The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-11-13

Thirteen years after 100 Englishmen
landed in Virginia, amid the bloom and
fragrance of the Southern springtime, an
other leo disembarked on the bleak coast
of Cape Cod in the dead of winter. Both
companies were English; so were Chafles
T. and Cromwell, and the two great par
ties of churchmen and puritans-cavaliers
and roundheads, as they called each
other. The 400 miles of coast between
the two settlements may stand for the
difference between them in several par
ticulars.
With respect to what may be called
their literature, there is no greater d.
versity than in their religious, political
and social principles and customs Both
used and helped to preserve the English
speech of their time, but each had its
own way of looking at things temporal
and spiritual and each had a landscape
of its own to contemplate and climate
of it's own to enjoy or contend with.
These and other causes made the
thoughts of the New English colonists
differ from those of the Virginia plant
ers For example, while Southern i'm
migrants came here for gain or adven-
ture having no quarrel with church or
state at home, the Northern contingent
left England in order to secure for them
selves larger liberty in religious mat
tiers. This liberty, however, was to be
enjoyed by themselves exclusively and by
those who should be of their way of
thinking. Such purposes produced mark
ed characteristics in their writings-first.
a pietistic element; later a polemic, and
finally pugilistic.
1t should be observed that neither OF
these features was disagreeably present
in the earliest of their compositions. The
principal writers were in the mood to JUS
tify their separation from the mother
country by a fair minded setting forth OF
their reasons for it, having all the while
a certain homesick regard for much that
they had left behind. Moreover at first
they were men of balanced minds, with
a restraint in their speech bred of the
consciousness that their readers were to
be the great public in Britain, upon
whose good will the prosperity of their
enterprise was largely dependent Ac-
cordingly the first letters from Plymouth
were pervaded with the sobriety of the
colonist whose conscience had sent him
adrift from the land he loved.
William Bradford is the earliest of these
chroniclers, whose record of the first
twenty seven years of Plymouth history
became the quarry from which subse-
quent compilers dug much material The
original manuscript long lost and de-
1dlHcu III ElSIdIu, was received IN 1897
from the Bishop of London by the state
of Massachusetts at the hands of the
American ambassador with almost as
much reverent ceremony as if the author
himself had returned to Boston. Next
to reading this document, now 25O years
old, is the easier privilege of perusing
the fair new copy with facsimile iIlustra-
ton, published in 1898 by the common
wealth of Massachusetts. Only para
graph or two can be cited here to il
1ustrate the equable temper and straight.
forward narration of the second colonial
governor and the plain English of
scholarly man who could speak or, like
Becker, be silent in five languages. They
certainly had not smothered the clear
Saxon and the strong idioms of his
mother tongue.
''For these and some other reasons thew
(the English pilgrims) removed to Ley
den, fair and beautiful city, and of
sweet situation. but made more famous
by the university wherewith it is adorned,
in which of late had been so many
learned men. But wanting that traffic
by sea which Amsterdam enjoys, it was
not beneficial for their outward means of
living and estates But now being here
pitched they fell to such trades and en-