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Anne Bradstreet and Her Time
CHAPTER II. - UPHEAVALS.
by Campbell, Helen
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Though the long engagement which Mr. Ruskin demands as a necessity
in lessening some of the present complications of the marriage
question may not have been the fortune of Simon and Anne
Bradstreet, it is certain that few couples have ever had better
opportunity for real knowledge of one another's peculiarities and
habits of thought. Circumstances placed them under the same roof
for years before marriage, and it would have been impossible to
preserve any illusions, while every weakness as well as every
virtue had fullest opportunity for disclosure. There is no hint of
other suitors, nor detail of the wooing, but the portrait of
Governor Bradstreet, still to be seen in the Senate Chamber of the
Massachusetts State House, shows a face that even in middle life,
the time at which the portrait was painted, held an ardor, that at
twenty-five must have made him irresistible. It is the head of
Cavalier rather than Roundhead--the full though delicately curved
lips and every line in the noble face showing an eager,
passionate, pleasure-loving temperament. But the broad, benignant
forehead, the clear, dark eyes, the firm, well-cut nose, hold
strength as well as sweetness, and prepare one for the reputation
which the old Colonial records give him. The high breeding, the
atmosphere of the whole figure, comes from a marvellously well-
balanced nature, as well as from birth and training. There is a
sense of the keenest life and vigor, both mental and physical, and
despite the Puritan garb, does not hide the man of whom his wife
might have written with Mrs. Hutchinson: "To sum up, therefore,
all that can be said of his outward frame and disposition, we must
truly conclude that it was a very handsome and well-furnished
lodging prepared for the reception of that prince who, in the
administration of all excellent virtues, reigned there a while,
till he was called back to the palace of the universal emperor."
Simon Bradstreet's father, "born of a wealthy family in Suffolk,
was one of the first fellows of Emanuel College, and highly
esteemed by persons distinguished for learning." In 1603 he was
minister at Horbling in Lincolnshire, but was never anything but a
nonconformist to the Church of England. Here in 1603 Simon
Bradstreet was born, and until fourteen years old was educated in
the grammar school of that place, till the death of his father
made some change necessary. John Cotton was the mutual friend of
both Dudley and the elder Bradstreet, and Dudley's interest in the
son may have arisen from this fact. However this may be, he was
taken at fifteen into the Earl of Lincoln's household, and trained
to the duties of a steward by Dudley himself. Anne being then a
child of nine years old, and probably looking up to him with the
devotion that was shared by her older brother, then eleven and
always the friend and ally of the future governor.
His capacity was so marked that Dr. Preston, another family friend
and a noted Nonconformist, interested himself in his further
education, and succeeded in entering him at Emanuel College,
Cambridge, in the position of governor to the young Lord Rich, son
of the Earl of Warwick. For some reason the young nobleman failed
to come to college and Bradstreet's time was devoted to a brother
of the Earl of Lincoln, who evidently shared the love of idleness
and dissipation that had marked his grandfather's career. It was
all pleasant and all eminently unprofitable, Bradstreet wrote in
later years, but he accomplished sufficient study to secure his
bachelor's degree in 1620. Four years later, while holding the
position of steward to the Earl of Lincoln, given him by Dudley on
the temporary removal to Boston, that of Master of Arts was
bestowed upon him, making it plain that his love of study had
continued. With the recall of Dudley, he became steward to the
countess of Warwick, which position he held at the time of his
marriage in 1628.
It was in this year that Anne, just before her marriage recorded,
when the affliction had passed: "About 16, the Lord layde his hand
sore upon me and smott me with the small-pox." It is curious that
the woman whose life in many points most resembles her own--Mrs.
Lucy Hutchinson--should have had precisely the same experience,
writing of herself in the "Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson": "That
day that the friends on both sides met to conclude the marriage,
she fell sick of the small-pox, which was in many ways a great
trial upon him. First, her life was in almost desperate hazard,
and then the disease, for the present, made her the most deformed
person that could be seen, for a great while after she recovered;
yet he was nothing troubled at it, but married her as soon as she
was able to quit the chamber, when the priest and all that saw her
were affrighted to look on her; but God recompensed his justice
and constancy by restoring her, though she was longer than
ordinary before she recovered to be as well as before."
Whether disease or treatment held the greater terror, it would be
hard to say. Modern medical science has devised many alleviations,
and often restores a patient without spot or blemish. But to have
lived at all in that day evidenced extraordinary vitality.
Cleanliness was unknown, water being looked upon as deadly poison
whether taken internally or applied externally. Covered with
blankets, every window tightly sealed, and the moaning cry for
water answered by a little hot ale or tincture of bitter herbs,
nature often gave up the useless struggle and released the
tortured and delirious wretch. The means of cure left the
constitution irretrievably weakened if not hopelessly ruined, and
the approach of the disease was looked upon with affright and
regarded usually as a special visitation of the wrath of God.
That Anne Dudley so viewed it is evident from the passage in her
diary, already quoted; that the Lord "smott" her, was unquestioned,
and she cast about in her girlish mind for the shadow of the
sin that had brought such judgment, making solemn resolutions,
not only against any further indulgence in "Pride and Vanity,"
but all other offences, deciding that self-abnegation was the
only course, and possibly even beginning her convalescence
with a feeling that love itself should be put aside, and all her
heart be "sett upon God." But Simon Bradstreet waited, like
Colonel Hutchinson, only till "she was fit to leave her chamber,"
and whether "affrighted" or not, the marriage was consummated
early in 1628.
Of heavier, stouter frame than Colonel Hutchinson, and of a far
more vigorous constitution, the two men had much in common. The
forces that moulded and influenced the one, were equally potent
with the other. The best that the time had to give entered into
both, and though Hutchinson's name and life are better known, it
is rather because of the beauty and power with which his story was
told, by a wife who worshipped him, than because of actually
greater desert. But the first rush of free thought ennobled many
men who in the old chains would have lived lives with nothing in
them worth noting, and names full of meaning are on every page of
the story of the time.
We have seen how the whole ideal of daily life had altered, as the
Puritan element gained ground, and the influence affected the
thought and life--even the speech of their opponents. A writer on
English literature remarks: "In one sense, the reign of James is
the most religious part of our history; for religion was then
fashionable. The forms of state, the king's speeches, the debates
in parliament and the current literature, were filled with
quotations from Scripture and quaint allusions to sacred things."
Even the soldier studied divinity, and Colonel Hutchinson, after
his "fourteen months various exercise of his mind, in the pursuit
of his love, being now at rest in the enjoyment of his wife,"
thought it the most natural thing in the world to make "an
entrance upon the study of school divinity, wherein his father was
the most eminent scholar of any gentleman in England and had a
most choice library.... Having therefore gotten into the house
with him an excellent scholar in that kind of learning, he for two
years made it the whole employment of his time."
Much of such learning Simon Bradstreet had taken in unconsciously
in the constant discussions about his father's table, as well as
in the university alive to every slightest change in doctrine,
where freer but fully as interested talk went on. Puritanism had
as yet acquired little of the bitterness and rigor born of
persecution, but meant simply emancipated thought, seeking
something better than it had known, but still claiming all the
good the world held for it. Milton is the ideal Puritan of the
time, and something of the influences that surrounded his youth
were in the home of every well-born Puritan. Even much farther
down in the social scale, a portrait remains of a London house
mother, which may stand as that of many, whose sons and daughters
passed over at last to the new world, hopeless of any quiet or
peace in the old. It is a turner in Eastcheap, Nehemiah
Wallington, who writes of his mother: "She was very loving and
obedient to her parents, loving and kind to her husband, very
tender-hearted to her children, loving all that were godly, much
misliking the wicked and profane. She was a pattern of sobriety
unto many, very seldom was seen abroad except at church; when
others recreated themselves at holidays and other times, she would
take her needle-work and say--'here is my recreation'.... God had
given her a very pregnant wit and an excellent memory. She was
very ripe and perfect in all stories of the Bible, likewise in all
the stories of the Martyrs, and could readily turn to them; she
was also perfect and well seen in the English Chronicles, and in
the descents of the Kings of England. She lived in holy wedlock
with her husband twenty years, wanting but four days."
If the influence of the new thought was so potent with a class who
in the Tudor days had made up the London mob, and whose signature,
on the rare occasions when anybody wanted it, had been a mark, the
middle class, including professional men, felt it infinitely more.
In the early training with many, as with Milton's father, music
was a passion; there was nothing illiberal or narrow. In Milton's
case he writes: "My father destined me while yet a little boy to
the study of humane letters; which I seized with such eagerness
that from the twelth year of my age I scarcely ever went from my
lessons to my bed before midnight." "To the Greek, Latin and
Hebrew learned at school the scrivener advised him to add Italian
and French. Nor were English letters neglected. Spencer gave the
earliest turn to the boy's poetic genius. In spite of the war
between playwright and precisian, a Puritan youth could still in
Milton's days avow his love of the stage, 'if Jonson's learned
sock be on, or sweetest Shakspeare Fancy's child, warble his
native wood-notes wild' and gather from the 'masques and antique
pageantry,' of the court revels, hints for his own 'Comus' and
'Arcades'."
