tressing dilemma, since the fear of detection was now as appalling to them as the danger of their original enterprise. They then requested him to remain neutral, and let them proceed in their own way, but this he peremptorily refused: and he finally succeeded in quelling the conspiracy, by adhering to his resolution, and promising, that, as he had been consulted in confidence, he would not divulge the matter, if the leaders would pledge themselves instantly to abandon the design. In the present state of things they were glad to accept such terms. At the conclusion of this affair, Colonel Allen was forcibly reminded of the words of Captain Smith.'-pp. 315-317.

Congress endeavored to repair the wrongs of one who had thus suffered in their cause, by granting him a brevet commission of colonel in the Continental army; but it is not known that he entered upon actual service. The flame of the old controversy between Vermont and New York had burst forth anew, and Allen, as before, engaged in the conflict with his whole heart and soul; laboring, haranguing and writing, with abundant zeal and with no small effect, in the old and familiar

His fellow-citizens expressed their sense of the value of his aid, by appointing him general and commander in chief of the militia of the State, a station, at that time, of great responsibility. Propositions were made him by the enemy, to detach Vermont from her allegiance; these he communicated to Congress, and continued to defend the interests of his State and country until the conclusion of the war, when he retired to private life, and devoted himself to the occupation of a farmer. But his pursuits were not exclusively of this character. In 1784, he published a work, which his biographer denominates a crude and worthless performance, in which truth and error, reason and sophistry, knowledge and ignorance, ingenuity and presumption, are mingled together in a chaos, which the author denominates a system.' In this production, which he entitled a Compendious System of Natural Religion, he argues that the Christian Revelation and the Old Testament are false, while he declares his belief in a future state of reward and punishment. He appears, in fact, to have embraced the principles of deism. The short residue of his life was not distinguished by any important incident. He died at Burlington, in 1789.

This biography furnishes a striking instance, if any such were wanting, of the industry and talent with which Mr. Sparks VOL. XXXVIII.-NO. 83.

62

illustrates every subject on which he is employed. There is a great variety of interesting detail in this article, to which we have found no space, even to allude. It is, however, an act of justice to the memory of Ethan Allen to say, that his biographer has formed a more favorable estimate of his character, than has been generally entertained. His roughness of manner and coarseness, his presumption and skepticism, though not to be defended, are yet palliated by the circumstances of his early education and condition. On the other hand, he was frank and generous; courageous in the most emphatic sense of the word; benevolent and kind in his private relations, and in his public ones, firm, honest and true.

It is stated by the editor in his preface, that this beginning is only an experiment, to be pursued or laid aside as circumstances may dictate. He proposes to publish four volumes within the compass of a year; and should sufficient encouragement be afforded, to continue the work by the publication of a volume quarterly. We are reluctant to believe, that encouragement, for such a work, will be likely to be wanting; the subject recommends itself to the attention of all readers, and the execution thus far justifies, in all respects, the highest expectations for the future.

ART. IX.-Memoir of John Cotton.

Memoir of John Cotton, by John Norton, with a Preface and Notes. By ENOCH POND, Professor of Theology in the Theological Seminary of Bangor, Maine. Boston. 1834.

THIS is a reprint of a morsel of biography, which time had made scarce, exhibiting a brief memoir of one of the earliest and most honored of the Fathers of New England, written by his successor in the ministry, and in some large measure, the successor, also, to his honors and fame. Dr. Cotton Mather, who never failed in his own way to gather what advantage he could from a name, ranked him as the first of the four celebrated Johns,* to whom was afterwards added a fifth,-who, as

*John Cotton died in 1652. John Norton in 1663. John Wilson in 1667. John Davenport in 1670, and John Oxenbridge in 1674.

colleagues or successors, shone as lights in the ancient church in Boston, and in whose characters, according to their respective gifts and graces, he finds, or thinks he finds, a resemblance to their great Scriptural prototypes, the Baptist and the Evangelist. Those who are conversant with the writings of Mather will easily believe, that the resemblance is more fanciful than real, a circumstance, which in no wise diminishes the writer's delight in pursuing it. But without this doubtful help from imagination, no one will deny, that these five Johns were truly good and venerable men; the two first, the author and the subject of this memoir, were for their genius, learning, and influence the most eminent. In having Norton for his eulogist, Cotton, therefore, found the felicity coveted by all, to whom an honorable fame is precious, 'laudari a laudato viro.' Yet had we no other evidence of Mr. Norton's abilities but the little work before us, we should be slow to concede to him the place, which the unanimous testimony of his contemporaries, and the unquestionable merit of some of his theological productions challenge for him.* Of the specimens of biography it has been our fortune to peruse, this must be counted with the most meagre and unsatisfactory. The smallness of its size, scarcely reaching to an hundred diminutive pages, precluded ample details, but cannot excuse its extreme defectiveness. It is strangely wanting in dates, a want not felt by the careless reader, but fatal in a memoir,

