Chapter 10

“What numbers of faithful and free-born Englishmen and good Christians have been constrained to forsake their dearest home, their friends and kindred, whom nothing but the wide ocean and the savage deserts of America could hide and shelter from the fury of the bishops! Oh, Sir, if we could but see the shape of our dear mother England, as poets are wont to give a personal form to what they please, how would she appear, think ye, but in a mourning weed, with ashes upon her head and tears abundantly flowing from her eyes, to behold so many of her children exposed at once and thrust from things of dearest necessity, because their conscience could not assent to things which the bishops thought indifferent?… Let the astrologer be dismayed at the portentous blaze of comets and impressions in the air, as foretelling troubles and changes to states; I shall believe there cannot be a more ill-boding sign to a nation (God turn the omen from us!) than when the inhabitants, to avoid insufferable grievances at home, are enforced by heaps to forsake their native country.”[268]

Here in a few words are the sacrifices made by our fathers, as they turned from their English homes, and also the conscience which prompted and sustained them. Begun in sacrifice and in conscience, their empire grew and flourished with constant and increasing promise of future grandeur.

Contemporary with Milton, and at the time a rival for the palm of poetry, was Abraham Cowley, born1618, died 28th July, 1667. His biography stands at the head of Johnson’s “Lives of the English Poets,” the first in that instructive collection. The two poets were on opposite sides,—Milton for the Commonwealth, Cowley for the King.

His genius was recognized in his own time; and when he died, at the age of forty-nine, after a night of exposure under the open sky, Charles the Second said, “Mr. Cowley has not left a better man behind him in England.” He was buried in Westminster Abbey, near Chaucer and Spenser.

He composed, in much-admired Latin verse, six books on Plants: the first and second in elegiac verse, displaying the qualities of herbs; the third and fourth in various measures, on the beauties of flowers; and the fifth and sixth in hexameters, like the Georgics, on the uses of trees. The first two books, in Latin, appeared in 1662; the other four, also in Latin, were not published till 1668, the year after his death. They did not see the English light till near the close of the century, when a translation was published by Tate, from which I quote.

Two fruits of America are commemorated. The first is that which becomes Chocolate:—

“Guatimala produced a fruit unknownTo Europe, which with pride she called her own:Her Cacao-Nut, with double use endued,(For Chocolate at once is drink and food,)Does strength and vigor to the limbs impart,Makes fresh the countenance and cheers the heart.”[269]

“Guatimala produced a fruit unknown

To Europe, which with pride she called her own:

Her Cacao-Nut, with double use endued,

(For Chocolate at once is drink and food,)

Does strength and vigor to the limbs impart,

Makes fresh the countenance and cheers the heart.”[269]

The other is the Cocoa-Nut:—

“While she preserves this Indian palm alone,America can never be undone;Embowelled, and of all her gold bereft,Her liberty and Coccus only left,She’s richer than the Spaniard with his theft.”[270]

“While she preserves this Indian palm alone,

America can never be undone;

Embowelled, and of all her gold bereft,

Her liberty and Coccus only left,

She’s richer than the Spaniard with his theft.”[270]

The poet, addressing the New World, becomes prophetic:—

“To live by wholesome laws you now begin,Buildings to raise, and fence your cities in,To plough the earth, to plough the very main,And traffic with the universe maintain.Defensive arms, and ornaments of dress,All implements of life, you now possess.To you the arts of war and peace are known,And whole Minerva is become your own.Our Muses, to your sires an unknown band,Already have got footing in your land.…“Long rolling years shall late bring on the times,When, with your gold debauched and ripened crimes,Europe, the world’s most noble part, shall fall,Upon her banished gods and virtue callIn vain, while foreign and domestic warAt once shall her distracted bosom tear,—Forlorn, and to be pitied even by you.Meanwhile your rising glory you shall view;Wit, learning, virtue, discipline of war,Shall for protection to your world repair,And fix a long illustrious empire there.…“Late Destiny shall high exalt your reign,Whose pomp no crowds of slaves, a needless train,Nor gold, the rabble’s idol, shall support,Like Motezume’s or Guanapaci’s court,But such true grandeur as old Rome maintained,Where Fortune was a slave, and Virtue reigned.”[271]

“To live by wholesome laws you now begin,

Buildings to raise, and fence your cities in,

To plough the earth, to plough the very main,

And traffic with the universe maintain.