Simon Bradstreet's year at Cambridge probably held much the same
experience, and if a narrowing faith in time taught him to write
it down as "all unprofitable," there is no doubt that it helped to
broaden his nature and establish the Catholic-mindedness which in
later years, in spite of every influence against it, was one of
his distinguishing characteristics. In the meantime he was a
delightful companion. Cut off by his principles from much that
passed as enjoyment, hating the unbridled licentiousness, the
"ornate beastliness," of the Stuart reign, he like others of the
same faith took refuge in intellectual pleasures. Like Colonel
Hutchinson--and this portrait, contrary in all points to the
preconceived idea, is a typical one--he "could dance admirably
well, but neither in youth nor riper years made any practice of
it; he had skill in fencing such as became a gentleman; he had
great love to music and often diverted himself with a viol, on
which he played masterly; he had an exact ear and judgment in
other music; he shot excellently in bows and guns, and much used
them for his exercise; he had great judgment in paintings,
graving, sculpture, and all liberal arts, and had many curiosities
of value in all kinds; he took great delight in perspective
glasses, and, for his other rarities was not so much affected with
the antiquity as the merit of the work; he took much pleasure in
improvement of grounds, in planting groves and walks and fruit
trees, in opening springs, and making fish-ponds."
All these tastes were almost indispensable to anyone filling the
position which, alike, Dudley and Bradstreet held. "Steward" then,
had a very different meaning from any associated with it now, and
great estates were left practically in the hands of managers while
the owners busied themselves in other directions, relying upon the
good taste as well as the financial ability of the men who, as a
rule, proved more than faithful to the trust.
The first two years of marriage were passed in England, and held
the last genuine social life and intellectual development that
Anne Bradstreet was to enjoy. The love of learning was not lost in
the transition from one country to another, but it took on more
and more a theological bias, and embodied itself chiefly in
sermons and interminable doctrinal discussions. Even before the
marriage, Dudley had decided to join the New England colony, but
Simon Bradstreet hesitated and lingered, till forced to a decision
by the increasing shadow of persecution. Had they remained in
England, there is little doubt that Anne Bradstreet's mind,
sensitively alive as it was to every fine influence, would have
developed in a far different direction to that which it finally
took. The directness and joyous life of the Elizabethan literature
had given place to the euphuistic school, and as the Puritans put
aside one author after another as "not making for godliness," the
strained style, the quirks and conceits of men like Quarles and
Withers came to represent the highest type of literary effort. But
no author had the influence of Du Bartas, whose poems had been
translated by Joshua Sylvester in 1605, under the title of "Du
Bartas. His Duuine Weekes and Workes, with a Complete Collection
of all the other most delightfull Workes, Translated and Written
by ye famous Philomusus, Josvah Sylvester, Gent." He in turn was
an imitator; a French euphuist, whose work simply followed and
patterned after that of Ronsard, whose popularity for a time had
convinced France that no other poet had been before him, and that
no successor could approach his power. He chose to study classical
models rather than nature or life, and his most formidable poem,
merely a beginning of some five or six thousand verses on "the
race of French kings, descended from Francion, a child of Hector
and a Trojan by birth," ended prematurely on the death of Charles
IX, but served as a model for a generation of imitators.
What spell lay in the involved and interminable pages the modern
reader cannot decide, but Milton studied them, and affirmed that
they had aided in forming his style, and Spenser wrote of him--
"And after thee, (du Bellay) 'gins
Barras hie to raise
His Heavenly muse, th' Almighty to adore.
Live, happy spirits! th' honor of your name,
And fill the world with never dying fame."
Dryden, too, shared the infatuation, and in the Epistle Dedicatory
to "The Spanish Friar," wrote: "I remember when I was a boy, I
thought inimitable Spenser a mean poet, in comparison of
Sylvester's 'Dubartas,' and was wrapt into an ecstasy when I read
these lines:
"'Now when the winter's keener breath began
To crystallize the Baltic ocean;
To glaze the lakes, to bridle up the floods,
And periwig with snow (wool) the bald-pate woods.'
