VII

DIARISTS AND POETS

SAMUEL SEWALL (1662-1730), the most famed colonial diarist, is known as "The Puritan Pepys." A graduate of Harvard, he became in 1671, ChiefJustice of Massachusetts, and his colonial mansion pointed out with pride in Newburyport High Street reveals the aristocratic environment in which he lived. As a judge, he at one time condemned the Salem witches, but later on, confessed to "the blame and shame of his decision."

He was perhaps the earliest pronounced abolitionist of Massachusetts; for in his day there were a few slaves in this Northern State, and in 1700, published a tract entitled "The Selling of Joseph." This was the first argument written in America against the slave-trade.

But it is as "The Puritan Pepys " that one may claim more pleasing and intimate acquaintance with Judge Sewall than with the more religious colonial writers. Like the amusing English diarist, he walks about his narrow world, noting its fashions and follies, its petty humours and flirtations - photographing his Boston as Pepys did his London.

Though he calls himself a Puritan, we catch but

glimpses of his exceeding piety. His "Diary," with some breaks, runs for fifty-six years (1673-1729); and it furnishes the daily gleanings of his career from the time that he was a young Harvard instructor until a courtly, dignified judge. Matters, small and great, are found in picturesque variety.

He chronicles descriptions of his relatives, friends and acquaintances, his four courtships, and two marriages. We learn of his horror of wigs and fondness for funerals. May-poles are set up; Indians and pirates assert themselves; and we turn eagerly from theological doings to scan a picture of secular happenings in the colonies of two hundred years ago, in Judge Sewall's three, goodly volumes.

What would he have thought of the comments of the twentieth century reader upon what he deemed, his private "Diary"! Many, however, think it about the only readable book of the day, and withal, it holds its own with the great diaries of the world.

Time moves on- and brings before us another journal of a wholly different character, but of unique interest. This is the "Journal" of John Woolman (1720-1722). Woolman was in turn clerk, school-teacher, tailor, preacher, anti-slavery agitator, and above all, a sincere and lovable Quaker.

Let us add to the value of his work the estimate of others: Coleridge was fascinated by it; Crabbe calls it "a perfect gem "; Charles Lamb wrote, "Get the

writings of Woolman by heart"; and Channing deems it "the sweetest and purest autobiography in the language." Whittier, in editing the book, was solemnised by the presence of a serene and beautiful spirit."

At this time, verse-making was a feature of colonial literature. People busy cutting down forests and striving for material comforts, had no leisure to cultivate either fancy or imagination, and the solemn Puritans frowned alike on love-song and on jest; and yet there were two poets of whom they boasted. One was Mistress Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672), the first authoress and first poetess in the New World.

She was born in England of gentle blood, carefully educated, and married at sixteen. Then leaving an atmosphere of wealth and refinement for a home in the Massachusetts wilderness, she and her husband, who later became Governor Bradstreet, embarked for America, in 1630, with John Winthrop's party.

It is singular that in her verse there is seldom a reference to her New England surroundings. Often real flowers bloom and real birds sing-but we catch the fragrance of English flowers and the warble of the lark and nightingale. She sometimes makes a good line but it is rarely sustained-yet the following stanza is well put: