Anne Bradstreet and Her Time Part 27

Did not the glorious people of the Skye Seem sensible of future misery?

Did not the low'ring heavens seem to express The worlds great lose and their unhappiness?

Behold how tears flow from the learned hill, How the bereaved Nine do daily fill The bosom of the fleeting Air with groans, And wofull Accents, which witness their Moanes.

How doe the G.o.ddesses of verse, the learned quire Lament their rival Quill, which all admire?

Could _Maro's_ Muse but hear her lively strain, He would condemn his works to fire again, Methinks I hear the Patron of the Spring, The unshorn Deity abruptly sing.

Some doe for anguish weep, for anger I That Ignorance should live, and Art should die.

Black, fatal, dismal, inauspicious day, Unblest forever by Sol's precious Ray, Be it the first of Miseries to all; Or last of Life, defam'd for Funeral.

When this day yearly comes, let every one, Cast in their urne, the black and dismal stone, Succeeding years as they their circuit goe, Leap o'er this day, as a sad time of woe.

Farewell my Muse, since thou hast left thy shrine, I am unblest in one, but blest in nine.

Fair Thespian Ladyes, light your torches all, Attend your glory to its Funeral, To court her ashes with a learned tear, A briny sacrifice, let not a smile appear.

Grave Matron, whoso seeks to blazon thee, Needs not make use of witts false Heraldry; Whoso should give thee all thy worth would swell So high, as'twould turn the world infidel.

Had he great _Maro's_ Muse, or Tully's tongue, Or raping numbers like the _Thracian_ Song, In crowning of her merits he would be Sumptuously poor, low in Hyperbole.

To write is easy; but to write on thee, Truth would be thought to forfeit modesty.

He'l seem a Poet that shall speak but true; Hyperbole's in others, are thy due.

Like a most servile flatterer he will show Though he write truth, and make the Subject, You.

Virtue ne'er dies, time will a Poet raise Born under better Stars, shall sing thy praise.

Praise her who list, yet he shall be a debtor For Art ne're feigned, nor Nature fram'd a better.

Her virtues were so great, that they do raise A work to trouble fame, astonish praise.

When as her Name doth but salute the ear, Men think that they perfections abstract hear.

Her breast was a brave Pallace, a Broad-street, Where all heroick ample thoughts did meet, Where nature such a Tenement had tane, That others Souls, to hers, dwelt in a lane.

Beneath her feet, pale envy bites her chain, And poison Malice, whetts her sting in vain.

Let every Laurel, every Myrtel bough Be stript for leaves t'adorn and load her brow.

Victorious wreaths, which 'cause they never fade Wise elder times for Kings and Poets made Let not her happy Memory e're lack Its worth in Fame's eternal Almanack, Which none shall read, but straight their lots deplore, And blame their Fates they were not born before.

Do not old men rejoyce their Fates did last, And infants too, that theirs did make such hast, In such a welcome time to bring them forth, That they might be a witness to her worth.

Who undertakes this subject to commend Shall nothing find so hard as how to end.

_Finis & Non,_ JOHN NORTON.

Forty years of wedded life, and a devotion that remained unaltered to the end, inclined Simon Bradstreet to a longer period of mourning than most Puritan husbands seemed to have submitted to, but four years after her death, the husband, at seventy-three, still as hale and well-preserved as many a man of fifty, took to himself another wife.

She was the widow of Captain Joseph Gardner of Salem, killed in the attack on the Narragansett fort in December, 1675, and is described by her step-son Simon, in his diary as "a Gentl. of very good birth and education, and of great piety and prudence." Of her prudence there could hardly be a doubt, for as daughter and sister of Emanuel and George Downing, she had had before her through all her early years, examples of shrewdness and farsightedness for all personal ends, that made the names of both, an offence then and in later days. But no suspicion of the tendencies strong in both father and son, ever rested on Mistress Gardner, who was both proud and fond of her elderly husband, and who found him as tender and thoughtful a friend as he had always been to the wife of his youth. For twenty-one years he pa.s.sed from honor to honor in the Colony, living in much state, though personally always abstemious and restrained, and growing continually in the mildness and toleration, from which his contemporaries more and more diverged.

