powerful in New England, could not place the "Biblia Americana" in
the press.
There were no American novels in those early days. The first book
deserving the appellation that was printed in New England was
"intituled" "The Power of Sympathy, or the Triumph of Nature--A Novel
founded on truth and dedicated to the Young Ladies of America." It
appeared in 1789. Four years later came "The Helpless Orphan, or The
Innocent Victim of Revenge," and then "The Coquette, or the History of
Eliza Wharton."
The only book that was written by a woman and published in New England
during the first century of New England printing, was a collection of
the poems of Anne Bradstreet. A few--very few--pamphlets by women
authors of that date are also known: "The Confession of Faith--A Summary
of Divinity drawn up by a young Gentlewoman in the 25th year of her
Age;" Mrs. Elizabeth Cotton's "Peculiar Treasure of the Almighty King
Opened;" Elizabeth White's "Experience;" Mary Rowlandson's pathetic
account of her captivity--these are all. Hannah Adams was the first New
England woman to adopt literature as a profession.
Doubtless many Puritans shared Governor Winthrop's opinion of literary
women, which that tolerant and gentle man expressed thus:
"The Governor of Hartford upon Connecticut came to Boston, and
brought his wife with him (a godly young woman and of special
parts) who was fallen into a sad infirmity, the loss of her
understanding and reason which had been growing upon her divers
years by occasion of her giving herself wholly to reading and
writing, and had written many books. Her husband being very loving
and tender of her, was loath to grieve her; but he saw his error
when it was too late. For if she had attended her household
affairs, and such things as belong to women, and not gone out of
her way and calling to meddle in such things as are proper for men,
whose minds are stronger, etc., she had kept her wits, and might
have improved them usefully and honorably in the place God had set
her."
I know of no illustrated books printed New England in the seventeenth
century, nor any with frontispieces or portraits. In 1723 a portrait of
Increase Mather appeared in his Life, which was written by monopolizing
Cotton Mather. It was a poor thing, being engraved in London by John
Sturt. When Peter Pelham came to Boston about 1725 and started as a
portrait engraver, and married the Widow Copley with her thriving
tobacco shop, he engraved and published many likenesses of authors and
ministers, some of which were bound with their books, others sold singly
by subscription. The mezzotint of Cotton Mather, made in 1727, sold for
two shillings. Hubbard's Narrative had a map in 1677; and in 1713 the
lives of Dr. Faustus, Friar Bacon, Conjurors Bungay and Vanderwart were
printed conjointly in a volume "with cuts"--perhaps the earliest
illustrated New England book, unless we except the New England Primer.
"The Prodigal Daughter, or the Disobedient Lady Reclaimed" had "curious
cuts;" so also did the "Parents Gift" in 1741, and "A Present for a
Servant Maid." "Pilgrim's Progress" was printed in Boston in an
illustrated edition in 1744. But for any handsomely illustrated books
American readers sent, until Revolutionary times, to England.
There were, however, at a later date, some few books printed with
special elegance, with broad margins. The "Discourse on the United
Submission to Higher Powers" had some copies that were printed on pages
ten inches by seven and a quarter inches in size, while the regular
edition was only six by six and a half inches. A letter is in existence
of Governor Trumbull's ordering that some copies of the funeral sermon
preached at his wife's death be printed on heavy writing paper. Copies
of the first edition of the "Magnalia" also were issued on large paper
and owned in New England, but of course that work was done in London.
The printing of the earliest books was generally poor, showing the work
of inexperienced and unaccustomed hands; but the paper was good,
sometimes of fine quality, and always strong. The type was fairly good
and clear until Revolutionary times, when paper, ink, and type, being
made by new workmen out of the poorest materials, were bad beyond
belief, producing, in fact, an almost unreadable page. Throughout the
first half of the eighteenth century the books printed in New England
compared favorably with the ones imported from England at that date, and
in the special case of the "Poetical Oblation"--a fine quarto, offered
by Harvard College to George III. on his accession to the throne, the
typography is exquisite. For the early binding but one word can be
said--that of praise. All these old books had Charles Lamb's desideratum
of a volume, were "strong backed and neat bound." Well dressed was the
morocco, the leather, the vellum, parchment, or basil, firmly was it
glued in place, well-sewed were the leaves--loudly can we sing the
goodness and true worth of colonial bookbinding.
In many New England libraries and collections may be seen specimens of
colonial printing and binding; the library of the American Antiquarian
Society is particularly rich in such ancient treasures. Some of the
books from Cotton Mather's library may there be found, that library
which Dunton called the glory of New England, and which he said was the
largest privately owned collection of books that he had ever seen; but
many of them were burned in the sacking of Boston by the British. It
consisted of over seven thousand printed volumes and many manuscripts,
and its estimated value was £8,000. The majority of these volumes was
naturally upon divinity.