"I am much deceived if this be not abominable fustian." Van Lann
stigmatizes this poem, Le Semaine ou Creation du Monde, as "the
marriage-register of science and verse, written by a Gascon Moses,
who, to the minuteness of a Walt Whitman and the unction of a
parish-clerk, added an occasional dignity superior to anything
attained by the abortive epic of his master."
But he had some subtle, and to the nineteenth century mind,
inscrutable charm. Poets studied him and Anne Bradstreet did more
than study; she absorbed them, till such originality as had been
her portion perished under the weight. In later years she
disclaimed the charge of having copied from him, but the infection
was too thorough not to remain, and the assimilation had been so
perfect that imitation was unconscious. There was everything in the
life of Du Bartas to appeal to her imagination as well as her
sympathy, and with her minute knowledge of history she relished his
detail while reverencing his character. For Du Bartas was a French
Puritan, holding the same religious views as Henry IV, before he
became King of France, his strong religious nature appealing to
every English reader. Born in 1544, of noble parents, and brought
up, according to Michaud in the Biographic Universelle, to the
profession of arms, he distinguished himself as a soldier and
negotiater. Attached to the person of Prince Henry "in the capacity
of gentleman in ordinary of his bedchamber, he was successfully
employed by him on missions to Denmark, Scotland and England. He
was at the battle of Ivry and celebrated in song the victory which
he had helped to gain. He died four months after, in July, 1559, at
the age of forty-six, in consequence of some wounds which had been
badly healed. He passed all the leisure which his duties left him,
at his chateau du Bartas. It was there that he composed his long
and numerous poems.... His principal poem, La Semaine, went
through more than thirty editions in less than six years, and was
translated into Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, German and
Dutch."
The influence was an unfortunate one. Nature had already been set
aside so thoroughly that, as with Dryden, Spenser was regarded as
common-place and even puerile, and the record of real life or
thought as no part of a poet's office. Such power of observation
as Anne Bradstreet had was discouraged in the beginning, and
though later it asserted itself in slight degree, her early work
shows no trace of originality, being, as we are soon to see,
merely a rhymed paraphrase of her reading. That she wrote verse,
not included in any edition of her poems, we know, the earliest
date assigned there being 1632, but the time she had dreaded was
at hand, and books and study went the way of many other pleasant
things.
With the dread must have mingled a certain thrill of hope and
expectation common to every thinking man and woman who in that
seventeenth century looked to the New World to redress every wrong
of the Old, and who watched every movement of the little band that
in Holland waited, for light on the doubtful and beclouded future.
The story of the first settlement needs no repetition here. The
years in Holland had knit the little band together more strongly
and lastingly than proved to be the case with any future company,
their minister, John Robinson, having infused his own intense and
self-abnegating nature into every one. That the Virginian colonies
had suffered incredibly they knew, but it had no power to dissuade
them. "We are well weaned," John Robinson wrote, "from the
delicate milk of the mother-country, and inured to the difficulties
of a strange land; the people are industrious and frugal. We
are knit together as a body in a most sacred covenant of the
Lord, of the violation whereof we make great conscience, and
by virtue whereof, we hold ourselves strictly tied to all care
of each other's good and of the whole. It is not with us, as with
men whom small things can discourage."
By 1629, the worst difficulties had been overcome, and the
struggle for mere existence had ended. The little colony, made up
chiefly of hard working men, had passed through every phase of
suffering. Sickness and famine had done their worst. The settlers
were thoroughly acclimated, and as they prospered, more and more
the eyes of Puritan England turned toward them, with a longing for
the same freedom. Laud's hand was heavy and growing heavier, and
as privileges lessened, and one after another found fine, or
pillory, or banishment awaiting every expression of thought, the
eagerness grew and intensified. As yet there had been no
separation from the Mother Church. It had simply "divided into two
great parties, the Prelatical or Hierarchical, headed by Laud, and
the Nonconformist or Puritan." For the latter, Calvin had become
the sole authority, and even as early as 1603, their preachers
made up more than a ninth of the clergy. The points of disagreement
increased steadily, each fresh severity from the Prelatical party
being met by determined resistance, and a stubborn resolution
never to yield an inch of the new convictions. No clearer
presentation of the case is to be found anywhere than in Mason's
life of Milton, the poet's life being absolutely contemporaneous
with the cause, and his own experience came to be that of hundreds.
