THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH
After the painting by C. Y. Turner
We are told of Priscilla, "the Puritan Maiden" in Longfellow's poem The Courtship of Miles Standish, and we are entirely at liberty to account her a real personage if we desire to do so. It is at least certain that Miles Standish was the valiant captain pictured by the poet and that John Alden to whom the poet ascribes the office of deputy-wooer was of the Pilgrim Fathers.
In the same vessel that brought Lady Arabella to the inhospitable shores of America there came another woman whose name better deserves memorial, as far as is concerned lasting influence of life, than does that of the saintly lady commemorated by Cotton Mather. Anne Dudley was the daughter of an old servitor of the Count of Lincoln, the father of Lady Arabella, and was herself married to Simon Bradstreet, destined to be governor of Massachusetts. She was as devout and devoted as Lady Arabella herself, and she was of yet finer stamp in that she was a poet. She was a Puritan of the Puritans; her father was later elected to be governor of the colony, preceding his son-in-law in that distinguished position, so that Anne Bradstreet must have been from the beginning of her life permeated with the very spirit of Puritanism. One would not think that such training and environment would be favorable to the fostering of the poetic faculty; severity of creed and the aesthetic soul do not often go hand in hand. Yet she was the first professional poet of New England,--indeed, probably of America; and, if fault be found for calling her a poet of America when she was not a native product, answer may be made that the New Englanders strenuously claimed her as their own under the title of the Tenth Muse, and that she was, if not a product of the soil of Massachusetts, at least a product of the spirit that made that soil sacred. She was very young, not yet twenty, when she arrived at Plymouth, and most of her poems were written during the first decade of her residence in the colony. Since, in this portion of our history there are few feminine names upon which to expatiate, it may not be a waste of space to give in full the title page of the first volume of poems issued by the "American Sappho":
"THE TENTH MUSE--Lately sprung up in America; or Severall Poems, compiled with great variety of Wit and Learning, full of delight. Wherein especially is contained a complete discourse and description of
THE FOUR |
(ELEMENTS. (CONSTITUTIONS. (AGES OF MAN. (SEASONS OF THE YEAR. |
Together with an Exact Epitomie of the Four Monarchies,
THE |
(ASSYRIAN. (PERSIAN. (GRECIAN. (ROMAN. |
Also a Dialogue between Old England and New, concerning the late troubles, With divers other pleasant and serious Poems. By a Gentlewoman in those parts. Printed at London for Stephen Bowtell at the Signe of the Bible in Popes Head Alley. 1650."
It will be noticed that the gifted poet was forced to have recourse to her native land to produce her works, and it may be for the repute of her modesty, it is to be hoped that it was that she never saw the title page until it had been printed. However, it would seem that there were many of her time who believed that she had some just cause to claim the title which had been given her. One of her admirers wrote in more or less admirable verse a long compliment to her which contained the notable though undeniably plagiarized line:
"None but her self must dare commend her parts."