the people,
united by domestic ties, similar pursuits, and every form of public
action and observation--why did Brattle, in so marked a manner, separate
them, holding the one up, in an honorable point of view, and passing
over the other, not ever mentioning his name, as the Reviewer observes?

If he really disapproved of the prosecutions at Salem--if, as the
Reviewer positively states, he "denounced" them--is it not unaccountable
that Brattle did not name him with his father?

These questions press with especial force upon the Reviewer, under the
interpretation he crowds upon the passage from Brattle, I am now to
cite. If that interpretation can be allowed, it will, in the face of
all that has come to us, make Brattle out to have had a most exalted
opinion of Cotton Mather, and render it unaccountable indeed that he did
not mention him, in honor, as he did his father and Mr. Willard. The
passage is this: "I cannot but highly applaud, and think it our duty to
be very thankful for, the endeavours of several Elders, whose lips, I
think, should preserve knowledge, and whose counsel should, I think,
have been more regarded, in a case of this nature, than as yet it has
been: in particular, I cannot but think very honorably of the endeavours
of a Rev. person in Boston, whose good affections to his country, in
general, and spiritual relation to three of the Judges, in particular,
has made him very solicitous and industrious in this matter; and I am
fully persuaded, that had his notions and proposals been hearkened to
and followed, when those troubles were in their birth, in an ordinary
way, they would never have grown unto that height which now they have.
He has, as yet, met with little but unkindness, abuse, and reproach,
from many men; but, I trust, that in after times, his wisdom and service
will find a more universal acknowledgment; and if not, his reward is
with the Lord."

The learned Editor of the Fifth Volume of the _Massachusetts Historical
Collections_, First Series, in a note to this passage (_p. 76_), says:
"Supposed to be Mr. Willard." Such has always been the supposition. The
Reviewer has undertaken to make it out that Cotton Mather is the person
referred to by Brattle. These two men were opposed to each other, in the
politics of that period. The course of the Mathers, in connection with
the loss of the old, and the establishment of the new, Charter, gave
rise to much dissatisfaction; and party divisions were q