Part 1 (1/2)

Biographical Sketches

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

MRS HUTCHINSON

The character of this feht which will form as natural an Introduction to her story, as most of the Prefaces to Gay's Fables, or the tales of Prior; besides that, the general soundness of the moral may excuse any want of present applicability We will not look for a living reseht not be altogether fruitless But there are portentous indications, changes gradually taking place in the habits and feelings of the gentle sex, which seem to threaten our posterity with rievous for our fathers The press, however, is now the h which feminine ambition chiefly manifests itself; and ill not anticipate the period (trusting to be gone hence ere it arrive) when fair orators shall be as nulance may sho much of the texture and body of cisatlantic literature is the work of those slender fingers froht and fanciful eht sparkle upon the gar the web Woive the tone to that of man; and even her morality is not exactly the material for masculine virtue A false liberality, whichdivision-lines of Nature for arbitrary distinctions, and a courtesy, which ht polish criticisirlish feebleness to the tottering infancy of our literature The evil is likely to be a growing one As yet, the great body of American woed incitements shall have turned their hearts away from the fireside, there are obvious circumstances which will render female pens h but equally encouraged; and (limited, of course, by the scanty support of the public, but increasing indefinitely within those limits) the ink-stained Amazons will expel their rivals by actual pressure, and petticoats wave triu that such forebodings are slightly exaggerated, is it good for woman's self that the path of feverish hope, of trenominious disappointment, should be left wide open to her? Is the prize worth her having, if she win it? Fame does not increase the peculiar respect which men pay to female excellence, and there is a delicacy (even in rude bosoms, where feould think to find it) that perceives, or fancies, a sort of iaze of the world, with indications by which its inmost secrets may be searched out In fine, criticisent eye, the merits of females at its bar, because they are to justify theularity whichthere; and woenius like a command of Heaven within her, should be aware that she is relinquishi+ng a part of the loveliness of her sex, and obey the inward voice with sorrowing reluctance, like the Arabianthus imperfectly at sentiments which may be developed on a future occasion, we proceed to consider the celebrated subject of this sketch

Mrs Hutchinson was a woination, whoeneral direction taken by the enthusiasion In her native country, she had shown syht, but, chiefly by the influence of a favorite pastor, was restrained froy dissatisfied with the reat tide of Puritan eration, and visited Massachusetts within a few years after its first settlement

But she bore trouble in her own bosoan to pro, in the peculiar situation of the colony, and from the principles which were its basis, and indispensable for its temporary support, to eat into its very existence We shall endeavor to give a more practical idea of this part of her course

It is a su The dusk has settled heavily upon the woods, the waves, and the Tri that dismal aspect of the embryo tohich was said to have drawn tears of despondency froh she believed that her mission thither was divine The houses, straw thatched and lowly roofed, stand irregularly along streets that are yet roughened by the roots of the trees, as if the forest, departing at the approach of man, had left its reluctant footprints behind Most of the dwellings are lonely and silent: fro of some sacred text, or the quiet voice of prayer; but nearly all the sombre life of the scene is collected near the extree A crowd of hooded women, and of men in steeple-hats and close-cropped hair, are assembled at the door and open s of a house newly built An earnest expression glows in every face; and some press inward, as if the bread of life were to be dealt forth, and they feared to lose their share; while others would fain hold them back, but enter with theing through the thronged doorway to an apartment which occupies the whole breadth of the house At the upper end, behind a table, on which are placed the Scriptures and two gli lamps, we see a woman, plainly attired, as befits her ripened years: her hair, complexion, and eyes are dark, the latter sohtness Let us look round upon the hearers At her right hand his countenance suiting ith the glooovernor, preferred by a hasty judgment of the people over all the wise and hoary heads that had preceded hiland In his mysterious eyes we may read a dark enthusiasm, akin to that of the woman whose cause he has espoused, coht, which tells hie and tuht On her left, yet slightly drawn back, so as to evince a less decided support, is Cotton, no young and hot enthusiast, but a rave e, and sanctified in heart, andexercise of his holy profession He, also, is deceived by the strange fire now laid upon the altar; and he alone a his brethren is excepted in the denunciation of the new apostle, as sealed and set apart by Heaven to the work of the ministry Others of the priesthood stand full in front of the wo to beat her doith brows of wrinkled iron, and whispering sternly and significantly aroarh Peters, full of holy wrath, and scarce containing hi forward to convict her of da a reply of e jests that puzzle us with nothing but a sound