Defensive arms, and ornaments of dress,

All implements of life, you now possess.

To you the arts of war and peace are known,

And whole Minerva is become your own.

Our Muses, to your sires an unknown band,

Already have got footing in your land.

…

“Long rolling years shall late bring on the times,

When, with your gold debauched and ripened crimes,

Europe, the world’s most noble part, shall fall,

Upon her banished gods and virtue call

In vain, while foreign and domestic war

At once shall her distracted bosom tear,—

Forlorn, and to be pitied even by you.

Meanwhile your rising glory you shall view;

Wit, learning, virtue, discipline of war,

Shall for protection to your world repair,

And fix a long illustrious empire there.

…

“Late Destiny shall high exalt your reign,

Whose pomp no crowds of slaves, a needless train,

Nor gold, the rabble’s idol, shall support,

Like Motezume’s or Guanapaci’s court,

But such true grandeur as old Rome maintained,

Where Fortune was a slave, and Virtue reigned.”[271]

This prophecy, though appearing in English tardily, may be dated from 1667, when the Latin poem was already written.

Dr. Johnson called attention to a tract of Sir Thomas Browne entitled “A Prophecy concerning the Future State of Several Nations,” where the famous author “plainly discovers his expectation to be the same with that entertained lately with more confidence by Dr. Berkeley,that America will be the seat of the fifth empire.”[272]The tract is vague, but prophetic.

Sir Thomas Browne was born 19th October, 1605, and died 19th October, 1682. His tract was published two years after his death, in a collection of Miscellanies, edited by Dr. Tenison. As a much-admired author, some of whose writings belong to our English classics, his prophetic prolusions are not unworthy of notice. Among them are the following:—

“When New England shall trouble New Spain;When Jamaica shall be lady of the isles and the main;When Spain shall be in America hid,And Mexico shall prove a Madrid;…When Africa shall no more sell out their blacks,To make slaves and drudges to the American tracts;…When America shall cease to send out its treasure,But employ it at home in American pleasure;When the New World shall the Old invade,Nor count them their lords, but their fellows in trade;…Then think strange things are come to light,Whereof but few have had a foresight.”[273]

“When New England shall trouble New Spain;

When Jamaica shall be lady of the isles and the main;

When Spain shall be in America hid,

And Mexico shall prove a Madrid;

…

When Africa shall no more sell out their blacks,

To make slaves and drudges to the American tracts;

…

When America shall cease to send out its treasure,

But employ it at home in American pleasure;

When the New World shall the Old invade,

Nor count them their lords, but their fellows in trade;

…

Then think strange things are come to light,

Whereof but few have had a foresight.”[273]

Some of these words are striking, especially when we consider their early date. In a commentary on eachverse the author seeks to explain it. New England is “that thriving colony which hath so much increased in our days”; its people are already “industrious,” and when they have so far increased “that the neighboring country will not contain them, they will range still farther, and be able in time to set forth great armies, seek for new possessions, ormake considerable and conjoined migrations.”[274]The verse touching Africa will be fulfilled “when African countries shall no longer make it a common trade to sell away their people.” And this may come to pass “whenever they shall be well civilized, and acquainted with arts and affairs sufficient to employ people in their countries: if also they should be converted to Christianity, but especially unto Mahometism; for then they would never sell those of their religion to be slaves unto Christians.”[275]The verse concerning America is expounded thus:—

“That is, When America shall be better civilized, new policied, and divided between great princes, it may come to pass that they will no longer suffer their treasure of gold and silver to be sent out to maintain the luxury of Europe and other parts; but rather employ it to their own advantages, in great exploits and undertakings, magnificent structures, wars, or expeditions of their own.”[276]

