There is a volume of what were once newspapers each on a small
half-sheet, yellow and time-stained, of a coarse fabric, and imprinted
with a rude old type. Their aspect conveys a singular impression of
antiquity, in a species of literature which we are accustomed to
consider as connected only with the present moment. Ephemeral as they
were intended and supposed to be, they have long outlived the printer
and his whole subscription-list, and have proved more durable, as to
their physical existence, than most of the timber, bricks, and stone of
the town where they were issued. These are but the least of their
triumphs. The government, the interests, the opinions, in short, all
the moral circumstances that were contemporary with their publication,
have passed away, and left no better record of what they were than may
be found in these frail leaves. Happy are the editors of newspapers!
Their productions excel all others in immediate popularity, and are
certain to acquire another sort of value with the lapse of time. They
scatter their leaves to the wind, as the sibyl did, and posterity
collects them, to be treasured up among the best materials of its
wisdom. With hasty pens they write for immortality.
It is pleasant to take one of these little dingy half-sheets between
the thumb and finger, and picture forth the personage who, above ninety
years ago, held it, wet from the press, and steaming, before the fire.
Many of the numbers bear the name of an old colonial dignitary. There
he sits, a major, a member of the council, and a weighty merchant, in
his high-backed arm-chair, wearing a solemn wig and grave attire, such
as befits his imposing gravity of mien, and displaying but little
finery, except a huge pair of silver shoe-buckles, curiously carved.
Observe the awful reverence of his visage, as he reads his Majesty’s
most gracious speech; and the deliberate wisdom with which he ponders
over some paragraph of provincial politics, and the keener intelligence
with which he glances at the ship-news and commercial advertisements.
Observe, and smile! He may have been a wise man in his day; but, to us,
the wisdom of the politician appears like folly, because we can compare
its prognostics with actual results; and the old merchant seems to have
busied himself about vanities, because we know that the expected ships
have been lost at sea, or mouldered at the wharves; that his imported
broadcloths were long ago worn to tatters, and his cargoes of wine
quaffed to the lees; and that the most precious leaves of his ledger
have become waste-paper. Yet, his avocations were not so vain as our
philosophic moralizing. In this world we are the things of a moment,
and are made to pursue momentary things, with here and there a thought
that stretches mistily towards eternity, and perhaps may endure as
long. All philosophy that would abstract mankind from the present is no
more than words.
The first pages of most of these old papers are as soporific as a bed
of poppies. Here we have an erudite clergyman, or perhaps a Cambridge
professor, occupying several successive weeks with a criticism on Tate
and Brady, as compared with the New England version of the Psalms. Of
course, the preference is given to the native article. Here are doctors
disagreeing about the treatment of a putrid fever then prevalent, and
blackguarding each other with a characteristic virulence that renders
the controversy not altogether unreadable. Here are President
Wigglesworth and the Rev. Dr. Colman, endeavoring to raise a fund for
the support of missionaries among the Indians of Massachusetts Bay.
Easy would be the duties of such a mission now! Here—for there is
nothing new under the sun—are frequent complaints of the disordered
state of the currency, and the project of a bank with a capital of five
hundred thousand pounds, secured on lands. Here are literary essays,
from the Gentleman’s Magazine; and squibs against the Pretender, from
the London newspapers. And here, occasionally, are specimens of New
England honor, laboriously light and lamentably mirthful, as if some
very sober person, in his zeal to be merry, were dancing a jig to the
tune of a funeral-psalm. All this is wearisome, and we must turn the
leaf.
