haps he was not so fervent a preacher as some. He might want a voice and manner, or that animation in the pulpit which some preachers have, and which will be more talked of, than the still sound of wisdom. Or perhaps he lived too long for his reputation. When a man's life is cut short in the midst of his days and usefulness, the excellencies of his name and character are the subjects of remark for many generations. If another continues to old age, and mental imbecilities succeed the more vigorous intellect, he is remembered only in the last stage of life, and he drops into the grave without emotions of sorrow. His name is seldom mentioned in the neighbourhood where he dwelt; but those at a distance, who have heard of his fame when he appeared upon the stage with engaging virtue, or read his works with delight, wish to know what were the more minute parts of his character.

Whether these observations apply generally or not, they certainly apply to the subject of this memoir. He has been quoted by all who give accounts of New-England, but few, very few notices of him are in the records of the town, where he spent his days.*

In the year 1676 Mr. Hubbard preached the election sermon, which is among the very good ones published during that century. He was one of the seventeen ministers who bore testimony against the old church in Boston, when they settled Mr. Davenport; also, when the General Assembly approved of the act of the First Church, and censured the proceedings of the Third Church, commonly called the Old South. The division excited upon this occasion interested the passions of the people at large, so as to give a new complexion to publick affairs. Most of the deputies, who had so severely censured the brethren who built the Old South church, for their spirit of innovation, and leaving the good old path of their fathers, were left out, and new members chosen. The town of Ipswich took an active part in this matter; and Mr. Hubbard's influence had considerable effect upon their proceedings.

In 1682, Mr. Hubbard is brought to view as the historian of Massachusetts. He received some reward from the public for his useful work. The following vote is copied from the records of the General Court, October 11.

"Whereas it hath been thought necessary and a duty incumbent upon us, to take due notice of all occurrences and passages of God's providence towards the people of this jurisdiction, since their

*

See Mr. Frisbie's Letters, Hist. Coll. X. p. 35.

first arrival in these parts, which may remain to posterity, and that the Rev. Mr. William Hubbard hath taken pains to compile a history of this natnre, which the court doth with thankfulness acknowledge, and as a manifestation thereof, do hereby order the treasurer to pay unto him the sum of fifty pounds in money, he transcribing it fairly into a book, that it may be the more easily perused, in order to the satisfaction of this court."

In 1684 Mr. Hubbard presided at the commencement. This was after the death of President Rogers. But though Dr. Increase Mather was in the neighbourhood, the senatus academicus saw fit to send for a minister from the county of Essex; so respectable was his character among the literary men of his profession.

The publications of Mr. Hubbard were not very numerous. They consist of several volumes in duodecimo; of which are a narrative of the Indian wars; Memoirs of Major General Dennison, &c. But his chief attention was paid to his MS. history, which was composed upon the plan of Winthrop's journal. For some reason or other, neither of these MMS. were permitted to be seen by the public, till lately the journal has been printed. In all his histories Mr. Hubbard appears a steady friend to the constitution of the churches. He expressed indignant feelings at the erection of the church in Brattle Street, upon a more liberal plan than our fathers were willing to adopt.

There is nothing of this said in his MMS. history, which only comes down to 1680, but he speaks pointedly in his private letters to several gentlemen, and in the last thing he published, his Dying testimony to the order of the Churches, which he wrote jointly with Mr. Higginson of Salem.-(Eliot's Biographical Dictionary, art. Hubbard.

I have taken so many facts and remarks, in my first volume, from a manuscript history of Mr. William Hubbard, one of the ministers of Ipswich, that I may not omit taking notice of his death, September 14, 1704, at the age of eighty-three years; and giving him the character he deserved, of a man of learning, of a candid and benevolent mind, accompanied, as it generally is, with a good degree of catholicism; which, I think, was not accounted the most valuable part of his character in the age in which he lived. [Hutchinson's History, II. p. 136, note.]

He was born in 1621, and settled about 1657, as colleague with the Rev. Thomas Cobbett, at Ipswich. He was a man of learning, and of a candid, benevolent mind. John Dunton, in his Journal

in Massachusetts, speaks of him as "learned without ostentation," and as "a man of singular modesty; of strict morals," and as having done "as much for the conversion of the Indians as most men in New England." His History of New England lay in manuscript till 1815, when it was published by the Massachusetts Historical Society, and constitutes two volumes of their Collections." [Farmer's Hist. Coll. II. p. 185.] [Hubbard's New England, though once considered highly important as an original, independent authority in our colonial history, has lost its former value since the discovery first announced by our very learned historiographer, Mr. Savage, that it is in substance a copy of Winthrop's History of New England. See his valuable and interesting note to Winthrop's work, Vol. I. pp. 296, &c. and his Preface to the same volume.