The other verse, on the invasion of the Old World by the New, is explained:—

“That is, When America shall be so well peopled, civilized, and divided into kingdoms,they are like to have so little regard of their originals as to acknowledge no subjection unto them: they may also have a distinct commerce betweenthemselves, or but independently with those of Europe, and may hostilely and piratically assault them, even as the Greek and Roman colonies after a long time dealt with their original countries.”[277]

That these speculations should arrest the attention of Dr. Johnson is something. They seem to have been in part fulfilled. An editor quietly remarks, that, “to judge from the course of events since Sir Thomas wrote, we may not unreasonably look forward to their more complete fulfilment.”[278]

In contrast with the poets, but mingling with them in forecast, were two writers on Trade, who saw the future through facts and figures, or what one of them called “political arithmetic,” even discerning colonial independence in the distance. These were Sir Josiah Child, born 1630 and died 1699, and Dr. Charles Davenant, born 1656 and died 1714.

Child is mentioned by De Foe as “originally a tradesman”; others speak of him as “a Southwalk brewer”; and McCulloch calls him “one of the most extensive, and, judging from his work, best-informed, merchants of his time.”[279]He rose to wealth and consideration, founding a family which intermarried with the nobility. His son was known as Lord Castlemaine, Earl Tylney, of Ireland. Davenant was eldest son of “rare Sir William,” the author of “Gondibert,” and, like his eminent father, a dramatist. He was also member of Parliament, and wrote much on commercialquestions; but here he was less famous than Child, whose “New Discourse of Trade,” so far as it concerned the interest of money, first appeared in 1668, and since then has been often reprinted and much quoted. There was an enlarged edition in 1694. That now before me appeared in 1698, and in the same year Davenant published his kindred “Discourses on the Public Revenues and on the Trade of England,” among which is one “on the Plantation Trade.” The two authors treated especially the Colonies, and in similar spirit.

The work of Child was brought to more recent notice by the voluminous plodder, George Chalmers, particularly in his writings on the Colonies and American Independence,[280]and then again by the elder Disraeli, in his “Curiosities of Literature,” who places a prophecy attributed to him in his chapter on “Prediction.” After referring to Harrington, “who ventured to predict an event, not by other similar events, but by a theoretical principle which he had formed,” and to a like error in De Foe, Disraeli quotes Chalmers:—

“Child, foreseeing from experience that men’s conduct must finally be decided [directed] by their principles, foretold the colonial revolt. De Foe, allowing his prejudices to obscure his sagacity, reprobated that suggestion, because he deemed interest a more strenuous prompter than enthusiasm.”

The pleasant hunter of curiosities then says:—

“The predictions of Harrington and De Foe are precisely such as we might expect from a petty calculator,—a politicaleconomist, who can see nothing farther than immediate results; but the true philosophical predictor was Child, who had readthe past.”[281]

Disraeli was more curious than accurate. His excuse is, that he followed another writer.[282]The prediction attributed to Child belongs to Davenant.

The work of Child is practical rather than speculative, and shows a careful student of trade. Dwelling on the “plantations” of England and their value, he considers their original settlement, and here we find a painful contrast between New England and Virginia.[283]Passing from the settlement to the character, New England is described as “being a more independent government from this kingdom than any other of our plantations, and the people that went thither more one peculiar sort or sect than those that went to the rest of our plantations.”[284]He recognized in them “a people whose frugality, industry, and temperance, and the happiness of whose laws and institution, do promise to themselves long life, witha wonderful increase of people, riches, and power.”[285]And then: “Of all the American plantations, his Majesty hath none so apt for the building of shipping as New England, nor none comparably so qualified for breeding of seamen, not only by reason of the natural industry of that people, but principally by reason of their cod and mackerel fisheries.”[286]On his last page are words more than complimentary:—

“To conclude this chapter, and to do right to that most industrious English colony, I must confess, that, though we lose by their unlimited trade with our foreign plantations, yet we are very great gainers by their direct trade to and from Old England: our yearly exportations of English manufactures, malt, and other goods, from hence thither, amounting, in my opinion, to ten times the value of what is imported from thence.”[287]

Here is keen observation, but hardly prophecy.