There is a good deal of amusement, and some profit, in the perusal of
those little items which characterize the manners and circumstances of
the country. New England was then in a state incomparably more
picturesque than at present, or than it has been within the memory of
man; there being, as yet, only a narrow strip of civilization along the
edge of a vast forest, peopled with enough of its original race to
contrast the savage life with the old customs of another world. The
white population, also, was diversified by the influx of all sorts of
expatriated vagabonds, and by the continual importation of
bond-servants from Ireland and elsewhere, so that there was a wild and
unsettled multitude, forming a strong minority to the sober descendants
of the Puritans. Then, there were the slaves, contributing their dark
shade to the picture of society. The consequence of all this was a
great variety and singularity of action and incident, many instances of
which might be selected from these columns, where they are told with a
simplicity and quaintness of style that bring the striking points into
very strong relief. It is natural to suppose, too, that these
circumstances affected the body of the people, and made their course of
life generally less regular than that of their descendants. There is no
evidence that the moral standard was higher then than now; or, indeed,
that morality was so well defined as it has since become. There seem to
have been quite as many frauds and robberies, in proportion to the
number of honest deeds; there were murders, in hot-blood and in malice;
and bloody quarrels over liquor. Some of our fathers also appear to
have been yoked to unfaithful wives, if we may trust the frequent
notices of elopements from bed and board. The pillory, the
whipping-post, the prison, and the gallows, each had their use in those
old times; and, in short, as often as our imagination lives in the
past, we find it a ruder and rougher age than our own, with hardly any
perceptible advantages, and much that gave life a gloomier tinge. In
vain we endeavor to throw a sunny and joyous air over our picture of
this period; nothing passes before our fancy but a crowd of sad-visaged
people, moving duskily through a dull gray atmosphere. It is certain
that winter rushed upon them with fiercer storms than now, blocking up
the narrow forest-paths, and overwhelming the roads along the sea-coast
with mountain snow drifts; so that weeks elapsed before the newspaper
could announce how many travellers had perished, or what wrecks had
strewn the shore. The cold was more piercing then, and lingered further
into the spring, making the chimney-corner a comfortable seat till long
past May-day. By the number of such accidents on record, we might
suppose that the thunder-stone, as they termed it, fell oftener and
deadlier on steeples, dwellings, and unsheltered wretches. In fine, our
fathers bore the brunt of more raging and pitiless elements than we.
There were forebodings, also, of a more fearful tempest than those of
the elements. At two or three dates, we have stories of drums,
trumpets, and all sorts of martial music, passing athwart the midnight
sky, accompanied with the—roar of cannon and rattle of musketry,
prophetic echoes of the sounds that were soon to shake the land.
Besides these airy prognostics, there were rumors of French fleets on
the coast, and of the march of French and Indians through the
wilderness, along the borders of the settlements. The country was
saddened, moreover, with grievous sicknesses. The small-pox raged in
many of the towns, and seems, though so familiar a scourge, to have
been regarded with as much affright as that which drove the throng from
Wall Street and Broadway at the approach of a new pestilence. There
were autumnal fevers too, and a contagious and destructive
throat-distemper,—diseases unwritten in medical hooks. The dark
superstition of former days had not yet been so far dispelled as not to
heighten the gloom of the present times. There is an advertisement,
indeed, by a committee of the Legislature, calling for information as
to the circumstances of sufferers in the “late calamity of 1692,” with
a view to reparation for their losses and misfortunes. But the
tenderness with which, after above forty years, it was thought
expedient to allude to the witchcraft delusion, indicates a good deal
of lingering error, as well as the advance of more enlightened
opinions. The rigid hand of Puritanism might yet be felt upon the reins
of government, while some of the ordinances intimate a disorderly
spirit on the part of the people. The Suffolk justices, after a
preamble that great disturbances have been committed by persons
entering town and leaving it in coaches, chaises, calashes, and other
wheel-carriages, on the evening before the Sabbath, give notice that a
watch will hereafter be set at the “fortification-gate,” to prevent
these outrages. It is amusing to see Boston assuming the aspect of a
walled city, guarded, probably, by a detachment of church-members, with
a deacon at their head. Governor Belcher makes proclamation against
certain “loose and dissolute people” who have been wont to stop
passengers in the streets, on the Fifth of November, “otherwise called
Pope’s Day,” and levy contributions for the building of bonfires. In
this instance, the populace are more puritanic than the magistrate.
