[48] Like many other romantic stories, it rests upon insufficient authority, Cf. Fiske, John. The Beginnings of New England, p. 218; “The story rests chiefly upon the statements of Hutchinson, an extremely careful and judicious writer.... Goffe kept a diary which came into Hutchinson’s possession.... A paramount regard for Goffe’s personal safety would quite account for the studied silence of contemporary writers like Hubbard and Increase Mather.”
[49] The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish, Preface. (Houghton Mifflin ed.), p. xi.
[50] Lounsbury, op. cit., p. 75.
[51] Erskine, op. cit., p. 92.
[52] For example, “the kine had yielded their nightly tribute,” used four times. “Smoke” is called “the vapor that rolled upward;” a child is always spoken of as “the cherub,” etc.
[53] Southern Literary Messenger, 1838:373.
[54] The Cambridge History of American Literature, I, p. 306.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.