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OTHIS WRITIHOI IT DR. SATON

Tm» RiABT OP nn Cbhmi Hhtoiioal Rilmioii
n TU Lisn or Mooiu TaocaaT,

TU Caimoa or IrsuiiD a Nota Sooiu An tbi
ToBT CLnoT or tu Bitolutioii.

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or Taa Aoadiav Lamix

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AoAOUa BAlLAIt,

Foam or tbb Caanrua TaAa.

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ALax A W Daa UoNdtt raa CoLoauaa.

OaaaALoaiCAL Baaroaai or Out Bonoa FAMiuat.

KoaooaAraa oa laa OLiratioa HAMiLToat, Lian.-
CoL. Orao Hahiito-i or OLirairoa, axd IIatt
Oiaaa VAULiaa Aao laDirtDOAL Haa.

Db. mathek byles

From the original painting by Copley. 1774

THE FAMOUS

MATHER BYLES

THE NOTED BOSTON TORY PBEACHER
POET. AND WIT

1707-1788

AHTHUH WENTWORTH HAAHLTON EATON

D.OX., r.it.s.c.

luntTRAnD WITH tuxT orauTiirof raov ouonrAi

PAlHTnrOfl BY COPLCT, TH« FXLRAUB
AXD OTHBU

BOSTON

W. A. BUTTERPIELD

1014

BX7A60
^3

2400

O""""". MM, »»
▼• *• BnTTBBniLDL

" " "■ •»,D.».A.

FEEDEBICK LEWIS GAT, A.B.

WHO*. VALHABL. COLLTCTIOK OF BTLn 1I41ID«0«»T»

AJID POBTRAin HAS MUCH WRICHCD MT KHOWL-

*OaX or MATBU BTtM, AMD TO WHOM I

All OTHBRWISB IHDUTBD FOB HILT

nr KT WOBX, WITH ancBBB

BBOABD I DIDICATB

THIS BOOK

THE AUTHOK

I.
n.

in.

IV.

VI.

vn.
vni.

K.
X.

XI.

xn.

CONTENTS

The Famods AfATBmi Btlbb

BiBTH, EnUCATIOK, Joi7BNAU8TlC

WBiTmas
Obdination and Fibst Mabbiaqb
Events m Eabljer Mxnistbt
Pabtobate at Homs Stbebt Chubch
Doctor Btub as a Pobt .
Doctor Btles's Humour .

DiBMISBAL raoM BIB ChUBCH .

Trial before the Town .
Social Standing. Friendships
Last Yeabs

The Btles Fault ....
Notes ....
Chief Published Writings
Manuscript Letters.
Indix .

'Ml

IS
87
«7
74
92
117
142
161
177
196
2(U
22A
240
246
249

ILLUSTRATIONS

Dr. Mather Byles .... Froniupieet

From the original pointing 1^ Copley, 1T74, in
the poueasion of William Bruce Almon, Eaq., M.D.
^ TO Moa rAea

Hcv. Increaae Mather X4

From the original painting by Vandenpriet, IMS,
in the ponession of the Mauachuietti Biitotical
Society.

Bev. Cotton Mather, by Peter Pelham . . SS
From an engraving by Peter Pelham.

His Excellency Jonathan Belcher, by R. Phillips 40
From a meiiotint engraving by Faber.

Province House 44

From a drawing by M. P. Kenway.

Dr. Mather Byles 48

From the original painting by Peter Pelham, is
the poiKsaian of Mr. Frederick Lewia Gay.

Hollis St. Church 66

From Bonner's map of Beaton. 1769.

Thomas Hollis, by James Highmoie . 74

From an engraving by Peter Pelham.
ix

ILLUSTRATIONS

AlexMder Pope, hy Arthur Pond

n«B>aeB|nTJB(byBoubnkai.
Dr. Iiaac WstU

ftw M tOfimTiK by Tn>tter, 178S.
A Canon of e. wonb by Dr. Bylea .
Rom the N«w EajUnd PmIo, Stogw.
Facsimile

fwm tk, BwMd. of tt. HoIIi. St. OiBn*.' 177».

Bev. Homaa Prince, by John Greenwood
'^"^ " "«»™f by Peter Pdhta.

Dr. Benjamin Franklin

'>oni«n enpaving by T. B. Welch.

Dr. Mather Byles .

Bev. MatW Byles, Jr.

■0 VAca rtm

. IM

178

186

196

nwn u origiiul ptintiiig in tlu
rniaUk Lewii G»y.

olMr.

Mather Brown

IVom M origin.1 piUnluig by hinwlf . in th. bJ
"»«o(Mr.R«lerickLewi.G.y. •"""*»•

Miss Catherine Bylea

From the origiiul pMtiii, by Heniy PeUum.
View of Boston Common

JVom u engnviiig by Stmuel Hill. 178».

214

S16

SIS

THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

CHAPTEB I
The Fauoub Matieb Btlxb
From the shadows of pre-Bevolutionary
Boston no single figure emerges in whom
sympathetic historians find a greater
variety of interest than in the Tory
preacher, poet, and humourist, who ap-
pears commonly in our annals as the
"famous" or "celebrated" Doctor Mather
Byles. In days when religious discus-
sion was acrid and local political feeling
ran high and vituperation of opponents
was often incredibly bitter, Mather Byles's
witticisms kept Boston laughing im-
moderately for at least a generation, and
no doubt tended not a little to the soften-
ing of asperities in the popular life, and

* THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

it is naturaUy u one of New England*!
earlieit humourists that Byles has been
most conspicuously mentioned in periodicals
Md books. But the man has an interest
far wider than that of a "punning divine,"
the age through which he lived was the
most dramatic in our annals and his own
life lacks no single element that gives the
time picturesqueness, while the aloofness
from politics he persistently maintained
puts him out of the category of those who
in the fierce Bevolutnnary struggle actively
helped or hindered ciie great cause to which
the majority of his fellow townsmen gave
their ardent support.

That no one has hitherto taken the
trouble to write the life of Mather Byles
is not strange. He was a grandson of
Increase and a nephew of Cotton Mather,
and his striking personaUty, his keen intel-
lectual gifts, and his prolific writings give
him a worthy place beside those remarkable
men, but he lived through the Bevolu-

THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES 8

tion and in that momentout conflict gp 'e
countenance to the losing side, and amc^g
the Congregational ministers of New Eng-
land, as with the PatrioU generally, he
stood for the rest of his life, and his
name continued to stand when he was
dead, as a synonym for disloyalty and
treachery of the basest kind. Moreover,
at the evacuation of Boston his only living
son, Mather Byles, Junior, went to Halifax
with Howe's fleet, and in the Anglican
church of St. Paul in that town, and in
Trinity Church, St. John, New Bruns-
wick, later, pursued the ministry which
he had previously exercised at Christ
Church, Boston, and when he died, all
his descendants were living, as most of
them have since lived, under the British
flag.

Mather Byles has lately been brought
before us picturesquely, and probably in
a rather truthful way, in that charming
imaginative brochure, that has had wide

4 THE FAM0U3 MATHER BYLES

rewling. "Earl Percy'i Dinner Table."
In that book, we find him during the
■iege of Boston, among British oflScers in
•carlet tunics and gold Uce, or in the blue
uniforms of His Majc^'.y's Royal Navy,
and rich gentlemen mercLuits of the town
in silk and brqcade, in velvet and lace, —
Lieutenant-Colonel John Gunning, Francis
Lord Rawdon; Lord Holland's son, Hon.
Henry Edward Fox, Captain Evelyn of the
King's Own, the young Cuthbert CoUing-
wood. Major John Pitcaim, Colonel Isaac
Royal, and Roger Sheaflfe — sipping his
port, and throwing the company into fits
of laughter by his witty sallies on "the
holy hypocrisy which is ruining the prov-
ince," cr on much less important personal
themes. But " Eari Percy's Dinner Table "
is only the latest writing in which Doctor
Byles figures, no faithful chronicler of Rev-
olutionary Boston but exploits his "per-
sistent Toryism," or his "irrepressible wit,"
and no conscientious reviewer of early New

THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES ft

England literature but hu lomething to
My about the poetry and the published dii-
counes of this brilliant descendant of the
famous Mathers, and enthusiastic disciple
of the poet Pope.

For more than forty years Doctor Byles
was the faithful pastor of Boston's Hollis
Street Congregational Church, and his
Jtrildng gifU as a preacher, and the close
relationship he bore to the Mathers and
Cottons, make him an important figure in
New England ecclesiastical annals. But
he was besides a literary man of much
ability, and reviewers of early New Eng-
hmd prose and poetry, while not always
enthusiastic in praise of his literary pro-
ductions, have never failed to take respect-
ful notice of his work. In the social life
of Boston, moreover, Byles occupied a
highly important place, and the marked
preference he uniformly showed for persons
of high official and social rank quite evi-
dently created against him in the minds

6 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

of his more democratic brethren of the
Massachusetts clergy, a strong antagonism,
that greatly increased their bitterness
against him when he finally gave the
weight of his influence against the popular
cause in the Revolution. Doctor Byles
married twice and by both marriages allied
himself with influential families among
the ruling class, and in his aristocratic
sympathies, as in his persistent loyalty
to England, his family, as was natural,
deeply shared. As we have previously
said, a conspicuous refugee within the
British lines and later resident in Halifax,
Nova Scotia, whither like most of the royal-
ists of Boston, in March, 1776, he fled with
General Howe, was his only living son, who
for several years previous to the breaking
out of the Revolution had been the Rector
of Christ Church, in the north end of his
native town.

That like the rest of the Tories in the
Revolution Doctor Byles was sentenced

THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES 7

to banishment our biography will presently
show, but although formally proceeded
against by the authorities as a person
inimical to the welfare of the sUte, on
account of his advanced age it may be,
or perhaps from some lingering feeling
that the sacredness of his office as a minister
of the ruling faith of New England should
exempt him from the severest treatment
accorded political offenders, he was not
sent out of the Colony, but was suffered
to remain, a despised and lonely figure
however, in Boston, to the ena of his days.
Of his last remaining descendants in Bos-
ton, his two unmarried daughters, the
Misses Mary and Catherine Byles, as of
their brother Doctor Mather Byles. Junior,
before this book ends we shall have some-
thing to say. These ladies survived their
father and lived on till about the middle
of the nineteenth century in the old house
in Tremont Street which their father had
purchased in 1741. the most picturesque

8 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES
figures in Boston, cherishing fondly the rec-
oUecUons of the past, hating the Republic
whose birth extreme ill-fortune had com-
pelled them to see ushered in, and guarding
sacredly their household treasures and pre-
cious heiriooms for the descendants of their
brother, who lived under England's rule.
Of the actual forms and faces of many
ancient worthies of New England we are
often able to gain only the vaguest im-
pression, in the cases of some, however,
we are left in no possible doubt. Of
Doctor Byles's friend Doctor William
Walter. Rector of Trinity Church, Boston,
we have the minute information that he
was a handsome man. tall and well pro-
portioned, with a serene countenance, in-
dicating a serene temper, and that in the
street he commonly wore an ample blue
cloak over his cassock or long frock coat,
a full-bottomed wig, dressed and powdered,
knee breeches of fine black cloth, black
silk stockings, and "square quartered"

THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

shoes with sUver buckles, his head covered
with an impiessive three-cornered or cocked
hat. Concerning Doctor Byles's appear-
ance tradition has been Imost as explicit,
he was ^ther large, rather tall, rather fine
looking, altogether of commanding pres-
ence, and both in and out of the pulpit
he had a pleasing manner and voice." How
he commonly dressed we are nowhere
plainly told, except that his wig was ample,
as the fashion dictated, that he wore a
cassock or long, close-fitting coat, probably
with a single row of buttons from the
waist to the neck, that the three-cornered
hat was also his head covering, and that
he usually carried a heavy cane. When
he was summoned to appear before the
members of his church for trial he is
described as having appeared in full flow-
ing robes, of course with bands, but since
we do not feel certain regarding the time
when gowns came to be worn by New
England Congregational ministers in the

10 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

pulpit we do not feel quite sure of the
accuracy of this account.

We are fortunate in having three admir-
able portraits of Doctor Byles, and these,
taken at different times in his career, in-
troduce us very familiarly to his face.
The first of these portraits, like the well-
known portrait of Cotton Mather that
greets us in so many publicaUons. was
painted by Pelham, evidently almost im-
mediately after Doctor Byles began his
ministry, the other two were painted by
Copley, one it is believed in 1768, the other
in 1774, the same year in the early summer
of which this great painter left Boston
finally for Europe. In aU three of these
portraits Doctor Byles is represented in
some sort of classical drapery, it is pos-
sible, indeed, an ordinary pulpit gown, the
gown in Pelham's portrait, however, being
painted a rich red. In all, his wig is full
and curling, and in the latter two his face
shows the strong characteristics we have

THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES 11

become so familiar with in him as we have
studied his life. Pelham's portrait sacri-
fices strength to attractiveness in the sub-
ject, Copley's, one painted when Doctor
Byles was about sixty-one, the other when
he was about sixty-seven, show him an
accomplished looking, elderly man, with
strong sense of superiority, keen intelli-
gence, great nervous energy, a high-bred
IU)man nose, eyes that might easily sparkle
with enlivening humour or gleam with
fierce sarcasm, and a firm, decided mouth,
from which might come the most kindly
encouragements or the most scathing and
bitter rebukes. A commanding personal-
ity, in which high principle predominated,
but where serious outlook on life was
frequently tempered with an almost riotous
sense of humour, and lofty appreciation
with dislike and contempt — this is the
character of Doctor Byles that the fine
portraits of him by Copley prr lent to our
minds.

I ii

1« THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

Of these three distinguished portraite
of Mather Byles the earliest one. that by
Pelham, and the first of the two Copleys.
are owned by Mr. Frederick Lewis Gay of
Brooklme, Massachusetts, the second Cop-
ley IS still in the possession of Doctor
Byles's descendants, its present owner being
William Bruce Almon, Esq., M.D.. of
Halifax, Nova Scotia. This Copley por-
trait of Doctor Almon's, with the owner's
kind permission we ar« able to present as
the frontispiece of our book.

CHAPTER II

BiHTH, Education. Jouhnalistic
Wbitings

In the last decade of the seventeenth
century, when Boston was a little town of
about ten thousand inhabitants, its square
mile of area coextensive with the peninsula
on which it was built, the "Neck," about
two hundred feet wide at Dover Street,
uniting the peninsula with the neighbour
town of Roxbury, there came into the
North End of Boston, from Winchester,
Hants, England, a respectable saddler
named Josias Byles. Until after the Rev-
olution, well on into the nineteenth cen-
tury in fact, the north part of Boston,
including Dock Square and Hanover Street,
and the extreme North End, about Copp's
Hill, a region peopled now almost entirely

14 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

by Italians, was the home of a large num-
ber of the most active and prosperous,
and indeed influential, people of the town.
In 1711, a little later than the time of
Josias Byles's arrival, the Honourable Wil-
liam Clark bought land on what is now
North Square^ and built a handsome house
there, his friend Thomas Hutchinson, father
of the last royal governor, building one
near that was evidently meant to out-
shine his in magnificence.

Facing North Square stood the Old
North or Second Church, the meeting-
house of the religious society whose aflFairs
were ruled, and for the most part ruled
wisely, for over seventy years, by ministers
of the historic Mather family, the Reverend
Doctor Increase Mather, his son the illus-
trious Cotton Mather, and for a while,
until serious disaffection arose in the society
and he moved away with a portion of
his people and founded a new society,
the Rev. Doctor Samuel Mather, Cotton

REVKREND INCREASE MATHER

From Uie urigiual p&Inting by Vanderspriet, 16S8

S! !i

BIRTH AND EDUCATION w

Mather's much lew important «on.« When
Josiaa Byles came to Boston, Doctor In-
crease Mather was well along in his min-
istry of the Old North Church.' and his
son Cotton was colleague with him, the
older minister living on North Street, the
younger probably then as later living on
Hanover Street, not far from the church.
Josias Byles may have come to Boston
late in 169S or early in 1694, for he had
a young child buried in the Granary
Buiying Ground in April of the latter
year, and he undoubtedly settled at once
in the North End. When he came his
family consisted of his wife Sarah and
three or four young children, and after
he had lived two or three years in Boston,
on the 11th of October, 1696, he con-
nected himself formally with Doctor In-
crease Mather's church. In Boston the
Byleses had at least four children bom and
soon after the birth of her youngest child
M» Byles died. Within a year after her

1 1

W THE PAMOUS MATHER BYLES
death, on the 6th of October. 1708. «
widoj^, and with several young childn.n.
• «addler and in not remarkably good cir-
cumstance.. Joaia. Byles married, rather
anibitioualy we should suppose, his pastor
Rev. Incre^e Mather's second daughter.
EliMbeth. widow of William Greenough.
a lady of between thirty-seven and thirty-
eight years old. Mr. Byles being then
about forty-seven.