The elaborate solemnities of funerals were in accordance with the
sombre character of the times. In cases of ordinary death, the printer
seldom fails to notice that the corpse was “very decently interred.”
But when some mightier mortal has yielded to his fate, the decease of
the “worshipful” such-a-one is announced, with all his titles of
deacon, justice, councillor, and colonel; then follows an heraldic
sketch of his honorable ancestors, and lastly an account of the black
pomp of his funeral, and the liberal expenditure of scarfs, gloves, and
mourning rings. The burial train glides slowly before us, as we have
seen it represented in the woodcuts of that day, the coffin, and the
bearers, and the lamentable friends, trailing their long black
garments, while grim Death, a most misshapen skeleton, with all kinds
of doleful emblems, stalks hideously in front. There was a coach maker
at this period, one John Lucas, who scents to have gained the chief of
his living by letting out a sable coach to funerals. It would not be
fair, however, to leave quite so dismal an impression on the reader’s
mind; nor should it be forgotten that happiness may walk soberly in
dark attire, as well as dance lightsomely in a gala-dress. And this
reminds us that there is an incidental notice of the “dancing-school
near the Orange-Tree,” whence we may infer that the salutatory art was
occasionally practised, though perhaps chastened into a characteristic
gravity of movement. This pastime was probably confined to the
aristocratic circle, of which the royal governor was the centre. But we
are scandalized at the attempt of Jonathan Furness to introduce a more
reprehensible amusement: he challenges the whole country to match his
black gelding in a race for a hundred pounds, to be decided on Metonomy
Common or Chelsea Beach. Nothing as to the manners of the times can be
inferred from this freak of an individual. There were no daily and
continual opportunities of being merry; but sometimes the people
rejoiced, in their own peculiar fashion, oftener with a calm, religious
smile than with a broad laugh, as when they feasted, like one great
family, at Thanksgiving time, or indulged a livelier mirth throughout
the pleasant days of Election-week. This latter was the true holiday
season of New England. Military musters were too seriously important in
that warlike time to be classed among amusements; but they stirred up
and enlivened the public mind, and were occasions of solemn festival to
the governor and great men of the province, at the expense of the
field-offices. The Revolution blotted a feast-day out of our calendar;
for the anniversary of the king’s birth appears to have been celebrated
with most imposing pomp, by salutes from Castle William, a military
parade, a grand dinner at the town-house, and a brilliant illumination
in the evening. There was nothing forced nor feigned in these
testimonials of loyalty to George the Second. So long as they dreaded
the re-establishment of a popish dynasty, the people were fervent for
the house of Hanover: and, besides, the immediate magistracy of the
country was a barrier between the monarch and the occasional
discontents of the colonies; the waves of faction sometimes reached the
governor’s chair, but never swelled against the throne. Thus, until
oppression was felt to proceed from the king’s own hand, New England
rejoiced with her whole heart on his Majesty’s birthday.
But the slaves, we suspect, were the merriest part of the population,
since it was their gift to be merry in the worst of circumstances; and
they endured, comparatively, few hardships, under the domestic sway of
our fathers. There seems to have been a great trade in these human
commodities. No advertisements are more frequent than those of “a negro
fellow, fit for almost any household work”; “a negro woman, honest,
healthy, and capable”; “a negro wench of many desirable qualities”; “a
negro man, very fit for a taylor.” We know not in what this natural
fitness for a tailor consisted, unless it were some peculiarity of
conformation that enabled him to sit cross-legged. When the slaves of a
family were inconveniently prolific,—it being not quite orthodox to
drown the superfluous offspring, like a litter of kittens,—notice was
promulgated of “a negro child to be given away.” Sometimes the slaves
assumed the property of their own persons, and made their escape; among
many such instances, the governor raises a hue-and-cry after his negro
Juba. But, without venturing a word in extenuation of the general
system, we confess our opinion that Caesar, Pompey, Scipio, and all
such great Roman namesakes, would have been better advised had they
stayed at home, foddering the cattle, cleaning dishes,—in fine,
performing their moderate share of the labors of life, without being
harassed by its cares. The sable inmates of the mansion were not
excluded from the domestic affections: in families of middling rank,
they had their places at the board; and when the circle closed round
the evening hearth, its blaze glowed on their dark shining faces,
intermixed familiarly with their master’s children. It must have
contributed to reconcile them to their lot, that they saw white men and
women imported from Europe as they had been from Africa, and sold,
though only for a term of years, yet as actual slaves to the highest
bidder. Slave labor being but a small part of the industry of the
country, it did not change the character of the people; the latter, on
the contrary, modified and softened the institution, making it a
patriarchal, and almost a beautiful, peculiarity of the times.
