production was the votes of the Assembly for the latter part of 1742," though according to Evans's American Bibliography Parker did not print the Journal of the Votes and Proceedings until November, 1743. But however that may have been, no book is known to have been printed by Parker previous to 1743.2

Two years ago, after examining Mr. Howe's volume, Mr. Updike threw out the suggestion that the book may have been printed in London by William Bowyer the younger, the "learned printer," a notion which seems not improbable. This question can of course be determined only after a careful comparison of the Officia Sacrata and the other Elliston books with books printed by Bowyer 3-a task so tedious that the result would hardly warrant the labor.1

Meanwhile those who - like Mr. Updike, Mr. Robert H. Kelby, Mr. Worthington C. Ford, Mr. Julius H. Tuttle, and the present writer - have examined one or all of the Elliston books, agree that in typography, in binding, and in paper, they were doubtless of English manufacture.6

1 Sketches, etc., p. 35.

5

* Hildeburn (Pennsylvania Magazine, xiii. 209) assigns to Parker's press the Rev. John Beach's "Sermon on Eternal Life" (1745). According to Haven and to Evans this book was printed at Newport, R. I. I have found no copy of the 1745 edition in the libraries about here, but the title-page of a later edition reads in part: "A Sermon shewing, that Eternal Life Is God's Free Gift, Bestowed upon all Men who obey the Gospel. Newport: Printed by the Widow Franklin, at Newport: Re-printed at the Office of the New

the Town-School-House. 1745. port Mercury 1806."

See J. Nichols, Biographical and Literary Anecdotes of William Bowyer, Printer, F. S. A. (1782), and J. Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century (1812), ii. 1-461. Elliston's name apparently does not appear in either of these works.

• A border frequently employed in the Officia Sacrata-it is found on pp. 18, 20, 23, 39, 41, 77, 99, 107, 112, 114, 158, 183, 207, 209 - appears to be identical with a border in Roger North's Examen, printed by Bowyer in 1740 (Advertisement, signature b). It should be added that no copies of the Elliston books are in the British Museum, nor do I find them recorded in Watt or Lowndes.

The paper on which the Officia Sacrata is printed has no water-mark. The paper on which the Enchiridium Polychrestum is printed has a singularly distinct water-mark: a figure of Neptune and his trident, the words "Pro Patria," and the name "J: Evers Vierevant." Perhaps Vierevant was a Continental paper-maker. The water-mark of the paper on which the Cognitiones Christianismi is printed is not easy to read, but the words "Pro Patria" are clear.

• The Enchiridium Polychrestum is entered in Evans's American Bibliography (no. 4941), doubtless, as Mr. Evans writes me, on the authority of Hildeburn. Mr. Evans now thinks that the book must have been printed in England.

The TREASURER announced the receipt of $2000 on account of the bequest of Horace Everett Ware, which is to accumulate till 1930, when the amount, with any additions which may be made from other sources, is to be used by the Society for the erection of some memorial to the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay and the transfer of the Colony charter to New England. He also reported the receipt of $30,000 from the executors of the will of George Vasmer Leverett in satisfaction of his bequests. These additions bring the total amount of the Society's endowment up to something more than $100,000. Mr. WILLIAM C. LANE made the following communication:

THE BUILDING OF MASSACHUSETTS HALL, 1717-1720 Massachusetts Hall was completed in 1720, and was first occupied by students in the fall of that year. The story of its building is told briefly in this paper, and in the pages following are printed the documents upon which that story is founded.

It was in November, 1717, that the need for a new building to provide lodging for students first found public expression. An inspection of the Quinquennial Catalogue shows that at just this time there had been a sudden increase in the number of students. The class of 1721, which entered in 1717, graduated with 37 members, and the five classes, 1721 to 1725, averaged 39 in number. The previous five classes, 1716 to 1720, averaged only 18. Previous to the autumn of 1717 the number of students in residence must have been well under one hundred, for the four classes, 1717 to 1720, graduated with only 80 members altogether. In November, 1718, however, it is explicitly stated that there were 124 students, graduate and undergraduate, in residence. At this time the College had only two buildings in which students lodged - that which stood on the present site of Harvard Hall and was burned in 1764, in which, it is stated, there were twenty chambers in the upper story, and Stoughton College, built in 1700, containing sixteen chambers.1 These thirty-six chambers probably each contained two studies or closets, about five feet 1 See the Columbian Magazine, December, 1788, ii. 673.

square, partitioned off from them, and accordingly would accommodate seventy-two students. There may possibly have been room for a few more than seventy-two, since the chambers in Stoughton, or some of them, may have had three studies, for in one of the plans for the new building it was proposed that three studies might be contrived in some of the chambers, which were of the same size as the chambers in Stoughton; but in any case it is evident that the supply had come to be far short of the demand.

The first step toward obtaining a new building was taken on November 14, 1717, when at a meeting of the Overseers1 the President stated the difficulties of the situation, and moved that the Overseers would consider and advise what should be done. The Overseers having thereupon voted that a memorial should be presented to the General Assembly, the President read the draught of a memorial which he had prepared. This was approved and referred to a committee of six, with instructions that it be transcribed, signed by the clerk of the Overseers, and presented to the Governor and Council as soon as possible.