After his second marriage and probably
before. Josias Byles lived, so traditicu
«y«. m what became in 1821 Tileston
Street, a street first formally hiid out
about 1806. which runs from near the
lower end of Hanover Street to Salem
Street and is the northern } undary of
the block of which North Bennet Street
18 the southern. In less than five years
however, after his second marriage, to'
«ie last pursuing the saddler's trade, Mr
Byles suddenly died, but from these less
than five years dates the Byles family's

BIRTH AND EDUCATION 17

chief aubaequent importance in Boston.
The precise event in which the family's
conspicuousness takes iU rise is the birth
on the lath of March, 1707, a little less
than a year before the father died, of a
son whose coming into the world uuited
indissolubly the comparatively unknown
Byles family with the great ecclesiastical
houses of Mather and Cotton. To this
son, who may have appeared rather un-
expectedly, for so far as we know Elizabeth
Byles had never borne a child before, in
recognition of his distinguished ancestry
on his mother's side the name Mather
was promptly, most appropriately given.
That Josias Byles should have married,
as far as we can tell without protest on
the part of its members, mto the notable
Mather family, shows conclusively that
the late-emigratmg Englishman was re-
garded as a man of much worth, and his
general good standing is further declared
by Chief-Justice Sewall's respectful men-

! 1

11 -'
i

18 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

tion of him in his famous Diary, where,
under date of "Midweek. March 17
1707/8." he records: "my Country-man!
Mr Josiah Byles dyed veiy suddenly."
Soon after he writes: "Reginald Odell
dies suddenly. Heard of it at Mr Byles
Funeral." But it is quite as evident that
the saddlery in Tileston Street had not
yielded its proprietor very large profits,
for although when Josias Byles died he
left a gentlemanly will, in which he bade
his children by his first wife behave with
dutiful respect towards their stepmother,
and charged his eldest son Josias. Jr. to
give his stepmother all the help he could
in canying on the saddler's trade if she
wished to continue it. he left veiy little
property for his widow and her child or
indeed any of his family, and M? Byles
soon had to be helped by her kind brother
Cotton. In his journal, on the 23d of
December. 1711. Cotton Mather writes:
I have a Sister, a Widow, in some Wants

BIRTH AND FDUCATIOM 19

and Straits. I will dis >-n3e Releffs unto
her particularly in regard of her Habit."
And again, January' 17, 1714 : "I have a
Widow-sister, who greaUy needs to be
putt into a Way of subsisting herself,
and to be animated unto the use of her
own vigorous Endeavours for that Pur-
pose." Still again, January 31, 1714 : "I
must proceed with further Contrivances
and Assistances, that my Widow-sister
may be well provided for."

When the widow Byles's son Mather
was a little over seventeen, his grandfather.
Increase Mather died, and in this learned,
methodical minister's wiU, which he had
written about five years before his death,
we find the aged testator saying: "What
I give to my daughter Elizabeth I desire
may (if his mother can) be improved
towards y" education of her only son (my
grandson Mather Byles) in Learning, be-
cause he is a child whom God has blessed
with a strong memoiy & ready capacity

«0 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

& aptness to leam. I leave it as my
dying Request to his uncle my son Cotton
Mather, to take care of y« education of
y* child as of his owne. If he shall obtain
subscriptions for his education for y* minis-
try (as he knows I have done for more
fatherless children y" one) I am persuaded
y* his owne children will not fare y* worse
for his being a father to a fatherless chUd.
To prevent his being Chargable as much
as I can I give him my wearing apparel
excepting my chambei cloak w°^ I give
to my executor.

"If ye Lord shall take away Mather
Byles by death before he is of full age (or
if he shall not be employed in y* work of
y* ministiy it is my mind & will y' then
y* Books bequeathed to him shall be
given to such other of my grand children
as shall be preachers of y» Gospel of Christ
according as my executors shall dispose."
A fourth part of his library the testator
bequeaths to his fatherless grandson Mather

BIRTH AND EDUCATION 21

Byles, in case Byles shall be "educated for
& employed in y work of y ministiy,"
which he much desires and prays for. and
he mentions certain books he wishes him
to have, leaving others, however, to be
chosen by his executors.

That Cotton Mather already felt the
proper interest in his nephew is shown by
an entry in his diary of the ISth of April,
1711, in which he says feelingly: "I must
be much of a Father to the fatherless child
of my Sister Biles. One thing I particularly
now propose; that I will give him the
little Book of 'Good Lessons for Children,'
and give him a Peece of Money for ever^
one of the Lessons that he learns without
a Book." « Later, he several times speaks
with the greatest solicitude of his nephew's
poor physical condition. The boy is said
to have been put to school at the North
Latm School in Bennet Street, near his
home, and at this institution he probably
got his preparation for college. In 17«1

82 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

Byles entered, as a matter of course, the
college at Cambridge, cf which his grand-
father Increase had been president for
sixteen years, where his uicle Cotton had
graduated in 1678, his uncle Nathaniel
in 1685, and his uncle Samuel in 1690,
and of which every one of his ministerial
relatives who had lived in and near Boston,
by virtue of his clerical o£Sce had been an
overseer.' But towards the end of his
college course his health became extremely
<)Oor and it was feared he was going to die
of consumption. March 18, 1724, his uncle
Cotton writes: "My poor Nephew, under
Languishments, what shall be done for
him?" April 1st, 1724, he writes : "The
dangerous condition of my Nephew M. B.
in regard of his Entring into a Consumption
requires me to do all I can for him; es-
pecially to prepare him for what he may
be coming to." April 22d he writes : "My
Kinsman, M. B., being fallen, I doubt, into
a Consumption, I must with all possible

' i

ill:

BIRTH AND EDUCATION SS

Goodness and Concern sett myself to do all
that I can find proper to be done for a
Nephew in such circumstances." In the
autumn of this year Byles's life was evi-
dently despaired of, for on the «8th of Octo-
ber Cotton Mather writes: "Lord what
shall I do, for my two Nephews, whose Life
drawes near to the Grave ? " In spite of his
uncle's fears, however, Byles fully recovered,
and in 1725, when a little over eighteen,
left college with his bachelor's degree.'

The Harvard class of which Mather
Byles was tie thirteenth member in social
rank, a dozen of the sons of public officials
and others coming before him, at gradua-
tion numbered forty-five, but though earlier
dasws had had a large proportion of
ministers among their members, this class
had besides Byles, so far as we can dis-
cover, only two who adopted a ministerial
career.' Whether Byles himself for a time
after graduation wavered in his choice of
a profession we do not know, nor have we

! U<|

■J

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■'tiii

«4 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

learned what if any subsequent training
he took for the ministry, but it was 1789
before he seems to have been thought of
for a parish, and it was not until late in
1733 that he was ordained.' It would be
exceedingly interesUng to know if we could
precisely what the relations were between
Byles and his fellow students and the
tutors of the college during the four years
they spent together at Harvard, but on
this point likewise we have little light.
That Byles gave special attention to litera-
ture, especially poetry, is clearly the case
but from his general intelligence and love
of learning there is no reason to doubt
that he gave creditable care to the routine
studies of his Freshman, Sophomore, Junior
Sophister, and Senior Sophister years. In
October, 1723, a committee of visitation,
of which Judge Scwall was chairman,
made a curious report on the moral con-
dition of the Harvard student body, in
which they say: "Although there is a

BIRTH AND EDLCATION iS

considerable number of virtuous and stu-
dious youth in the college, yet there has
been a practice of several immoralities;
particularly stealing, lying, swearing, idle-
ness, picking of locks, and too frequent use
of strong drink; which immoralities, it is
feared, still continue in the college, notwith-
standing the faithful endeavours of the rulers
of the House to suppress them." Of the two
contrasted groups mentioned in this fierce
arraignment of the students of Harvard in
1723 we judge that Mather Byles and his
intimate friends stood among the "virtuous
and studious youth," rathf-r than among the
swearing and lying young gentlemen who
picked locks and were too frequently given
to the use of strong drink, but we should
also like much to know whether the anger
of the whole student body and of Byles
among the rest was not fiercely aroused
by such a defamatory report of tJie college
as had been officially given by Sewall and
his censorious band.

26 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

^^lilll:

■!■ Ml';

I liii

In Doctor Byles's Freshman year in
college appeared his first literary produc-
tion b print. The New England Courant,
the third newspaper to be published in
Boston, made its earliest appearance on
Monday, August 7, 1721, its owner, editor,
and printer being James Franklin, Benja-
min Franklin's older brother. The jour-
nalistic cerecr of James Franklin was a
somewhat turbulent one, for the spirit of
its editor was distinctly aggressive, and
in his newspaper "the government of the
province and its principal agents, the
clergy, and various individuals, were at-
tacked by the editor and his correspon-
dents, without much regard to public or
personal character." • In 1721 and 1722 an
engrossing subject of discussion in Boston'
was the value of inoculation for small-
pox, the strongest champions of vaccina-
tion being the venerable Increase and his
son Cotton Mather and its most vigorous
and unsparing opponent the editor of the

JOURNAUSTIC WRITINGS 87

New England Courant. In favour of in-
oculation, Increase Mather published a
prmphlet, entitled " Several Reasons, prov-
ing that Inoculating or Transplanting the
Small-Fox is a lawful Practice, and that
it has been blessed by God for the sav-
ing of many a Life," whereupon, and for
their general advocacy of vaccination, the
Courant lampooned both Mathers unmerci-
fully, the Boston OazetU, on the other hand,
taking their part and exalting the practice
highly. In the course of the controversy,
in which personalities were indulged in to
a degree which even in these days of news-
paper license seems almost impossible.
Doctor Mather sent his grandson Mather
Byles to Franklin with a manuscript article
giving an account of the success of inocula-
tion in London, which Byles told the jour-
nalist he himself had copied from the London
Mercury. Franklin published the article,
but later declared in his paper that the
transcriber had changed it, so that it was

« THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

quite different from the original article in
the Mercury. Charging Byles, whom he
calls "our young spark," with deliberate
falsehood in reference to the article, he also
takes occasion to say that any measure
whatever advocated by ministers was sure
to be from the devil, and at least implies
that both Increase and Cotton Mather
had given currency to malicious state-
ments concerning the conduct of his paper.
In a letter to Franklin, which this editor
prints in his journal of January S9 to
February 6, 17««, Doctor Increase Mather
says:

"M^ Franklin, I had ThoughU of taking
your Courant (upon Tryal) for a Quarter
of a Year, but I shall not now. In one of
your Courants you have said that <f the
Miniriera of God are for a Thing it is a
Sign it is from the Devil, and have dealt
very falsly about the London Mercury. For
these and other Reasons, I shall No More
be concerned with You." The malice of

JOURNALISTIC WRITINGS 29

the Mathers against his paper, so Franklin
asserts, had expressed itself definitely in
the slanderous charges that the Courant
was "carried on by a Hell-Fire Club,
with a Non-Juror at the head of them,"
this club being patterned after a conspicu-
ous anti-religious club of men and women
in London, bearing the name just given,
whose blasphemies, as people regarded
them, were notorious. In defending hia
paper against the charges of the Mathers
and some other attacks of enemies of the
journal, Franklin says : "These, with many
other Endeavours, proceeding from an arbi-
trary and Selfish temper, have been at-
tended with their hearty Curses on the
Courant and its Publisher; but all to no
purpose; for, (as a Connecticut trader
once said of his onions) The more they are
cursed, the more they grow. Notwithstand-
ing which, a young scribbling Collegian,
who has just Learning enough to make a
Fool of himself, has taken it in his Head

i'ij-''

80 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

to put a Stop to this Wickedness, (as he
calls it) by a Letter in the last Week's
Gazette. Poor Boy ! When your Letter
comes to be seen in other Countries, (under
the Umbrage of Authority) what indeed
will they think of New-England! They
will certainly , conclude, There is bloody
fishing for nonsense at Cambridge, and
sad work at the CMedge. The young
Wretch, when he calls those who wrote
the several Pieces in the Courant the
Hell-Fire Club of Boston, and finds a
Godfather for them, (which, by the way,
is a Hellish Mockery of the Ordinance of
Baptism, as administered by the Church
of England,) and tells us. That all the
Supporters of the paper will be looked
upon as Destroyers of the Religion of the
Country, and Enemies to the faithful
Ministers of it. little thinks what a cruel
Reflection he throws on his Reverend
Grandfather, who was then, and for some
time before, a Subscriber for the Paper."

JOURNALISTIC WRITINGS 81

Byles's "letter in last week's Gazette"
to which Franklin refers with such con-
tempt will be found in the Gazette of Jan-
uary 15, 1722. It reads as follows :

"Cabibhidgb, January 11, 1721 [old style]

"MJ MUSORATE,

"When I read the Crimes laid to your
Charge in the Scandalous Courant last
Monday I was in some danger of enter-
taining a hard Character of you; but
when I read on a little further, the danger
was over. Finding the Wretches Charge
you as imposing on the Publick when you
inserted these words from the London
Mercury, September 16, Great Numbers
in this City, and Suburbs are under the
Inoculation of the Small Pox: Every one
said That if these Words were indeed
there, the Publishers of this Impious and
Abominable Courant, must be the most
Audacious and Brazen-fac'd Liars in the
World; not a Word is to be believed

\ ^=:cv!

Ill

88 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

that shall be uttered by Fellows of such
matchless and uncommon Impudence.
Accordingly we examined the Mercury,
and found the words every Syllable of
them there. So we all concluded that you
might be an honest Man, till better Men
than they can prove an ill thing upon you.
"Every one aees that the main intention
of this Vile Courant, is to Vilify and Abuse
the best Men we have, and especially the
Principal Ministers of Religion in the
Country. And tho' they have been so
left of God, and of Sense, as to tell People
in Print, that they live in a Wickedness,
which no country besides, whether Chris-
tian. Turkish, or Pagan, was ever known
to be guilty of; yet they go on in it;
and in this last Courant they taught the
People, That if the MinUters do approve,
admse a thing, 'tis a Sign that U ia 0/
the Deva. You see Sir. that you have
Company of which you need not be
ashamed.

JOURNALISTIC WRITINGS SS

"H such an horrid Paper, called the
Nerw England Courant, should be seen in
other Countries, what would they think of
New-England ! If you call this Crew, the
Hell-Fire Club of Boston, your Friend Camp-
bell will stand God-father for it; having
in one of his News Papers formerly assign 'd
this proper Name for them. And all the
sober People in the Country will say.
They deserve it. . . . Be sure, all the
Supporters of this Paper will be justly
looked upon, as the Supporters of a Weekly
Libel written on purpose to destroy the
Religion of the Country, and as Enemies
to the faithful Ministers of it. And if
this Hell-Fire Paper be still carried on,
you shall have a List of their Names, that
all the Sober People in the Country may
know who they are. I am not my self a
Minister, nor have I advised with any
such for this Letter; nor did I ever yet
publish any thing. But there is a Num-
ber of us, who resolve, that if this wicked-

I :')

84 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

ness be not stop'd, we will pluck up our

Courage, and see what we can do in our

way to stop it."

lam

"Sir, Your Servan*."

[The Signature not given.]

When we crime to discuss Mather Byles
as a poet we shall see that he himself
aflSrms that in college he wrote a con-
siderable number of poems, but whether the
letter he wrote to the Gaxette during the in-
oculation controversy was his only as well as
his first contribution to journalism while he
was an undergraduate we cannot now tell.
In March, 1727, however, when he had been
almost two years out of college, he connected
himself as an editorial writer and contribu-
tor of articles in prose and poetry on impor-
tant events of the day, with a newly starting
modest newspaper called the New-England
Weekly JoumalM The paper lasted until
1741, when it was incorporated with the
Boston Gazette, and in its early years, at

JOURNALISTIC WRITINGS 85

least, Byles contributed to it a good many
conspicuous prose articles and such poems
as that on the death of King George I
and the accession of George II, his flatter-
ing welcome to Governor Burnet, his "Con-
flagration," and his "Verses written in
Milton's Paradise Lost." The signature
to his prose articles, when they are signed,
is one of the letters C E L O I Z A.

Precisely how intimate Byles was with
his uncle Cotton Mather during the years
he spent in Cambridge and until Mather
died, in 1728, we should much like to
know, but we cannot help believing that
Mather's influence was strong with him,
and that in the intercourse he had with
this remarkable man Mather stimulated
Byles's intellectual activity, while he gave
his cordial approval to his nephew's con-
nexion with the Weekly Journal. Whether
Mather, however, had anything directly
to do with Byles's training in theology or
homiletics, or whether before Mather died

1-^

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1 '"i /I

ill I

36 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

it was even decided that Byles should
enter the ministry we have seen no record
whatever to show. In the Weekly Journal
of February nineteenth, 1728, appeared a
laudatory obituary of Cotton Mather,
which we believe bears strong internal
evidence of having been composed by
Mather Byles. It reads in part as follows :
"Last Tuesday in the forenoon between
8 and 9 o'clock died here the very Reverend
Cotton Mather, Doctor in Divinity of
Glesgo and Fellow of the Royal Society
in London, Senior Pastor of the Old North
Church in Boston, and an overseer of
Harvard College ; by whose Death persons
of all ranks are in Concern and Sorrow.
He was perhaps the principal ornament
of this Country, and the greatest scholar
that was ever bred in it." The notice
then goes on to tell of Mather's extensive
charity, entertaining wit, singular goodness
of temper, and the Divine Composure and
joy with which he finished his Career."

CHAPTER m

Ordination and First Marriage

In 1789 Mather Byles evidently felt
himself ready for ordination, for in Clapp'a
"Ancient Proprietors of Jones Hill, Dor-
chester" we find the statement, no doubt
taken from the Dorchester church records,
that in that year, of three candidates con-
sidered for the position of colleague to
the aged Dorchester pastor. Rev. John
Danforth, Mr. Byles was one. The person
chosen, however, was the Rev. Jonathan
Bowman, and for some reason Mr. Byles's
ordination, as we have said, did not take
place until December 20, 1733, more than
eight years after his graduation from col-
lege. Up to 173* the Congregational
churches of Boston numbered seven, the
First Church organized in 1630; the Second

;m..:

38 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

or Old North, in 1650; the Old South in
1669; the "Manifesto Churth," later the
Church meetiiig in Brattle Square, in
1690; the New North, whose meeting-
house was on Hanover Street, in 1714;
the church whose meeting-house was on
Church Green,! in 1719 ; and the Federal
Street Church (which began as a Pres-
byterian Church but became Congrega-
tional), in 1727. In January, 1730, the
Honourable Jonathan Belcher, who like
his father, M; Andrew Belcher, had be-
come what Boston historians euphemis-
tically term a "very opulent merchant,"
and consequently a person of high im-
portance in the commercial town, by adroit
political management while in England
had been able to get the appointment of
Governor of Massachusetts, and the Hon-
ourable William Tailer had been restored
to the lieutenant-governorship, which he
had held some time before. By this time
in the south suburb of the town, bordering

ORDINATION AND MARRUGE S9

on the Neck, and especially along Orange
(Washington) Street, a good many houses
had been built, one of which, near the
junction of HoUis and Orange Streets, was
Governor Belcher's own country house.
From his father, Andrew Belcher, the Gov-
ernor had inherited in this region a consid-
erable quantity of land, which he probably
wanted to sell, and naturally he was
anxious to give people every inducement
he could to settle here. The Boston
churches we have enumerated were then
all located either in the North End of the
town or near the centre of the peninsula,
and Belcher among others determined to
erect a chuh:h in Hollis Street. Accordingly
this opulent merchant, then and for nine
years longer the chief official of the prov-
ince," gave a deed of a building lot for a
meeting house; on the 14th of November,
1732, a new religious society was organized,
and on the 20th of December, 1733, Mather
Byles was ordained pastor of the church.