Contrast this with Davenant:—

“As the case now stands, we shall show that they [the Colonies] are a spring of wealth to this nation, that they work for us, that their treasure centres all here, and that the laws have tied them fast enough to us; so that it must be through our own fault and misgovernment,if they become independent of England.… Corrupt governors by oppressing the inhabitants may hereafter provoke them to withdraw their obedience, and by supine negligence or upon mistaken measures we may let them grow, more especially New England, in naval strength and power,which if suffered, we cannot expect to hold them long in our subjection. If, as some have proposed, we should think to build ships of war there, we may teach them an art which will cost us some blows to make them forget. Some such courses may, indeed, drive them, or put it into their heads,to erect themselves into independent Commonwealths.”[288]

Davenant then, following Child, remarks upon New England as “the most proper for building ships and breeding seamen,” and adds:—

“So that, if we should go to cultivate among them the art of navigation and teach them to have a naval force,theymay set up for themselves and make the greatest part of our West India trade precarious.”[289]

These identical words are quoted by Chalmers, who exclaims: “Of that prophecy we have lived, alas! to see the fulfilment.”[290]

Chalmers emigrated from Scotland to Maryland, and practised in the colonial courts, but, disgusted with American independence, returned home, where he wrote and edited much, especially on colonial questions, ill concealing a certain animosity, and on one occasion stating that among the documents in the Board of Trade and Paper Office were “the most satisfactory proofs of the settled purpose of the revolted colonies, from the epoch of the Revolution in 1688, to acquire direct independence.”[291]But none of these proofs are presented. The same allegation was also made by Viscount Bury in his “Exodus of the Western Nations,”[292]but also without proofs.

The name of De Foe is always interesting, and I cannot close this article without reference to the saying attributed to him by Chalmers. I know not where in his multitudinous writings it may be found, unless in his “Plan of the English Commerce,” and here careful research discloses nothing nearer than this:—

“What a glorious trade to England it would be to have those colonies increased with a million of people, to be clothed, furnished, and supplied with all their needful things, food excepted, only from us, andtied down foreverto us by that immortal, indissoluble bond of trade, their interest!”[293]

In the same work he says:—

“This is certain, and will be granted, that the product of our improved colonies raises infinitely more trade, employs more hands, and, I think I may say, by consequence, brings in more wealth to this one particular nation or people, the English, than all the mines of New Spain do to the Spaniards.”[294]

In this vision the author of “Robinson Crusoe” was permitted to see the truth with regard to our country, although failing to recognize future independence.

It is pleasant to think that Berkeley, whose beautiful verses predicting the future of America are so often quoted, was so sweet and charming a character. Atterbury said of him: “So much understanding, so much knowledge, so much innocence, and such humility I did not think had been the portion of any but angels, till I saw this gentleman.”[295]Swift said: “He is an absolute philosopher with regard to money, titles, and power.”[296]Pope let drop a tribute which can never die:—

“To Berkeley every virtue under Heaven.”[297]

Such a person was naturally a seer.

