| [4] | Vide a future ¶. |
THE DAUGHTERS OF DR. BYLES.
A SKETCH OF REALITY.
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BY MISS LESLIE.
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On my first visit to Boston, about nine years since, I was offered, by a lady of that kind and hospitable city, (the paradise of strangers,) an introduction to the two daughters of the celebrated Mather Byles: and I gladly availed myself of this opportunity of becoming acquainted with these singular women, whom, I had been told, were classed among the curiosities of the place.
Their father, a native Bostonian, (born in 1706, during the reign of Queen Anne,) was connected with the family of Cotton Mather. His education was completed in England, where he studied theology at Cambridge, and was afterwards ordained a minister of the gospel according to the Episcopal faith. On his return to Boston, Mather Byles was inducted into the first pastor-ship of Hollis street church, then a newly-erected edifice, constructed entirely of wood, as were most American churches of that period. He became proprietor of a house and a small piece of ground near the junction of Tremont and Nassau streets. In this house all his children were born, and here the two that survived were still living. His wife was a daughter of Governor Taylor.
The position of Dr. Byles as a clergyman, his literary acquirements, his shrewd sense, and his ready wit, caused him to be highly popular at home, and brought him into personal acquaintance or epistolary correspondence with many of the principal men of his time, on both sides of the Atlantic. He frequently exchanged letters with Pope and with Dr. Watts: and among the visiters at his “modest mansion” might be enumerated some of the most distinguished persons of his native province—while strangers of note eagerly sought his acquaintance.