sons had lost
all the romance and were more narrow, more intolerant. But we must not
think them unhappy because they thought it no time for New England to
dance. There be those nowadays who care not for dancing, nor for the
playing of games, yet are not unhappy. There be, also, I trow, those who
fare not at fairs, and show not at shows, and would fain read sober
books or study their Bible as did the Puritans, and yet are cheerful.
And perhaps also there is a singular little band of those who love not
the play--a few such I wot of Puritan blood yet are not sorrowful.
Hawthorne said: "Happiness may walk soberly in dark attire as well as
dance lightsomely in a gala-dress." And I cannot doubt that good Judge
Sewall found as true and deep a pleasure--albeit a melancholy one--in
slowly leading, sable-gloved and sable-cloaked, the funeral procession
of one of the honored deputies through narrow Boston streets, as did
roystering Morton in marshalling his drunken revellers at noisy
Merrymount.

XI

BOOKS AND BOOK-MAKERS

There was no calling, no profession more reputable, more profitable in
early colonial days than the trade of book-selling. President Dunster,
of Harvard College, in his pursuance of that business, gave it the
highest and best endorsement; and it must be remembered that all the
book-sellers were publishers as well, books being printed for them at
their expense. John Dunton, in his "Life and Errors," has given us a
very distinct picture of Boston book-sellers and their trade toward the
end of the seventeenth century. He landed at that port in 1686 with a
large and expensive venture of books "suited to the genius of New
England," and he says he was about as welcome to the resident
book-sellers as "Sowr ale in Summer." Nevertheless they received him
cordially and hospitably, and he in turn was an equally generous rival;
for he drew eulogistically the picture of the four book-dealers which
that city then boasted. Mr. Phillips was "very just, very thriving,
young, witty, and the most Beautiful man in the town of Boston." Mr.
Brunning, or Browning, was a "complete book-seller, generous and
trustworthy." Dunton says:

"There are some men will run down the most elaborate peices only
because they had none of their Midwifery to bring them into public
View and yet shall give the greatest encomiums to the most Nauseous
trash when they had the hap to be concerned in it."

But Browning would