40 THE FAMOUS SiATHER BYLES

Of the begiimmg of this church the
author of the Hiitory of the Old South
Church Mya: "The South Church took
much interest in the gathering of HoUis
Street Church, which was formed Novem-
ber 14. Governor Belcher gave the land
on which the meeting house had been
built; and Doctor Sewall drew up the
form of covenant. Mather Byles, grand-
son of Increase Mather, was ordained as
its first minister, December 80." "This
day [November 14, 1738]," says the Rev.
Joseph Sewall, "was kept as a Day of
Prayer by the New Society at the South.
Mf Checkly began, then Mr. Cooper
prayed. Doctor Colman preach'd from
2 Cor. 8:6. Then Mr. Webb prayd.
Thirteen of the Brethren entred into
Covenant, forming a distinct Church. I
read the Covenant to them and then
Prayd." Und^i date of December 80th,
Mr. Sewall says: "M? Byles was or-
dain'd to the New Church. M'- Prince

\Hm I

OBDINATION AND liARRUGE 41

begin with Pmy'r. Mi. Bylet pratch'd
from * Timothy S : 17. Then Mr. Walter
pray'd. I gave the Charge, and D? Col-
man the right hand of Fellowahip." "«

From the time of his aettlement over
the HolUs Street Churoh, m indeed moat
likely before, Mr. Byles was evidently on
terms of the closest friendship with Gover-
nor Belcher, though whether the governor
at any time of year commonly attended
service at the new churoh, having his
pew in the Old South, where ever since iU
removal from Cambridge the Belcher family
had been accustomed to worship, we do
not know. With the Governor's family,
also, the young minister was as intimate
as with the Governor himself, and on the
14» of February, 178S. Mather Byles
married, no doubt with his patron's high
approval, the governor's niece, a young
widow, M? Anna Noyes Gale.

One of the most important gentlemen
in Boston shortly before this time, a man

4S THE FAMOUS MATIIER BYLES

who stood quite as high socially as Gover-
nor Belch<ir, was Doctor Oliver Noyes,
son of John and Sarah Oliver Noyes, a
physician practising in Boston and Med-
ford, a graduate of Harvard of the class
of 1695. Though a busy man in his
profession. Doctor Noyes shared actively
in all the local enterprises calculated to
develop Boston, a conspicuous one of these
being the building of the famous "Long
Wharf." The first wife of Doctor Noyes
was Ann Belcher, a younger sister of the
governor, who bore her husband six chil-
dren, the eldest of these being Doctor
Byles's wife. Anna Noyes was bom April
17, 1704, and January 81, 1782, was mar-
ried to Azor Gale, Jr., of a Marblehead
family, but her young husband did not
live long, and as we have said, on the 14*!*
of February, 1733, in her twenty-ninth
year, she once more entered wedlock as
the wife of Rev. Mather Byles. During
his socially brilliant but poUtically tur-

ORDINATION AND MARRIAGE 4S

bulent eleven years' administration of the
government of Massachusetts, Governor
Belcher may have lived in summer in his
house in Orange Street, in the south sub-
urbs, and in winter in the Province House
in town, for the marriage of his niece
Anna, whose father was dead, and who
was thus probably murJi under her uncle's
care, to Mather Byles, took place in the
magnificent official residence of the Massa-
chusetts governors." Weird tales, as we
know, weird and impossible tales, were
woven by Hawthorne about this same
famous Province House, and it is pleasant
in contrast to picture to ourselves the
festive scene of a wedding in the official
mansion. The Province House had been
acquired by the Massachusetts govern-
ment from the heirs of the original owner,
Peter Sergeant, and when it was bought
no pains had been spared to make it an
elegant official residence. The house, which
stood a little back from what is now Wash-

44 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

ington Stieet, almost opposite the Old
South Church, was of brick, thiee stories
high, and was approached by a stone
pavement, which led to a flight of massive
ted freestone steps, and these to a door-
way, which Shurtleff in his "Topographical
and Historical Description of Boston,"
with pardonable enthusiasm declares might
have rivalled the doorways of the palaces
of Europe. Trees of very large size, giving
abundant shade, stood in front of the house
and added much to its external attractive-
ness. Inside, as a setting for the Gale-
Byles wedding, we have alluring visions
cf broad staircases, carved balustrades,
escutcheon-decorated walls, more or less
valuable family portraits," rich carpets,
and finely carved mahogany tables and
chairs. Into the great state chamber,
where vice-regal levees were always held,
a wide double door gave entrance, and
there we see also among other things the
chimney piece, set round with blue-figured

PROVINCE BOUSE

ii:

ORDINATION AND MARRIAGE 45

Dutch porcelain tUes, which so attracted the
attention of Hawthorne, who when the old
Province House had come to be a humble
tavern wrote the stories in which it figures,
in his "Twice Told Tales." Unless the
wedding in question was an entirely private
ceremony, to the function would naturally
have come the very flower of the Boston
aristocracy of the day, for the bride and
groom were both scions of families recog-
nized as of the highest local importance,
and we may be sure that Governor Belcher's
"opulence" and his taste for magnificent
display would have made this wedding
in the gubernatorial mansion, where so
many brilliant functions had already taken
place, one of the finest social affairs of
the year. Of the relatives of the young
bride and groom, the bride's brother. Bel-
cher Noyes was probably there, and also
her sister Sarah, who had married a Pul-
sifer of Plymouth. The Governor's son
Andrew, a graduate of Harvard of 1784,

til

46 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

who later married Emilia Louisa Teal of
New Jersey, daughter of uis father's second
wife by her first husband, and lived in
Milton in fine style, was no doubt a guest.
The Governor's daughter Sarah, who had
been married between five and six years
before to Mr. Byfield Lyde, with her
husband was surely present, and Doctor
Byles's mother Elizabeth, then well on
towards seventy, his aunts, Maria Mather,
wife of Richard Fifield, and Sarah Mather,
wife of Rev. Nehemiah Walter of Roxbury
were probably there; and most naturally
some of Mather Byles's cousins, the re-
maining children of his uncle Cotton,
notably Rev. Doctor Samuel Mather, who
a little later married a sister of Governor
Thomas Hutchinson. Other Belchers, and
Byfields, and Lydes, and no doubt some
of the Hutchinsons probably graced the
event, and although the wedding was of
a yoimg Congregational widow to a young
Congregational parson, the Rev. Thomas

ORDINATION AND MARRIAGE 47

Prince of the Old South performing the
service, it is possible that the aristocratic
.King's Chapel congregation was almost
as liberally represented as that of the Old
South or the Old North.

The social history of Boston in the long
Provincial period, before the Revolution
came to change to a democracy the whole
aristocratic structure of the popular life,
has never yet with any fulness been por-
trayed. Important fragmentary glimpses
we get of the life at various epochs, in
brief descriptions of visiting Englishmen or
through the diaries and letters of a few
citizens, but for the most part we are left
to reconstruct it in our own imaginations,
as we are obliged to do that of New York
or Philadelphia, or the still more intensely
dramatic plantation life of the South in the
same and at a later period. After the
Revolution the only town on the conti-
nent where the chief features of this life
were strongly perpetuated was Hl^lif^^x,

48 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

Nova Scotia, where the Boston Tories all
found temporary shelter and where many
of them permanently remained, where
through a thriving West Indian trade
- considerable fortunes were able to be ac-
cumulated, where the presence of the
army and navy, in even greater force,
indeed, than had ever been true of Boston,
added the peculiar picturesqueness that
has always belonged to important military
and naval stations of the British Empire,
and where dignified old-world class dis-
tinctions were, until beyond the period of
Confederation, and to the natural dis-
persion of many of the older families,
unchallengedly maintained.

Of Boston social life generally among
the upper classes at the time of Doctor
Byles's marriage, we have in our minds a
pretty clear picture. W Joseph Beni\ttt,
an English traveller, in 1740 wrote an
animated history of New England, with
an account of his travels here, in which he

ORDINATION AND MARMAGE 49

describes it with a good deal of minute-
ness. "There are several families in
Boston," he says, "that keep a coach and
pair of horses ; but for chaises and saddle-
horses, considering the bulk of the place
they outdo London. They have some
nimble, lively horses for the coach, but
not any of that beautiful hirge black breed
so common in London. ... The gentle-
men ride out here as in England, some in
chaises, and others on horseback, with
their negroes to attend them. They travel
in much the same manner on business as
for pleasure, and are attended in both
by their black equipages. . . . For their
domestic amusements, every afternoon,
after drinking tea, the gentiemen and
ladies walk the MaU, and from thence
adjourn to one another's houses to spend
the evening, — those that are not dis-
posed to attend the evening lecture; which
they may do, if they please, six nighU in
seven, the year round.

BO THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

"YfiuA they call the Mall is a walk on
a fine green Common adjoining to the
■outhwest side of the town. It is near
half a mile over, with two rows of young
trees planted opposite to each other, with
a fine footway between, in imitation of
St. James's Park; and part of the bay of
the sea which encircles the town, taking
its course along the north-west side of the
Common, — by which it is bounded on
the one side, and by the country on the
other, — forms a beautiful canal, in view
of the walk.

"The government being in the hands of
dissenters, they don't admit of plays or
music-houses. , . . But, notwithstanding
plays and such like diversions do not
obtain here, they don't seem to be dis-
pirited nor moped for want of them; for
both the ladies and gentlemen dress and
appear as gay, in common, as courtiers
in England on a coronation or birthday.
And the ladies here visit, drink tea, and

ORDINATION AND MARRUGE »1

indulge every little piece of gentility, to
the height of the mode; and neglect the
affairs of their families with as good a
grace as the finest ladies in London.""
"These people have the air of having
been bred at courts," some ol^er English
visitor to Boston writes home, "where
did they get it ?" and a more recent writer
in the "Dictionary of National Biography,"
sketching the life of John Singleton Cop-
ley, describes the Boston society to which
Copley belonged as "composed of remark-
able elements, in which learning and
general culture, statesmanship, and busi-
ness capacity, borrowed refinement from
the presence of many women conspicuous
for beauty and accomplishments." In his
able "History of King's Chapel," Rev.
Henry Wilder Foote suggests to us the
fashion and wealth of the pre-Revolution-
ary congregation of that historic church.
He gives us glimpses of the Royal Governors
in their pew of state, hung with red cur-

■ n|

01 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

Uint, and raited Mveiml stepa abovt the
floor, as it stood under the sovth gallery;
of the uniformed officers of the British
army and navy who for many years came
here to pray; and of the aristocratie
native-bom worshippers, in brocade and
velvet, in ruffles and lace, — the Apthorps,
and Royalls, and Vassals, and Wentworths,
— who with dignified bearing and reverent
mien trod the church's aisles, and knelt
for worship in its square pews.

To the conspicuous richness of the Bos-
ton people's dress in the Provincial period
we are well introduced by Copley's por-
traits, as Mr. Frank W. Bayley of the
"Copley Gallery" has described them.
John Amory, senior, for example, appears
in his portrait in a gold-laced brown velvet
coat, M*? Amory m rich yellow satin or
silk. M? John Apthorp b arrayed in
blue silk, edged at the neck with white
lace. She wears also a pink scarf, fastened
at the waist by a pearl pin, and has a

ORDINATION AND HiABBUGE U

collar of three rows of pearls round ' er
neck. Mf John Barrett has on a robe of
olive brown brocaded damask. Thomas
Aston Coflan, as a child, is dressed in :.
low-necked sacque of green satin, over <i
dress of white satin, richly embroider ,
with lace, and has a hat with pIunvM.
Timothy Pitch is arrayed in a gold- !at eel
coat and waistcoat, and silk stockings.
M» Fitch is in purplish pink satin, with
blue lining. Mf John Forbes is dressed
in yellow satin, ornamented with silver
lace, the short sleeves of her gown edged
with rich lace. She wears a large hoop,
her hair, decorated with a white bow. is
dressed over a cushion, and she has on a
necklace and earrings of pearls. Anne
Gardiner, who married Captain the Hon-
ourable Arthur Browne, wears a white
satin dress trimmed with pearls, and holds
in her left hand a pink silk mantle. Moses
Gill wears a dark blue velvet coat, lined
with white satin, andlike many of Copley's

i I

«4 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

men has a powdered wig. The first M?
Gill, a daughter, by the way, of Rev.
Thomas Prince, b in dark blue velvet,
witn muslin undersleeves, ending in double
ruffles, and she too has pearls on her neck.
The second M.f Gill, a daughter of
Thomas Boylston, has on blue velvet or
satin, with a red velvet band embroidered
with gold around the bosom. Harrison
Gray, the noted Loyalist, is painted in
brown velvet, with lace at the wrists and
neck, and wears a gray wig, with a queue.
That young Mather Byles's bride Anna
was not the clergyman's first love wt- nje
led to believe from one of the well-known
witticisms perpetrated by Byles probably
soon after, or perhaps even before, he left
college. Indeed it would be rather strange
if she had been, for at the time of his
marriage the susceptible young gentleman
had reached the age of almost twenty-six.
The pun we refer to was on his own and
another distinguished name in Boston,

ill:

ORDINATION AND MARRIAGE 65

and the quick retort it called forth showed
that others of his contemporaries had a
measure of the ready humour in which
Byles excelled. It u said that one day
meeting a lad;, to whom he had previously
paid court unsuccessfully, and who was
then married or about to be married to a
Quincy, Byles said jocosely: "I see,
Madam, that you prefer the Quincy to
Byles." "Yes," the lady is reported
promptly to have answered, "for if there
were any ailment worse than bik» God
would have afflicted Job with it."" We
have nowhere found it stated who the lady
who was so discriminating in her choice of
diseases was, but we feel very sure from
our knowledge of the Quincy family and
their marriages that she could have been
no other than Elizabeth Wendell, who
was married April 15, 1725, to Judge
Edmund Quincy, and became the mother
of M"? John Hancock, the sprightly, at-
tractive, somewhat famous lady known as

fi6 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

"Dorothy Q." If this was really the lady
she was about three years older than
Doctor Byles, and was loved by that
ardent swain before he was himself
eighteen."

CHAPTER IV

EVEMTB IN EaHUER MiNIBTRT

Whebb PotoOT Byles may have lived
from the beginning of his ministry at
HoUis Street Church until 1741, we do
not know, but it seems quite possible
that Governor Belcher may have furnished
him with a house somewhere near his
own. To whatever dwelling he took his
bride Anna he seems also to have taken
his widowed mother Elizabeth, for on
the twenty-fourth of March, 1734, he
Kcorda in his church register that his
"aged mother" had on that day been
received into communion at HoUis Street
from the North Church, to which she had
previously belonged." A little less than

lit

i '

»8 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

three years from the begiiming of his
pastorate, the young minister was called
to share the sorrow of his beloved patron.
Governor Belcher, in the death of the
latter's esteemed first wife." Mf Belcher
had apparently died at the Governor's
house in Orange Strfeet, for the News-
Letter of October 14, 1736, intimates that
her funeral procession moved for a con-
siderable distance through die town, its
statement being that along the streets
through which it passed the tops of the
houses and the windows were crowded
with spectators. At the house, before the
cortege started, the Rev. Doctor Sewall
of the Old South made a prayer, and then
the procession took its way through the
town to the Granary Burying Groimd,
where the Governor in 1720 h?.d b'lilt a
tomb. The description in the Neiws-Letter
adds that "the co£Sn was covered with
black velvet and ricUy adorned. The
pall was supported by the Honourable

DiufMATHER BVLES

Frun the original painting by Peter Pdbam

EARLIER MINISTRY

<»

Uil

Spencer Phipps, Esq., our Lieuteii*nt-Gov>
emor, William Dummer, Esq., formerly
Lieutenant-Govenior and Commander-in-
Chief of this Province, Benjamin Lynde,
Esq., Thomas Hutchinson, Esq., and Adam
Winthrop, Esq. His Excellency with his
children and family followed the corpse,
all in deep mourning; next went tke
several relatives according to their respec-
tive degrees, who were followed by a great
many of the principal gentlewomen in
town; after whom went the gentlemen of
His Majesty's Council, the reverend Min-
isters of this and the neighbouring towns,
the reverend President and fellows of
Harvard College, a great number of officers
both of the civil and military order, with
a multitude of other gentlemen. His Ex-
cellency's coach, drawn by four horses,
was covered with black doth and adorned
with escutcheons of the coats of arms
both of his Excellency and of his deceased
lady, and during the time of the procession

h it

60 THE FAMOUS BIATHER BYLES

the half-minute guns began, first at His
Majesty's Castle William, which were
followed by those on board His Majesty's
ship Squirrel, and .oany other ships in
the harbour, their ci'ours being all day
raised to the heig'-f us usual on such
occasions. ... On me following Sunday
his Excellency's pew and the pulpit at
the South Church were put into mourning
and richly adorned with escutcheons, and
the Reverend Thomas Prince preached a
sermon, which was printed by J. Draper,
with the customary black border and
death's head." "

In reading of this magnificent funeral dis-
play one is struck with the liberal use in
it of armorial bearings, and since the
governor's grandfather, Andrew Belcher
of Cambridge, the first of the family in
New England, was the son of a cloth-
worker in London, and he the son of a
weaver in Wilts, is compelled to wonder in
passing where these Belcher arms were

'^ ll

EABLIER MINISTRY

obtained." But a matter of much more
interest to our present biography is the
fact that soon after the funeral, Mather
Byles wrote an "Epistle in verse" to his
Excellency on the death of his lady, which
he piously prefaces in the following way:
"As your Excellency has long honoured
me with a particular triendship. Gratitude
demands that I attempt your Service:
and as you are now in mourning under
the Hand of God.