From his childhood he had been set apart for the ministry,
but he was as he wrote in later life, with a bitterness he
never lost, "Church-outed by the prelates." "Coming to some
maturity of years, and perceiving what tyranny had invaded in the
Church, that he who would take orders, must subscribe slave, and
take an oath withal, which, unless he took with a conscience that
would retch, he must either straight perjure or split his faith, I
thought it better to prefer a blameless silence before the sacred
office of speaking, bought and begun with servitude and
forswearing."
Each year of the increasing complications found a larger body
enrolled on his side, and with 1629, Simon Bradstreet resigned any
hope of life in England, and cast in his fortunes once for all
with the projected colony. In dissolving his third Parliament
Charles had granted the charter for the Massachusetts Colony, and
seizing upon this as a "Providential call," the Puritans at once
circulated "conclusions" among gentry and traders, and full
descriptions of Massachusetts. Already many capitalists deemed
encouragement of the emigration an excellent speculation, but the
prospective emigrants had no mind to be ruled by a commercial
company at home, and at last, after many deliberations, the old
company was dissolved; the officers resigned and their places were
filled by persons who proposed to emigrate.
Two days before this change twelve gentlemen met at Cambridge and
"pledged themselves to each other to embark for New England with
their families for a permanent residence."
"Provided always, that, before the last of September next, the
whole government, together with the patent for the said
plantation, be first legally transferred." Dudley's name was one
of the twelve, and at another meeting in October he was also
present, with John Winthrop, who was shortly chosen governor. A
day or two later, Dudley was made assistant governor, and in the
early spring of 1630, but a few days before sailing Simon
Bradstreet was elected to the same office in the place of Mr.
Thomas Goffe. One place of trust after another was filled by the
two men, whose history henceforward is that of New England. Dudley
being very shortly made "undertaker," that is, to be one of those
having "the sole managinge of the joynt stock, wth all things
incydent theronto, for the space of 7 years."
Even for the sternest enthusiasts, the departure seemed a
banishment, though Winthrop spoke the mind of all when he wrote,
"I shall call that my country where I may most glorify God and
enjoy the presence of my dearest friends."
For him the dearest were left behind for a time, and in all
literature there is no tenderer letter than that in which his last
words go to the wife whom he loved with all the strength of his
nature, and the parting from whom, was the deepest proof that
could have been of his loyalty to the cause he had made his own.
As he wrote the Arbella was riding at anchor at Cowes, waiting for
favorable winds. Some of the party had gone on shore, and all
longed to end these last hours of waiting which simply prolonged a
pain that even the most determined and resolute among them, felt
to be almost intolerable. Many messages went back carried by
friends who lingered at Cowes for the last look at the vanishing
sails, but none better worth record than the words which hold the
man's deep and tender soul.
"And now, my sweet soul, I must once again take my last farewell
of thee in old England. It goeth very near to my heart to leave
thee, but I know to whom I have committed thee, even to Him, who
loves thee much better than any husband can; who hath taken
account of the hairs of thy head, and puts all thy tears in his
bottle; who can, and (if it be for his glory) will, bring us
together again with peace and comfort. Oh, how it refresheth my
heart to think, that I shall yet again see thy sweet face in the
land of the living; that lovely countenance that I have so much
delighted in, and beheld with so great content! I have hitherto
been so taken up with business, as I could seldom look back to my
former happiness; but now when I shall be at some leisure, I shall
not avoid the remembrance of thee, nor the grief for thy absence.
Thou hast thy share with me, but I hope the course we have agreed
upon will be some ease to us both. Mondays and Fridays at five
o'clock at night we shall meet in spirit till we meet in person.
Yet if all these hopes should fail, blessed be our God, that we
are assured we shall meet one day, if not as husband and wife, yet
in a better condition. Let that stay and comfort thine heart.
Neither can the sea drown thy husband, nor enemies destroy, nor
any adversity deprive thee of thy husband or children. Therefore I
will only take thee now and my sweet children in mine arms, and
kiss and embrace you all, and so leave you with God. Farewell,
farewell. I bless you all in the name of the Lord Jesus."
"Farewell, dear England!" burst from the little group on that 8th
of April, 1630, when at last, a favorable wind bore them out to
sea, and Anne Bradstreet's voice had part in that cry of pain and
longing, as the shores grew dim and "home faded from their sight.
But one comfort or healing remained for them, in the faith that
had been with all from the beginning, one record being for them
and the host who preceded and followed their flight. So they left
that goodly and pleasant city which had been their resting
place; ... but they knew they were pilgrims and looked not much on
those things, but lift up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest
country, and quieted their spirits."
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