Clear-sighted, and far in advance of his time, his moderation hindered any chafing or discontent, and his days, even when most absorbed in public interests, held a rare severity and calm. No act of all Bradstreet's life brought him more public honors than his action against Andros, whose tyranny had roused every man in New England to protest and revolt. Almost ninety years old, he met the deputation who came to consult him, and set his hand to a letter, which held the same possibilities and was in many senses, the first Declaration of Independence. From the Town House in Boston went out the handbill, printed in black letter and signed by fifteen names, the old patriarch heading the list. Bancroft, who is seldom enthusiastic, tells the story of the demand upon Andros of immediate surrender of the government and fortifications, and the determination of the pa.s.sionate and grasping soldier to resist.

"Just then the Governor of the Colony, in office when the charter was abrogated, Simon Bradstreet, glorious with the dignity of four-score years and seven, one of the early emigrants, a magistrate in 1630, whose experience connected the oldest generation with the new, drew near the town-house, and was received with a great shout from the free men. The old magistrates were reinstated, as a council of safety; the whole town rose in arms, with the most unanimous resolution that ever inspired a people; and a declaration read from the balcony, defending the insurrection as a duty to G.o.d and the country. 'We commit our enterprise,' it is added, 'to Him who hears the cry of the oppressed, and advise all our neighbors, for whom we have thus ventured ourselves, to joyn with us in prayers and all just actions for the defence of the land.' On Charlestown side, a thousand soldiers crowded together; and the mult.i.tude would have been longer if needed. The governor vainly attempting to escape to the frigate was, with his creatures, compelled to seek protection by submission; through the streets where he had first displayed his scarlet coat and arbitrary commission, he and his fellows were marched to the town-house and thence to prison. All the cry was against Andros and Randolph. The castle was taken; the frigate was mastered; the fortifications occupied."

Once more Ma.s.sachusetts a.s.sembled in general court, and the old man, whose blood could still tingle at wrong, was called again to the chair of state, filling it till the end of all work came suddenly, and he pa.s.sed on, leaving a memory almost as tenderly preserved as that of "the beloved governor," John Winthrop.

In the ancient burial place at Salem may still be seen the tomb of the old man who had known over sixty years of public service.

SIMON BRADSTREET.

Armiger, exordine Senatoris, in colonia Ma.s.sachusettensi ab anno 1630, usque ad anum 1673. Deinde ad anum 1679, Vice-Gubernator. Denique ad anum 1686, ejusdem coloniae, communi et constanti populi suffragio, Gubernator. Vis, judicio Lynceario preditus; guem nec numma, nec honos allexit. Regis authoritatem, et populi libertatem, aequa lance libravit. Religione cerdatus, vita innocuus, mundum et vicit, et deseriut, 27 die, Martii, A. D. 1697.

Annog, Guliel, 3t ix, et Aet, 94.

Few epitaphs hold as simple truth. "He was a man," says Felt, "of deep discernment, whom neither wealth nor honor could allure from duty. He poised with an equal balance the authority of the King, and the liberty of the people. Sincere in Religion and pure in his life, he overcame and left the world."

The a.s.sembly was in session on the day of his death and, "in consideration of the long and extraordinary service of Simon Bradstreet, late Governor, voted L100, toward defraying the charges of his interment."

They buried him in Salem where his tomb may still be seen in the old Charter Street burying-ground, though there is grave doubt if even the dust of its occupant could be found therein. His memory had pa.s.sed, and his services meant little to the generation which a hundred years later, saw one of the most curious transactions of the year 1794. That an ancestor of Nathanael Hawthorne should have been a party to it, holds a suggestion of the tendencies which in the novelist's case, gave him that interest in the sombre side of life, and the relish for the somewhat ghoul-like details, on which he lingered with a fascination his readers are compelled to share. On an old paper still owned by a gentleman of Salem, one may read this catastrophe which has, in spite of court orderings and stately munic.i.p.al burial, forced Simon Bradstreet's remains into the same obscurity which hides those of his wife.

