Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/209

character to that of England; a first American period (1775-1820), which witnessed the transition from a style for the most part imitative to one in some degree national; and a second American (from 1820 to the present time), in which the literature of the country assumed a decided character of originality. I. 1620-1775. The first literary production of any note in the British American colonies was the version of Ovid's “Metamorphoses” made by George Sandys in Virginia about 1620 (London, 1626). But though men of letters were found everywhere among the early colonists, in New England alone, where in 1639 the first printing press was established in Cambridge, was any considerable progress in literary culture made, and the literature of the first or colonial period was chiefly confined to that locality or was indirectly connected with it. The earliest development was theological. The “Bay Psalm Book” (Cambridge, 1640), the first book printed in the country, though not strictly original, became very popular both in America and Great Britain, and within a little more than a century passed through 70 editions. Ten years later a volume of poems by Mrs. Anne Bradstreet of Massachusetts (1612-'72), entitled “The Tenth Muse lately sprung up in America,” was published in London, and reprinted in Boston with additions in 1678. “The simple Cobler of Agawam,” a quaint satire by Nathaniel Ward, pastor of the church at Ipswich, Mass., was written there in 1645 and published in London in 1647, after the author's return to England. The most remarkable early productions of the colonial press were the Indian Bible of John Eliot (1604-'90), the first edition of the Scriptures published in America (Cambridge, 1661-'8), and an extraordinary monument of patience and industry, though now of interest only to the antiquary; the “Concordance of the Scriptures,” by John Newman, which was the earliest work of its kind, and the immediate precursor of Cruden's Concordance; and the prolific writings of Increase and Cotton Mather, the latter of whom (1663-1728) was the author of 382 works, of most of which not even the titles are remembered; the most celebrated are the “Wonders of the Invisible World” and the Magnalia Christi Americana, an ecclesiastical history of New England from 1620 to 1698, containing biographies of several colonial worthies. To the early colonial times also belong John Cotton (1585-1652), one of the first ministers of Boston; Thomas Hooker (1586-1647); Roger Williams (1606-'83), the founder of Rhode Island; John Davenport (1598-1670), Charles Chauncy (1592-1672), and John Norton (1606-'63), eminent in their day as theological writers, but whose works are now little known. The establishment of Harvard college in 1636, and of William and Mary and Yale colleges in the last decade of the 17th century, and the practice which became common with many of the wealthier colonists of sending their sons to England to be educated, showed their effects in the gradual improvement of style and in the more discursive aims of writers. A Virginia gentleman, Col. William Byrd (1674-1744), wrote an interesting narrative of a journey made in 1728 and other sketches of travel in Virginia, published as “The Westover Manuscripts” in 1841. But theology was still the department of letters most generally cultivated, and among theologians Jonathan Edwards (1703-'58), whose power of subtle argument Sir James Mackintosh declares to be “perhaps unmatched, certainly unsurpassed among men,” was the first not only in America, but, according to Robert Hall, in “any country or age.” His celebrated treatise on the “Freedom of the Will” ranks among the standard authorities in English metaphysics; and his other works exhibit a force of thought and keenness of argument only displayed by the greatest minds. Other theologians of the colonial period were a second Charles Chauncy (1705-'87); James Blair (1656-1743), president of William and Mary college; Jonathan Mayhew (1720-'66), a vigorous opponent of episcopacy and a man of liberal political views; Samuel Johnson (1696-1772), the first president of Columbia college, and the father of the American Episcopal church; John Witherspoon (1722-'94); and Ezra Stiles (1727-'95), president of Yale college. John Woolman (1720-'72), a Quaker writer and preacher, deserves mention as one of the first who wrote against slavery. The influence of the great English essayists and novelists of the 18th century had meanwhile begun to affect the literature of the new world; and in the essays, the collection of maxims published under the title of “Poor Richard,” the scientific papers, and the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1706-'90), we have specimens of practical philosophy or of simple narrative, expressed in a style eminently clear, pleasing, and condensed, and not unfrequently embellished by the wit and elegance characteristic of the best writers of Queen Anne's time. His investigations in electricity and other scientific subjects are not less felicitously narrated, and, together with the works of James Logan (1674-1751), Paul Dudley (1675-1751), Cadwallader Colden (1688-1776), and John Bartram, a naturalist and one of the earliest of American travellers (1701-'77), constitute the chief contributions to scientific literature during the colonial period. The historians and annalists are less prominent than the theologians; but the tracts and pamphlets relating to the discovery and colonization of British America, written by early settlers, are exceedingly numerous, and the journals and annals of Winthrop, Winslow, Morton, and others are worthy of note as being the sources from which modern historical writers have derived much important information. William Hubbard (1621-1704) wrote a history of New England, which was not published un-