worth of books, and when we consider the excessively small
pay of members of that calling at that time, we feel that he showed a
liberal interest in promoting in every manner the spread of learning,
and only trust that he paid the bill promptly.

In 1719 there was but one book-shop in New York, but of cultured Boston
Neal wrote at that date: "The Exchange is surrounded with booksellers'
shops which have a good trade. There are five Printing Presses."
Succeeding years did not change the luck of the craft in Boston, nor dim
its honors, still wealth and love poured in on its members. The names of
Henchman and Hancock show the opulence; while Knox, in war and love
alike prospered, winning the wealthy "belle of Massachusetts" for his
bride, and winning equal glory with his sword in the Revolution. In
other New England towns did book-publishing succeed, though Boston's
earlier start, its leading position, and its more carefully preserved
history give it place as a type of the whole province.

And now, what was the fruit of all this fairly garnished and richly
nourished tree? What did these prosperous New England book-merchants
bring forth in the first century of book-printing in the province? What
return did they make for all the romantic and material support given
them? No love-poems or mild tales of gallantry, as you might expect from
their alleged fascinating traits, but, instead, an almost unvaried
production of dreary and dull funeral, execution, wedding, election, and
baptismal sermons, and of psalm-books, with here and there a "two penny
jeering gigge," or perhaps an anagram or acrostic or "pindarick," on
some virtuous citizen or industrious dame, recently deceased. In
business relations the deacon prevailed powerfully over the gallant. If,
as Tyler says, the New England theocracy was a social structure resting
on a book, that corner-stone was the Bay Psalm-Book and the walls above
it were built of sermons. These sermons seem to us technical, sapless,
and jejune, "as soporific as a bed of poppies," but they show the
intelligence, energy, and assiduity of the writers just as plainly as
they show the gloomy theology and sad earnestness of the time. And
though no one now reads them, we profoundly respect them, for they have
been conned by our honored forefathers with more studious and loving
attention than falls to the lot of most modern books, no matter what
their subject or who their author.

I have told at length th