"Ben, son of Col B. Pickman, sold ye tomb, being claimed by him for a small expence his father was at in repairing it aft ye yr 1793 Or 1794 to one Daniel Hathorne, who now holds it." Having taken possession, Daniel Hawthorne, with no further scruples cleaned out the tomb, throwing the remains of the old Governor and his family into a hole not far off. The New England of Simon Bradstreet's day is as utterly lost as his own dust. Yet many of the outward forms still remain, while its spirit is even more evident and powerful.

Wherever the New England element is found--and where is it not found?--its presence means thrift, thoroughness, precision and prudence. Every circ.u.mstance of life from the beginning has taught the people how to extract the utmost value from every resource.

Dollars have come slowly and painfully, and have thus, in one sense, a fict.i.tious worth; but penuriousness is almost unknown, and the hardest working man or woman gives freely where a need is really felt. The ideal is still for the many, more powerful than the real. The conscientiousness and painful self-consciousness of the early days still represses the joyful or peaceful side of life, and makes angles more to be desired than curves. Reticence is the New England habit. Affection, intense as it may be, gives and demands small expression. Good-will must be taken for granted, and little courtesies and ameliorations in daily life are treated with disdain. "Duty" is the watchword for most, and no matter how strange the path, if this word be lined above it, it is trodden unquestioned.

As in the beginning, the corner-stone still "rests upon a book."

The eagerness for knowledge shown in every act of the early colonial years has intensified, till "to know" has become a demon driving one to destruction. Eternity would seem to have been abolished, so eager are the learners to use every second of time.

Overwork, mental and physical, has been the portion of the New England woman from the beginning. Climate and all natural conditions fostered an alertness unknown to the moist and equable air of the old home. While for the South there was a long perpetuation of the ease of English life, and the adjective which a Southern woman most desires to hear before her name is "sweet"; the New England woman chooses "bright," and the highest mark of approval is found in that rather aggressive word. Tin pans, scoured to that point of polish which meets the New England necessity for thoroughness, are "bright," and the near observer blinks as he suddenly comes upon them in the sun. A bit of looking-gla.s.s handled judiciously by the small boy, has the same quality, and is warranted to disconcert the most placid temperament; and so the New England woman is apt to have jagged edges and a sense of too much light for the situation. "Sweetness and light" is the desirable combination, and may come in the new union of North and South. The wise woman is she who best unites the two. Yet, arraign New England as we may--and there are many unmentioned counts in the indictment--it is certain that to her we owe the best elements in our national life. "The Decadence of New England" is a popular topic at present. It is the fashion to sneer at her limitations. Our best novelists delight in giving her barrenness, her unloveliness in all individual life--her provincialism and conceit, and strenuous money-getting.

"It is a good place to be born in," they say, "provided you emigrate early," and then they proceed to a.n.a.lyze her very prominent weaknesses, and to suppress as carefully as possible just judgment, either of past or present. Her scenery they cannot dispense with. Her very inadequacies and absurdities of climate involve a beauty which unites Northern sharpness of outline with Southern grace of form and color. The short and fervid summer owns charms denied a longer one. Spring comes uncertainly and lingeringly, but it holds in many of its days an exquisite and brooding tenderness no words can render, as elusive as that half- defined outline on budding twigs against the sky--not leaves, but the shadow and promise of leaves to be. The turf of the high pasture-lands springing under the foot; the smell of sweet fern and brake; the tinkle of cow-bells among the rocks, or the soft patter of feet as the sheep run toward the open bars--what New England boy or girl does not remember and love, till loving and remembering are over for the life we live here? Yet in all the ferment of old and new beliefs--the strange departures from a beaten track--the att.i.tude always, not of those who have found, but of those who seek, there has ever been the promise of a better day. The pathos which underlies all record of human life is made plain, and a tender sadness is in the happiest lines. And this is the real story of New England. Her best has pa.s.sed on. What the future holds for her it is impossible to say, or what strange development may come from this sudden and overmastering Celtic element, pervading even the remotest hill-towns. But one possession remains intact: the old graveyards where the worthies of an elder day sleep quietly under stones decaying and crumbling faster than their memories. It all comes to dust in the end, but even dust holds promise. Growth is in every particle, and whatever time may bring--for the past it is a flower that "smells sweet and blossoms in the dust"--for present and future, a steady march toward the better day, whose twilight is our sunshine.