ltogether immaterial to
my subject--I did not think it worth while to encumber my pages with it.
So in respect to many other points, in treating which extended
discussions might be demanded. If I had been governed by such notions as
the Reviewer seems to entertain, my book, which he complains of as too
long, would have been lengthened to the dimensions of a cyclopaedia of
theology, biography, and philosophy. For keeping to my subject, and not
diverting attention to writings of no inherent value, in any point of
view, and which would contribute nothing to the elucidation of my
topics, I am charged by this Reviewer, in the baldest terms, with
ignorance, on almost every one of his sixty odd pages, and, often,
several times on the same page.

All that I say of Cotton Mather, mostly drawn from his own words, does
not cover a dozen pages. Exception is taken to some unfavorable
judgments, cursorily expressed. This is fair and legitimate, and would
justify my being called on to substantiate them. But to assume, and
proclaim, that I had not read nor seen tracts or volumes that would come
under consideration in such a discussion, is as rash as it is offensive;
and, besides, constitutes a charge against which no person of any self
respect or common sense can be expected to defend himself. I gave the
opinion of Cotton Mather's agency in the Witchcraft of 1692, to which my
judgment had been led--whether with sufficient grounds or not will be
seen, as I proceed--but did not branch off from my proper subject, into
a detail of the sources from which that opinion was derived. If I had
done so, in connection with allusions to Mather, upon the same principle
it would have been necessary to do it, whenever an opinion was expressed
of others, such as Roger Williams, or Hugh Peters, or Richard Baxter. It
would destroy the interest, and stretch interminably the dimensions, of
any book, to break its narrative, abandon its proper subject, and stray
aside into such endless collateral matter. But it must be done, if the
article in the _North American Review_, is to be regarded as an
authoritative announcement of a canon of criticism. Lecturers and public
speakers, or writers of any kind, must be on their guard. If they should
chance, for instance, to speak of Cotton Mather as a pedant, they will
have the reviewers after them, belaboring them with the charge of "a
great lack of research," in not having "pored over" the "prodigious"
manuscript of h