He is compendiously called an Irish prelate and philosopher. Born in the County of Kilkenny, 1684, and dying in Oxford, 1753, he began as a philosopher. While still young, he wrote his famous treatise on “The Principles of Human Knowledge,” where he denies the existence of matter, insisting that it is only an impression produced on the mind by Divine power. After travel for several years on the Continent, and fellowship with the witty and learned at home, among whom were Addison, Swift, Pope, Garth, and Arbuthnot, he conceived the project of educating the aborigines of America, which was set forth in a tract, published in 1725, entitled “A Proposal for the better Supplying of Churches in our Foreign Plantations, and for Converting the Savage Americans to Christianity, by a College to be erected in the Summer Islands, otherwise called the Isles of Bermuda.” Persuaded by his benevolence, the Minister[298]promised twenty thousand pounds, and there were several private subscriptions, to promote what was called by the King “so pious an undertaking.” Berkeley possessed already a deanery in Ireland, worth eleven hundred pounds a year. Turning away from this residence, and refusing to be tempted by an English mitre, offered by the Queen, he set sail for Rhode Island, “which lay nearest to Bermuda,” where, after a tedious passage of more than four months, he arrived 23d January, 1729. Here he lived on a farm back of Newport, having been, according to his own report, “at very great expense in purchasing land and stock.”[299]In familiar letters he has recorded his impression of this place, famous since forfashion. “The climate,” he says, “is like that of Italy, and not at all colder in the winter than I have known it everywhere north of Rome.… This island is pleasantly laid out in hills and vales and rising grounds, hath plenty of excellent springs and fine rivulets, and many delightful landscapes of rocks and promontories and adjacent islands.… The town of Newport contains about six thousand souls, and is the most thriving, flourishing place in all America for its bigness. It is very pretty, and pleasantly situated. I was never more agreeably surprised than at the first sight of the town and its harbor.”[300]He seems to have been contented, and when his companions went to Boston stayed at home, “preferring,” as he wrote, “quiet and solitude to the noise of a great town, notwithstanding all the solicitations that have been used to draw us thither.”[301]

The money he had expected, especially from the King’s ministers, failed, and after waiting in vain expectation two years and a half, he returned to England, leaving an infant daughter buried in the churchyard of Trinity, and bestowing upon Yale College a library of eight hundred and eighty volumes, as well as his estate in Rhode Island. During his residence at Newport he preached every Sunday, and was indefatigable in pastoral duties, besides meditating, if not composing, “The Minute Philosopher,” which was published shortly after his return.

In his absence he had not been forgotten at home; and shortly after his return he became Bishop of Cloyne, in which place he was most exemplary, devotinghimself to his episcopal duties, to the education of his children, and the pleasures of composition.

It was while occupied with his plan of a college, especially as a nursery for the colonial churches, shortly before sailing for America, that the great future was revealed to him, and he wrote the famous poem, the only one found among his works, entitled “Verses on the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America.”[302]The date may be fixed at 1726. Such a poem was an historic event. I give the first and last stanzas.

“The Muse, disgusted at an age and climeBarren of every glorious theme,In distant lands now waits a better time,Producing subjects worthy fame.…Westward the course of empire takes its way;The four first acts already past,A fifth shall close the drama with the day;Time’s noblest offspring is the last.”

“The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime

Barren of every glorious theme,

In distant lands now waits a better time,

Producing subjects worthy fame.

…

Westward the course of empire takes its way;

The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day;

Time’s noblest offspring is the last.”

It is difficult to exaggerate the value of these verses, which have been so often quoted as to have become a commonplace of literature and politics. There is nothing from any oracle, there is very little from any prophecy, which can compare with them. The biographer of Berkeley, who wrote in the last century, was very cautious, when, after calling them “a beautiful copy of verses,” he says that “another age perhaps will acknowledge the old conjunction of the prophetic character with that of the poet to have again taken place.”[303]Thevatesof the Romans was poet and prophet; and such was Berkeley.

Mr. Webster calls this an “extraordinary prophecy,” and then says: “It was an intuitive glance into futurity; it was a grand conception, strong, ardent, glowing, embracing all time since the creation of the world and all regions of which that world is composed, and judging of the future by just analogy with the past. And the inimitable imagery and beauty with which the thought is expressed, joined to the conception itself, render it one of the most striking passages in our language.”[304]