We can also form an idea of a New England library at a somewhat earlier
date, for the list of books in Elder Brewster's library has been
preserved. They numbered four hundred. Of these books, sixty-two were in
Latin and three hundred in English. There were forty-eight folios and
one hundred and twenty-one octavos. This was quite a bulky and heavy
library for transportation to and through that new country. All were not
imported at one time, as the succession of dates shows. Brewster
purchased from time to time the best books brought out in England on
subjects which interested him, until it was really a rich exegetical
collection, and may possibly have been used as a circulating one. Nearly
all the number were religious, theological, or historical books;
fourteen were in rhyme. Among the poems were "A Turncoat of the Times,"
Spenser's "Prosopopeia," "The Scyrge of Drunkenness," a "Description of
a Good Wife," the ballad of "The Maunding Soldier," and Wither's works.
One might have been a tragedy, "Messalina," but there were no other
dramatic works.
Other benefactors of booksellers had good libraries. Parson Hooker left
behind him £300 worth of books in an estate of £1,336. Parson Wareham
had £82 worth in an estate of £1,200. Rev. Ebenezer Pemberton left, in
1717, books which made one thousand lots in an auction, for which the
first book catalogue ever compiled in New England was printed. Even by
1723 the library of Harvard College contained none of the works of
Addison, Bolingbroke, Young, Swift, Prior, Steele, Dryden, or Pope. In
1734, the catalogue of T. Cox, a prominent Boston bookseller, did not
contain the "Spectator" nor the works of Shakespeare or Milton. The
literary revival of the time of Queen Anne was evidently but little felt
in New England during its inception. The facile and constant quotation
from the ancient classics show how constantly and thoroughly the latter
were studied.
Among early New England publications we must not fail to speak of the
omnipresent almanac. Ere there was a New England Psalm-Book there was a
New England Almanac, and succeeding years brought new ones forth in
flocks. Though Charles Lamb included almanacs in his catalogue of "books
which are no books," and the founder of the Bodleian Library would not
admit that they were books and excluded them from the shelves of his
library, when New England philomaths and philodespots numbered such
honored names as Mather, Dudley, Sewall, Chauncey, Brattle, Ames, and
Holyoke, New England Puritans must have deemed almanacs to be books, and
so do we. In many a colonial household where the Bible and psalm-book
formed the sole standing library, the almanac was the only annual
book-comer that crossed the threshold and lodged under the roof-tree. On
a nail by the side of the great fireplace hung proudly and prominently
the Family Almanac, the Ephemeris. This Family Almanac was a guide,
counsellor, and friend; a magazine, cyclopædia, and jest-book; was even
a spelling-book. It was consulted by every member of the household on
every subject, save possibly religion--for that they had the best of all
books. The planters learned from it meteorological, astronomical,
thaumaturgical, botanical, and agricultural facts--or rather what the
editor stated as facts. Social customs and peculiarities and ethics were
also touched upon in a manner suited to the requirements and capacity of
the reader; medical and hygienic advice were given for man and beast,
ending with the quaint warning to use before and after taking that
unfashionable medicine, prayer. Wit, history, romance, poetry, all
contributed to the almanac. The printer turned an extra penny by
advertising various articles that he had for sale, from negro slaves to
garden seeds. So, in addition to what the original readers learned, we
now find an almanac a most suggestive record of the olden times.
As with many colonial books, the most attractive part of an almanac is
not always the printed contents, but the interlined comments of the
original owner. He kept frequently an account of his scanty and sparse
purchases; from them we gain a knowledge of the price of commodities in
his time. We learn also upon how little a New England planter could
live, how little money he spent. He kept a record of the births,
weights, and measures of his family; he entered the purchase and number
of his lottery tickets (but I never found the proud and happy statement
of a lottery prize). He wrote therein Greek verse, as did John Cotton.
He entered wig-making and hair-dressing accounts, as did Thomas Prince.
He kept the amount of beer and cider he made and drank, and the sad
statement of deaths in the neighborhood; such grim entries are seen as
these made by old Ezra Stiles: "This day Ethan Allen died and went to
Hell." "This day died Joseph Bellamy and went to Heaven, where he can
dictate and domineer no longer." President Stiles did not foresee that
his great-grandson would be Joseph Bellamy's also, and would plan a
social reform more vast in its changes than the really sensible scheme
he thought out, of "uniting and cementing his offspring by transfusing
to distant generations certain influential principles," and of
benefiting the growing population of the New World by carefully planned
and wide-spread marriages with virtuous and pious Stileses.
