22 CHAP. I. 1692. HABITS OF THE PEOPLE. "The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name." It was an age of too much seriousness to admit of an ardent devotion to the Muses. The company of the Nine was devoutly eschewed. The classics, if not proscribed, were the delight of but few. Men who had before them a wilderness to subdue, cities to build, and a government to frame, had little leisure to devote to the elegances of life; little time to spend in culti vating the imagination. Their poetry was in action, not in words. Yet there is enough in their character to form an epic of surpassing power; and when "the hour and the man" come, we shall look for a delineation of their manners as pregnant with interest and as extensive in its influence as the legends of other days, which have immortalized the deeds of men far less earnest, and far less worthy of an undying fame. The habits of the people were, for the most part, simple. Travelling was principally performed on foot or on horseback, the women mounted on pillions behind the men. Stage coaches were not introduced until near the close of the seventeenth century, and then we hear of but one.2 Pleasure carriages were rarely seen, save in Boston, until towards the middle of the eighteenth century. The chaise was introduced at about that date. The wagons of the farmers were rude structures, hung on thorough braces or bedded on the axles; and, from the roughness of the roads, filled with stumps in many cases, riding was far from voluptuously easy, and a trip of a few miles was ' Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1. 2 In 1687, Lady Andros rode in a coach. Felt's Salem, i. 315 et seq. In 1753, there were no chaises in the counties of Worcester and Barn stable; but one was reported in Bristol; and there were 47 in Essex, 50 in Middlesex, and about 200 in Suffolk. Felt's Salem, i. 316; Ann's Am. Stat. Ass'n, i. 348–358. HABITS OF THE PEOPLE. 23 I. a sure cure for the dyspepsia. The roads of New England, CHAP. however, were not much worse than those of Old England at the same date; for, in some of the best counties, at the opening 1692. of the nineteenth century, travellers were subjected to as great, if not to greater annoyances than existed in Massachusetts.1 Among the wealthy, the luxuries of life were indulged as freely, perhaps, as among persons of like standing in the old world. Their furniture was of a costly description; their apparel was sumptuous; their tables groaned with delicacies; and their hospitality was unbounded.2 It was contrary, however, to the sternness of the Puritan character to countenance or encourage extravagant expenditures in living or dress; and sumptuary laws prohibited unnecessary profusion, and attempted to prescribe the length of the hair and the fashion of the dress.3 The yeomanry, who were the bulk of the people, were hardy, industrious, temperate, and frugal; given to hospitality, and enjoying the necessaries of life, with a fair share of its luxuries. But pleasing as those days seem in comparison with our own, we can hardly claim for them a particular preeminence; and the more minutely we examine the annals of the past, the more shall we find to satisfy us that the condition of the people, however simple, was not such as we should voluntarily choose for our own lot. There is a charm which fancy lends to the past, and, always, imaginative minds see things painted in colors of unsurpassed brilliancy and beauty. And it is not, perhaps, unnatural to desire to invest the lot of those who have preceded us with some of the rose tints which render it attractive; but could we go back in reality to any anterior age in the history of the world, and live in it as it was, we should see enough to convince us that "Distance lends enchantment to the view," and that the past, so far from excelling the present, is as infe 1 See Dibdin's Tour, ed. 1801, 4to, vol. i. pp. 46-56. 2 All travellers concur in commend ing the hospitality of the people. See 3 Mass. Rec's, in different places. 24 HABITS OF THE PEOPLE. CHAP. rior in comparison as the rough block of marble which the I. sculptor is chiselling into the likeness of man, is inferior to the 1692. statue when finished, in its exquisite symmetry and life-like expression. Such were the people whose history is to be traced in these pages a peculiar people, zealous of good works: a people descended from the best English stock; yearning for freedom; far from perfect in their characters; far from faultless in their habits; yet possessing the germs of a higher development, and earnest to advance in the work of reform: men, who, less than a century later, made themselves felt as the champions of liberty, and whose deeds of heroic valor challenged the admiration of statesmen and philosophers. CHAPTER II. THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION. II. No event probably in the whole history of New England has CHAP. furnished grounds for more serious charges affecting the character of the people than the witchcraft delusion, as it has been 1692. commonly termed ; an episode of thrilling and melancholy interest, impressing the mind with a vivid sense of the evils of superstition, and the unhappy consequences which flow from that morbid excitement of the passion for the marvellous which seems to have had its cycles of recurrence from the earliest period to the present time. The mind of man is a perplexing mystery, which the wisest philosophers have failed to unravel. In its normal state it moves forward generally without much excitement; and the laws which govern its motions are laws of harmony and progressive improvement. But in its abnormal conditions, when its balance is disturbed and its functions are diseased, it soars aloft upon aerial excursions of the wildest description, guided by no chart but that of conjecture, and following, without judgment, the blind promptings of an erratic fancy, which spurns control, and rises higher and higher in its restless flight until, from utter exhaustion, its drooping pinions refuse longer to sustain its course, and it swoops down to earth again, glad to find rest, like the returning dove, from the waves which had swept over its abode in its absence, threatening to wash away the landmarks of ages. Yet even the follies of our race are not without some compensation; and the discerning will find that (25) 26 CHAP. THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION. "There is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would men observingly distil it out." 1692. The lessons which the world is taught by its errors are often of great service; and it would seem as if temporary fits of excitement, like occasional disturbances in the physical world, were necessary to purify the atmosphere, and to scatter the seeds from which new and more vigorous forms of life may spring. All such phenomena are controlled by a Power who Ps. 76: has assured us that the wrath of man shall be made to praise him, and that the remainder of wrath he will restrain. 10. From a cursory view of the popular delusions which have prevailed, it will be seen that on no subject has the human mind been more prone to dwell than upon the influence which spiritual agents have been supposed to exert upon beings in the flesh. The belief in such influence is as old as the Bible, and is often alluded to in the sacred writings. How far such belief is founded in truth, every man must judge for himself. Different minds form different conclusions from the same premises; and it would be presumptuous for any one to set up his own opinions as infallible. To many, it seems hardly credible that such belief should have prevailed so extensively without having some foundation; nor can it be doubted that phenomena have occurred and do occur, for which the wisest and best have been and are unable to account. And although it does not necessarily follow that what cannot be accounted for may be legiti mately ascribed to causes beyond the present sphere, neither does it follow that nothing can be ascribed to such causes, because such phenomena, when investigated, have been found, in most cases, to fall within the province of recondite laws, imperfectly defined, which have hitherto eluded the grasp of the mind. Profound mystery encircles life on every hand; and 1 "It seems to me," says Blackstone, Com. b. iv. c. iv., "the most eligible way to conclude, that in general there has been such a thing as witchcraft, though one cannot give credit to any particular modern instance of it." |