"In order to this, the muse has once
more resumed her Lyre, and her Aversion
to Flattery you will receive as her best
Compliment. Instead of copious Pane-
gyric upon the Dead I have chosen rather
in solemn Language to admonish the Liv-
ing: and when others perhaps would
have embraced so fair an Opportunity
for an Encomium on your Excellency, I
have only taken the Freedom of an Ex-
hortation. I know you will be pleased
to observe that while I employ the Num-

M THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

bers of the Poet, I never forget the Chaimc-
ter of the Divine.

"lam
"May it please your Excellency
"Your Excellency's
"Affectionate Nephew and most
" humble Servant

"M. Byleb."
The poem is as follows :

"Belcher, once more permit the Muse you lov'd,
By honour, and by sacred Friendship mov'd,
Wak'd by your woe, her numbers to prolong.
And pay her tribute in a Funeral song.

"From you, great Heav'n with undisputed voice
Has snatch'd the partner of your youthful joys.
Her beauties, ere slow Hectick fires consum'd,
Her eyes shone cheaiful, and her roses

bloom'd :
Long lingering sickness broke the lovely form.
Shock after shock, and storm succeeding

storm.
Till Death, relentless, 3f Iz'd the wasting clay,
Stopt the faint voice, ijxd catch'd the soul
away.

EARLIER MINISTRY

"No more in Convene iprightiy ihe appear*,
With nice decorum, and obliging airs :
Ye poor, no more expecting round her atand.
Where soft compassion stretch'd her bounteous
hand.

"Her house her happy skill no more shall boast
By all things plentiful, but nothing lost.
Cold to the tomb see the pale corpse convey'd.
Wrapt up in silence, and the dismal shade.

"Ah ! what avail the sable velvet spread.
And golden ornaments amidst the dead t
No beam smile there, no eye can there discern
The vulgar co£Sn from the marble um :
The costly honours preaching, seem to say,
'Magnificence must mingle with the clay.'

"Learn here, ye Fair, the frailty of yotir face,
Ravish'd by death, or nature's slow decays :
Ye Great, must so resign your transient pow'r.
Heroes of dust, and monarchs of an hour !
So must each pleasing air, each gentle fire.
And all that's soft, and all that's sweet,
expire.

"But you, O Belcher, mourn the absent Fair,
Feel the keen pang, and drop the tender i ■'•ax :

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64 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

The God approves that nature do her part,
A panting bosom, and a bleeding heart :
Ye baser arts of flattery away !
The Virtuous Muse shall moralize her lay.

"To you, O Fav'rite Man, the Pow'r supream
Gives wealth and titles and extent of fame,
Joys from beneath, and blessings from above.
Thy Monarch's plaudit, and thy people's
love.

"The same high Pow'r, unbotuded and alone.
Resumes his gifts, and puts your mourning on.
His Edict issues, and his Vassal Death,
Requires your Consort's — or Your flying
breath.

"Still be your glory at his feet to bend.
Kiss thou the Son, and own his Sovereign

hand.
For his high honours all thy pow'rs exert.
The gifts of Nature, and the charms of Art :

"So over Death the conquest shall be giv'n.
Your Name shall live on earth, your Soul in

heav'n.
Mean time my Name to tiiine ally'd shall

stand

EARLIER MINISTRY

Still our warm FViendship mutual flames ex-
tend,
The Muse shall so survive from age to age
And Belcher's name protect his Byles's page."

In 1741 Doctor Byles bought a house of
his own and we presume immediately
moved his family into it. Within ten
years, or a little more, of her marriage,
Anna Gale had borne her second husband
six children, the eldest of these a second
Mather, the youngest but one receiving
appropriately the name of Belcher. Of
these six children, however, only three
survived their mother," who herself died
April twenty-seventh, 1744. In the News-
Letler of May third, 1744, it was recorded :
"Last Thursday night died, and on Mon-
day last was decently interr'd, M"' Anna
Byles, the amiable and Vertuous Consort
of the Rev. Mr. Byles." " That Doctor
Byles held his first wife in proper esteem
and reverence and that he genuinely la-
mented her death is shown by a sermon he

i !

66 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

preached soon after her funeral, in which
he extolled her virtues and commemorated
fittingly her calm and beautiful end.
"Never," he said feelingly, "did these
eyes see death vanquished in a mo-e com-
plete manner; nor did I ever witness to
so steady and uninterrupted a peace of
mind {-r so long a time together, upon a
death I u before now. The king of terrors
lay contemptible at the feet of this truly
Christian heroine. Her speeches were
wonderful and glorious. . . . She said
(the most joyful words to me that ever I
heard, before a room full of witnesses,
else I think that I should not so publicly
mention it, though she had often spoken
the same thing to me alone), 'I bless God
that I ever saw you: the doctrines of
grace, in the comforts of which I die,
have been more clearly explained and
applied to my heart under your preach-
ing, and in your conversation, than ever
they were by any one else. And I say

FROM BONNERS MAP OP BOSTON. 17(19, SHOWING
HOLLIS ST. CHURCH

J
I k

EARLIER MDJISTrlY 67

this for your encouragement in your min-
istiy.'"

Although the bereaved minister had
young children to be cared for, and his
own personal comfort to regard, he waited
a little over three years before marrying
again, then on the 1* of June, 1747,
the Reverend Jo» Sewall, d!d.,. of
the Old South ofliciating, he married a
second wife, Rebecca Tailer, daughter of
the distinguished Honourable William
Tailer, deceased," a lady not less highly
connected than his first wife, for her
father, who was a gentleman of family
and fortune, had twice been lieutenant-
governor of Massachusetts, and once act-
ing governor, and had long lived in fine
style in Dorchester, where he had a hand-
some country seat. By this marriage
Doctor Byles allied himself with another
considerable group of aristocratic families,
for the Tailers were connected with the
Brinleys, Byfields, Cradocks, Dudleys, and

{.I

'lii

111

68 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

Lydes, the interrelationship among which
pre-Revolutionary Boston first families is
such an intricate tangle that no one who
had not much genealogical skill could
possibly make it out. To the conspicuous
names we have just given should be added
also the Royalls and Boylstons, for shortly
after the Tailer-Byl^s marriage, occurred
that of Rebecca Tailer's brother, Doctor
Gillam Tailer, with Elizabeth Boylston, and
of her sister Abigail to Jacob Royall, Esq.
The house bought by Doctor Byles in
1741, which was destined to be his home
for the rest of his own life and the home
of his unmarried daughters, the Misses
Mary and Catherine Byles, until their
deaths, respectively in 1832 and 1837,
was a plain wooden, perhaps gambrel-
roofed, house which stood endwise to the
street, on the site of the building known
as the "Children's Mission," and its door-
yard, on Tremont Street nearly opposite
the entrance to Common Street. The

EARLIER MINISTRY 69

land on which the house stood was pur-
chased by Peter Harratt, a bricklayer,
from Governor Belcher, in 1732, and the
house was probably erected soon after
by the buyer. Before 1741 Harratt died
and in that year his widow Catherine
sold it to Doctor Byles." The house is
described in an "instructive and amusing"
game called "Cards of Boston."" printed
in 1831 by Miss Eliza Leslie of Phila-
delphia, as "a very ancient frame building
at the comer of Nassau and Tremont
streets," the outside nearly black, sUnd-
ing in a green inclosure, shaded with large
trees. Probably in the veiy year she
printed the game. Miss Leslie, a writer of
some local reputation, sister of the painter
Charlps Robert Leslie, visited Boston, and
m 1842 in Graham's Magazine gave an
entertaining description of the house both
without and within, and of its quaint
owners, the then aged daughters of Doctor
Byles. "After passing the beautiful Com-

70 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

mon," Mua Leslie says, "my companion
pointed out to me at what seemed the
termination of the long vista of Tremont
Street, an old black-looking frame house,
which at the distance from whence I saw
it seemed to block up the way by standing
directly across it. It was the ancient
residence of Mather Byles, and the present
dwelling of his aged daughters, one of
whom was in her eighty-first and the other
in her seventy-ninth year. This part of
Tremont Street, which is on the south-
eastern declivity of a hiU, carried us far
from all vicinity to the aristocratic section
of Boston. At length we arrived at the
domain of the two antique maidens. It
was surrounded by a board fence which
had once been a very close one, but time
and those universal depredators 'the boys'
had made numerous cracks and chinks in
it. The house (which stood with the
gable end to the street) looked as if it had
never been painted in its life. Its expos-

EARUEB MINISTBi'

ure to the sun ax- 1 rain, to the heats of a
hundred summers and the snows of a
hundred winters, had darkened its whole
ouUide nearly to the blackness of iron.
Also, it had even in its best days been
evidently one of the plainest and most
unbeautified structures in the town of
Boston, where many of the old frame
houses can boast of a redolence of quaint
ornament about the doors and windows
and porches and balconies. Still there
was something not unpleasant in its aspect,
or rather its situation. It stood at the
upper end of a green lot, whose long thick
grass was enamelled with field flowers.
It was shaded with noble horse-chestnut
trees relieved against the clear blue sky,
and whose close and graceful clusters of
long jagged leaves, fanned by the light
summer breeze, threw their chequered and
quivering shadows on the grass beneath
and on the mossy roof of the venerable
mansion." The house. Miss Leslie further

72 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

minutely tells her readers, was a gambrel-
roofed house, which when Tremont Street
was extended beyond its original terminus
had had a piece taken off its southeastern
end or "side."

After Doctor Byles's second marriage
there soon appeared in succession in the
Tremont Street house, three more children,
whom their parents named respectively,
Joseph, Mary, and Catherine," the first
of these like several of his little half
brothers dying young, the second and
third, however, the Misses Mary and
Catherine Byles, living far beyond the
Revolution, until they had become very
old. The second wife of Doctor Byles,
of whom we have very little knowledge,
lived until July twenty-third, 1779, when
she too, as we learn from her daughters'
wills, was buried in tomb No. 2 in the
Granary Burying Ground. That both
Doctor Byles's marriages were as happy
as marriages commonly are we have no

EARLIER MINISTRY

reason not to suppose. At the time of
the Revolution, when the Doctor was in
sore disgrace politically in the town, a
young minister, John Eliot, with youthful
censoriousness, and with evident familiarity
with the town's gossip, is reported to have
said that "the women all proclaimed""
that the misfortunes that had come upon
Doctor Byles were a judgment on him
from Heaven for his ' 1 treatment of his
wives, but this gratuitous fling is the sole
reflection of the kind we have ever seen
made on Mather Byles.

CHAPTER V

Pastorate at Holub Street Church

On the long active ministry of Mather
Byles at Hollis Street, which terminated
really though not formally when the occu-
pation of Boston by the British in the
Revolution sent the greater part of his
parishioners out of the town, we have
considerable light. The facts we have,
however, are chiefly of the ordinary details
of parochial administration and of sermons
preached year after year, many of which,
soon after preaching. Doctor Byles put
into print. The Hollis Street congrega-
tion was never an influential congregation
like the congregations of the First Church
or the Old South, though from the start
it had on its communion roll many respect-
able names," but we have every reason to
n

HOLLIS STREET PASTORATE 75

beKeve that Doctor Byles'a mmistiy to his
parishioners was earnest, foithful, sympa-
thetic, and kind.

In spite of his intellectual activity and
general learning, Mather Byles made no
original contribution to New England
theology. The period his ministry
covered, indeed, was one not of entire
theological inactivity but certainly of
marked lack of constructive energy in
theological and theologico-political things.
The work of shaping Congregationalism,
in which those stem theocrats, his great-
grandfathers John Cotton and Richard
Mather had borne chief parts, had long
been accomplished, the dispute over the
half-way coveubui had lost much of its
original fervour, the political and religious
indignation which had been visited on
Increase Mather on his return from Eng-
land because of the defects of the Charter
of 1691 had subsided like other similar
indignations, and the only remarkable stir-

76 TBE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

ring of the Boston churches until the
Revolution was the Great Awakening under
Whitefield in 1740-'4«. The period of
Doctor Byles's ministty is described by
New England church historians as on the
whole one of comparative formalism and
general lack of spiritual enthusiasm. Dur-
ing the time, however, religious thought
was not inactive, religious thought never
stands entirely still, under the leadership
of a series of strenuous thinkers it was
moving quietly in two opposite ways. Of
these two movements the most striking
was what is known as Hopkinsianism,
which affirmed as Calvinistic logic had
never done before the absolute sover-
eignty of God, and the necessity for un-
conditional submission, even to the point
of willingneas to be damned for his gloiy,
of the human soul to Him. At the .pposite
pole from this tremendous irrationalism
was the moderate assertion of the validity
of human reason, of Chauncy, Mayhew,

HOLLIS STREET PASTORATE 77

Briant, and others, of eastern Massachu-
setts, an assertion which was to strengthen
and grow until the beginning of the nine-
teenth century, when Unitarianism, fully-
developed, should come into existence
through those able rational leaders Chan-
ning and Wai«. But the thought of by
far the larger number in the period
of Byles's life ran on what is properly
called "Old Calvinist" lines. The famil-
iar doctrines of man's depravity, inherited
from fallen Adam, redemption through
the sacrificial death of Christ, and the
arbitrary bestowal by God of divine grace
to bring about repentance in the elect, —
these conventional tenets of Calvinism
were tenaciously but conservatively held."
But the further belief was held by the
Old Calvinists that however fixed by eter-
nal decrees the fate of men might be, the
common means of grace, prayer, reading
of Scripture, and attendance on preaching,
honestly used "put men in a favourable

78 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

way for obtaining the more special and
effectual bestowments of divine help es-
sential to salvation,"" and to this Old
Calvinist party Doctor Byles emphatically
belonged. Reading his sermons one finds
in him absolutely no traces of a disposition
towards the extreme views of Hopkins,
nor does the least tendency appear towards
Unitarian thought, but he eveiywheie af-
firms the main positions of Calvinism,
and with apparently entirely unquestion-
ing faith. In the common view of his
day that from beginning to end the Scrip-
tures were the inerrant message of God he
profoundly shared, but as in politics so
in religion his attitude was essentially non-
controversial, and his chief aim in preach-
ing was to bring what he conceived to be
the teaching of the Scriptures with con-
vincing power to the practical life of men.
With a narrower range of intellectual in-
terests than his uncle Cotton Mather, he
yet shared unmistakably in the peculiar

HOLLIS STREET PASTORATE 79

mental temperament of his uncle, but
although he had as unwavering confidence
in the value of saintly death-bed expe-
riences and with as fervid imagination
revelled in the unspeakable glories of the
unseen Heaven where after death the
chosen saints were to go, he yet escaped
the amazing credulity of Cotton Mather
and showed little of the superstition that
characterized that extraordinary man.
For the most part the style of his sermons
is simple and direct. Occasionally, over-
powered by his subject he indulges in the
strained elegance of fine writing, but gen-
erally his writing, while not at all lacking
in smoothness, is remarkably forcefid and
clear. To these merits of expression he
often adds the power of a rich and vivid
imagination, and we can well understand
how with a magnetic presence in the pulpit
and a musical voice he quickly earned
for himself the reputation of a brilliant
preacher.

80 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

As we review, even hastily, the sermons
and essays of Doctor Byles, written during
his pastorate, that have been printed,
as indeed his poetry throughout his life,
we cannot help regretting that after his
death some kind friend had not cared
enough for him to collect his writings
into two or three volumes, for some of
his productions, both in prose and poetry,
are of lasting interest. In the next chapter
we shall speak of the fine imagination dis-
played in his noble sermon on "The Flour-
ish of the Annual Spring," we cannot
refrab from giving here an extract printed
by Duyckinck, in his "Cydoptedia of
American Literature," from his essay,
"The MediUtion of Cassim, the Son of
Ahmed." first printed in the New England
Weekly Journal some time in 1727, and
afterward reprinted in 1771 with the second
edition of his sermon on "The Present
Vileness of the Body and Its Future
Glorious Change by Christ," from Acts

HOLLIS STREET PASTORATE 81

17:18. Speaking of the worm changing
into a butterfly Byles says: "You have
beheld the dead Silk-worm revive a Butter-
fly, the most beautiful and curious of all
the splendid Race of Insects. What more
entertaining Specimen of the Resurrection
is there, in the whole Circumference of
Nature? Here are all the wonders of
the Day in Miniature. It was once a
despicable Worm, it is raised a kind of
painted little Bird. Formerly it crawled
along with a slow and leisurely Motion:
now it flutters aloft upon its guilded Wings.
How much improved is its speckled Cover-
ing, when all the Gaudiness of Colour is
scattered about its Plumage. It is spangled
with Gold and Silver, and has every Gem
of the Orient sparkling among its Feathers.
Here a brilliant spot, like a clear Diamond,
twinkles with an unsullied Flame, and
trembles with num'rous Lights, that glitter
in a gay Confusion. There a Saphire
casts a milder Gleam, and shows like the

89 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

blue Expanae of Heaven in a fair Winter
Evening. In thia Place an Emerald, like
the calm Ocean. diq>laya its cheerful and
vivid Green. And cloae by a Ruby —
flames with the ripened Blush of the
Morning. The Breast and Legs, like
Ebony, shine with a glorious Darkness;
while its expanded Wings are edged with
the golden Magnificence of the Topaz.
Tlius the illustrious little creature is fur-
nished with the divinest Art. and looks
like an animated ComposiUon of Jewels,
that bier ', their promiscuous Beams about
him. lius O Ctunm. shall the Bodies of
Good Men be raised; thus shall they
shine, and thus fly away."