The audience are variously affected; but none are indifferent On the foreheads of the aged, the enerally read steadfast disapprobation, though here and there is one whose faith seems shaken in those whom lie had trusted for years The fe, and at times they cast a desolate look of fear around the men lean forward, fiery and iested And what is the eloquence that gives rise to all these passions? The woman tells then (and cites texts from the Holy Book to prove her words) that they have put their trust in unregenerated and uncommissioned ht Therefore their hearts are turning from those whom they had chosen to lead them to heaven; and they feel like children who have been enticed far froe all at once, assuhtful solitude

These proceedings of Mrs Hutchinson could not long be endured by the provincial governious freedom holly inconsistent with public safety, and where the principles of an illiberal age indicated the very course which htened wisdouided these people over the deep; and a diversity of sects would either have scattered them from the land to which they had as yet so few attach those who had coether The opposition to what may be termed the Established Church had now lost its chief support by the reland; and Mr Cotton began to have that light in regard to his errors, which will sometimes break in upon the wisest and most pious men, when their opinions are unhappily discordant with those of the powers that be A synod, the first in New England, was speedily assembled, and pronounced its condemnation of the obnoxious doctrines

Mrs Hutchinson was next summoned before the supreme civil tribunal, at which, however, the y were present, and appear to have taken a very active part as witnesses and advisers We shall here resume the more picturesque style of narration

It is a place of hu in judgment upon the disturber of Israel The floor of the low and narrow hall is laid with planks hewn by the axe; the bearew up in the forest; and the hearth is fors that roll their blaze and smoke up a chiainst the s, driven by the Nove onward from the northern desert, the boisterous and unwelcoed across the apart its sides, occupied by ht have entitled theh councils of the ancient church, whence opinions were sent forth to confirospel in the belief of the whole world and of posterity Here are collected all those blessed fathers of the land, who rank in our veneration next to the evangelists of Holy Writ; and here, also, are e, and ready to propagate the religion of peace by violence In the highest place sits Winthrop,--a ht alike desire to be judged; the first confiding in his integrity and wisdo in his mildness, Next is Endicott, ould stand with his draord at the gate of heaven, and resist to the death all pilgrims thither, except they travelled his own path The infant eyes of one in this asse round the martyrs in bloody Mary's ti at Leyden, with the first ent froe, it matters little where he lies down to die There are others whose hearts were sh meridian of ambitious hope, and whose dreams still tempt them with the polea over the deep In the midst, and in the centre of all eyes, we see the woes with a determined brow; and, unknown to herself, there is a flash of carnal pride half hidden in her eye, as she surveys the many learned and famous men whom her doctrines have put in fear They question her; and her answers are ready and acute: she reasons with theument The deepest controversialists of that scholastic day find here a woman, whom all their trained and sharpened intellects are inadequate to foil But, by the excitement of the contest, her heart is made to rise and sithin her, and she bursts forth into eloquence

She tells theland, perceiving the corruption of the Church, and yearning for a purer and ht, and how, in a day of solitary prayer, that light was given She clai between the chosen of ifted eye can see the glory round the foreheads of saints, sojourning in their mortal state She declares herself commissioned to separate the true shepherds froments on the laud, if she be disturbed in her celestial errand Thus the accusations are proved froes hesitate; and so voices, sentence is pronounced, bidding her go out fro them, and trouble the land no hout the colony were now disare for the exiles of Massachusetts in all seasons of persecution Her ene her, of which Governor Winthrop does not disdain to record a notable instance, very interesting in a scientific point of view, but fitter for his old and homely narrative than for modern repetition In a little time, also, she lost her husband, who isher footsteps, and e may conclude to have been (like nificant appendage of his rew uneasy away frown the Rhode Island colonists, whose liberality towards her, at an era when liberality was not esteemed a Christian virtue, probably arose froious matters, more distasteful to Mrs Hutchinson than even the unco narrowness of the Puritans Her final movement was to lead her family within the li felled the trees of a virgin soil, she became herself the virtual head, civil and ecclesiastical, of a little colony

