The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1902-01-08
Three Historians and a Poet.
CHAPTER x.


time after the coming of the. newspaper,
the almanac and Benjamin Frarkln The
| pulpit as yet had nothing to fear from the
press. In Virginia, where in 1910 Gov
| Berkeley thanked God that there were
| no free schools nor printing, and hoped
| there would not be for hundred years."
| there was but one printing house after
| sixty years, and for thirty-five years
| more it was kept well in hand by the
royal governor. The conservative magis-
| trate had this desire of his heart fulfilled
more exactly than in others mentioned
| in the "Burwell Papers, a piece of con-
temporary history well worth reading
A more modern spirit came in with
James Blaire. founder and president of
| the College of William and Mary who
! could not rest till teachers were in the
| land" and until he had helped to ad-
vertise the colony by his share in the
book entitled, ''The Present States of
| Virginia and the College," He had al
ready contributed to the current theologi-
cal literature of the country ''117 Dis
courses on the Sermon on the Mount"
Another Virginian, the genial cosmopo-
lite William Byrd, of Westover, turned
from his broad lands and social delights
to run to North Carolina line through
the Dismal Swamp and other desolate
regions. He then described the adven-
| ture, to the cost of the settlers, in a vi
vacious narrative, which was destined
| to wait l12 years for a publisher.
Meantime the historical spirit which
was always prevalent in New England
England breaks out there afresh. The
self-conscfousness of a people who were
taking themselves and life most serious
! ly was never wearing of recording the
progress they were making-in annals and
diaries at first, with occasional memo
! randa Of Indian warfare, but at length
with the genuine historical virtues of &C
curacy and impartiality. Thomas Prince,
a Boston minister for forty years, is a
great Improvement on his predecessors in
| charitable fairness when he observes:
Il am for leaving everyone to the free
dom of worshiping according to the light
| or his conscience He is also careful to
| examine original sources of information
| and determined to take nothing upon
1hearsay or tradition. But he deemed the
story of the century of New England life
so important that it should have the
background of all time in which to set it.
Accordingly he began with the creation
| OF man and 1abored on through ages
and dispensations. When he reached the
Puritan commonwealth he was out of
| breath and time His first volume was
an introduction, $500 years in length, to
| ten years of colonial record. Three years
more were finished in pamphlets and his
| work was done. He was not the only one
who wrote ancient history when intend
ing to write modern. Teh time had not
yet come for improved historical meth
DDS The colonists could not get out Of
the Anglo-Saxon habit Still, he was ac-
cumulating material for his grandchiI-
dren's perspective treatment and for a
generation of historians who should be
| the peers of all their race.
In this midcentury period Virginia had
a historian who fell into the ambush
which was always placed for those who
attempted to write up recent affairs.
William Stith discards American antidui-
ties beyond Columbus, but he cannot for
bear enumerating the various ravages Of
discovery preceding Raleigh and John
Smith, with an allusion to the pride Of
some writers in mentioning others as re-
mote as the Carthagenan Hanno and
Plato's fable of the lost Atlantic After
awhile he gets to the Virginia colony
but it is the reconstructed narrative or
John Smith, in whose veracity he has
a provincial and patriotic confidence. Yet
his intention is good and his sense Of
what a historian should be is keen. IL
declare myself OF no party, hut have la
bored solely with view to find out and
relate the truth. That he did not al
ways succeed was due to the dust which
was still in the air from recent commo-
became
him a Respondent cloud; on the other an
earthly mist. And yet this history must
have been interesting reading in its day,
as it still is to those who prefer de-
tailed particulars to events in their pro-
portion ard relation. The exploits of
Smith, the increase in stock and produce,
the abundance Of game the variations
of Indian temper, the dispositions of gov
errors, are examples of topics which
busted the chronicler and entertained his
readers with photographic portrayal until
a later fashion of history came in with
the next century.
New York furnished another example
of the prevailing mode in the account
which William Smith gave of his native
province from it's first discovery to the
year 1892 The writer labors under the
deluSion which possessed all the historical
writer's at the time that justice, accuracy
and impartiality are sgnally exemplifed
IN their own work And this despite
emphatic limitations to the contrary by
contemporaries. In this instance local
politics, which appears always to have
been in Manhattan air, got into sober
history, not always in the interest OF
truth, if Of righteousness. This, how
ever, does not destroy the piquancy of
certain passages, nor the unconscious hui
NOR which crops out in other veracious
ones. The race for wealth divides at
the public in official station, while the
pursuit of knowledge and the cultiva-
ton Of letters are not uniformly an easy
third in the enumeration. Later there
was change in this respect.
In Massachusetts the historian Of the
period who is to be rated with the
two just mentioned, though ranking
them BOTH was Thomas Hutchinson, the
last provincial governor of the bay. A
wealth of materials had accumulated
which he thought should be set in order
before further destruction of ancient rec
ords took place. With becoming modesty
he wished that someone else had under
taken the task. He makes the rare ad-
mission that the affairs Of a colony cam
not afford much matter interesting or
entertaining to the world in general. His !
chief design is to save from oblivion for
the benefit of his countrymen facts
which from their nature afford but a
duh and heavy narration.
Uncommon sense is shown by his view
of this subject and himself; also in the
quick disposal Of all previous history
and voyages to America. In three pages
he is in the midst of affairs on the Mas
sachuSetts coast, and in a few more is
busy with the Puritan settlement on the
bay. Although he keeps the date con-
veniently in the margin, he is writing
something more than chronicle. There |
is enough life and warmth in 1t to give |
spirit and movement to incidents which |
pass in rapid succession. The arrival of |
seventeen ships with 1900 passengers in |
1880, their first and second Impressions |
of the country, the distresses of the first |
winter, the streak of grim humor in the |
single inhabitant in Boston, Blackstone, !
who told the intruders that he liked the /
Lords brethren no better than the |
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