That the "Great Awakening" of 1740-
'42 influenced very deeply the HoUis Street
Church or its pastor we have no reason to
think, for the records of the Church during
that time do not show any very remarkable
increase in the number of admissions to
communion.** When Whitefield first ap-

HOLUS STREET PASTORATE 88

peared in BoBton in the middle of Sep-
tember, 1740, he wu rer ived generally
among Congi^egationaliats, and no doubt
by Doctor Byles as by other ministers,
with great warmth and was heartily wel-
corned to the churches. On the 26*^ of
the month he preached from a sca£Fold
erected outside the HoUis Street meeting-
house, no doubt to accommodate a larger
audience than could find room within the
building. From a discussion in 1743 of
the effects of the revival in which several
ministers took an earnest part, some ap-
proving, others deprecating. Doctor Byles
and his cousin Samuel Mather, with two
other ministers, M^ Welsteed and M^
Gray, stood entirely aloof. In the councils
of the denomination to which he belonged,
called for the installation or dismissal of
ministers or for other reasons, the Hollis
Street Church and its pastor are frequently
mentioned, as on the 18*^ of May, 1768,
when the Rev. John Lathrop was ordained

84 THE FAMOUS BiATHER BYLES

pMtor of the Second Church. On that
occaaion the young pastor hinuelf preached
the ordination lennon, Doctor Joseph
Sewall offered prayer. Rev. Ebeneser Pem-
berton gave the charge, and Doctor Byles
gave the rig t hand of fellowship. In
March. 1740, Doctor Byles offered the
prayer at a Town Meeting, in the same
year he delivered the sermon before the
Artillery C3mpany, and probably many
times he preached the "Thursday Lec-
ture" in the First Church, which had been
esUblished by his great-grandfather John
Cotton, and which has continued to be
preached almost continuously to the pres-
ent time." That like his son Mather Byles,
Jr., and hif daughters, in spite of his strong
Toryism, Doctor Byles had, even after the
Revolution, any desire to become an Angli-
can we have seen no evidence. He was too
near the old New England Puritan the-
ocracy, and the influ..jce of the Mather
dynasty was probably too strong upon his

HOLUS STREET PASTORATE M

mind to admit of hi* hmving much sympathy
with Anglican ecclesiasticism, however much
he may have sympathised with Anglicans
socially, in Old England or New.

In 17M, Doctor Byles received the
degree of Doctor of Divinity from the
University of Aberdeen, another Boston
minister, the Rev. Jonathan Mayhew of
the West Church, also having received a
similar honour from this university fifteen
years before." Shortly after the news of
the conferring of his degree reached him,
he wrote the Rev. Doctor John Chalrters,
"Principal of King's College And Uni-
versity," in which he acknowledges the
honour that had been done him, and says
that he had been trying to collect his pub-
lished writings to send to the university
library. This letter, which we have per-
mission to print, is found in an old letter-
book of Doctor Byles's, owned by the
New England Historic Genealogical So-
ciety. It reads as follows :

86 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

"To the Rev^ Doctor John Chabners Prin-
cipal of the King's College and University at
Aberdeen.

"Rev'd Sm,

"The honour which the University of Aber-
deen has done me, and your good offices in
particular, call for my Respectful Acknowledge-
ments. I have endeavour'd to collect the
Publications I have made, to send as a small
Tribute to the Publick Library: but I have
been able to procure but few, the rest, though
some of them have past several Editions, being
wholly out of Print. I hope they will have a
Uttle more to recommend them, than as Trifling
curiosities from a Far Country. Wishing you,
and the Illustrious University, every Favour of
Heaven, and asking your Prayers and Blessings,
"lam
"yova dutiful Son,
"and most obliged
"humble Servant."

Doctor Byles's aristocratic tendencies,
and the important social position he him-
self held in Boston, as we have previously
said, were of themselves calculated to

\mi

HOLLIS STREET PASTORATE 87

arouse antagonism against him in the
minds of his more democratic brother
ministers of Massachusetts, and in the
feeling of many of the faithful laity as
well. In the autumn of 1741, Rev. Eleazer
Wheelock, one of the fotmders of Dart-
mouth College, visited Boston, and under
date of October 9**, evidently with enor^
mous self-satisfaction, writes in his diary:
"Preached [in the Old South Church] to
a very thronged assembly, many more
than could get into the house, with very
great freedom and enlargement. I be-
lieve the childrpn of God were very much
refreshed. They told me afterwards they
believed that Mather Byles was never so
lashed in his life." Precisely why the
"children of God" of the Old South Church
should have been so delighted to see
Byles "lashed," or Doctor Eleazer Wheel-
ock to have "lashed" him, particularly
at this early period of Byles's ministry,
so long before his political opinions had

'-I

88 THE FAMOUS MOTHER BYLES

become o£Fensive, it is not easy now to tell,
but that censorious younger ministers like
John Eliot and Jeremy Belknap should
habitually have sneered at and ridiculed
him, as they did, argues chiefly the strength
of his personality, the variety of his gifts,
and the supnvior position in the commu-
nity he held. That he was unpopular
among certain classes of laymen in Boston
may be due largely to the fact that he
did not strictly bind his conduct by all
the conventions that had been established
for men of his profession, and that he
never hesitated to give voice to his opin-
ions, whether they agreed with those of
the majority or not.

After the dissolution of his pastorate
of the Hollis Street Church Doctor Byles
probably saw very little of his former
Congregational friends of the clergy or
the laity. Many of his most intimate
associates had been among the Royalists,
and these had all been compelled to leave

HOLLIS STREET PASTORATE 89

the town. The worthy people who now
filled public positions and constituted the
town's society for the most part despised
and shunned him, and he in return came
near to despising them, and he almost
certainly kc '"t pretty closely to the society
of his daughters and a very few other
persons who, whether sharing his political
sympathies or not, still remained loyally
his friends. Had he been a younger man
he would without doubt have been driven
into exile with his son and the rest of
the Tories, but he was too old voluntarily
to remove from Boston, and the house
in Tremont Street where he lived, with
its contents, was almost all }'.c owned
in the world. If he now regularly at-
tended any religious service it was prob-
ably the service of the Anglican Triniiy
Church, into full communion with which
his daughters either before or shortly
after the Revolution entered. One inti-
mate friend, however, in these years he

80 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

had among the younger Congregational
ministers of Massachusetts, the Rev. Na-
thaniel Emmons of Wrentham, whom Doc-
tor Leonard Woods credited with having
"one of the grandest understandings ever
created." Doctor Emmons was thirty-
eight years younger than Doctor Byles,
but from about 1770 to the death of the
latter in 1788 the two were deeply at-
tached friends. "The parson was one of
my best friends," Doctor Emmons is
quoted as saying on one occasion, "and I
don't know but I owe more to him than
to any other man I ever knew ; for it was
he who taught me never to preach what
I did not fully believe, and that it is no
certain mark of godliness to wear a sad
coimtenance. In fact he once told me
that the genuine Christian denied his
profession if he was not continually jolly,
for his 'calling and election' being sure
he had no occasion to feel any anxiety
on any subject whatever." "Doctor

HOLLIS STREET PASTORATE 91

Byles was one of the best and purest men
that ever lived." "

That Doctor Byles was especially in-
terested in natural science, and antiquarian
research, and gave a good deal of attention
to these studies, nolices of bis collection
of curiosities, and incidental references in
bis sermons, and articles enumerated in the
inventory of his effects made after his
death, sufiBciently' show. Among these ef-
fects were geographical maps, many per-
spective glasses, microscopes, mathematical
instruments, globes, a microscope pyramid,
solar pyramid, universal pyramid, an opaque
pyramid,;a magic lantbom and apparatus, a
prism, camera obscura, pyramidical camera,
"tuTcle" shell burning glass, thermom-
eters and a barometer, half-hour glasses,
reflecting telescopes, silver coins, and val-
uable prints. According to the inventory,
his library numbered in all 2,806 books,
valued at a hundred and forty-two pounds,
twelve shillings, and tenpence.

fffffrff"^

CHAPTER VI
Doctor Btles as a Poet

Doctor Btles's prose writing, as we
have said, is almost without exception of
a high order, and it would be interesting,
if we could, to give wider extracts from it
here than our space will allow. His poetry
varies much in excellence, but a few of
his poems have an exaltation of spirit
and a beauty of form that make them well
worthy to be remembered. In 1736, Byles
published a small IS"""- volume of verse,
of a hundred and eighteen pages, yrhich
bore the modest title, "Poems on Several
Occasions, by Mr Byles." In the pref-
ace to this volume the author explains
to us that the poems "had for the most
part been written as the amusements of
looser hours, while the author belonged

*'-■;

DOCTOR BYLES AS A POET 93

to the college and was unbending his mind
from severer studies in the entertainment
of the classics." Most of them, it con-
tinues, had been several times printed in
Boston, in London, and elsewhere, either
separately or in miscellanies, and were
now drawn together in print for the first
time. In printing them, the author says,
"he gives up at once these lighter pro-
ductions and bids adieu to the airy Muse."
The volume presents us with a considerable
variety of verse, a number of hymns,
verses written in a copy of Milton's
"Paradise Lost," a poem to the memory
of a ji'oung commander slain in battle
with the Indians in 1724, a poem to an
ingenious young gentleman on his dedicat-
ing a poem to the author, a poem to
Fictorio on the sight of his pictures, and
verses addressed to Doctor Isaac Watts
and others.

Two years after Byles left college, in
August, 1727, news reached Boston that

04 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

King George the First had died in June
at Osnaburg, in Westphalia, and that
George the Second had ascended the
throne, and Byles wrote a poem on the
double event surcharged with panegyric.
Of the dead king he writes :

"He dies I let nature own the direful blow.
Sigh all ye winds, with tears ye rivers flow,
Let the wide ocean loud in anguish roar.
And tides of grief pour plenteous on the shore ;
No more the spring shall bloom, or morning

rise.
But night eternal wrap the sable skies."

But, the king is dead, long live the king!
and the laureate proceeds :

"Enough, my muse, give all thy tears away.
Break ye dull shades, and rise the rosey day.
Quicken, O Sun, thy Chariot dazzling-bright.
And o'er thy flaming empire pour the light,
O Spring, along thy laughing lawns be seen
Fields alway fresh, and groves forever green.
Let Britain's sorrows cease, her joys inlarge,
The first revives within the second George."

DOCTOR BYLES AS A POET M

On the IS** of July, 1788, Governor
William Burnet arrived at Boston, in
great state, from New York, to assume the
government of Massachusetts. "He was
welcomed with more of pomp and parade,"
says Doctor George Ellis, "than had ever
been observed in Boston on any previous oc-
casion, and at an expense to the treasury of
eleven hundred pounds. There was a caval-
otde, lavish festivity, and a poetical rhap-
sody anticipating the 'soaring eagle' style,
by the famous Mather Byles." This poem
was published in the New England Weekly
Journal, but later Byles must have written
another, for we have one not published in
this newspafter which begins as follows :

"Welcome great man to our desiring eyes ;
Thou earth proclaim it and resound ye skies I
Voice answering Voice, in joj-ful Concert meet.
The Hills all echo, and the Rocks repeat ;
And Thou, O Boston, Mistress of the Towns,
Whom the pleased Bay with am'rous Arms
surrounds.

99 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

"Let thy warm Trantporta blace in num'roua
Pire»,
And beaming Glories glitter on thy Spiiea;
Let Rocketo, streaming, up the Ether glare,
And flaming Serpents hiss along the Air.
While rising shouts a gen'ral Joy proclaim.
And ev'ry tongue, O Burnet, lisps thy Name."

In 1729 (May 19), Byles first published,
in the New England Weekly Jmtmal, a
noted poem of his that eventually bore
the elaborate title, "The Conflagration,
applied to that Grand Period or Catas-
trophe of our World, when the face of
Nature is to be changed by a Deluge of
Fire as formerly it was by that of Water.
The God of Tempest and Earthquake."
In a note introducing it in the Journal,
it is said that the author wrote the poem
when he was only in his fifteenth year.
If this is true, Byles's poetical gemus in-
deed flowered early, for the poem is a
strong one, showing traces of the influence
of Milton perhaps, but indicating a native

DOCTOR BYLES AS A POET 97

power of imagination and lenie of dis-
crimination in the use of words that would
stamp any youth as giving great promise
in the field of poetical composition. Some
of the lines are as follows:

"But O I what sounds ate able to convey
The wild confusions of the dreadful day !
Eternal mountains totter on their base,
And strong convulsions work the valley's

face;
Fierce hurricanes on sounding pinions soar,
Rush o'er the land, on the toss'd billows roar.
And dreadful in resistless eddies driven.
Shake all the crystal battlements of heaven.
See the wild winds, big blustering in the air.
Drive through the forests, down the mountains

tear.
Sweep o'er the valleys in their rapid course.
And nature bends beneath the impetuous force.
Storms rush at storms, at tempests tempests

roar.
Dash waves on waves, and thunder to the

shore.
Columns of smoke on heavy wings ascend.
And dancing sparkles fly before the wind.

»8 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

Devouring Amum, wide-waving, row aloud,
And melted mountaina flow a fiery flood :
Then, all at once, immenie the flrei ariie,
A bright deitrucUon wrapi the cruckling skiei ;
While all the elementi to melt coMpire,
And the world blazes in the final fire."

In 178* Governor Belcher's brother-in-
law, Hon. Daniel Oliver, died, and Doctor
Byles addressed to His Excellency an
elegiac poem on the melancholy event.
On the e*^ of October, 1736, as we have
already shown, he indited a laudatory
epistle in verse to the govemoi .-n the
death of M"? Belcher, and in 1737, when
Queen Caroline departed this life, he agam
addressed his patron in a poem.

In 1744 appeared a "Collection of Poems
by Several Hands," vhich was evidently,
as Moses Coit Tyler says, the offspring
of an amiable conspiracy on the part of a
group of literary friends of Doctor Byles,
among them Rev. John Adams, to accom-
plish, and with Byles's own entire ap-

DOCTOR BYLES AS A POET 09

probation, the apotheosis of the HoUia
Street parson, and to induce the public
to believe that one of Boston's most gifted
preachers was likewise a great poet. One
of these adulatory poems addresses Byles
in the following style :

"Hail charming poet, whone distinguished lays
Excite our wonder and lurmount our praise,
Whom all the muses with fresh ardour fire.
And Aganippe's chrystal streams inspire."

Another describes Byles as "Harvard's
honour and New England's hope," declares
that he

"Bids fair to rise and sing and rival Pope."

and informs the world that

"Could Janus live again, he'd wish to die.
If in oblivion Byles would let him ly."

Still another sings :

"Long has New England groan'd beneath the
Load
Of too too just Reproaches from Abroad,

100 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

Unleam'd in Arts, and barren in their Skill
How to employ the tender Muses Quill :
At length our Byles aloft transfers his name,
And binds it on the radient wings of fame ;
All we could wish the Youth he now appears,
A finish'd Poet in his blooming years.
With anxious care we see the Stripling climb
Those Heights we deem'd for mortals too

sublime.
And dread a dang'rous Fall . . .
Yet fondly gaze, till he, above our fears
Has lost th' attracting world and shines

among the stars."

Whatever admirer wrote this last poem
printed it first anonymously in the New
England Weekly Journal of August 5, 1728.

In this collection of slightly twenty
poems, which for the most part are "little
more than weak reverberations of Pope,"
several are by Doctor Byles himself. One
of these is "The Comet," a poem having
little except smoothness to recommend it,
and another a long poem with even less
merit, describing a Harvard Commence-

DOCTOR eYLES AS A POET 101

ment. ju this den.-ription, as usual in
Pope's n.-oa5 -rr, the writer shows us the
Boston folk crowdmg down to the Charles
River feny, the procession forming in the
Yard, the dignified president, the senate,
the black-coated undergraduates, and the
public, all in line, the exercises within the
chapel, and then as the crowning event of
the day, the grand Commencement Dinner.
When Doctor Byles graduated from col-
lege, Alexander Pope was in the full flush
of his fame on this side of the Atlantic,
having here, as is well known, many of
his most ardent devotees. On the 7th of
October, 1727, Byles ventured to address
the great man, and his letter, the original
draft of which he preserved, shows the
supreme reverence in which he held him
and his art. "Sir," he writes, "you are
doubtless wondering at the novelty of an
epistle from the remote shores where this
dates its origin ; as well as from so obscure
a hand as that which subscribes it. But

102 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

what corner of the earth so secret as not
to have heard the name of Mr. Pope?
or who so retired as not to be acquainted
with his admirable compositions, or so
stupid as not to be ravished with them. . . .
How often have I been soothed and
charmed with the ever blooming landscape
of your Windsor Forest I And how does
my very Soul melt away at the soft com-
plaints of the languishing Eloisal How
frequently has the Rape of the Loch com-
manded the various passions of my mind,
provoked laughter, breathed a tranquillity,
or inspired a transport ! And how have
I been raised and borne away by the
resistless fire of the Iliad, as it glows in
your immortal translation." At the close,
he begs to be permitted to conclude his
letter by "asking the favour of a few lines
from the land which has blessed the world
with such divine productions." "If you
thus honour me," he writes, "assure your-
self the joys you will produce in me will

'i !

ALEXANDER POPE
From an engnving by Houbnken

DOCTOR BYLES AS A POET lOS

be inferior to none but that Poetick Rap-
ture of your own Breast. Perhaps you
will be disposed to smile when I confess
that I have a more superstitious ardour
to see a word written by your Pen than
ever Tom Folio in the Tatler to see a simile
of Virgil." "Sir." he subscribes his epistle.
Your great Admirer and most < bedient
Humble Servant. Mather Byles."

On the 3^ of May. 1728. he indites a
letter to the great hymn writer. Doctor
Isaac Watts, which is only a little less
adonng than his letter to Pope. "Rever-
end and most admired Sir." he begins,
"almost ever since I was first charmed
well with your Lyrick poems I have had
no little ambition to be known to you. I
have often wished to do myself the honour
of addressing you with a letter. But the
fear which naturally seizes us when we
approach great men has often prevented
me." "New England." he later modesUy
says, "has had no great reputation of pro-

I'^ii

104 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

ducing many fine poets, nor have we been
very famous for our skill in the arts of
the muses. However, so it happens that
we love to be dabbling in the streams of
Parnassus, though the product is nothing
but muddy water."