Perhaps here she found the repose hitherto so vainly sought Secluded froovern, surrounded by the dependants over whoitated by none of the tu behind her, we may suppose that, in the stillness of Nature, her heart was stilled But her impressive story was to have an awful close Her last scene is as difficult to be described as a shi+pwreck, where the shrieks of the victi a desolate sea, and a shapeless ination The savage foe was on the watch for blood Sixteen persons asseht their cry rang through the forest; and daylight dawned upon the lifeless clay of all but one It was a circumstance not to be unnoticed by our stern ancestors, in considering the fate of her who had so troubled their religion, that an infant daughter, the sole survivor amid the terrible destruction of her mother's household, was bred in a barbarous faith, and never learned the way to the Christian's heaven Yet ill hope that there the mother and child have es of past tiends as well as in written history) are anything more than mere nainations like rapher is analogous to that which we acquire of a country by the map,--minute, perhaps, and accurate, and available for all necessary purposes, but cold and naked, and wholly destitute of theThese defects are partly remediable, and even without an absolute violation of literal truth, although by raphical exactness

A licensetheout half-obliterated inscriptions on the coluht on the faded incidents that indicate character, whence a ray will be reflected, more or less vividly, on the person to be described The portrait of the ancient governor whose name stands at the head of this article will owe any interest it may possess, not to his internal self, but to certain peculiarities of his fortune These must be briefly noticed

The birth and early life of Sir William Phips were rather an extraordinary prelude to his subsequent distinction He was one of the twenty-six children of a guns and war ement--in a small frontier settlement near the mouth of the river Kennebec Within the boundaries of the Puritan provinces, and wherever those governments extended an effectual sway, no depth nor solitude of the wilderness could exclude youth from all the common opportunities of ious education Each settlerims was a little piece of the Old World inserted into the New It was like Gideon's fleece, unith dew: the desert wind that breathed over it left none of its wild influences there But the first settlers of Maine and New Hampshi+re were led thither entirely by carnal overnments were feeble, uncertain, sometimes nominally annexed to their sister colonies, and so a troubled independence

Their rulers ht be deemed, in more than one instance, lawless adventurers, who found that security in the forest which they had forfeited in Europe Their clergy (unlike that revered band who acquired so singular a faland) were too often destitute of the religious fervor which should have kept them in the track of virtue, unaided by the restraints of human law and the dread of worldly dishonor; and there are records of lamentable lapses on the part of those holy ue the disorder of the sheep from the unfitness of the shepherd, tell a sad tale as to the morality of the eastern provinces In this state of society, the future governor grew up; andwith a fleet and an army to make war upon the French, he pointed out the very hills where he had reached the age of manhood, unskilled even to read and write The contrast between the commencement and close of his life was the effect of casual circu a considerable time, he was a h-seas After attaining to solish navy, he heard of an ancient Spanish wreck off the coast of Hispaniola, of suchto the stories of the day, the sunken gold listen, and the diamonds to flash, as the triumphant billows tossed about their spoil

These treasures of the deep (by the aid of certain nobleht for, and recovered, and was sufficiently enriched, even after an honest settleive hihthood froland, he professed repentance of his sins (of which, from the nature both of his early and ht accumulation), was baptized, and, on the accession of the Prince of Orange to the throne, becaovernor under the second charter And now, having arranged these preliminaries, we shall atte no very remarkable events, because history supplies us with none such convertible to our purpose

It is the forenoon of a day in suovernor's arrival; and he stands upon his doorsteps, preparatory to a walk through the metropolis Sir William is a stout man, an inch or two below the middle size, and rather beyond the middle point of life His dress is of velvet,--a dark purple, broadly embroidered; and his sword-hilt and the lion's head of his cane display speciold from the Spanish wreck On his head, in the fashi+on of the court of Louis XIV, is a superb full-bottolets his face shows like a rough pebble in the setting that befits a dia from the door are two foot ebony, the other an English bond-servant, the property of the governor for a term of years As Sir Williaentlerave and soleround These are nize Dr Increase Mather, the late provincial agent at the English court, the author of the present governor's appointht arm of his adular politeness on both sides Sir Williaive audience to the reverend gentle his walk; and the courteous dispute is concluded by a junction of the parties; Sir Willia forth side by side, the two other clergy the centre of the colu up the rear The business in hand relates to the dealings of Satan in the town of Salem Upon this subject, the principal ministers of the province have been consulted; and these three eminent persons are their deputies, co, upon the whole, an exhortation to speedy and vigorous ainst the accused To such councils, Sir William, bred in the forest and on the ocean, and tinctured with the superstition of both, is well inclined to listen

