labors of the deceased president of Harvard, by putting those manuscripts at the bottom of his pies in the oven; and thus the eloquent and valuable writings of Charles Chauncey were gradually used up, their numerous Hebrew and Greek quotations, and their peppery Calvinism, doubtless adding an unwonted relish and indigestibility to the pies under which they were laid. CHAPTER IX. NEW ENGLAND: MISCELLANEOUS PROSE WRITERS. I.-Nathaniel Ward and his collisions with Laud-His position in early II. Career of Nathaniel Ward in New England-His "Simple Cobbler of III.-Roger Williams as revealed in his own writings-His exceptional attractiveness as an early New-Englander-What he stood for in his time in New England-A troublesome personage to his contemporaries and why -His special sympathy with Indians and with all other unfortunate folk. IV.-First visit of Roger Williams to England-His first book-His interest in the great struggle in England-His reply to John Cotton's justification of his banishment from Massachusetts-His book against a national church -His "Bloody Tenet of Persecution"-John Cotton's reply-Williams's powerful rejoinder-Other writings-His letters-Personal traits shown in them-His famous letter against lawlessness and tyranny. I. IN the year 1631, William Laud, Bishop of London, faithfully harrying his diocese in search of ministers who might be so insolent as to deviate from his own high standard of doctrine and ceremony, became aware of the presence, in one of his parishes, of an extremely uncomfortable parson named Nathaniel Ward, rector of Stondon Massey, Essex. Accordingly, on the twelfth of December of that year, this parson was brought before the bishop for inspection. Though he escaped that time, the bishop kept his inexorable eye upon him, and frequently thereafter. cited him into his presence; and at last, in 1633, “left him 1 This man, under the sentence of excommunication."1 thus turned loose upon the world by the ungentle help of his bishop, naturally found his way very soon to New England, where arriving in 1634 he remained twelve years, and where by his incisive and stiff opinions, the weight of his unusual legal learning, his skill and pungency as a writer, and the flavor of his piquant individuality, he considerably influenced contemporary events, stamped some of his own features upon the jurisprudence of Massachusetts, and connected himself with our early literature by the composition of a book the most eccentric and amusing that was produced in America during the colonial period. Perhaps no other Englishman who came to America in those days, brought with him more of the ripeness that is born, not only of time and study, but of distinguished early associations, extensive travel in foreign lands, and varied professional experience at home. He was graduated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1603, and is named by Fuller among the learned writers of that college who were not fellows. He at first entered the profession of the law, which he practised several years; he then spent several years upon the continent; and upon his return to England took holy orders, and was settled in the parish from which, after about ten years, he was ejected by Laud. His personal and professional standing may be partly inferred from his acquaintance with Sir Francis Bacon, with Archbishop Usher, and with the famous theologian of Heidelberg, David Paræus. It was during his residence upon the continent, that he was brought into relations. of some sort with the family of the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James the First, and wife of Frederick, elector Palatine; and in this way he came to have that immediate contact with infantile royalty which many years later suggested a characteristic passage in the book that we are soon to inspect. He took into his arms the young child 1 Laud, quoted in J. W. Dean, "Memoir" of Ward, 39. of Frederick and Elizabeth; and when, long afterward, that young child had expanded into the impetuous, swearing cavalier hero of the English civil war, the terrible Prince Rupert, the good old Puritan preacher, Nathaniel Ward, then far away beyond the sea in America, wrote of him these serious words: "I have had him in my arms; . . . I wish I had him there now. If I mistake not, he promised then to be a good prince; but I doubt he hath forgot it. If I thought he would not be angry with me, I would pray hard to his Maker to make him a right Roundhead, a wise-hearted Palatine, a thankful man to the English; to forgive all his sins, and at length to save his soul, notwithstanding all his God-damn-me's." 1 II. Soon after his arrival in Massachusetts Nathaniel Ward became minister to a raw settlement of Puritans at Agawam. His health here soon gave way; and in two or three years he surrendered his pastorate. But a man of so strong and various a culture as he, could not be left idle in New England. He was placed on a commission to form a code of laws for the colony, and in that capacity did some good service. Early in 1645, he commenced writing the remarkable book, "The Simple Cobbler of Agawam," which will keep for him a perpetual place in early American literature. This book appears to have been finished in the latter part of 1646, and was at once transmitted to London for publication, where it came from the press in January, 1647. It had the good fortune to fit the times and the passions of men; it was caught up into instant notice, and ran through four editions within the first year. "The Simple Cobbler of Agawam " may be described as a prose satire upon what seemed to the author to be the 146 Simple Cobbler of Agawam," 66-67. The beautiful Indian name of that district, afterward foolishly exchanged for Ipswich. frightful license of new opinions in his time, both in New England and at home; upon the frivolity of women and the long hair of men; and finally upon the raging storm of English politics, in the strife then going forward between sects, parties, parliament, and king. It is a tremendous partisan pamphlet, intensely vital even yet, full of fire, wit, whim, eloquence, sarcasm, invective, patriotism, bigotry. One would have to search long among the rubbish of books thrown forth to the public during those hot and teeming days, to find one more authentically representing the stir, the earnestness, the intolerance, the hope, and the wrath of the times than does this book. Thinly disguising his name under the synonym of Theodore de la Guard, the author speaks of himself as a humble English cobbler in America, quite unable to stick to his last, or to restrain his thoughts from brooding anxiously over the errors, follies, sins, griefs, and perils of his countrymen on both sides of the sea. The title-page is too racy and characteristic a part of the book to be omitted: "The Simple Cobbler of Agawam in America: willing to help 'mend his native country, lamentably tattered both in the upper-leather and sole, with all the honest stitches he can take; and as willing never to be paid for his work by old English wonted pay. It is his trade to patch all the year long gratis. Therefore I pray gentlemen keep your purses. By Theodore de la Guard. In rebus arduis ac tenui spe, fortissima quaeque consilia tutissima sunt.' Cic. In English: When boots and shoes are torn up to the lefts, London: Printed by J. D. and R. I. for Stephen Bowtell, at the sign of the Bible in Pope's Head Alley, 1647.” The assumed character of a humble cobbler digressing from his vocation of mending shoes to that of mending commonwealths, is one which the author succeeds in maintaining only upon the title-page and in certain formal |