When my book was ready Mr. Niles said: "Your account of the time is all right; but you say so little of the woman, I doubt if it belongs to our series. Cut out the setting, and give us more of the heroine." I found I could not satisfactorily do this, and for a time the manuscript was shelved; but finally it was brought out by Lothrop & Co. in its unchanged form.

You can think of Anne Bradstreet as a slender, lovable, dark-haired girl, with much ill-health; as extremely sensitive, perpetually hampered by the narrow religious faith of her generation; but with a fine love of nature, and a keen sense of the beautiful; though over all hung the cloud of a disheartening creed.

In her conscientiousness she stands as the representative of early New England womanhood. There is a cross against the

name of Hawthorne in this connection, because the Salem records show that the Bradstreet tomb was sold to one Daniel Hawthorne, who disinterred and threw aside its sacred treasures; which were, therefore, resolved into their native earth, we know not where.

No likeness of our first poetess is known to exist; but she is said to have greatly resembled her kinsman, Paul Dudley, the founder of the Dudleian Lectureship, and of him there is a fine portrait. The one man of that day in touch with broad humanity was John Winthrop himself; but the Puritans generally were good men and women; and if we have larger liberty, we owe it to those from whom each new generation more widely removes us, but in whom we may justly rejoice.

CHAIRMAN: You will recall a certain old comedietta called The Ladies' Battle. We are not here to have a Battle of Dames; but as Mrs. Campbell has alluded to Mrs. Cheney, and a slight difference of opinion between them, let me now call upon one whom we join with America in delighting to honor, Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, who graces our dinner with her gracious presence, and may have a word to say of Anne Hutchinson.

This address was stenographically reported as follows:

Address of Mrs. Cheney.

I feel like saying, with Ingham's Double, in Dr. Hale's story, that so much has been already said, and on the whole so well said, that I have no call to add more. To the two conteinporaneous Annes, Hutchinson and Bradstreet, I have ever looked with reverence, as pioneers of American womanhood, especially the former; but I was once decidedly taken aback, at a meeting of the N. E. Woman's Club, when called upon for "some personal reminiscences of Anne Hutchinson;" the president being so interested in Anne Hutchinson's career, as to forget the woman had been dead two centuries. She may indeed be called the first club-woman, the first woman to express her own opinions publicly, without fear or favor.

She was very religious, but very free and original in her thoughts, almost to the point of modern transcendentation; and she felt it was the duty of all women to give the benefit of their thoughts to others. She was the first to gather women together in Boston, and speak to them about religion. When Mrs. Campbell told how much Anne Bradstreet was hampered, I thought how much more Anne Hutchinson was persecuted, when she tried to lead her townsmen to look into their own hearts, and directed them to the Eternal Giver of all Good. Our debt to her will never be fully recognized. You can trace her influence in all our earlier movements, and see how she anticipated them. We have but an imperfect record of her life, though more than we have concerning Anne Bradstreet. There is the report of her trial, which shows it was the spiritual working of her own mind which led her on. These two women show us two types of the women of to-day. One-sweet, womanly, loving, delicately fair and beautiful - we have long recognized as a type of feminine goodness. Though I cannot praise her poems, as a whole, there are lines which show how much she loved nature, and how she possibly wished to escape from the severe theology

of the time. There is a little poem Mrs. Kennard did not quote, which I have copied, and will read :

The dawning morn, with songs thou dost prevent,

Sets hundred notes into thy feathered crew;

So each one tunes his pretty instrument,

And, warbling out the old, begins anew.

And thus they pass their youth in summer season;

Then follow thee into a better region,

Where winter 's never felt by that sweet airy legion.

Here was a fine power, not fully developed. Mrs. Bradstreet was cramped and hindered by her environment; but, after all, she is to be remembered as one of the first poets of America, and we may look with pride on her work. It is a marvel if she and Anne Hutchinson never met! Though the Bradstreet poems were not published until after Mrs. Hutchinson's death, we would gladly know if Mrs. Bradstreet ever listened to the other Anne's exhortations to the women assembled in the Hutchinson home.