As the dignitaries of Church and Statehouses, the lattices are thrust ajar, and you ht and shade, the priovernor, and envious of the bolder curiosity of the men Another object of almost equal interest now appears in the -shi+rt and Indian stockings, and arun His feet have been ith the waters of s of the tangled wilderness are intertwined with his garments: on his head he wears a trophy which ould not venture to record without good evidence of the fact,--a wig e eneri Street The governor regards hi a playracious smile, inquires as to the prosperity of their birthplace, and the life or death of their ancient neighbors, and makes appropriate remarks on the different stations allotted by fortune to two individuals born and bred beside the sa, a shi+lling of the Massachusetts coinage, sta Charles for the oak which saved his royal life Then all the people praise the huovernor, who struts onward flourishi+ng his gold-headed cane; while the gentle is left with a pretty accurate idea of the distance between himself and his old companion Meantiallant figure is seen approaching on the opposite side of the street, in a naval unifor by his side This is Captain Short, the co, now lying in the harbor Sir Williaht of hi front, unmindful of the hints of Dr Mather, who is aware of an unsettled dispute between the captain and the governor, relative to the authority of the latter over a king's shi+p on the provincial station

Into this thorny subject, Sir Willia The captain nity of the potentate requires: the affair grows hot; and the clergymen endeavor to interfere in the blessed capacity of peaceovernor lifts his cane; and the captain lays his hand upon his sword, but is prevented fro by the zealous exertions of Dr Mather There is a furious stahty uproar from every mouth, in the midst of which his Excellency inflicts several very sufficient whacks on the head of the unhappy Short Having thus avenged himself by manual force, as befits a woodovernor by coonist to prison This done, Sir Willia, wipes away the sweat of the encounter, and gradually co vent, to a few oaths, like the subsiding ebullitions of a pot that has boiled over

It being now near twelve o'clock, the three overnor's table, where the party is completed by a few Old Charter senators,--ri-father to New England

Sir Williarace is said, and the cloth relides ware, like that of a running stream upon enchanted shapes; and the rude man of the sea and wilderness appears in the very chair where the stately governor sat down He overfloith jovial tales of the forecastle and of his father's hut, and stares to see the gravity of his guests become more and more portentous in exact proportion as his own merriment increases A noise of druovernor and his guests go forth, like rave business, to inspect the trainbands of the town A great crowd of people is collected on the corandsire to the child of three years All ages and both sexes look with interest on the array of their defenders; and here and there stand a few dark Indians in their blankets, dull spectators of the strength that has swept away their race The soldiers wear a proud and martial mien, conscious that beauty will reward thelances; not to mention that there are a few less influential motives to contribute to keep up an heroic spirit, such as the dread of being reeable , in the strictest sense), or of being ”laid neck and heels,” in a position of more compendiousness than comfort Sir William perceives some error in their tactics, and places himself with draord at their head After a variety of weary evolutions, evening begins to fall, like the veil of gray and misty years that have rolled betwixt that warlike band and us They are drawn into a hollow square, the officers in the centre; and the governor (for John Dunton's authority will bear us out in this particular) leans his hands upon his sword-hilt, and closes the exercises of the day with a prayer

SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL

The hty man of Kittery has a double claieneral, the most prominent military character in our ante-Revolutionary annals; and he may be taken as the representative of a class of warriors peculiar to their age and country,--true citizen-soldiers, who diversified a life of coriculture by the episode of a city sacked, or a battle won, and, having stae of history, went back to the routine of peaceful occupation Sir William Pepperell's letters, written at the most critical period of his career, and his conduct then and at other tie share of quiet resolution, and but little of an enterprising spirit, unless aroused by external circuhtly tinctured, instead of iance, assiht and action Thus respectably endoe find hin and domestic trade, a provincial counsellor, and colonel of the York County eneration, but likely to gain no other posthumous uished froentlemen who had lived prosperously and died peacefully before hiainst Louisburg, a walled city of the French in the island of Cape Breton