Notwithstanding the inadequate consideration entertained for Leopardi among us, his influence at second hand has been considerable. The few lines freely rendered by J. A. Symonds in his school journal, 'The Cliftonian,' 1872, show how early the historian of the Renaissance fell under this influence; and, in the posthumous Essay on Nature,' Mill makes himself to a great extent the mouthpiece of Leopardi's ideas. We have here a curious instance of an education conducted by a materialist, and one presided over by Jesuits, leading to similar conclusions.

Unfortunate as a man, Leopardi had every qualification fitting him, as a writer, to achieve greatness, and, with the exception of the founder of Italian literature, has no absolute superior among his countrymen. In the sphere of conduct, high principle and conscientiousness few records are fairer; rank and wealth awaited him in an ecclesiastical career, but he sacrificed all to retain his intellectual freedom. His example also teaches absolute fearlessness in the pursuit of truth-sorely needed in this age of political shams--and contempt for the current Omar Khayyám doctrine, that we should drown disquietude in dissipation. In spite of his disbelief in accepted forms of Christianity, a more reverent mind than his, or one more prompt to give praise where he considered it due, has never contemplated with unflinching gaze the mystery of existence. In his case also it is well to remember that among Latin races Christianity and Catholicism are practically identical; and rejection of the doctrines of Rome implies very commonly a conversion to philosophy.' Moreover, we cannot tell what form his views would eventually have taken. This great poet and philosopher died young, at about the age when Dante himself found 'Chè la diritta via era smarrita.'

HENRY CLORISTON.

Art. 2.-A NEW ENGLAND PURITAN.

1. Diary of Cotton Mather. Massachusetts Historical Society Collections. Seventh Series. Vols VII, VIII.

Boston: Published by the Society, 1911, 1912.

2. Cotton Mather, the Puritan Priest. By Barrett Wendell. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1891.

3. Cotton Mather et la fin de la théocratie au Massachusetts. By Louis Chevalley. Paris: Imprimerie Coopérative Angevine, 1909.

4. Cotton Mather's Election into the Royal Society. By G. L. Kittredge. Boston: Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, XIV, 1912.

5. Some Lost Works of Cotton Mather. By G. L. Kittredge. Boston: Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, XLV, 1912.

COTTON MATHER lived and died in the colonial city of Boston, in Massachusetts. Just after his sixty-fifth birthday, in February 1728, they laid him to rest there, in his father's tomb on Copp's Hill. Yet his name remains faintly familiar wherever his native English language is spoken; between 1891 and 1909 he has been the subject of three extensive biographies; and any discussion of him among students of American history is apt still to flush into perilous warmth. He was the last and the stoutest defender of New England theocracy-the principle that political suffrage should be confined to members of the New England churches. In his own day his cause, which he passionately believed to be that of the New England fathers, was already lost. From that time forward the progress of liberal principles has been little interrupted. The traditions of victorious liberalism are merciless. Those who cherish them deride and condemn him still, almost as if he were a living political opponent. To such as these, his lately published diary may probably seem refreshingly dull, confirmatory of their worst opinions. Read aright, it burns with the devout fervour which animated his untiring life.

He was born at Boston, on February 12, 1662/3, the son of Increase Mather, and the grandson of Richard Mather, Minister of Dorchester in New England, and of John Cotton, who, after many years in charge of the church of

St Botolph at Boston in Lincolnshire, closed his venerable career as Minister of the First Church of Boston in Massachusetts. When the boy, thus born in theocratic purple, was only two years old, his father, who had taken degrees at Harvard College and at Trinity College, Dublin, became Minister of the Second Church of Boston. Like the sound theocrat he was, the sturdy Puritan divine did not allow clerical duties to absorb his energies, but concerned himself also both with political matters and with the administration of Harvard College. In 1684, after nine years' consideration, the Court of Chancery cancelled the Charter of Massachusetts; without legal government, without a single secured legal right, the Colony lay at the mercy of the Crown. With the Charter fell all rights granted under it, among which was the Charter of Harvard College, an institution then about fifty years old. In these straits Increase Mather proved his quality. In 1685 he became President of Harvard College, with the firm purpose of holding it loyal to the faith of the fathers. In 1688 he was semi-officially dispatched to England, for the purpose of negotiating a new charter for the Colony, and incidentally a new charter for the College as well. In the latter effort he failed; in the former, and by far the more important, he succeeded. After four years of diplomacy rivalling that of Franklin, he procured for the Province, as it was thereafter called, the admirable instrument of government under which it flourished till the Revolution of 1776. It was during this auspicious period of his father's career that Cotton Mather grew to maturity.