Here Mrs. Campbell interrupted for a moment, to say that she had found a record, showing how courteously considerate Mr. Bradstreet was to Mrs. Hutchinson, as one of the magistratets at her trial, and that he did something to alleviate her bigoted imprisonment.

Mrs. Cheney then resumed:

Living in Ipswich during this theological controversy and the Hutchinson trial, it is not likely that Mrs. Bradstreet largely shared the feeling in Boston, where people discussed religious questions everywhere, as to-day they discuss Free Silver, and even boys and girls talked about regeneration, sanctification, justification. Mrs. Hutchinson maintained a thesis most important,― that the divine voice in our own hearts is to be trusted; and thus she aroused a discussion not yet wholly subsided, for we have not yet gleaned all the good of that era.

Anne Bradstreet led a hard life, with her busy household and eight children, yet found time for literary work; though we

now hear women, with only two or three children, declaring they have no time for aught besides. Her life, however, was far more sheltered than Anne Hutchinson's, who was exposed to the rude storm, in a way not flattering to our fathers, who censured the three men who stood by her, her husband and two sons; but her kindred were undaunted, partaking of her life as a spiritual leader, ready for the martyr's crown.

CHAIRMAN: Intent on banquet matters, a fortnight ago found me in Newton, near the church whereof Rev. Francis B. Hornbrooke is the successful pastor. Methought I would run (perhaps toil were the better word, in my corpulent case!) up the hill to Lambert Street, where he lived. The bell was answered by Mrs. Hornbrooke, and in one moment I felt as if we had been, not only kinsfolk, but acquaintances, all our lives, though this was our first interview; and the affinity grew apace, as I sat at her generous board (the more hospitable because she was sharing the frequent fate of our housekeepers,— left alone by her handmaid) and enjoyed the brown baked Indian pudding, enriched with a sweet-heart of apples. Some things she told me of her proposed essay, which you will enjoy the more when I introduce her as Mrs. Orinda Dudley Hornbrooke, the sister of our former president, and consequently the aunt of the young lady who only an hour ago spoke to us about Anne Bradstreet's Early Life.

Remarks on the Life and Career of
Anne Bradstreet.

BY MRS. ORINDA DUDLEY HORNBROOKE.

If our honored and notable kinswoman could have looked forward a period of two hundred and twenty-four years after her death, to this meeting of her descendants and kinsfolk, and could have foreseen our great interest in everything she was and did, she would undoubtedly have left a more definite record of her very interesting and eventful life. Had she done so, such a record would be of priceless worth, not only to her

descendants, but to her country.

But that sweet and modest

soul never thought that the every-day life she was living was of any particular interest; and so, from youth to age, she chronicled her inward states, and wrote of ancient history, of which she knew nothing at first hand, instead of the more important things taking place around her.

For one who held a pen in her hand so much, the records of her life are very meagre, and it is difficult to trace in them what the woman really was Some things, however, after a patient examination, make themselves clear. This first literary woman of America was, and did, everything that the women of the nineteenth century, who are or want to be literary, think prejudicial to such a career.

Her

It is

She was a very delicate and sickly child and woman. whole life of sixty years was a succession of illnesses. probable that she could not remember a single day of abounding health. In our time there is such an admiration of fine physique, such a love of out-of-door sports, such a glorification of strength, that we are in danger of forgetting the great work in the world done by people who were never robust. A strong and sound body is good, but a brave heart and high spirit are even better in the battle of life.

Again: Anne Dudley married at what seems to us the premature age of sixteen. In women's meetings we hear early marriage decried, as of all things the most deadening to woman's intellectual life; though to inveigh against early marriage in New England to-day, among the descendants of the Puritans, is about as necessary as to hurry the waters over Niagara Falls.

Then Anne Bradstreet had eight children; and a large family is supposed to be, and usually is, an almost insurmountable hindrance to a woman's literary work. That she was a loving and anxious mother, we see again and again, in her allusions to her children. Her many changes must have been a terrible tax upon the heart and strength of this very delicate woman. She removed from Old England to Salem; then to Charlestown, Boston, Cambridge, Ipswich, and at last to Andover, where she found a permanent home, in which her children