In this collection were to be found the most considerable of the Greek and Latin classics,' the Christian Fathers, the Talmud Babylonicum; many of the most important works of modern times, as the London Polyglott (a Republican copy), Cudworth's Intellectual System, Lightfoot's works, the Histories of Clarendon, Thuanus, &c., some of the works of Erasmus, Descartes, Lord Bacon, Selden, Grotius, Leclerc, Gassendi, Newton, Boyle; the works of Chaucer, Shakspeare's Plays, Milton's Poetical Works; and many others of the first rank in literature and science.

A great proportion of the works, at least two thirds, were theological. 2

Most of them were in the learned languages, principally Latin. There were few in any modern languages, except English. There was a great paucity of works in modern literature. Not one of the productions of Dryden, Sir William Temple, Shaftesbury, Addison, Pope, Swift, or any other of the constellation of fine writers of Queen Anne's reign, or of any of the twentythree years, which had elapsed, of the century, in which the Catalogue was printed.

With few exceptions, the books were printed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The oldest book in that library, whose date is above given, was printed at Strasburg in 1490, and was on the same subject with one, which, till recently, was the oldest in the present library, and which was printed at Venice in 1481. They are commentaries, by different persons, on the work entitled "Sententiarum Libri IV," by Peter Lom

1 It is remarkable that there was no copy of Homer, in the original, among them.

2 Of the present Library scarcely one fourth is of that description.

bard, Bishop of Paris in the twelfth century. In that library there were not less than twenty-four ponderous tomes, all folios but two, on the same work, put forth at different times; and these formed but a small part of the number of commentaries, written by many learned doctors from time to time, on that celebrated production of scholastic theology. Some idea may be formed of the difference between the old library and the present one, from the fact, that the latter contains the single copy above-mentioned. It was written by St. Thomas Aquinas, and is entitled "Super Quarto Libro Sententiarum." fol. Venet. 1481. The old library also contained a copy of the "Book of Sentences" itself, which the present does not.

The oldest book now in the Library is a fine Latin copy of Diogenes Laërtius, printed at Venice, by Nicolas Jenson, in 1475.

Few of the books in the old library, which are not also in the present one, would probably be thought of much value at the present day, except with reference to the history of literature.

"The Library," says Neal in his History of New-England (first printed in 1720), "the Library is very defective in modern authors, which may be one reason why the stile and manner of the New-England writers does not equal that of the Europeans."

The American writer, Cotton Mather, with whom Neal seems to have been most familiar, and from whom he took the greatest part of his history, was, in point of "stile and manner," no very favorable specimen of the New-England authors. That voluminous writer was certainly distinguished for any thing rather than good taste in composition. He was in this respect at least inferior to his father, to Mr. Pemberton, Dr. Col

man, Jeremiah Dummer, and to most of his New-England contemporaries.

Our ancestors, we may presume, took all due notice of this remark of the worthy historian at the time it appeared. They had not, indeed, any review for the vehicle of remonstrance; there were then no literary journals here or in England; but they had, what was sufficient for their purpose, two weekly gazettes, and, soon after, three, printed in the town of Boston.*

But it is, perhaps, not too late even now to bestow upon it a passing reflection. It is admitted that the Library was "very defective in modern authors "; but, though at a period, when a University education had less of a popular cast than it has at present, the elegant literature of the day did not find a place in that repository of erudition, it is not therefore to be supposed that it was unknown, or unattended to, in this part of the British dominions, especially in so wealthy and populous a place as Boston was now become. The supposition would be incredible, even if it were not disproved by facts. The use, which the "printer's boy" Benjamin Franklin, made of his "odd volume of the Spectator," in forming a style, which writers of the present day would do well to imitate, is known to every reader. Various productions of the early part of the last century, still extant, furnish abundant evidence, that the writers of them were probably as far from having confined their reading to antiquated works, as their fellow subjects on the other side of the water.

By way of set-off to this remark of the English historian, a cotemporaneous one may not improperly be

The first newspaper, published in British America, was printed April 24, 1704. It was called "The Boston News-Letter"; and was continued seventy-two years.

1

cited from a man, whom the celebrated Dr. Chauncy places among the "three first for extent and strength of genius and powers, New England has ever produced," and who, having been graduated at Harvard College, went to England, there became the agent for Massachusetts, and was an associate of the wits of Queen Anne's reign, the accomplished Jeremiah Dummer. Being, moreover, an elegant writer himself, he is entitled, in a question of this sort, to the most respectful attention. In an interesting letter which he wrote from England, in 1711, to the famous Mr. Tutor Flynt, he observes, "I must own to you, that I think the modern sermons, which are preached and printed here, are very lean and dry, having little divinity in the matter, or brightness in the stile; I am sure they are no way comparable to the solid discourses, which Mr. Brattle, gives you every week." 2

1 The other two were Mr. John Bulkley, Minister at Colchester in Connecticut, and Mr. Thomas Walker of Roxbury.

2 Mr. Brattle, minister of Cambridge, formerly Tutor with Mr. Leverett.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE last years of President Leverett were disquieted by some proceedings of the Overseers and of the General Court.

In the year 1722 one of the resident instructers presented a memorial, both to the Corporation and Overseers, claiming a place in the former body, rendered vacant by the death of the Rev. Mr. Stevens of Charlestown. The Corporation, however, elected the Rev. Dr. Sewall of the Old South Church, Boston, and presented him for approval to the Overseers. The Overseers refused to concur; and informed the Corporation, that they "judge it proper that the vacancy in the Corporation, by the decease of the Rev. Joseph Stevens of Charlestown, be filled up by the election of a Resident Fellow in his stead." The Corporation then thought fit, "saving to themselves the right of electing members of the Corporation, upon any vacancy, according to the powers vested in them by the College charter, and protesting against their acquiescence being made a precedent, to choose Mr. Tutor Robie. The five Fellows of the Corporation were now, the Rev. Dr. Appleton of Cambridge, the Rev. Dr. Colman and the Rev. Mr. Wadsworth of Boston, Mr. Tutor Flynt, and Mr. Tutor Robie.