Ah! We had forgotten the good old merchant, over whose shoulder we were
peeping, while he read the newspaper. Let us now suppose him putting on
his three-cornered gold-laced hat, grasping his cane, with a head
inlaid of ebony and mother-of-pearl, and setting forth, through the
crooked streets of Boston, on various errands, suggested by the
advertisements of the day. Thus he communes with himself: I must be
mindful, says he, to call at Captain Scut’s, in Creek Lane, and examine
his rich velvet, whether it be fit for my apparel on Election-day,—that
I may wear a stately aspect in presence of the governor and my brethren
of the council. I will look in, also, at the shop of Michael Cario, the
jeweller: he has silver buckles of a new fashion; and mine have lasted
me some half-score years. My fair daughter Miriam shall have an apron
of gold brocade, and a velvet mask,—though it would be a pity the wench
should hide her comely visage; and also a French cap, from Robert
Jenkins’s, on the north side of the town-house. He hath beads, too, and
ear-rings, and necklaces, of all sorts; these are but vanities,
nevertheless, they would please the silly maiden well. My dame desireth
another female in the kitchen; wherefore, I must inspect the lot of
Irish lasses, for sale by Samuel Waldo, aboard the schooner Endeavor;
as also the likely negro wench, at Captain Bulfinch’s. It were not
amiss that I took my daughter Miriam to see the royal waxwork, near the
town-dock, that she may learn to honor our most gracious King and
Queen, and their royal progeny, even in their waxen images; not that I
would approve of image-worship. The camel, too, that strange beast from
Africa, with two great humps, to be seen near the Common; methinks I
would fain go thither, and see how the old patriarchs were wont to
ride. I will tarry awhile in Queen Street, at the bookstore of my good
friends Kneeland & Green, and purchase Dr. Colman’s new sermon, and the
volume of discourses by Mr. Henry Flynt; and look over the controversy
on baptism, between the Rev. Peter Clarke and an unknown adversary; and
see whether this George Whitefield be as great in print as he is famed
to be in the pulpit. By that time, the auction will have commenced at
the Royal Exchange, in King Street. Moreover, I must look to the
disposal of my last cargo of West India rum and muscovado sugar; and
also the lot of choice Cheshire cheese, lest it grow mouldy. It were
well that I ordered a cask of good English beer, at the lower end of
Milk Street.
Then am I to speak with certain dealers about the lot of stout old
Vidonia, rich Canary, and Oporto-wines, which I have now lying in the
cellar of the Old South meeting-house. But, a pipe or two of the rich
Canary shall be reserved, that it may grow mellow in mine own
wine-cellar, and gladden my heart when it begins to droop with old age.
Provident old gentleman! But, was he mindful of his sepulchre? Did he
bethink him to call at the workshop of Timothy Sheaffe, in Cold Lane,
and select such a gravestone as would best please him? There wrought
the man whose handiwork, or that of his fellow-craftsmen, was
ultimately in demand by all the busy multitude who have left a record
of their earthly toil in these old time-stained papers. And now, as we
turn over the volume, we seem to be wandering among the mossy stones of
a burial-ground.