The sentiment which prompted the prophetic verses of the excellent Bishop was widely diffused, or perhaps it was a natural prompting.[305]Of this illustration is afforded in the life of Benjamin West. On his visit to Rome in 1760, the young artist encountered a famous improvvisatore, who, learning that he was an American come to study the fine arts in Rome, at once addressed him with the ardor of inspiration, and to the music of his guitar. After singing the darkness which for so many ages veiled America from the eyes of Science, and also the fulness of time when the purposes for which this continent had been raised from the deep would be manifest, he hailed the youth before him as an instrument of Heaven to create there a taste for the arts which elevate man, and an assurance of refuge to science and knowledge, when, in the old age of Europe, they should have forsaken her shores. Then, in the spirit of prophecy, he sang:—

“But all things of heavenly origin, like the glorious sun, move westward; and Truth and Art have their periods of shining and of night. Rejoice, then, O venerable Rome,in thy divine destiny! for, though darkness overshadow thy seats, and though thy mitred head must descend into the dust,thy spirit, immortal and undecayed, already spreads towards a new world.”[306]

John Adams, in his old age, dwelling on the reminiscences of early life, records that nothing in his reading was “more ancient in his memory than the observation that arts, sciences, and empire had travelled westward, and in conversation it was always added, since he was a child, that their next leap would be over the Atlantic into America.” With the assistance of an octogenarian neighbor, he recalled a couplet which he had heard repeated “for more than sixty years”:—

“The Eastern nations sink, their glory ends,And empire rises where the sun descends.”

“The Eastern nations sink, their glory ends,

And empire rises where the sun descends.”

The tradition was, as his neighbor had heard it, that these lines came from some of our early Pilgrims, by whom they had been “inscribed, or rather drilled, into a rock on the shore of Monument [Manomet] Bay in our Old Colony of Plymouth.”[307]

Another illustration of this same sentiment is found in Burnaby’s “Travels through the Middle Settlements in North America, in 1759 and 1760,” a work first published in 1775. In reflections at the close the traveller remarks:—

“An idea, strange as it is visionary, has entered into the minds of the generality of mankind,that empire is travelling westward; and every one is looking forward with eager and impatient expectation to that destined moment when America is to give law to the rest of the world.”[308]

The traveller is none the less an authority for the prevalence of this sentiment because he declares it “illusory and fallacious,” and records his conviction that “America is formed for happiness, but not for empire.” Happy America! What empire can compare with happiness? Making amends for this admission, the jealous traveller, in his edition of 1798, after the adoption of the National Constitution, announces “that the present union of the American States will not be permanent, or last for any considerable length of time,” and “that that extensive country must necessarily be divided into separate states and kingdoms.”[309]Thus far the Union has stood against all shocks, foreign or domestic; and the prophecy of Berkeley is more than ever in the popular mind.

Berkeley saw the sun of empire travelling westward. A contemporary whose home was made in New England, Samuel Sewall, saw the New Heaven and the New Earth. He was born at Bishop-Stoke, England, 28th March, 1652, and died at Boston, 1st January, 1730. A child emigrant in 1661, he became a student and graduate of our Cambridge; in 1692, Judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts; in 1718, Chief Justice. He was of the court which condemned the witches, but afterwards, standing up before the congregation of his church, made public confession of error, and his secret diary bears testimony to his trial of conscience. In harmony with this contrition was his early feeling for the enslaved African, as witness his tract,“The Selling of Joseph,” so that he may be called the first of our Abolitionists.

Besides an “Answer to Queries respecting America,” in 1690, and “Proposals touching the Accomplishment of Prophecies,” in 1713, he wrote another work, with the following title:—

“Phænomena quædam Apocalyptica ad Aspectum Novi Orbis configurata: Or, Some Few Lines towards a Description of the New Heaven as it makes to those who stand upon the New Earth. By Samuel Sewall, A. M., and sometime Fellow of Harvard College at Cambridge in New England.”