EDIT.]

5. Samuel Bellingham. He received the degree of Doctor of Physic at Leyden. He appears to have been living when the Catalogue of Graduates in Mather's Magnalia was made, or about 1697; and survived all his classmates, except the Rev. Mr. Hubbard. He was of Rowley.-[Hutchinson's Hist. I. p. 112, note; Farmer's Hist. Collections, II. p. 185; and Genealogical Register, art. Bellingham.]

6. John Wilson. He was son of the first minister of Boston (of the same name), and was born in England, in July, 1621; was ordained as colleague with the Rev. Richard Mather at Dorchester, and after two years was settled in Medfield, where he was pastor forty years, and died, August 23, 1691, aged 70. Dr Mather says, that when "he was a child he fell upon his head from a loft four stories high into the street, from whence he was taken up for dead, and so battered and bruised and bloody with his fall, that it struck horror into the beholders." After he graduated he settled at Medfield, and, says Dr. Mather, "continued unto old age a faithful, painful, useful minister of the gospel.” — [Hutchinson's Hist. I. p. 112, note; Farmer's Histor. Coll. II. p. 185; and Genealogical Register, art. Wilson.]

7. Henry Saltonstall. He is supposed by Governor Hutchinson to have been a grandson of Sir Richard Saltonstall; he was a doctor of physic, and a fellow of New College, Oxford. — [Hutch. Hist. I. p. 112, note.]-Like several of the early graduates, he went home after leaving college, and received a degree of Doctor of Medicine from Padua, and also from Oxford. [Sketch of Ha

verhill, Massachusetts, by a descendant of the family, the Hon. Leverett Saltonstall, of Salem; published in the Mass. Hist. Coll. IV. p. 159, Second Series.] - Our accurate American antiquarian, Mr. Farmer, in his last work states Henry Saltonstall to have been a son of Sir Richard; and adds, that his degree at Padua was conferred in October, 1649, and at Oxford on the 24th of June, 1652.-[Farmer's Genealog. Reg. art. Saltonstall.]

8. Tobias Barnard. Nothing is said of him by Hutchinson; and all the information which has been collected respecting him by the very careful inquirer last mentioned, is, that he went from this country to England. - [Ibid. art. Barnard.]

9. Nathaniel Brewster. Hutchinson says, he was a settled minister in Norfolk, and of good report. [Hist. Mass. I. p. 112, note.] It appears by the Cambridge Catalogue, that he received from Dublin the degree of Bachelor of Divinity; and Mr. Farmer states, on the authority of the Hon. Silas Wood, that he returned to America, settled in 1656, at Brookhaven, Long Island, and died in 1690.-[Genealogical Register, art. Brewster.] - Mr. Wood, in the new edition of his history of Long Island, states Mr. Brewster's settlement to have been in 1665.-[Sketch of the First Settlement of the Several Towns on Long Island. By Silas Wood. Brooklyn, New York, 1828; p. 33.]

No. XIV. (p. 10.)

THE College at Cambridge (says Hutchinson, I. p. 171,) became more and more an object of attention, and in the year 1650 was made a body corporate by Act of the General Court, and received a charter under the seal of the Colony.

Under this Charter the College was governed until the year 1685, when the Colony Charter was vacated, saving that in 1673, by an order of the General Court, some addition was made to the number of the Corporation. Mr. Dudley (who was a son of the College) when he received a commission for President of the Colony altered the title of the President of the College for that of Rector, but no attempts were made to take away the estate or stock of the College or to impose officers disagreeable to the country in general, but the government continued, in name at least, under the former Corporation, who were Increase Mather, Rector, John Sherman, Nehemiah Hubbard, John Cotton, John Leverett, and William Brattle as Fellows (the last two were Tutors also) and John Richards, Treasurer. When Mr. Mather, the Rector, went to England in 1688, in his minutes of an intended petition to the King, he says, "that when the civil government was changed, the College was under the inspection of these persons, and he supposed it continued so, except that Mr. Sherman was dead, in whose room he prayed Mr. Samuel Sewall might be appointed, and that the King would confirm the government in their hands; but although these were in name the Governors, they were not always so in fact." I find the following original order, dated December the 9th, 1686.

"WHEREAS the monies and other estate belonging to Harvard College in Cambridge, has been by us committed to the care and management of John Richards, Esq. for the benefit of the said College, it is ordered, that the produce thercof shall for this year, 1686, be disposed of as followeth.

"Ist. There shall be allowed to the present Rector of the College, as some acknowledgment of the services which he has done for that Society, the remainder of the income not disposed underneath.

"2d. The present Tutors, Mr. John Leverett and Mr. William Brattle, shall for this year, beginning the last Commencement, be