The committee met the next day, November 15th; the memorial was read and approved, and Tutor Flynt, the clerk of the Overseers, was directed to get it transcribed while the committee adjourned for half an hour. Upon meeting again the memorial was duly signed by the clerk and the committee immediately waited upon the Governor and Board, who agreed to send it down recommended to the House of Representatives, whereupon a joint committee was appointed by the Council and the House to consider what might be proper to be done, and to make their report at the next session.

The memorial 2 should be read in extenso. It set forth the early provision made by the Government for the College, the "more Capacious & sumptuous Habitation" (the second Harvard College) which had been built later, and the "Large College built & finish'd at his own sole Cost & Charge" by the "truely Honorable & Conspicuously learned and religious Wm Stoughton Esq." It went on to state

1 At this time the Board of Overseers was composed of the members of the Governor's Council, and the teaching elders of Boston, Cambridge, Watertown, Charlestown, Roxbury, and Dorchester, with the Governor (Samuel Shute), the Lieutenant-Governor (William Dummer), and the President of the College (John Leverett).

2 See no. ii, pp. 89-90, below.

that while hitherto there had been "sufficient Apartments for y Students" yet "the Numbers of ye Sons of ye Prophets are now so increas'd, that the Place where they were wont to dwell is become so Streight as not to be capable of receiving ym" and that many of the students having to take lodgings in the town, the Government "do already feel a great Concern in yr Minds & have but uncomfortable Views of Mischeifs impending," since many are "necessitated to be so much & so far from their constant Inspection, & ye Slender Authority y College is capable of Exerting in the Town."

During the recess the joint committee of the General Court and the committee of the Overseers sat together, and when the Court met again, on February 6, 1718, were ready to report without delay. Governor Shute in his opening speech directed attention to the College's needs and recommended prompt action. The committee handed in their report that it was "necessary that some further Building be erected for the Making Provision of Forty or Fifty Studies more, that all the Students may be entertain'd within the College.'

This report was sent down to the House, which ordered, the next day (February 7), that the committee "be desired to prepare & lay before the Court a Projection of such Additional Buildings, as they think necessary & a Computation of the Charge it will probably amount to." The Council concurred, and in the afternoon of the same day a draught of the proposed building was presented to the House, the committee recommending as "the most frugal method of Building ... to Erect a double House, somewhat conformable to the Draught herewith exhibited, to be plac'd pretty near the Southwest Corner of Stoughton College, and thence to extend its length Westward in a parallel Line to Harvard College," thus forming three sides of a square open toward the West. The charge, they gathered from skilful workmen, would amount to about three thousand pounds.

Among the College papers there are two plans evidently connected with Massachusetts Hall. One (reproduced facing page 94) may well be the draught presented at this time, since it does not correspond very closely with the building as actually erected, especially in the position of the chimneys. On the back is a brief description in the hand of Benjamin Wadsworth, a member of the Overseers' committee at this time, 1 See p. 90 note 1, below.

2 See p. 95 note 1, below,

one of the Fellows of the Corporation, the minister of the First Church in Boston, and later the successor of President Leverett in the Presidency. It proposes a building 98 feet long and 43 feet wide, three stories high, and containing in each story eight large chambers 20 feet square. Cut off from each chamber are either two or three studies (each five feet by four and a half) giving 60, 66, or 72 studies in all, and accommodating that number of students.

Evidently this seemed to the House a large undertaking, and on February 12, when the report was read again, it was voted that "inasmuch as the charge of the said Buildings is like to be very considerable, and a great part of this House is absent," consideration be deferred to the next session of the Court in May.

No further step was taken until June 19, 1718, when a new committee composed of thirteen members was appointed to go to Cambridge, and choose a site for the new building. The next day the committee reported in agreement with the previous committee as to site, but limited the building to not more than fifty feet in length, with three upright stories and a convenient roof of a suitable pitch.1 On July 4, the sum of fifteen hundred pounds was appropriated toward the cost of the building, and a committee consisting of Jonathan Remington, Charles Chambers, and Andrew Bordman (the Steward of the College) was named "to take care for the carrying on and effecting the said Building."

The reduction of the new building to half the size originally planned must have been a sore disappointment to the government of the College, but apparently no record exists of any further plans or discussions until we find in President Leverett's Diary, November 3, 1718, his statement that the Governor had agreed that there should be a meeting of the Overseers on November 7, when a second memorial might be presented "for the carrying on the begun building to the length of one hundred feet.”

The meeting of November 7 proved abortive, as objection was made that the ministerial portion of the Board had not been duly notified, so that the meeting was not regular, and "that it was not proper for the Council to address themselves." Leverett says that “thô these objections were accounted but frivolous ones, yet, this meeting 1 See the other plan (reproduced facing page 100) and the note in regard to it, p. 95, below.