The copy before me is the second edition, with the imprint, “Massachuset, Boston. Printed by Bartholomew Green, and sold by Benjamin Eliot, Samuel Gerrish, and Daniel Henchman. 1727.” There is a prophetic voice even in the title, which promises “some few lines towards a description of the New Heaven as it makes to those who stand upon the New Earth.” This is followed by verses from the Scriptures, among which is Isaiah, xi. 14: “But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west”; also, Acts, i. 8: “Ye shall be witnesses unto me unto the uttermost part of the earth,”—quoting here from the Spanish Bible, “hasta lo ultimo de la tierra.”

Two different Dedications follow,—the first dated “Boston, N. E., April 16th, 1697.” Here are words on the same key with the title:—

“For I can’t but think that either England or New England, or both, (together is best,) is the only bridemaid mentioned by name in David’s prophetical Epithalamium, to assist at the great wedding now shortly to be made.… Angels incognito have sometimes made themselves guests to men, designing thereby to surprise them with a requital of their love to strangers. In like manner the English nation, in showing kindness to the aboriginal natives of America, may possibly show kindness to Israelites unawares.… Instead of being branded for slaves with hot irons in the face and arms, and driven by scores in mortal chains, they shall wear the name of God in their foreheads, and they shall be delivered into the glorious liberty of the children of God.… Asia, Africa, and Europe have each of them had a glorious Gospel-day. None, therefore, will be grieved at any one’s pleading that America may be made coparcener with her sisters in the free and sovereign grace of God.”

In the second Dedication the author speaks of his book as “this vindication of America.”

Then comes, in black letter, what is entitled “Psalm 139, 7-10,” containing this stanza:—

“Yea, let me take the morning wings,And let me go and hide:Even there where are the farthest parts,Where flowing sea doth slide.Yea, even thither also shallThy reaching hand me guide;And thy right hand shall hold me fast,And make me to abide.”

“Yea, let me take the morning wings,

And let me go and hide:

Even there where are the farthest parts,

Where flowing sea doth slide.

Yea, even thither also shall

Thy reaching hand me guide;

And thy right hand shall hold me fast,

And make me to abide.”

Entering upon his subject, our prophet says:—

“Whereas New England, and Boston of the Massachusetts, have this to make mention of, that they can tell their age, and account it their honor to have their birth and parentage kept in everlasting remembrance. And in very deed, the families and churches which first ventured to follow Christ thorow the Atlantic Ocean into a strange land full of wild men were so religious, their end so holy, their self-denial in pursuing of it so extraordinary, that I can’t but hopethat the plantation has thereby gained a very strong crasis, and that it will not be of one or two or three centuries only, but by the grace of God it will be very long lasting.”[310]

Then again:—

“New Jerusalem will not straiten and enfeeble, but wonderfully dilate and invigorate Christianity in the several quarters of the world,—in Asia, in Africa, in Europe, and in America. And one that has been born, or but lived in America more than threescore years, it may be pardonable for him to ask, Why may not that be the place of New Jerusalem?”[311]

And here also:—

“Of all the parts of the world which do from this charter entitle themselves to the government of Christ, America’s plea, in my opinion, is the strongest. For when once Christopher Columbus had added this fourth to the other three parts of the foreknown world, they who sailed farther westward arrived but where they had been before. The globe now failed of offering anything new to the adventurous traveller,—or, however, it could not afford another New World. And probably the consideration of America’s beingthe beginning of the East and the end of the Westwas that which moved Columbus to call some part of it by the name of Alpha and Omega. Now if the last Adam did give order for the engraving of his own name upon this last earth, ’twill draw with it great consequences, even such as will in time bring the poor Americans out of their graves and make them live.”[312]

Again he says:—

“May it not with more or equal strength be argued: New Jerusalem is not the same with Jerusalem; but as Jerusalem was to the westward of Babylon, so New Jerusalem must beto the westward of Rome, to avoid disturbance in the order of these mysteries?”[313]

Then quoting Latin verses of Cowley[314]and English verses of Herbert,[315]he says: “Not doubting but that these authorities, being brought to the king’s scales, will be over weight.”[316]

