Spenser's Fairy Queen.
The reader is introduced, once more, into the company of the assembled magnates of the Massachusetts Bay, in New-England, and into the same room where we beheld them before. Governor Winthrop, upon the elevated dais, in his elbow chair, presides, while, ranged around the central table, is a full attendance of the Assistants. Not as before, however, are spectators admitted. Saving the honorable Council, no person is present, for the business before them has reference to concerns of State, as well as to a judicial examination, and it is considered expedient to conduct it in secrecy. The members, at the moment we enter, are engaged in an earnest discussion, and it is the rough voice of Deputy Governor Dudley which first salutes the ear.
"It were of little avail," he said, as if objecting to something which had been proposed. "Let us not, like the ancient Pharisees, lay upon the shoulders of the people burdens too heavy to be borne."
"Thy comparison," said Endicott, in reply, "is somewhat unpleasing, and the shoe fits us not; but in vain hath been our pilgrimage hither, if we continue to imitate the unhappy model we left behind."
"Call you," said Dudley, "the accidental shaping of a ruff, or the manner of disposing of the folds of my galligaskins, an imitation of a prelatical model?"
"And call you," retorted Endicott, "the requiring of people vowed to the Lord, to dress themselves in a plain and unpretentious manner, a burden too heavy to be borne?"
"Gentlemen," said Winthrop, "ye be both in the right, Procul dubio, it becomes us, of all men, to apparel ourselves in a sober manner, as thus protesting against the foolish vanities of the world, and yet is it in some sort a burden, to be required to change the fashion of our garments."
"I perceive, already, with much sadness of heart," said Endicott, "a declension in that strictness of regimen which marked the earlier time. Have ye not heard of the godly man who, long time, had been prisoner at Norwich for the cause, and was by Judge Cook set at liberty? Now, this man, desiring to go into the Low Countries by ship from Yarmouth, did turn into the house of an ancient woman in the city, who had been very kind and helpful to him in his sufferings, in order to return thanks, and she knowing his voice, made him welcome. But when he was ready to depart, she came up to him and felt of his band, (for her eyes were dim with age,) and perceiving it was somewhat stiffened with starch, she was much displeased, and reproved him very sharply, fearing God would not prosper his journey. Yet was the man a plain countryman, clad in grey russet, without either welt or guard, (as the proverb is,) and the band he wore scarce worth three pence, made of their own homespinning. What would such professors, if they were now living, say to the excess of our times?"
"Thy tale," said Dudley, a little sarcastically, "reproaches thine own band."
"I did instance this case," replied Endicott, slightly abashed, "not as acknowledging myself literally bound to accept it as a guide for mine own conduct, but for the wholesome admonition therein contained."