verse, and totally worthless; the former, however, is a pretty poem of description and reflection, breathing that intoxicating sense of natural beauty which never fails to awaken in us some sympathy, and an answering feeling of reality.—ARNOLD, THOMAS, 1868-75, Chaucer to Wordsworth, p. 286.

Is not a painter who would constrain words to be the medium of his art; he is a poet. He has a heart that listens, an eye that loves; his landscape is full of living change, of tender incident, of the melody of breeze and bird and stream.

The farmer still collecting his scattered sheaves under the full-orbed harvest moon, the strong-armed rustic plunging in the flood an unshorn ewe, the carter on the dusty road beside his nodding wain, the maiden at her humming wheel, delight Dyer's imagination no more than do the Sheffield smiths near the glaring mass "clattering their heavy hammers down by turns," the builder, trowel in hand, at whose spell Manchester rises and spreads like Carthage before the eyes of Æneas, the keen-eyed factor inspecting his bales, the bending porter on the wharf where masts crowd thick. The poet's ancestors, as he is pleased to record in verse, were weavers, who, flying from the rage of superstition, brought the loom to

"that soft tract

Of Cambria, deep-embayed, Dimetian land, By green hills fenced, by ocean's murmur lull'd."

From them he obtained a goodly heritage -his love of freedom and his love of industry. He honoured traffic, the "friend to wedded love;" he honoured England for her independence and her mighty toil; America, for her vast possibilities of wellbeing. He pleaded against the horrors of

the slave trade. He courted the favour of no lord. And, in an age of city poets, he found his inspiration on the hillside and by the stream.-DOWDEN, EDWARD, 1880, English Poets, ed. Ward, vol. III, p. 208.

Dyer's love of scenery at a period when the taste was out of fashion may give him some claim to remembrance.

Dyer's longer poems are now unreadable, though there is still some charm in "Grongar Hill" and some shorter pieces. He is probably best known by the sonnet addressed to him by Wordsworth.STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1888, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XVI, p. 287.

It seems odd that the extreme awkwardness of the opening lines of "Grongar Hill," and a certain grammatical laxity running through the work of Dyer, should have been treated with so much lenity by critic after critic. Dyer's Welsh landscapes, with their yellow sun, purple groves, and pale blue distance, remind us of the simple drawings of the earliest English masters of water colour, and his precise mode of treating outdoor subjects, without pedantry, but with

cold succes

sion of details, connects him with the lesser Augustans through Somerville. As the gentleman predicted, Dyer is buried in the "woolen" of his too-laborious "Fleece." GOSSE, EDMUND, 1888, A History of Eighteenth Century Literature.

In an ease of composition which runs into laxity he reminds us occasionally of George Wither. His chief merit is, that while independent of Thomson, he was inspired by the same love, and wrote with the same aim. Dyer is not content with bare description, but likes to moralize on the landscape he surveys.-DENNIS, JOHN, 1894, The Age of Pope, p. 113.

PERSONAL

The 22d of October [1758], will be remembered as a remarkable day in the history of the Town, and not only of

Boston, but of New England; for on that day died the Rev. Mr. Thomas Prince, a benefactor of his country; leaving a name which will be venerated to the remotest

ages, if literature shall then be valued; a name which may with pride be emulated by the inquirers after historical knowledge, and the admirers of precision and accuracy in the paths of history. DRAKE, SAMUEL G., 1855, History and Antiquities of Boston, p. 646.

He was pronounced by Dr. Chauncy the most learned scholar, with the exception of Cotton Mather, in New England, and maintained a high reputation as a preacher, and as a devout and amiable man. Six of his manuscript sermons were published after his death, by Dr. John Erskine, of Edinburgh.-DUYCKINCK, EVERT A. AND GEORGE L., 1855-65-75, Cyclopædia of American Literature, ed. Simons, vol. I, p. 87.

That 22d of October was the Sabbath; the day on which his collection of Psalms and Hymns was used, for the first time, by his people. The lips of their beloved pastor were forever sealed; but they still had his life and spirit embalmed in those sacred poems, to be with them, guiding them and comforting them. In the twinkling of an eye, had he been changed; mortality had blossomed into immortality; his own sweetest thoughts awoke in music on the tongues of his weeping congregation, as he sank into that blessed sleep which Christ giveth to His beloved. The mystery of the two lives was made perfect by his departure, for he still praised God in the voices of the living, though gone to be a member of the choir of angels. MANNING, J. M., 1859, Thomas Prince, The Congregational Quarterly, vol. I, p. 16.

He was a man of most tolerant and brotherly spirit; his days were filled by gentle and gracious and laborious deeds; he was a great scholar; he magnified his office and edified the brethren by publishing a large number of judicious and nutritious sermons; he also revised and improved the New England Psalm Book, "by an endeavor after a yet nearer approach to the inspired original, as well as to the rules of poetry;" he took a special interest in physical science, and formed quite definite opinions about earthquakes, comets, "the electrical substance," and so forth. For all these things, he was deeply honored in his own time, and would have been deeply forgotten in ours, had he not added to them very unique perform ances as an historian. No American

writer before Thomas Prince, qualified himself for the service of history by so much conscious and specific preparation; and though others did more work in that service, none did better work than he. The foundation of his character as a historian was laid in reverence, not only for truth, but for precision, and in willingness to win it at any cost of labor and of time. He likewise felt the peculiar authority of originals in historical testimony, and the potential value, for historical illustration, of all written or printed materials whatsoever; and while he was yet a collegeboy, driven by the sacred avarice of an antiquarian and a bibliographer, he began to gather that great library of early American documents, which kept growing upon his hands in magnitude and in wealth as long as his life lasted, and which, notwithstanding the ravages of the time, of British troops, of book-borrowers, and of book-thieves, still remains for him a barrier against oblivion, and for every student of early American thought and action, a copious treasurer-house of help.-TYLER, MOSES COIT, 1878, A History of American Literature, 1676-1765, vol. II, p. 144.

GENERAL

Some may think me rather too critical, others that I relate some circumstances too minute. As to the first, I think a Writer of Facts cannot be too critical: It is Exactness I aim at, and would not have the least mistake, if possible, pass to the World.. As to the Second, those Things which are too minute with Some, are not so with Others. And there's none who attentively reads a History either ancient or modern, but in a great many Cases, wishes the Writer had mentioned some minute Circumstances, that were then commonly known, and thought too needless or small to be noted. -PRINCE, THOMAS, 1736, A Chronological History of New England.

The most important event of 1735, in this connection, was the issue of the first volume of the "Chronological History of New England." . . The list of manuscript authorities to which he refers is indeed extensive and most valuable, and though several of them have since been printed, their publication does not detract from the worth of his labors in arranging them, or alter our appreciation of his honesty and exactness in transcribing them.