Afterwards he adduces “learned Mr. Nicholas Fuller,” who “would fain have it believed that America was first peopled by the posterity of our great-grandfather Japheth, though he will not be very strict with us as to the particular branch of that wide family.”[317]The extract from this new authority is remarkable for its vindication to Columbus of the name of the new continent: “Quam passimAmericamdicunt, vere ac meritoColumbinampotius dicerent, a magnanimo heroë Christophoro Columbo Genuensi, primo terrarum illarum investigatore atque inventore plane divinitus constituto.”[318]This designation Fuller adopts: thus, “Hinc ergoColumbinaprimum”; and again, “Multo is quidem propior estColumbinæ”; then again, “America, seu veriusColumbina”; and yet again, “Repertam fuisseColumbinam.”[319]This effort draws from our prophet a comment:—

“But why should a learned man make all thisDirigefor Columbus’s name? What matter is it how America be called? For Flavio of Malphi in Naples hath in great measure applied the virtues of the loadstone to the mariner’s compass in vain, the Portugals have found the length of Africa’s foot in vain, the Spaniards sent out the Italian dove in vain, Sir Francis Drake hath sailed round the world and made thorow lights to it in vain, and Hakluyt and Purchas have with endless labor acquainted Englishmen with these things in vain, if, after all, we go about to turn the American Euphrates into a Stygian Lake. The breaking of this one instrument spoils us of the long-expected and much-desired consort of music.”[320]

Very soon thereafter he breaks forth in words printed in large Italic type and made prophetic:—

“Lift up your heads, O ye Gates[of Columbina],and be ye lift up, ye Everlasting Doors, and the KING of Glory shall come in.”[321]

From the Puritan son of New England, pass now to a different character. René Louis de Voyer, Marquis d’Argenson, a French noble, was born 18th October, 1694, and died 26th January, 1757; so that his lifelapped upon the prolonged reigns of Louis the Fourteenth and Louis the Fifteenth. At college the comrade of Voltaire, he was ever afterwards the friend and correspondent of this great writer. His own thoughts, commended by the style of the other, would have placed him among the most illustrious of French history. Notwithstanding strange eccentricities, he was often elevated, far-sighted, and prophetic, above any other Frenchman except Turgot. By the courtiers of Versailles he was called “the Stupid” (la Bête), while Voltaire hailed one of his productions, yet in manuscript, as the “work of Aristides,” and pronounced him “the best citizen who had ever reached the ministry,” and the Duc de Richelieu called him “Secretary of State for the Republic of Plato.”[322]

Except a brief subordinate service and two years of the Cabinet as Minister of Foreign Affairs, his life was passed in meditation and composition, especially on subjects of government and human improvement. This was his great passion. “If I were in power,” he wrote, “and knew a capable man, I would go on all fours and seek him, to pray him to serve me as counsellor and tutor.”[323]Is not this a lesson to the heedless partisan?

In 1725 he became an active member of a small club devoted to hardy speculation, and known, from its place of meeting at the apartment of its founder, asl’Entre-Sol. It is to his honor that he mingled here with the Abbé Saint-Pierre, and sympathized entirely with the many-sided, far-sighted plans of this “good man.” In the privacy of his journal he records his homage: “Thisworthy citizen is not known, and he does not know himself.… He has much intelligence, and has devoted himself to a kind of philosophy profound and abandoned by everybody, which is the true politics destined to procure the greatest happiness of men.”[324]In praising Saint-Pierre our author furnished a measure of himself.

His “Considérations sur le Gouvernement Ancien et Présent de la France,” a work which excited the admiration both of Voltaire and Rousseau, was read by the former as early as 1739, but did not see the light till some years after the death of the author. It first appeared at Amsterdam in 1764, and in a short time there were no less than four editions in Holland. In 1784 a more accurate edition appeared in France, and in 1787 another at the command and expense of the Assembly of Notables. Here was a recognition of the people, and an inquiry how far democracy was consistent with monarchical government. Believing much in the people and anxious for their happiness, he had not ceased to believe in kings. The book was contained in the epigraph from the “Britannicus” of Racine:—

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