6

* Mr. Norton, according to Mather, was the author of the first Latin book, that ever appeared in this country; and this, taking the less questionable testimony of Dr. John Eliot, was written in pure elegant Latin.' It appears that in 1644, Apollonius, a Dutch clergyman, in behalf of some divines of Zealand, sent to New England a number of questions concerning the forms of church government here. At the unanimous request of his brethren, Mr. Norton, then in his retired situation at Ipswich, undertook the reply, which he accomplished in the course of the following year; and to judge of its merit we may quote, says Dr. Eliot in his biography, the words of Mr. Fuller in his Ecclesiastical History, 'Of all the authors I have perused concerning those opinions, none to me was more informative than John Norton, one of no less learning than modesty, in his answer to Apollonius, pastor of the church in Middleburg.' Mr. Norton, besides several other productions, which obtained credit for their learning, wrote the 'Orthodox Evangelist,' highly recommended by Cotton; and in the synod, which met at Cambridge in 1647, he revealed,' says Mr. Emerson in his history of the First Church, an unusual acquaintance with school divinity. It was by him that the Cambridge Platform was modelled and recommended.'

and next to unpardonable with a lover of accuracy, while it abounds with conceits, after the worst fashion of the pedantry of the day. Even within the narrow limits of this little book, the writer is perpetually wandering from his subject in chase of some obscure allusion or quaint resemblance, leaving his reader to find out, as he may, the year of Mr. Cotton's birth, of his education at the University, of his ordination and ministry in Old England, and of his removal to the New. The dates of these, and other passages of like interest in the lives of any individual worthy of a memoir, are altogether omitted, to be guessed at only by the date of his death; while with a perverse sort of accuracy, the writer does not fail to set down the precise period of the appearance of a comet, which, he instructs us, preceded the furies of the enthusiasts in Germany in 1533. And having remarked, that we have many instances of dissension in religion, and heresies following upon these meteors, he adds, with a charity altogether in keeping with his philosophy, The genuine offspring of those enthusiastic furies is that generation commonly known by the name of Quakers.' We do not wonder at his editor's friendly interposition, by a note upon this passage, to excuse the somewhat doubtful theories of his author. For, as Mr. Pond observes, among the phenomena of the heavens, none have been regarded with more superstitious apprehension than comets; and it is no discredit to such men as Cotton and Norton, that they partook of the general feeling of their age.'*

As an example of the author's directness in relating facts, we extract the following sentences, designed to inform the reader of the place of Mr. Cotton's birth.

His birth-place, Derby, we shall not detain the reader at, though a scituation in respect of the purity, and frequent agitation of the air, attempered (in the judgment of the orator) for the breeding of better wits. Creatures are in their kind subservient; but, tis God, (not the air) who puts wisdom into the inward parts, and giveth understanding to the heart. As the wise man and the fool die, so are they both ordinarily born in the same place. The glory of every good and perfect gift is reserved for the Father of lights. Let it be sufficient to acknowledge both the place an honor to the person, and the person an honor

* Note p. 107.

to the place. What Basil sometime commended in the Martyrs, the same is to be looked at in our confessor (or martyr, which you please) namely, that his praise is not to be derived from his country here below, wherein he was born, but from his relation unto that Hierusalem which is above, where he was instrumentally born again, according unto grace.'

He thus also sets forth the method of Mr. Cotton's education:

Though vain man would be wise, yet may he be compared to the cubb, as well as to the wild asses colt. Now we know the bear, when she bringeth forth her young ones, they are an illfavored lump, a masse without shape, but by continuall licking they are brought to some form. Children are called infants of the palms, or educations, not because they are but a span in length, but because the midwife, as soon as they are born, stretcheth out their joints with her hand, that they may be more straight afterwards.

'This care in the parents was quickly above expectation encouraged in the first-fruits of their young son's proficiency, more and more increasing great hopes concerning him throughout the whole time of his minority, wherein he was trained up in the grammar-school of Derby. Three ingredients Aristotle requires to compleat a man: an innate excellency of wit, instruction, and government. The two last we have by nature, though in them man is instrumental: the first we have by nature more immediately from God. This native aptitude of mind, which is indeed a peculiar gift of God, the naturalist calls the sparklings and seeds of vertue, and looks at them as the principles and foundation of better education. These, the godly-wise advise such to whom the inspection of youth is committed, to attend unto; as spring-masters are wont to take a tryal of the vertue latent in waters, by the morning-vapors that ascend from them. The husbandman perceiving the nature of the soyle, fits it with suitable seed.

A towardly disposition is worse than lost without education. The first impression sinks deep, and abides long. The manners and learning of the scholar, depend not a little upon the manners and teaching of the master. Physicians tell us, that the fault of the first concoction is not corrigible by the second; and experience sheweth, that errors committed in youth, through defect of education, are difficultly cured in age. Mephibosheth halteth all his life-long, of the lameness he got through his nurses carelessness when he was a child. In the piety of England's Edward the sixth, and Elizabeth, history ingenuously and thankfully ac