The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-01-10
ABOUT JOHN DAVENPORT
AN EXPOSITION OF HIS CHARACTER
 AND NOTIFIES.

The Maeay Environment of New Haven's Founder Historical Association of His dress by Frederick H. Cogswen Before the Mems Club at United Church.
 A very able and highly interesting ad- dress regarding John Davenport, the founder of New Haven, was delivered under the auspices of the Mems club at the United church last evening by MT. Frederick H. Cogswell of this city, before large and appreciative audi ence. The address is given herewith in full:
 It is not easy to put ones self in the place of man who was born three hun- dred years ago, but it will be necessary to make the attempt, if we are to com- prehend, in any degree, the character and motives of John Davenport. Few men have been so misunderstood. His champions have given him extravagant and often unmerited praise, while his detractors have denied him the merest virtue. It Is difficult to weigh him at his exact value, for those to whom we look for evidence are more apt to deal dn conclusions, than to state the grounds upon which those conclusions are based, There is enough, however, of significant material, to show the manner of the man.
 It will be desirable at the outset, to look for a moment at the conditions un- der which he began his career. He was born in 1897 near the close of what we term the Elizabethan era, within cen- tury after the great revival of learning since the commencement of the Protest ant reformation, and there were men still living who had seen Martin Luther.
 The first printed book had been made but century and a half before, yet it was the golden age of English litera- ture. Sir Philip Sidney had been dead only eleven years, and Christopher Mar lowe but one. Edmund Spencer had published the last installment of the Faery Queen two years before. Fran cis Bacon had just entered on his great career, and was then sitting as mem Der of parliament for Middlesex. Sir Walter Raleigh was in his prime. Ben Jonson, at twenty-three, was already writing his masterpiece. Chapman had published several dramatic poems, and was translating Homer. And Shak- speare, then thirty-three, was probably writing either Hamlet or the Merchant < of Venice, and was negotiating for the finest house in Stratford wherein tc spend his later years.
 Queen Elizabeth died in 1903 wher Davenport was six years old. Eliza beth's immediate predecessor had beer Bloody Mary, who had tried to force popery back into England with the torch and the axe, and undo the work of the reformation which had been fos- tered under the short reign of hel brother, Edward the Sixth It will be remembered that these three sovereigns Edward, Mary and Elizabeth, were the children of Henry the Eighth, (each by different wife) in whose reign tht reformation began. Henry had quarrel led with the pope because the latter would not sanction the divorce from Katherine, and had declared himself tn, head of the church, the chief result be ing that Henry instead of the man 1T Rome had the direction of all affair, pertaining to the church, which still re mained Romish. At his death in 154 his son Edward, then ten years old came to the throne, and during his brie reign of six years the reformation o the English church was carried on il earnest but when he was succeeded b, his sister Mary in 1853, popery was re vived, and Protestants were persecute, and murdered with frightful fury Thousands of people were put to tn sword and the torch for the sole crim of thinking. In other words, they wer heretics. It was during the reign o this bloody queen that the Purita party as a party was born. Some o those who had protested against tn scandalous and corrupt practices of tn church were forced to flee from Eng land for safety, and took refuge in tn city of Frankfort. When the exile came to a general discussion as to wha should be their future policy, there wa found to be a difference of opinior Some maintained adherence to tn church of England, though insistin that it be purged of it's iniquities; whil others insisted that everything whic favored of superstition should be GU out of the ceremonial, and that it be re duced to a greater simplicity. These lat ter in time came to be called Puritan:
 When at the end of Mary's five-yea reign Elizabeth succeeded, the exiles re turned to England and during her reig the Puritan party grew steadily strength and power so that at the tim of Davenport's birth in 1597 it was
 strong political factor.
 Such was the England into which tn founder of New Haven was born. Tn coming years were to be full of bitter ness and strife, both in church an state, and his stormy and unhappy cs reer was soon to be involved. For tl next forty-six years England was sut jected to an almost incredible misrul James of Scotland, who succeeded Quee Elizabeth, was not much of a king H chief recreation was getting drunk, an he seems to have devoted himself a most exclusively to recreation. Abol the only good thing that came out his reign was the translation of u