Ως εψομαι γ’ αοκνος· ην δε μη θελω,
Κακος γενομενος ουδεν ηττον εψομαι,
may have been translated from the Chaldean into the Hebrew language during the Captivity, retaining the Chaldean character, for no copy is said to exist in the ancient or Samaritan alphabet. And a work so excellent, so abounding in the most sublime and elevated flights of eastern poetry, soaring towards such topics as even that poetry is unable fully to reach, may well have been added by Ezra to the Book of the Law which he brought before the congregation, and read before them in the street, when they bowed their heads, and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground.
The Editor has also been desirous of obtaining information respecting another member of this family, whom, at the distance of almost two centuries from those times of violence and of civil commotion in which he lived, we may now consider as one persecuted in his death and in his fame, far beyond the degree which any demerit on his part, either as a fanatic in religion or as a partizan in politics, could have justly merited.
He was probably selected as a victim by his opponents to gratify the base passions of an ignorant multitude, now anxious to destroy those whom they had previously adored; and ridicule was cast on his memory by the triumphant party, as an expedient for beating down religious opinions hostile to the system of ecclesiastical government then reestablished: perhaps also, the possession of Lambeth Palace, like that of the house adjoining the capitol by Manlius, may have excited similar feelings; and possibly he was considered in some degree as an equivalent for Laud.
Extract from a History written in 1781:—
“William, Thomas, and Hugh Peters were brothers, and born at Fowey in Cornwall. Their father was a merchant of large property, and their mother was Elizabeth
Treffry, daughter of John Treffry, Esq. of a very ancient and opulent family in that town.
“William received his education at Leyden, Thomas at Oxford, and Hugh at Cambridge. Between the years 1610 and 1620 Thomas and Hugh became clergymen in London. William continued a private gentleman. About the year 1628 Thomas and Hugh having rendered themselves obnoxious by their popularity and puritanic preaching, were silenced by the Bishop. They then went to Holland and remained till 1633, when they returned to London. The three brothers then sold their landed property, and in the following year embarked for America. Hugh settled at Salem, and soon became so popular as to excite the jealousy of those who had previously swayed the fanatical opinions of that place. Mr. Hugh Peters was in a short time appointed a trustee of the college at New Cambridge. He built a grand house, and purchased a large tract of land. The yard before his house he paved with flint-stones from England; and having dug a well he paved that also with flint-stones, for the accommodation of every inhabitant in want of water. It bears the name of Peter’s Spring up to the present time.
“He here married a second time, and had one daughter named Elizabeth. His renown as a zealot increasing, he received an invitation to remove from Salem to Boston, with which he complied, and there laid the foundation-stone of the great meeting-house, of which the Reverend Doctor Samuel Cooper, one of the most learned literati in America, is the pastor. Those whose envy he had excited at Salem, ill brooked being thus outrivalled by Mr. Peters. Yet finding him an orthodox fanatic, and more powerful than themselves, they seemingly bowed to his superiority, at the same time that they were contriving a plan which ended in his destruction.