In incidental notices of Doctor Byles
in Boston print a good deal has been
made of Byles's correspondence with these
two noted English poets, and with a third
English writer who more f>T less success-
fully cultivated the muses, George Gran-
ville or Grenville, Lord Lansdowne, who
lived between 1667 and 1735." With Pope,
Byles's correspondence was extremely for-
mal and rare, the little man of Twicken-
ham, although he sent Byles (without
any word whatever) a bondsomely bound
copy of his Odyssey when it appeared,
apparently never warming very much to
his transatlantic admirer." With Doctor
Watts, an Independent minister and a
Calvinist, Byles had the bond of theological

Dr. ISAAC WATTS
From an engraving by Trotter

ii!

DOCTOR BYLES AS A POET 105

and ecclesia-ical as well as poetical sym-
pathy, and naturally his correspondence
with the noted nonconformist divine was
of a much more familiar and friendly sort.
Of the extent of this correspondence we
are not sure, but we know that Doctor
Watts sent Byles copies of some of his
hynms when they appeared, and that
Byles in return sent some of his poems to
the English divine. Byles's correspondence
with Lansdowne probably extended only
to one letter from the New England poet
to the noble lord.

It is doubtful if any honour Byles ever
received in his lifetime gratified him so
much as the reception of Pope's Odyssey.
In lending it once to a lady he accom-
panied it with these gallant lines of his own :

"Go, my dear Pope, transport the attentive
fair.
And soothe with winning harmony her ear
"Twill add new graces to thy heav'nly song
To be repeated by her gentle tongue.

lOd THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

111

Old Homer's ibsde tball smile if she com-
mend.
And Pope be proud to write as Byles to lend."

That Doctor Byles had given consider-
able attention to the art of poetry we have
strong testimony in a sermon he preached
at the Thursday Lecture, May third, 17S9,
on "The Flourish of the Annual Spring."
This sermon, which shows probably a
finer imagination than any other he printed,
i.'-. f:om Canticles 2 : 10-13, "Rise up and
come away, lo the winter is past, the rain
is over and gone; the flowers appear on
the earth, the time of the singing of birds
is come. . . . Arise . . . and come away."
"Of all mere men who have lived since the
fall of Adam," the sermon begins, "the
author of this beautiful passage is pro-
nounced the wisest by the God of Heaven.
And of all the books he wrote this is the
most elegant, sublime, and devout. The
title of the book is the Song of Songs and
it well deserves the name, for it is the

DOCTOR BYLES AS A POET 107

finest poetical composure now extant in
the world. It is not everywhere over
nice and exact in its meUphors and al-
lusions, but they are bold and grand,
elevated and lofty, all fire, all consecrated
rapture and inspiration ! The criticks of
the Art of Poetry will presently see that
it is a dramatic composition of that kind
to which the modems would give the
name of a Pastoral Opera. That it is a
dramatic performance is easily discovered,
inasmuch as it consists wholly of action,
dialogue, and character. It is a personal
representation of passion and action,
dialogue and history, all of which are the
exact description of the drama. It is
an opera, it seems to consist of three acts.
The numbers are of the lyriek kind, and
it has in it the evident intimations of
musick and a chorus. And it is a pas-
toral, as the scenes are mostly laid in the
country, and the characters and images are
principally rural. But more than .this, 'tis a

108 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

Divine Poem. It contaLis a fine picture of
the loves of Christ and his Church." Soon
the writer lets his fancy loose among the
lovely sights and sounds and odors of the
spring : "The time of the singing of birds is
come, and our ears are regaled by all the
harmony of the groves and forests. The
idle musicians of the spring fill the fields
and the skies with their artless melody. A
thousand odours are thrown from every
bough, and scat'er thro' the air to gratify
our smell. The flowers appear on the earth,
and the spring buds and rising grass dress
the rich landscape and paint the scene
to delight and charm our eyes. These
are the pleasures of an earthly spring."
Bound up with this sermon we find a musical
"Hymn for the Spring," of fourteen stan-
zas, five of which are as follows:

"By tuneful birds of every plume
Melodious strains are play'd.
From tree to tree their accents roam.
Soft-warbling thro' the shade.

DOCTOR BYLES AS A POET 109

"The painted Meads and fragrant Field*
A sudden smile bestow,
A golden Gleam each Valley yields,
Where numerous Beauties blow.

"A Thousand gaudy Colours flush
Each od'rous Mountain's Side:
Lillies rise fair, and Roses blush
And Tulips spread their Pride.

" Thus flourishes the wanton Year,
In rich Profusion gay,
Till Autumn bids the bloom retire.
The Verdure fade away.

"Succeeding Cold withers the Woods.
While heavy Winter reigns.
In Fetters binds the frozen Floods,
And shivers o'er the Plains."

In a curious little book of sacred music,
called the "New England Psalm-Singer
or American Chorister," published by Edes
and Gill, probably in 1770, containing
"a number of psalm-tunes, anthems, and
canons, in four and five parts," composed

110 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

by William Billings of Boston, the book
including a frontispiece engraving by Paul
Revere, is a hymn by Doctor Byles, en-
titled "New-England Hymn [Adapted to
America Tune]." This hymn is as follows :

"To Thee the tuneful Anthem soars.
To Thee, our Father's God, and ours ;
This Wilderness we chose our Seat :
To Rights secur'd by Equal Laws
From Persecution's Iron Claws,
We here have sought our calm Retreat.

"See I how the Flocks of Jesus rise I
See I how the Face of Paradise

Blooms thro' the ThickeU of the Wild !
Here Liberty erects her Throne ;
Here Plenty pours her Treasures down !

Peace smiles, as Heav'nly Cherub mild.

"Lord, guard thy Favours ; Lord, extend
Where farther Western Suns descend ;
Nor Southern Seas the Blessings bound ;
'Till Freedom lift her chearful Head,
'Till pure Religion onward spread.
And beaming, wrap the Globe around."

111

""ill

DOCTOR BYLES AS A POET 111

That Doctot Byles had much interest in
music IS shown not only by the hymn given
above but by the following lines descriptive
of fugue music, which appear on the tenth
page of the "Psalm Singer," and are there
said to be "from a miscellany of the Rev
D^ Byles":

"Down steers the Bass with grave majestic Air.
And up the Treble mounte with shrill Career;
With softer Sounds, in mild Melodious Maze.
Warbhng between, the Ten^ gently Plays :
Hut if th aspiring AUus join its Force.
See I like the Lark, it Wings ifa tow'ring
Course; ^

Thro' Harmony's sublimest Sphere it flies.
And to Angelic Accents seems to rise-
Rom the bold Height it hails the echoing Bass.
Which swells to meet, and mix in close embrace.
The diff rent Systems all the Parts divide
With Music's Chords the distant Notes are
ty'd;

And Sympathetick Strains enchanting winde
Thar restless Race, till aU the Parts are join'd :
Then rolls the Rapture thro' the air around
In the full Magic Melody of Sound "

11« THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

Byles's verses to Doctor Isaac Watts,
in "Poems on Several Occasions," are as
follows:

"To the Reverend Doctor Watts, on his Divine

Poems.
" Say, smiling Muse, what heav'nly Strain
Forbids the Waves to roar;
Comes gently gliding o'er the Main,
And charms our list'ning Shore I

"What Angel strikes the tremb'ling Strings;
And whence the golden Sound !
Or is it Watts — or Gabriel sings
From yon celestial Ground t

"'Tis Thou, Seraphick Watts, thy Lyre
Plays soft along the Floods ;
Thy Notes, the ans'ring Hills inspire.
And bend the waving Woods.

"The Meads, with dying Musick fill'd
Their smiling Honours show.
While, whisp'ring o'er each fragrant Field,
The tuneful Breezes blow.

"The Rapture sounds in ev'ry Trace,
Ev'n the rough Rocks regale,

DOCTOR BYLES AS A POET ns

Fresh flow'ry Joys flame o'er the Face
Of ev'ry laughing Vale.

"And Thou, my Soul, the Transport own,
Pir'd with immortal Heat ;
While dancing Pulses driving on.
About thy Body beat.

"Long as the Sun shall rear his Head,
And chase the flying Glooms,
As blushing from his nuptial Bed
The gallant Bridegroom comes :

"Long as the dusky Ev'ning flies
And sheds a doubtful Light,
While sudden rush along the Sides
The sable Shades of Night :

"O Watts, thy sacred Lays so long
Shall ev'ry Bosom fire ;
And ev'ry Muse, and ev'ry Tongue
To speak thy Praise conspire.

"When thy fair Soul shall on the Wings
Of shouting Seraphs rise,
And with superior Sweetness sings
Amid thy native Skies ;

114 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

"Still shaU'thy lofty Nuniben flow.
Melodious and divine ;
And Choirs above, and Saints below,
A deathless Chorus I join.

"To our far Shores the Sound shall roll
(So Philomela sung).
And East to West, and Pole to Pole
Th' eternal Tune prolong."

In the next chapter we shall speak in
some detail of a passage-st-arms in wit
that once took place between Byles and a
rival humourist in Boston, a well-known
man named Joseph Green. Doctor Byles
had a favourite cat which he sometimes
jocularly called his muse, and in the course
of events the cat died. On its death Green,
who whether chiefly from ill-will or solely
from a love of practical joking seems to
have lost no opportunity of ridiculing
Byles, wrote and published an elegy on
the cat. The absurd poem is as follows :

"Oppress'd with grief in heavy strains I mourn
The partner of my studies from me torn.

DOCTOR BYLES AS A POET 115

HowshaUIsing ? what numbers ahall I chiwe ?
For in my fav'rite cat I've lost my muae.
No more I feel my mind with raptures fir'd,
I want those airs that Puss so oft inspir'd •
No crowding thoughts my ready fancy fill.
Nor words run fluent from my easy quiU ;
Yet shall my verse deplore her cruel fate.
And celebrate the virtues of my ^at.

"In acts obscene she never took delight •
No caterwauls disturb'd our sleeo by ijght •
Chaste as a virgin, free from every stain.
And neighb'ring cats mew'd for her love in
vain.

"She never thirsted for the chickens' blood •
Her teeth she used only to chew her food ;'
Harmless as satires which her master writes,
A foe to scratching, and unused to bites,
able m the study was my constant mate ;
There we together many evenings sat.
Whene'er I felt my tow'ring fancy fail.
I stroked her head, her ears, her back, and tail ;
And as I stroked improv'd my dying song
^m the sweet notes of her melodious tongue :
Her purrs and mews so evenly kept time
She purr'd in metre, and she mew'd in rhyme

116 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

But when my dulneaa haa too itubborn prov'd,
Nor could by Puss's music be remov'd.
Oft to the well-known volumes have I gone.
And stole a line from Pope or Addison.

"Of'times when lost amidst poetic heat,
She leaping on my knee has took her seat ;
There saw the throes that rock'd my lab'ring

brain.
And lick'd and daw'd me to myself again.

"Then, friends, indulge my grief and let me
mourn,
My cat is gone, ah I never to retwn.
Now in my study, all the tedious night.
Alone I sit, and imassisted write ;
Look often round (O greatest cause of pain).
And view the num'rous labours of my brain ;
Those quires of words array'd in pompous

rhyme,
WUch braved the jaws of all-devouring time.
Now imdefended and unwatch'd by cats
Are doom'd a victim to the teeth of rats."

CHAPTER vn

Doctor Btles'b Huhottr

Two ministers who filled a marked and
honourable place in eighteenth century
Boston, says a writer in the "Memorial
Hbtory,"" were Thomas Prince of the Old
South Church, and Mather Byles of the
Hollis Street Church. "Thomas Prince
shares with Cotton Mather the repuU-
tion of being the most learned man in
New England in the eighteenth century.
He far surpassed all the Mathers in
the method, accuracy, and usefulness of
his writings. Mather Byles was too way-
ward and eccentric a genius to make a
very permanent impression, though he had
remsrkable literary gifts, and a fancy
which in his earlier years knew no bounds.
He early obtained eminence in the pulpit,
m

118 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

and in spite of his litenuy interests and the
sharpness of his tongue, he maintained
cordial relations with his church until
the Revolution separated them, Doctor
Byles taking the losing side. The tradi-
tions of his overflowing wit are now the
most vivid part of his reputation, and
doubtless do less than justice to his piety,
ability, and learning." With such an es-
timate of Doctor Byles we partly but not
wholly agree. That his intellectual gifts
can properly be called wayward and ec-
centric we do not believe, but it is per-
fectly true that this brilliant descendant
of Increase Mather is remembered in Bos-
ton chiefly as an irrepressible humourist.
In his interesting compilation of historical
facts and personal reminiscences concern-
ing ancient Boston, "Dealings with the
Dead," MF Lucius Manlius Sargent says :
"D'- Byles has been wafted down the
stream of time, to distant ages, as it were,
upp" a feather"; what he could never

DOCTOR BYLES'S HUMOUR 119
have accomplished of repuuUon "by his
grave discourses and elaborate poetical
labours, he certainly and signally achieved
by his never-to-be-forgotten quips and
cnaka and bon mots and puns and funny
Myings and comical doings."" " His wit "
aays Doctor Nathaniel Emmons, "bubblJd
up as naturally as spring water, and his
witUcisms kept Boston on a broad grin
for all of half a century. You heard them
repeated on the streets and at the most
select dinner parties. They entitled him
to a monument, because they promoted
the public health by aiding public diges-
tion." "The first story I ever heard of
Mather Byles." says M; Sargent, "was
related at my father's table by the Rev
Dr Belknap in 1797. It was upon a Satur-
day, and Di John Clarke and some other
genUemen. among whom I well remem-
ber Major General Lincoln, ate their
salt fish there that day. I was a boy,
and I remember their mirth when after

1
t

: i

\ \

m THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

Dt Belknap had told the itoiy I Mid
to our minister Dt Clark, near whom I
was eating my apple, that I wished he
were half as funny a minister as D^ Byles."
The reputation for wit Doctor Byles had
in Boston is very well shown by Thomas
Morton Jones's well-known doggerel ballad
on the Boston ministers of his time which
was printed in 1774. Describing with
coarse humour all the Boston ministers,
Chauncy, Pemberton, Eliot, Cooper, Sam-
uel Mather, and the rest, Jones says of
Doctor Byles :

"There's punning Byles invokes our smiles,
A man of stately parts ;
He visits folks to crack his jokes,
llVluch never mend their hearts.

"With strutting gait, and wig so great.
He walks along the streets,
And throws out wit, or what's like it.
To every one he meets." "

From such notices as these by Doctor
Byles's contemporaries or the people who

DOCTOR BYLES'S HUMOUR 181

lived nearer hU time than we, and from
the examples of the doctor's wit that
have come down to us, we arc obliged to
admit that his humour rarely if ever rises
above the plane of puns or amusing jokes
or sharp repartee, but such as his humour
was it seems to have kept Boston laugh-
ing for more than a generation, and his
scattered puns and smart sayings that
have survived to our time not one of us
who has any sense of humour can help
finding more or less entertaining still.
)Vhile he lived people met him as Greville
says people always met Sydney Smith,
prepared to laugh and if need be go into
fits of merriment over his puns and quips."
Doctor Byles could be fiercely satirical but
his satire nad none of the sustained dignity
and apparent gravity of Swift's, he could
set people laughing, but his sallies always
came short of the droll fun of that prince
of social humourists, himself also a clergy-
man, Sydney Smith. Occasionally Doctor

182 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

Byles's jokea were tinged with bitter per-
sonal feeling, and it seems more than
probable that his impopularity at the
Ilevolution was not a little the result of
cutting jibes in which he had indulged at
the expense of gentlemen who in the strife
between England and the Colonies had
espoused the American cause. Where
Doctor Byles's keen sense of humour and
unusual power of wit came from it is
impossible to say, he could hardly have
inherited it from the serious Mathers or
Cottons from whom he was descended.
It was much more likely an endowment
from the Byleses, but of the peculiar
mental qualities of this little known Eng-
lish family we have no knowledge at all.
It is said that on a certain Sunday morn-
ing the learned Doctor Thomas Prince
was to preach for Doctor Byles, but at
the hour of service had not arrived.
Glancing with perturbed mind, no doubt,
at the entrance to the pulpit from time

DOCTOR BYLES'S HUMOUR 12S

to time, the doctor began the service.
But Doctor Prince, who had possibly
entirely forgotten the appointment, failed
to come, and Doctor Byles was obliged to
preach himself. The text he announced,
it is said, was "Put not your trust in
princes !"

The drawings for King's Chapel pre-
sented by the architect, Peter Harrison of
Newport, Rhode Island, and finally ac-
cepted, s} owed two tiers of windows, the
lower windows dot much more than half
the size of the upper ; when Doctor Byles
saw the drawings he exclaimed, referring
to the lower tier of windows: "I have
heard of the canons of the Church, but I
never saw the port-holes before." **

In 1773, the Mastachusetts Gazette in-
forms us, the town authorities purchased
for Boston from England two or three
hundred street lamps. The afternoon of
the day they arrived a gossipy woman
who had adopted so-called "New Light"

124 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

opinions, and was gifted with a disagree-
able whining voice, called on Doctor Byles.
Her conversation irritated and bored the
doctor and at last in desperation he said :
"Have you heard the news ?" "No, what
news. Doctor Byles?" she asked eagerly.
"Why, Madam," said the parson, "three
hundred new lights have this morning
arrived from London, and the selectmen
have wisely ordered them put in irons."
"You don't say so !" said the woman,
whereupon she hurried away to see who
else had heard the distressing news.^

A gentleman whom Doctor Byles knew
very kindly sent the doctor a barrel of
fine oysters. Meeting the donor's wife
on the street an hour or two after the
oysters came. Doctor Byles said to her:
"Madam, your husband has treated me
this morning in a most Billingsgate man-
ner!" and so left her. The woman, who
was of a nervous temperament, went home
in distress, and when her husband came

Sill

DOCTOR BYLES'S HUMOUR 1««

to dinner told him what Doctor Byles had
said. The man, it is recorded, was so
annoyed at the doctor's folly that he
promptly cut his acquaintance.