Of course the almanac-owner kept account of the weather--a brave record
through January and February and March; then, lessening his zeal as
spring-planting began, the hard-working summer months have clean pages;
while a remorseful energy in November and December ofttimes made him
renew in the smoke-dried almanac his crabbed entries. Hence from
contemporary evidence does old New England life seem all winter, all
bitter cold and fierce rains and harsh winds; yet there were surely some
warm summer days and cheerful sunshine, so smoothly serene as to gain no
record.
The relations between book-publishers and authors, between
book-publishers and the public, were from earliest days most friendly.
There was much polite exchange of compliments; the intelligence of the
public was always mightily flattered and shown up in a very civil
fashion in such manner as this:
"A New Edition of the really beautiful & sentimental Novel Armine
and Elvira Is this day published price 9d sewed in blue paper. To
the Ladies in particular and others the lovers of Sentiment and
Poetick Numbers this Novel is recommended, to them it will afford a
delightful Repast. To others it is not an object."
"For the pleasing entertainment of the Polite Part of Mankind I
have printed the most beautiful Poems of Mr. Stephen Duck the
famous Wiltshire Poet. It is a full Demonstration to me that the
People of New England have a fine Taste for good Sense and polite
Learning having already sold 1200 of these Poems."
Though Stephen Duck appealed to polite and literate New Englanders just
as he became the rage in old England, his name is now almost forgotten.
It must have inclined the public most favorably to a book to be told
that the volume is "intended only for the highly virtuous;" that "the
glowing pen of the author brought this token into life solely from
Admiration of a community fitted by amazing Intelligence to receive it:"
that
"'Tis said with truth by a secret but ingenious New England
minister that no town is so worthy the vendue of this pleasing book
as these polite gentlemen and gentlewomen to whom it will be on
Friday offered."
Authors, if not authoresses, were treated with much respect and
encouragement. Indeed, they were urged to write. Books printed by
subscription were the rule, and, as an inducement, the names of
subscribers were printed in a list at the end of the book, and an extra
copy was given for every six numbers subscribed for. The "undertakers"
did not always trouble themselves to deliver the book when printed. A
notice was posted, or printed in a newspaper, advising subscribers
pretty sharply that their copies (which had apparently been paid for in
advance) must be sent for within a certain time or the books would be
"sold to others desiring." One American poet, the author of "War--An
Heroic Poem," a work which has been lost to us, threatened to prosecute
his patrons for not taking his book. Sometimes the printer of the book
also seized the opportunity of the large circulation to drum up
delinquent citizens who had not paid him at previous dates for news
letters, sermons, funeral verses, etc. One of the first books printed in
Hartford was paid for largely by a man who ran a woollen mill in the
vicinity. He took the convenient occasion to thriftily forward his own
trade by having printed and bound with the poems, and thus distributing
to sheep-farmers and farm-wives in the surrounding towns, full
instructions about preparing the wool to be sent to him.
Frequently the notices in the newspapers bore, in quaint wording, warm
testimony to the popularity of a book. "The above book is advertised by
the desire of numbers who have read and admired it." "If to raise the
soul to heights of honourable pride is not unworthy so great a mind,
praise of this book may be given, though needless, since many request
it." "Many curious gentlemen formerly buying their books in London now
wish to buy only in New England where so acute a manner of composure is
found." "For the polite and inquisitive part of Mankind in New England
these poetick fancies are highly conformed as many residents testify by
their frequent perusal and approval."
Public encouragement to aspiring authors was not lacking; this
advertisement in the _New England Weekly Journal_ of March, 1728, is
indeed delightful:
"There is now preparing for the Press, and may upon Suitable
Encouragement be communicated to the Publick, a Miscellany of Poems
of Severall Hands and upon severall occasions some of which have
already been Published and received the Approbation of the best
Judges with many more very late performances of equal if not
superior Beauty which have never yet seen the Light; if therefore
any Ingenious Gentlemen are disposed to contribute towards the
erecting of a Poetickal Monument for the Honour of This Country
Either by their Generous Subscriptions or Composures, they are
desired to convey them to Mr. Daniel Henchman or the Publisher of
this Paper by whom they will be received with Candour and
Thankfulness."
