by talking over-much of Vane and of La Tour after their connection with Boston has ceased the fault may be attributed to a reaction from my own defective education. The truth is that it is biography rather than history which really allures me; history seems to me worse than useless unless it illustrates the times of which it writes as those times affected the lives of its men and women. A book like this has no justification, to my mind, save as it makes us understand just a little better the part New England, in the person of its chief town, has played in the mighty drama of nations made up of thinking, feeling men and women. Up to the time of the Revolution, of course, Boston was the biggest place in all the colonies as well as the chief settlement of Massachusetts. This numerical preeminence needs to be borne in mind if we would understand many acts on both sides of the ocean. To understand the America of to-day, too, we must needs know the Boston of the fathers. So only can we be sure that the excrescences of modern government are no essential part of that Christian state of which Winthrop dreamed and for which Vane was glad to die. The books consulted in the preparation of this work have been many and, for the most part, are named in the text. But sweeping credit is here due to the invaluable "Memorial History of Boston" and to the "Boston Antiquities " of Samuel Drake. I have to thank also Mr. Irwin C. Cromack of the engineering department, City of Boston, for kindly aid given and the editor of the Canadian Magazine for permission to incorporate in the chapter "How Winthrop Treated With the La Tours" my article on the "Fight Between La Tour and D'Aulnay" contributed to his magazine last year. CHARLESTOWN, 1908. M. O. C. T. BOTOLPH'S Town! Far over leagues of land "ST. And leagues of sea looks forth its noble tower, And far around the chiming bells are heard: So may that sacred name forever stand A landmark and a symbol of the power "TH HE distinctive characteristic of the settlement of the English colonists in America is the introduction of the civilization of Europe into a wilderness without bringing with it the political institutions of Europe. The arts, sciences, and literature of England came over with the settlers. monarchy did not come, nor the aristocracy, nor the church as an estate of the realm. Political institutions were to be framed anew such as should be adapted to the state of things." - DANIEL WEBSTER. But the "T HE spirit of that age was sure to manifest itself in narrow cramping measures and in ugly acts of persecution; but it is, none the less, to the fortunate alliance of that fervid religious enthusiasm with the love of self-government that our modern freedom owes its existence.". JOHN FISKE. HOU, too, sail on O ship of State! "TH Sail on, O Union, strong and great! With all the hopes of future years Is hanging breathless on thy fate!"-LONGFELLOW. |