ANNE DUDLEY BRADSTREET
"One wishes she were more winning: yet there is no gainsaying that she was clever; wonderfully well instructed for those days; a keen and close observer; often dexterous in her verse—catching betimes upon epithets that are very picturesque: But—the Tenth Muse is too rash."
—DONALD G. MITCHELL.
Born in England, she married at sixteen and came to Boston, where she always considered herself an exile. In 1644 her husband moved deeper into the wilderness and there "the first professional poet of New England" wrote her poems and brought up a family of eight children. Her English publisher called her the "Tenth Muse, lately sprung up in America."
CONTEMPLATION
2. Phoebus: Apollo, the Greek sun god, hence in poetry the sun. 7. delectable giving pleasure. 13. Dight: adorned.
MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH (1631-1705)
"He was, himself, in nearly all respects, the embodiment of what was great earnest, and sad, in Colonial New England.... In spite, however, of all offences, of all defects, there are in his poetry an irresistible sincerity, a reality, a vividness, reminding one of similar qualities in the prose of John Bunyan."
M. C. TYLER.
Born in England, he was brought to America at the age of seven. He graduated from Harvard College and then became a preacher. He later added the profession of medicine and practiced both professions.