In 1678 he took the Bachelor's degree at Harvard College-until this day only two men have taken it younger. Three years later, though not yet twenty years old, he was made assistant to his father at the Second Church of Boston. While his father was in England, from 1688 to 1692, the full charge of the pastorate fell on the son, who seems to have won general admiration. Meanwhile he was incessantly interested and influential in public affairs and in those of Harvard College; he was an omnivorous reader; his curiosity concerning natural phenomena was insatiable; and he was well started on that career of authorship which made him what he remains the most voluminous of American writers. Vol. 218.-No. 434.

D

The year 1692, when his father returned triumphant from England, proved critical in the public lives of both. Theocracy-the government of the State in accordance with the will of God, in this case as interpreted by the orthodox New England Churches-was the ideal to which they were devoted. A charter openly theocratic in terms had proved beyond the diplomatic skill of Increase Mather. He had succeeded, however, in securing considerable power to the royal Governor of Massachusetts, and in persuading the Crown to name as Governor a particularly loyal member of his own congregation. This state of things was obviously unwelcome to the more liberal feeling of his political opponents. What ensued has in it a touch of tragedy.

Almost at the moment when Cotton Mather, fasting and praying in Boston for the prosperity of his father's mission abroad, first had news that the new charter was signed, and thereupon vowed in thanksgiving to do some special service to God, there occurred in Massachusetts an outbreak of what might now be called psychic influence, but was then, throughout Christendom, called witchcraft. Amid the confusion and jargon of the evidence, for example, appears an undisputed statement that a shrewish woman, by making certain signs before her husband's face, would sometimes prevent him from praying, until she chose to step towards him with a loud cry, whereupon his lips would be unlocked. No one who dabbled in such elementary hypnotism under William and Mary had a shadow of doubt that it was actually what the law of all Europe had immemorially declared it—the direct work of the Devil. Some such view is said still to be held by eminent ecclesiastical authority. To Cotton Mather's mind, the call of God to fight this diabolical attack was immediate. The sad history of the Salem Witches ensued a story magnified and distorted by tradition, but deeply memorable in New England history. For, whatever else it did, it fatally hurt theocracy.

Among those accused of witchcraft were some who believed themselves guilty, some concerning whom the evidence leaves doubt, and some who appear to have felt innocent. Neither court, clergy nor people, in New England or anywhere else at that time, questioned the real existence of the diabolical crime. To have done so

would have been to deny scriptural authority-an impiety of which New England had not yet begun to dream. How the crime of witchcraft should be proved was another question, not yet legally determined. The more prudent advisers of the court on this point, among whom was Cotton Mather, recommended that no evidence should be admitted which would not be admissible in other criminal proceedings. Less thoughtful enthusiasts counselled the admission of spectral evidence that is, of statements by the bewitched of what they had perceived while suffering from diabolical possession; in brief, this was much as if a court of law should admit as evidence in a capital case the statement of one who had been hypnotised, as to what he had seen while in hypnotic trance. The court decided to accept spectral evidence. Cotton Mather, never faltering in his belief that witchcraft was the Devil's own work, did not openly protest; though, in the end, he seems to have believed that the fatal decision of the court on this point was itself of diabolical origin. This, indeed, was probably the opinion of Judge Sewall, when, some years later, he requested public prayers for the guilt he had contracted on that occasion. What ensued was inevitable; guilty and innocent were hopelessly confused in mists of spectral accusation and testimony. Some twenty witches were hanged, among whom several were surely guiltless. Reaction followed on the panic. Spectral evidence was excluded; and no more convictions occurred. The adversaries of the Mathers took the occasion to throw the burden of the tragic blunder on them, the chief pillars of theocracy. Far more than they deserved, they have traditionally suffered under it ever since.

This was not their only blow. Sir William Phipps, the Governor, who sat at their feet in church, proved at best tactless. For one thing, having come to some misunderstanding with the captain of a royal frigate, he took occasion to cane that officer in the public streets. Before long he was summoned to England to give account of his conduct. There he died, early in 1695. His successor, Joseph Dudley, soon quarrelled with the Mathers. From that time onward their public influence was broken. Victorious politically, the liberals presently turned their attention to Harvard College. For some