A poor chap in agony with the tooth-
ache asked Doctor Byles where he should
go to have his tooth drawn. The Doctor
directed iuia to a certain lonely house on
the southwest side of Beacon Hill, where
he told him he would find a person who
would "draw it." The man went, and
found, not a dentist, but John Singleton
Copley, the painter. "This is a poor
joke for Doctor Byles," said Copley. "I
do not think my drawing your tooth
would ease the pain very much."

A candidate for local fame once an-
nounced to the public that he would fly
from the steeple of the North Church.
He had already mounted the steeple, and
was clapping his artificial wings to the
delight of the crowd below, when Doctor
Byles happened along. "What has this

126 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

\ik

crowd gathered for?" said the reverend
wit. "We have come, sir," said some one,
"to see a man fly." "Poh ! Poh !" said
the doctor moving away, "I have seen a
horse fly."

One day a parishioner called and foimd
the minister diligently nailing list on
his doors to keep the cold out. The
parishioner humorously said: "The wind
bloweth where it listeth. Doctor Byles."
"Yes," answered the doctor quickly, "and
man listeth wheresoever the wind bloweth."

A certain M' Thomas Hill had a dis-
tillery "at the comer of Essex and South
Streets, not far from where Doctor Bel-
knap's house stood, in Lincoln Street."
One day Doctor Byles saw Hill in the
Street and asked him, probably much to
the man's surprise: "Do you still?"
"That is my business," said the distiller.
"Then," said the doctor, "I wish you
would come with me and still my wife."
What had happened to disturb the serenity

DOCTOR BYLES'S HUMOUR 1«7

of the Byles household, or whether this
incident occurred in the time of the first
or the second M? Byles we are not
informed.

One night after M? Rebecca Byles
and her daughters had gone to bed they
were awakened by the doctor's calling
loudly: "Thieves! Thieves 1" Hastily
springing from their beds the women
rushed to Doctor Byles's study, but found
the doctor calmly writing or reading
at his desk. "Where? Where?" asked
the women excitedly. "There !" said the
doctor, pointing quietly to the candles.
Another veiy cold night the Miss Byleses
were roused from their comfortable beds
by their father calling to them to get up.
When they came to his study he said: "I
merely wanted to know whether you lay
warm in bed."

The Byles servant at one time was a
very stupid and literal Irish girl, probably
not long from the Emerald Isle. One

1«8 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

day with a look of affright and in ap-
parent agitation Doctor Byles said to
her: "Go upstairs and tell your mistress
that Doctor Byles has put an end to him-
self." The girl ran hurriedly to M?
Byles and in a terrified voice gave the
doctor's message. To the study quickly
came M"!" Byles and her daughters. The
vision that greeted them was of the rever-
end gentleman waltzing about the room
with part of a cow's tail he had somewhere
picked up tied to his coat behind.

One morning when M? Byles was iron-
ing, some women visitors to the doctor
were announced. M? Byles did not wish
to be seen at the ironing table and allowed
herself to be pushed by her husband into
a closet. After a little general conversa-
tion the callers expressed a wish to see
the doctor's curiosities. The parson took
them about the house and finally came
to the closet. "My greatest curiosity I
have kept till the last," he said, then

DOCTOR BYLES'S HUMOUR 1S9

opening the door he presented to them
his greatly embarrassed wife.

The road opposite the Byles house for
several seasons was almost impassable in
wet weather because of the deep, soft
mud. Doctor Byles repeatedly com-
plained to the selectmen of the nuisance
and asked to have the road mended, but
without avail. One day he looked out
and saw two of the city fathers standing
in the mud trying to extricate from its
depths the wheels of the chaise in which
they had been driving. Going out of
his house Doctor Byles bowed respect-
fully to the selectmen and said: "Gentle-
men, I have frequently represented that
slough to you as a nuisance, but hitherto
without any result, I am glad to see you
stirring in the matter at last."

One Fast Day Doctor Byles and some
brother minister out of town were to ex-
change pulpits. On the appointed morn-
ing both ministers started on horseback,

180 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

one away from the town, the other towards
it. When they came within sight of each
other Doctor Byles spurred his horse into
a gallop and passed the country minister
at full speed. "Why so fast, brother
Byles?" called out the rural parson,
halting. Looking back over his shoulder
Doctor Byles answered : "It's fast day I"
We have seen how close the friendship
between Doctor Byles and Governor Bel-
cher was. A further illustration of this
is to be found in a stoiy told by Doctor
Jeremy Belknap, which appears in a manu-
script in Belknap's handwriting, in the
library of the Massachusetts Historical
Society, and more briefly in print in the
Massachusetts Historical Society's Col-
lections.*' The story shows that if Doctor
Byles could indulge in humour at the
expense of others and occasionally play
unwelcome practical jokes, in spite of
gubernatorial dignity Governor Belcher
could do the same. At some time during

DOCTOR BYLES'S HUMOUR 181

hia governorship of Massachusetts, M!
Belcher undertook a voyage to the east-
ward (it is said to Nova Scotia) to "treat"
with the Indians. The governor asked
Doctor Byles to go with him, but the
minister felt obliged to refuse. Governor
Belcher wanted his friend's company and
determined to have it, so he got the chap-
lain at Castle William, in the harbour, to
exchange pulpits with Doctor Byles on
the following Sunday, on the afternoon
of which day he had arranged to start.
The Governor was going in the war-ship
Scarborough, Captain Durell, and on Sun-
day morning he had the ship anchor near
the castle. In the afternoon he invited
Doctor Byles to come aboard to drink tea,
and while Byles was there the captain,
as directed, weighed anchor, and the min-
ister was obliged to take the voyage.
But the story does not end here. When
another Sunday came, the weather having
been stormy. Doctor Byles found himself

182 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

■till at lea. Of course he miut have
religious service on board and he pre-
pared to do so. Having taken two ser-
mons with him to Castle William he was
well equipped for preaching, but nobody
on board had a hymn-book. Accordingly,
the minister himself wrote a hymn, and
it is one that has great dignity, shows a
fine imagination, and is indeed quite above
mediocrity.

" Great God I Thy works our wonder raise.
To Thee our swelling notes belong ;
TVUle skies and winds and roCks and seas
Around shall echo to our song.

"Thy power produced this mighty frame.
Aloud to Thee the tempests roar ;
Or softer breezes tune Thy name
Gently along the Shelly shore.

"Roimd Thee the scaly nation roves.
Thy opening hand their joys bestow ;
Through all the blushing coral groves.
These silent gay retreats below.

DOCTOR BYLES'S HUMOUR 188

"See the broad tun fonake the ikiei,
Glow on the wave*, and downward ilide ;

^tton I heaven opens oU it* eye*,
And ttarbeama tremble in the tide.

"Each variou* icene, or day or night.
Lord, poinU to Thee our raviih'd *oul ;
Thy glories fix ou^- whole delight,
So the touch'd needle courts the pole."

That the composition of this fine hymn
of the sea should have exposed Doctor
Byles to subsequent satire seems at least
unfair, but as London in the eighteenth
century had fierce rivalries that led liter-
ary men into coarse satirical rhyming
against each other, so Boston had its
doggerel rhymesters who occasionally did
what they could to turn into ridicule the
literary compositions and smirch if they
were able the reputations of other writers
whom they disliked. As a humourist Doc-
tor Byles had one acknowledged rival in
Boston, who was almost exactly of his
own age, and who had graduated at Har-

184 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

vard a year later than he, a merchant
(the doctor sayi "distiller") named
Joseph Green. Although not a pro-
fessional man. Green too dabbled a good
deal in literature, writing in the news-
papers and occasionally venturing into
print in a pamphlet. His writing was in
both prose and verse, his poetry being
frequently humorous and always read-
able because of the smoothness with which
his nimibers flowed. Towards Doctor
Byles he evidently had none too amiable
a feeling and he was never averse to hold-
ing the minister of HoUis Street up to
ridicule by parodying his poetry and in
other conspicuous ways. It is said that
the doctor's friend Governor Belcher
was also frequently a target for Green's
shots, and that this o£Bcial stood a good
deal in awe of Green.*' When the fact
of Doctor Byles's writing the hymn at
sea became currently known in Boston,
Green saw fit to ridicule both the episode

DOCTOR BYLES'S HUMOUR IM

and the hymn iUelf. The hymn, aa we
have seen, waa ■omewi.^t minutely de-
scriptive, and this feature of it especially
came in for Green's satire, in ordr- to
treat properly with the IxJa .• Cxn-^t-ri},,
Belcher was supposed t.> uvi litea with
him on the voyage a potc*',.' qjani ly pf
rum, and this fact si j Gn. :. (iocs xnt
fail to make trenchant allu<^ ou >o in his
parody. The satire reads :

"In David's Ftahns an oversight
Byles found one morning o'er his tea.
Alas, why did not David write
A proper ptabn to sing at sea?

"Awhile he paused and stroked his Muse^*
Then, taking up his tuneful pen.
Wrote a few stanzas for the use
Of his seafaring brethren.

"The task perform'd, the Bard content,
Well chosen was each flowing word ;
On a short voyage himself he went.
To hear it read and sung on board.

■'■■:.
]4 I

IS6 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

"What extanes of joy appear,
VHiat pleamires and unknown delights
Thrilled the vain poet's soul to hear
Others repeat the things he writes.

"Most aged Christians do aver.
Their credit sure we may rely on.
In former times, that after prayer
They used to sing a song of Zion ;

"Our modem parson, having pray'd.
Unless loud fame our faith beguiles.
Sat down, took out his book, and said,
'Let's sing a song of Mather Byles.'

"As soon as he began to read.
Their heads the assembly downward hung.
But he with boldness did pro'jeed.
And thus he read, and thus they sung, —

"Tra 151* Pbalm

"l^th vast amazement we survey
The wonders of the deep.
Where mackrel swim, and porpoise play,
And crabs and lobsters creep.

"Fish of all kinds inhabit there.
And throng the dark abode ;

DOCTOR BYLES'S HUMOUR 187

There haddidc, hake, and flounden are.
And eek and perch and cod.

"From raging winds and tempeats free.
So smooth that as you pass.
The shining surface seems to be
A piece of Bristol glass.

'But when the winds tempestuous rise.
And foaming billows swell.
The vessel mounts above the skies.
Then lower sinks than hell.

"Our brains the tottering motion feel.
And quickly we become
Giddy as new-dropt calves, and reel
Like Indians drunk toith rum.

"What praises then are due that we
Thus far have safely got,
AmariKoggin tribe to see.
And tribe of Penobscot."

Before long Doctor Byles retorted on
Green with a parody on Green's parody,
which Doctor Belknap says distinctly
turned the laugh on Green. Doctor
Byles's parody in one form (for there is

188 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

another slightly different version) is as
follows :

"In ByWs hymns an oversight
Green spy'd as once he smok'd his Chunk ;
Alas I the Byles should never write
A song to sing when folks are drunk.

[Doctor Belknap in a letter to Ebenezer
Hazard quotes the stanza from memory
thus:

"In Byles's hynms an oversight
Green spy'd one evening o'er his junk ;
Alas I why did not Byles indite
A song to sing when folks are drunk."]

"Thus in the chimney, on his block.
Ambition fir'd the 'stiller's pate.
He summoned all his httle stock.
The poet's volume to complete.

"Long paus'd the lout, and scratch'd his skull.
Then took his chalk (he own'd no pen),
And scrawl'd some doggrel, for the whole
Of his flip-drinking brethren.

"The task perform'd — not to content —
111 chosen was each Grub-street word ;

DOCTOR BYLES'S HUMOUR 1S9

Strait to the tavern club he went.
To hear it bellow'd round the boaid.

"Unknown delights his ears explore,
Inur'd to midnight caterwauls.
To hear his hoarse companions roar.
The horrid thing his dulness scrawls.

"The club, if fame we may rely on,
Conven'd, to hear the drunken catch,

At the three horae-shoes or red lion

Tippling began the night's debauch.

"The little 'stiller took the pint
Still fraught with flip and songs obscene.
And, after a long stutt'ring, meant
To sing a song of Josy Green.

"Soon as with stam'ring tongue, to read
The drunken ballad, he began.
The club from clam'ring strait recede,
To hear him roar the thing alone.

"SONO

'Wth vast amazement we survey
The can so broad, so broad, so deep.
Where punch succeeds to strong gangree.
Both to delightful flip.

140 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

"Drink of all amadu, inhabit here>
And throng the dark abode ;
Here's rum, and sugar, and small beer.
In a continual flood.

"From cruel thoughts and conscience fre«^
From dram to dram we pass ;
Our cheeks, like apples, ruddy be;
Our eyeballs look like glass.

"At once, like furies, up i0e rise.
Our raging passions swell ;
We hurl the bottle to the skies.
But why we cannot tell.

"Our brains a tott'ring motion fed.
And quickly we become
Sick, as with negro steaks, and red
like Indians drunk with rum.

"Thus lost in deep tranquillity,
We sit, supine and sot.
Till we two moons distinctly see —
Come give us 'tother pot."

The phrase "negro steaks," in the last
stanza but one of this parody, is an allusion
to an unsavoury story at that time current

DOCTOR BYLES'S HUMOUR 141

in Boston that on one occasion some prac-
tical joker had imposed steaks cut from a
dead negro, instead of beef, on the convivial
club to which Green belonged."

At some period in his ministerial career
Doctor Byles had his study painted brown.
In explanation of the rather dull colour
he is said to have told people that he
wanted to be able on occasion to say he
was in "a brown study." On a certain
day he went, perhaps somewhat reluc-
tantly, to see a parishioner who was con-
valescing from smallpox. As he entered
the patient's room he piously uttered
what the man took to be the familiar
ecclesiastical salutation, "Pax te cuml"
Doctor Byles's actual salutation, however,
was, "Pox take 'em!"

CHAPTER vm

DiBMIBSAL FBOM HiS CHmElCH

Thboughotjt New England from the
earliest times, even after the government
had ceased to be strictly a theocracy,
church and state were so closely united
that the meeting-houses were the chief
places where the fires of independence in
communities were kept aflame. When the
war of the Revolution was in its early
stages, of the various religious meeting-
houses of Boston besides the Anglican
churches, there was probably only the
HoUis Street Church where more or less
fierce denunciations of England were not
heard from the pulpits and where the
congregations were not strongly urged to
resistance against her oppressions. The
Old South Church, as is well known, was

DISMISSAL FROM CHUBCH 143

the scene of some of the most stirring
events of the struggle, and when the siege
of Boston began, its minister like all the
other Congregational ministers of the town
with the exception of Doctor Andi«w
Eliot of the New North Church. D«K5tor
Samuel Mather, and Doctor Mather Byles,
at once took refuge, with a laige part of
their parishioners, in the country near.
Of these ministers of Boston, and indeed
of the whole body of Congregational min-
isters in New England, Doctor Byles alone
sympathized with the crown. In the
"Memorial Histoiy of Boston" the writer
on the Boston "Pulpit of the Revolution"
says: Doctor Byles "tried, with un-
doubted sincerity, to avoid politics in
the pulpit, but his opinions were too
notorious, and his sharp tongue was too
free, to make his position long an agree-
able one either to his people or to him-
self." M? Ephraim Eliot in his historical
notices of the New North Church says that

144 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

Doctor Andrew Eliot's remaining in town
during the siege was enforced probably by
the selectmen, so that Congregational wor-
ship bLjuld be maintained; Doctor Byles,
he say£ 'being in the Tory interest was
neglec-e ! by most of the inhabitants,
althoL; h he performed service for some time
in one of the central meeting-houses."

That Doctor Byles persistently refused
to preach on political subjects, when all
the other ministers of his denomination
were doing so, seems to have produced
great dissatisfaction among his people.
In answer to their queries as to why he
avoided politics in his sermons he is re-
ported to have sententiously said: "I
have thrown up four breastworks, behind
which I have entrenched myself, neither
of which can be forced. In the first place,
I do not understand politics ; in the second
place, you all do, every man and mother's
son of you; in the third place, you have
politics all the week, — pray let one day

DISMISSAL FROM CHURCH 144

out of seven be devoted to religion; and
in the fourth place, I am engaged in a
work of infinitely greater importance.
Give me any subject to preach upon of
more consequence than the truths I bring
to you, and I will preach upon it the next
Sabbat! " For the unique position Doc-
tor Byles held among his brethren of the
Congregational clergy, in the great political
struggle of the country through which he
lived, it is on the whole not difficult to find
the reasons. No Puritan minister in New
England in his time, probably, had lived
in so close friendly relations with the lead-
ing government officials and their families
as he, and his sympathies socially were
profoundly with the more conservative
class. In the second place he was a poet
and the vulgar clash of political parties
and the details of political administration,
as with many such men, were imcongenial
to him, and he preferred as much as pos-
sible to let them alone.

IM THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

So far M we know. Doctor Bylea hai
nowhere left on record in any detail his
views on the several questions that were
so fiercely in dispute in the Revolutionary
struggle, but he undoubtedly had views
on them all, and at times expressed them,
and his views were the common ones of
the Tory party, with whom his sym-
pathies were. "In March, 1770," says
his friend Doctor Nathaniel Emmons. "I
stood with Parson Byles on the comer of
what are now School and Washington
streets and watched the funeral procession
of Crispus Attucks, that half Indian, half
negro, and altogether rowdy, who should
have been strangled long before he was
bom. There were all of three thousand
in the procession, the most of them drawn
from the slums of Boston; and as they
went by the Parson turned to me and
said — 'They call me a brainless Tory;
but ttili lae, my young friend, which is
better, to be ruled by one tyrant three

DISMISSAL FROM CHURCH 147

thousand miles away, or by three thousand
tyrants not a mile away?'" Doctor Em-
mons is further quoted as saying to the
friend to whom he related this incident : "
"I tell you, my boy, there was just as
much humbug m politics seventy years
ago as there is to-day; and throwing out
Sam and John Adams and John Hancock,
and some few other leaders, the majority
of our New England patriots were a sorry
set."

