ing to meddle in such things as are proper for men,
whose minds are stronger, etc., she had kept her wits, and might
have improved them usefully and honorably in the place God had set
her."

I know of no illustrated books printed New England in the seventeenth
century, nor any with frontispieces or portraits. In 1723 a portrait of
Increase Mather appeared in his Life, which was written by monopolizing
Cotton Mather. It was a poor thing, being engraved in London by John
Sturt. When Peter Pelham came to Boston about 1725 and started as a
portrait engraver, and married the Widow Copley with her thriving
tobacco shop, he engraved and published many likenesses of authors and
ministers, some of which were bound with their books, others sold singly
by subscription. The mezzotint of Cotton Mather, made in 1727, sold for
two shillings. Hubbard's Narrative had a map in 1677; and in 1713 the
lives of Dr. Faustus, Friar Bacon, Conjurors Bungay and Vanderwart were
printed conjointly in a volume "with cuts"--perhaps the earliest
illustrated New England book, unless we except the New England Primer.
"The Prodigal Daughter, or the Disobedient Lady Reclaimed" had "curious
cuts;" so also did the "Parents Gift" in 1741, and "A Present for a
Servant Maid." "Pilgrim's Progress" was printed in Boston in an
illustrated edition in 1744. But for any handsomely illustrated books
American readers sent, until Revolutionary times, to England.

There were, however, at a later date, some few books printed with
special elegance, with broad margins. The "Discourse on the United
Submission to Higher Powers" had some copies that were printed on pages
ten inches by seven and a quarter inches in size, while the regular
edition was only six by six and a half inches. A letter is in existence
of Governor Trumbull's ordering that some copies of the funeral sermon
preached at his wife's death be printed on heavy writing paper. Copies
of the first edition of the "Magnalia" also were issued on large paper
and owned in New England, but of course that work was done in London.

The printing of the earliest books was generally poor, showing the work
of inexperienced and unaccustomed hands; but the paper was good,
sometimes of fine quality, and always strong. The type was fairly good
and clear until Revolutionary times, when paper, ink, and type, being
made by new workmen out of the poorest materials, were bad beyond
belief, producing, in fact, an alm