Just fancy the effect of a similar advertisement in a prominent
newspaper of to-day! How composures would flow in from the ingenious
gentlemen who love to see themselves in print! What a poetical monument
could be reared--to the very sky! I have never seen in any colonial
newspaper any subsequent references to this proposed collection or
miscellany of composures, and I know of no book that was published at
that time which could answer the description, so I suspect the well-laid
plan came to naught. The specimens of local and ephemeral poetry that
were printed in the colonial press in succeeding years make it easy to
comprehend the failure of the project: the villanously rhymed effusions
fairly imposthumate all the ribald vulgarity of the times; coarseness
and dulness of subject and thought being rivalled only by the
super-coarseness of the verbiage. I do not say that the newspapers
provoked these stupid rhymes, which are about as much poetry as is a
game of crambo; but I do not find them until "newspaper-time," and fear
the extra circulation through the weekly press may be held partly
responsible.
A book called "A Collection of Poems by Several Hands" apparently was
gathered by methods similar to the one shown by the advertisement just
quoted. It was printed in 1744, and was a puerile and banal collection
containing but few good verses, and was apparently made expressly to
show off the literary accomplishments of Mather Byles, who was what
Carlyle would call an intellectual dapperling.
Book-auctions, held first in England in 1676, formed one of the rare
diversions in the provinces, and were apparently largely attended by
"sentimentalists," as one book-dealer called book-buyers. The business
of book-auctioneering was called, in the bombastic language of the
times, "the sublimest Auxiliary which Science Commerce and Arts either
has or perhaps ever will possess," while the bookseller was called
"Provedore to the Sentimentalists and Professor of Book Auctioneering."
These sales or vendues were frequently held at taverns.
At a very early day intelligent and progressive Bostonians established a
public library. By the year 1673 bequests had been made to such an
institution, and consignments deemed suitable for it had been sent to
Boston by London booksellers. All these books were properly sober and
pious. The Prince library, that first large American book collection,
which was conceived and started by Thomas Prince in 1703, was nobly
planned and nobly carried out, and deserved more gratitude and more care
than it received at modern hands.
But many towns had no public library, hence much friendly exchange and
lending of books took place between book-owners and neighbors, sometimes
apparently without the owner's consent or knowledge. The newspapers,
among their sparse advertisements, have many such as this simply naïve
one in the _Boston News Letter_ of July 7, 1712:
"A certain Person having lent two Books viz; Rushworths Collections
& Fullers Holy War & forgotten unto whom; These are desiring the
Borrower to be so kind as to return said Books unto Owner."
Or this sarcastic request in the _Connecticut Courant_.
"The gentleman who took the second volume of Bacons Abridgment from
Mr. David Balls bedroom on the 18th of November would do well to
return it to the owner whose name he will find on the 15th Page. If
he choose rather to keep it the owner wishes him to call and take
the rest of the set."
Another Connecticut man is meekly asked to "return the 3rd Vol of Don
Quixote & take the 4th instead if he chuse."
Connecticut folk seemed to be particularly given to this slipshod
fashion of promiscuous and unlicensed book-borrowing, if we can trust
the apparent proof given by Connecticut newspapers in their many
advertisements of lost books. In some notices it is darkly hinted that
"specifications of books long lent have been given" (to the sheriff
perhaps); and again, a meek suggestion that the owner wishes to read a
long missing volume and would be grateful for an opportunity to do so.
One ungallant soul advertised for "the she-person that borrowed Mr.
Thos. Browns Works from a gentleman she is well acquainted with."
There was not the redeeming excuse for non-return sometimes given by
like "desuming deadheads" nowadays, that the owner's name had been
forgotten, for the inscription "Perley Morse, His Book," or "Catey
Bradford, Her Book," or whatever the name might be, was quickly and
repeatedly written by each colonial owner as soon as the book was
acquired.
Frequently also the dates and places of residence appear. Even the very
dates of ownership and the quaint old names are interesting. Bathsheba
Spalding, Noca Emmons, Elam Noyes, Titherming Layton, Engrossed Bump,
Sally Box, Tilly Minching, Zerushaddi Key, Comfort Vine--these are a few
of the odd signatures I have found in old books.
Readers also had a pleasant habit of leaving a sign-manual on the last
page of a book, thus: "Timothy Pitkin perlegit A.D. 1765," "Cotton Smith
perlegit 1740." A clear-speaking lesson are such records to this
generation--a lesson of patience and diligence. How we venerate, with
what awe we regard the name of Timothy Pitkin, and know that he lived to
read through that vast folio--the first ever printed in America--the
"Complete Body of Divinity," a folio of over nine hundred
double-columned, compactly printed pages! And yet, why should not
Timothy Pitkin live through reading it when Samuel Willard lived through
writing it? Entries of dates in old Bibles frequently show that those
sainted old Christians had read entirely through that holy book ten
times in regular order.