In the twenty-seventh volume of the
New England Historical and Genealogical
Register, in a note on the May family of
Boston a writer says: "Doctor Byles, as
is well known, was a steady opponent of
the patriotic movement, of which Boston
was the headquarters, and in all ways
strove to ridicule it and its principal
supporters. As he gave verj' free ex-
pression to his feelings, his opponents,
of course, were not backward in their
censures of him." The statement that

Miaocorv aisoiuiioN nsi cha>t

(*NSI and ISO TESt CHAKT No. 2)

t.l

■ 23
1^

S /^PLIED IIVHGE I.-C

16S3 Cast Wain Strxl

RochMltr, N** York 1*609 U&*

(716) *a2 - 0300 - Phone

(716) 288- 5989 - Fa.

148 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

wlule Byles refused to discuss politics
in the pulpit he gave free rein to his powers
of sarcasm in opposition to the Patriot
cause is undoubtedly true, for while one
of his deacons, Mr. Benjamin Church,
sympathized with the Tories and upheld
his minister, most of the Hollis Street
congregation were extremely bitter against
him, the May family, !^t least, withdrawing
from the Hollis Street Church and uniting
with the Old South. When the royal
troops invested Boston most of Doctor
Byles's congregation that could get away
hurried out of the town, but the doctor
and his family stayed, and his sUying was
one of the charges brought against him
when his congregation at last returned.

In this day of dear judgment on the
issues at stake in the Revolution, the
bitterness Doctor Byles felt towards the
Patriots in Boston is not hard to explain.
Like his friend Copley he had no doubt
long foreseen that unless England changed

DISMISSAL FROM CHURCH 149

her policy towards the colonies, a revolt
was ineviteble, but when the crisis came
he saw so much fanaticism mingled with
the true spirit of independence that like
many another man of patriotic but con-
servative views he was disgusted with
the outbreaks of feeling he witnessed and
contemptuous of the methods by which
many of his fellow-citizens sought to
redress their wrongs. We have spoken
of his probable intimacy with Eari Percy,
"I am sorry to say." wrote Percy to his
father, in 1774, "that no body of men in
this Province are so extremely injurious
to the peace and tranquillity of it as the
clergy. They preach up sedition openly
from their pulpits. Nay, some of them
have gone so far as absolutely to refuse
the sacrament to the communicants till
they have signed a paper of the most
seditious kind, which they have denomi-
nated the Solemn League and Covenant."
To Henry Reveley, Esq., of Peckham,

160 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

Surrey, he writes: "The people here are
a set of sly, artful, hypocritical rascals,
cruel and cowards. I must cwn I can-
not but despise them completely." "This
day, five years are completed," writes
Judge Samuel Curwen in his journal in
1780, "since I abandoned my house, es-
tate, and effects and fronds. God only
knows whether I shall cr be restored
to them, or they to me. Party rage,
like jealousy and superstition is cruel as
the grave; that moderation is a crime,
. . . many good virtuous, and peaceable
persons now suffering banishment from
America are the wretched proofs and. in-
stances." "Would to God," he earlier
writes, "this ill-judged, unnatural quarrel
were ended."

While the British were in possession of
the town Doctor Byles and his family
were evidently on terms of dose friendship
with the leading commanders of the troops,
and M' Harold Murdock is probably

DISMISSAL FROM CHURCH 161

quite right in imagining Doctor Byles
to have been an occasional guest at Eari
Percy's dinner table, in the house this
charming young nobleman had rented at
the head of Winter Street, on the edge of
the Common. But Byles's intimacy with
British o£Scers did not prevent the quarter-
ing of troops in the Hollis Street meeting-
house, as in the Old South and the Brattle
Street Churches, and when Doctor Byles's
congregation came back they found to
their great indignation the pews taken
down and stored in the gallery, to be used
as fuel should necessity require, a box
stove set up in the church, the pipe of
which went perpendicularly through the
roof, and the floor still littered with straw,
which had no doubt served the soldiers
as beds. Collecting their forces, the
leaders of the congregation accordingly
resolved without further delay to rid them-
selves of their unpatriotic pastor, whose
voice they were stoutly resolved never

158 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

to hear in their pulpit again. The regular
way of dismissing him would have been
to call an advisory council of sister
churches to review his conduct and coun-
sel the church how to act. But instead
of doing this they took matters promptly
into their own hands and prepared to deal
with the minister by themselves.

In pursuance of this resolve, they gave
public notice that on the 9*?" of August
(1776) the church would meet Doctor
Byles and give him a chance to answer
the charges they had to prefer against
him. When the day came the male mem-
bers of the church seated themseivres ui
one of the galleries, and waited for the
doctor to appear. Presently he entered,
dressed in gown and bands, on his head
a full bush wig that had been recently
powdered, surmounted by a large three-
cornered hat. With due solenmity of
bearing and with a long and measured
tread Byles walked to the pulpit and

0u/£;}y . uf,^k . 4^ p^-jr ^^ Cf/ifi^

'^-P^^ £^,r^,ir-^ ^^^J\I^ '

DISMISSAL FROM CHURCH 15S

ascended the stairs. Hanging his hat on
a peg, he seated himself, and after a few
moments silence, "with a portentous air"
turned towards the gallery where his ac-
cusers sat. Looking at them sternly he
called out: "If ye have aught to com-
municate, say on !" After a moment of
terrible stillness, a small, weak-voiced dea-
con arose, and unfolding a paper began
feebly to read. "The church of Christ
in HoUis Street" — he said. "Louder!"
cried the angry Doctor Byles. Again the
little deacon, trying to raise his voice,
began: "The church of Christ in HoUis
Street" — But again the doctor's sten-
torian voice thimdered out "Louder !"
A third time the deacon essayed to read,
when once more he was interrupted with
"Louder ! Louder, I say !" The deacon
now, trembling at the minister's wrath,
strained his voice to the utmost and read
the specifications of unministerial and un-
patriotic conduct on the doctor's part

154 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

which he and his fellow-memben had
laboriously drawn up. When the third
or fourth charge had been read Doctor
Byles rose and shouted at the top of his
voice : " 'Tis false I 'Tis false 1 'Tis false I
and the Church of Christ in Hollis Street
knows that 'tis false !" whereupon he seized
his hat, planted it firmly on his head, and
in fierce indignation dramatically moved
out of the church, never while he lived to
enter its doors again.

The specific charges made against Doc-
tor Byles by his people were, that he had
stayed in town during the siege; that he
had "pray'd in publick that America might
submitt to Grate Brittain, or words to
the same purpose"; that he "associated
and spent a considerable part of his time
with the officers of the British army,
having them frequently at his house and
lending them his glasses for the purpose
of seeing the works erecting out of town
for our Defense"; that he treated the

DISMISSAL FROM CHURCH IM

public calamity with "a grate cegree of
liteness and Indi£Ference, saying when hia
townspeople left their houses that a better
sort of ptople would take their place, or
words to that purpose " ; and that " he fre-
quently met on Lord's days, before and
after service, with a number of our In-
veterate Enemies, at a certain place ir
King Street called Tory Hall." One week
later than the doctor's dramatic arraign-
ment in the meeting-house the church
again met and voted "that the Rev^
Doctor Mather Byles, having by his con-
duct put an end to his usefulness as a
Publick preacher amongst us. Be and
hereby is, dismissed from his Fasteral
charge." "

Of the general truth of these accusations
of the church against Doctor Byles we
suppose there can be no doubt. Precisely
what his feelings were, or indeed the feel-
ings of many of his fellow ^ories, as they
witnessed for years previous to the Revolu-

! !•;

IM THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

tion the growing friction between the
royal governors and the general court,
the contest of the wriU of auistance, the
riotous outbursts against the SUmp Act,
the throwing of the tea into the harbour,
the fights along the road between Concord
and Lexington, the battle of Bunker Hill.
Washington's taking command of the army
at Cambridge and his memorable seizure
of Dorchester Heights, we are left to
imagme, but while he was far too intelli-
gent and patriotic not to have been stirred
by his country's grievances, Byles no doubt,
with many others, felt that it was a far
smaller evil to submit temporarily to
British oppression, caused by the stupid
obstinacy and want of statesmanlike
knowledge of ministers, than violently to
cast off allegiance to the British flag,
and whatever influence he had as a clergy-
man and a private gentleman he had nat-
urally thrown wholly on the unpopular
side. Thnt the British oflScers of highest

DISMISSAL FROM CHURCH 157

rank in comnumd of the forces were fre-
quently entertained at his house during
the siege was undoubtedly true, it is even
said that on this account, and because
of the detestation in which he was gener-
ally held for his political principles, the
blmds in hu house had to be kept tightly
closed in the evenings during the latter
part of the siege, lest the lights shining
out should make the house a target tr
unfriendly shots from the soldiers en-
camped on Dorchester Heights.

Although the bitterest feeling against
Doctor Byles existed in the minds of his
fellow-ministers when they returned to
their churches, it is evident that some of
them entirely disapproved of the course
the HoUis Street Church had taken in not
seeking advice from other churches in
dissolving the relations between ihem and
their pastor. "It was the greatest in-
jury to the ministry that ever was done
when this church proceeded to dismiss

158 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

Df Byles without any kind of advice from
an Ecclesiastical Council," writes young
Rev. John Eliot from Boston to his friend
Rev. Jeremy Belknap at Dover, June ITV",
1777. A little earlier Mr Eliot says:
"Dr Byles's church is supplied by Mr.
Bradford, a young gentleman, a friend of
mine, a new beginner. The Doctor struts
about town in the luxuriance of his self-
sufficiency, looking as if he despised all
ma nkin d. He never attends any meet-
ing. How he doth for a maintenance,
nobody knows besides him, and the only
account he can give us is, 'That he doubles
and trebles his money.' He is a virulent
Tory, and destitute of all prudence. . . .
Notwithstanding I despise Dr Byles as
much as a man can hold another, yet I
think y? proceedings of that church with
him were irregular and unwarrantable,
and hath held up a precedent for a practise
that will cause y* ruin of our ecclesiastical
constitution, weaken y* hands of y* minis-

DISMISSAL FROM CHURCH 169

try, and lay such discouragement before
candidates as will prevent their settling,
and in a few years the harvest must be
almost destitute of labourers. When the
church at Bolton made this innovation
IH Chauncy was so angiy that he would
have refused holding communion with the
members; yet now he justifies and was
the cause of this church at Boston pro-
ceeding in the way they have done. He
says, 'Byles is not fit for a preacher.' So
say I, but I would have had a Council,
and I am certain any Coimcil would have
given him his quietus." "

The reason given by M^ Ephraim Eliot
for Doctor Byles's summary dismissal from
his pastorate is that he not only had of-
fended his people by his Tory principles,
but had lost their respect by indulging
"in a natural vein of low wit and ridicu-
lous punning." " If the latter charge b
true we must accept it largely on M'
Eliot's statement: we believe it has no

160 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

explicit confirmation in any other pub-
lished writing. Of the abrupt termina-
tion of Doctor Byles's ministry. Rev.
George Leonard Chaney. a late pastor of
the HoUis Street Church says : "Although
ordinarily Df Byles's pastorate would
have lasted till his death, at that day
politics and religion were so much one
that unfaithfulness to civil liberty was
regarded by these patriots as an unpar-
donable offence against the Church. It
was on this ground that the tie between
pastor and people was broken, a tie which
at that time was as binding as that which
wedded man and wife."

CHAPTER IX

Tbial before the Town

After his dismissal from his pastorate
a further trial and condemnation for his
Tory principles awaited Doctor Byles from
the Boston civil authorities. In the
Records of the Committee of Correspond-
ence and Safety of August, 1776, we find :
"Information having been given this Com-
mittee of a number of Persons who had
heard Doctor Byles express himself very
unfriendly to this Country, Mr Thomas
was directed to require their attendance.
A number of Persons appeared tnJ were
examined as to what they knew relative
to Doctor Byles." In a meeting held on
the 17* of May, 1777. the Boston select-
men in pursuance of a law that had lately
been passed presented a list of names of

162 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

persons belonging to the town who had
been endeavouring, as it was charged,
"since the IQf" of April, 1775, to counter-
act the united struggles of this and the
neighbouring state," and of these offend-
ing names Doctor Byles's stood second.
At a special Sessions of the Peace held on
the second of June, Byles was tried and
convicted of disloyalty to the state and
was ordered to be confined on board a
guard ship or otherwise secured, until he
could be sent either to the West Indies
or to Europe. In the Massachusetts His-
torical Society Collections is printed an
extract from the Boston Gazette of June 9,
1777," which says: "At the special Ses-
sions of the Peace held here on Monday
last came on the trial of Mather Byles,
late minister of the Gospel in this town,
charged with being an enemy to the United
States; when after a fair and candid ex-
amination of evidence the jury returned
their verdict, that he, Mather Byles, ia

TRIAL BEFORE THE TOWN 168

and has been smce the lOV" of April, 1775,
inimically disposed towards this and the
other United States, and that his residence
in this State is dangerous to the public
peace and safety. He was then delivered
into the custody of a proper officer, who
conducted him to the Honourable the
Board of War, there to be dealt with
agreeable to a late act of this State, for
such persons made and provided."

William Tudor in his "Life of James
Otis" says of Doctor Byles's trial: "On
being brought before the Board of War
he was treated with respect, and he was
ordered to be confined to his own house
for a short time." "As there seems to
have been nothing absolutely treasonable
in his conduct," he rather naively pro-
ceeds, "it may be doubted whether he
would have experienced any inconvenience
on account of his political sentiments if
he had not provoked enmity in other ways.
He possessed in a remarkable degree a

164 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

ready and powerful wit, a quality which
commonly excites more envy than good
will, and unless accompanied with great
discretion is often an unfortunate gift.
He sor;etimes exerted this talent where
good nature would have refrained, and
left a lasting sting by a transient jest."
In a volume of manuscript records in the
Massachusetts State Archives pertaining
to the Royalists in the Revolution, is to
be found the following warrant issued by
the Court of Sessions to the sheriff for
Doctor Byles's arrest and transportation:
"Whereas Mather Byles of Boston in S?
county, clerk, stands convicted at Boston
afores' on the second Day of June a.d.
1777 as a person who hath been from the
nineteenth day of April a.d. 1775, &
now is so inimically disposed towards
this & the other United States of America
that his further residence in this State
is dangerous to the public peace and safety.
You are therefore in the name of the gov-

TRIAL BEFORE THE TOWN 165

eminent & people of Mass^ Bay in New
England hereby directed immediately to
deliver the s? Mather to the board of war
of the State to be by them put on board
a guard ship or otherwise secured until
they can transport s^ Mather Byles ofif
the continent to some part of the West
Indies or Europe agreeable to a late law
of 8^ State. Given under our hands and
seals at Boston afores^ the second day of
June in the year of the Lord 1777,

John Hill

Sahl. Peuberton

Joseph Gbeenleaf

Joseph Gabdner
The warrant is endorsed on the back:
"Warrant to deliver Mather Byles to the
Board of War June 8? 1777."

Under date of June 18, 1777, the Rev.
Doctor Ezra Stiles in his diary says:
"The Rev? M' Clark, Episc» Minister
in Dedham, was last week adjudged by a
Jury an enemy to his Country, and sent

166 THE FAMOUS liATHER BYLES

on board the Guard Ship at Boston. So
one Episc* and one Presb. Minister (Dr.
Byles) formally tried and condemned ac-
cord* to act of Mast Assembly." "

What influence may have prevented
the Boston authorities' carrying out the
rigorous sentence they had imposed on
Doctor Byles we are nowhere certainly
told. It has been said in print that the
doctor flatly told' the selectmen that he
would not leave the town, it has also been
stated that in their final dealing with the
old minister the authorities considered his
age, which at this time was a little over
seventy. It may be, even, though it
hardly seems likely, that some one or
more of the other Boston ministers inter-
ceded to have his sentence remitted, at
any rate he was not placed on the guard
ship but was confined to his own house,
before which a sentinel was placed to pre-
vent his being visited by or having com-
munication with any friends he might

TRIAL BEFORE THE TOWN 167

still have in the town. For probably
two or three months, with a short interval
during which the sentinel was removed,
the farce of guarding the old Tory was
kept up, but at last his absurd imprison-
ment came to an end, and he was allowed
once more freely to go about the town.

In July, 1778, while Doctor Byles was
imprisoned in his house the Rev. Jacob
Bailey, an Episcopal clergyman, well
known to us as "the frontier missionary,"
came from Pownalborough, Maine, to Bos-
ton, on business, and was permitted to
visit the old Royalist. Under date of
July 23? Mr Bailey writes in his diary:
"After breakfast went to visit the famous
p Byles. who was detained a prisoner
in his own house. He received me, ac-
cordmg to his manner, with great freedom,
and enterUined me with a variety of puns.
He was mightly pleased with the letters
I brought him from his son and grand-
daughter, and instructed his daughters, a

168 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

't !

couple of fine young Iwliei, to read them.**
I observed that he had a large collection
of curiosities, and the best library I had
seen in this country. He is a gentleman
of learning and great imagination, has an
uncommon share of pride, and though
agreeable when discoursing upon any sub-
ject, yet the perpetua) reaching after puns
renders his ordinary conversation rather
distasteful to persons of elegance and
refinement. He gave me a circumstantial
account of his trial wher condemned for
transportation. He car^ully preserved his
talent for punning through the whole.
I recollect one instance: when he was
conducted into the apartment where his
judges sat with great solemnity, who de-
sired him to sit by the fire, as the weather
was cold: 'Gentlemen,' said he, 'when I
came among you I expected persecution,
but I could not think you would have
offered me the fire so suddenly.' After
looking at several fine prospects, and hear-

TRIAL BEFORE THE TOWN 169

ing two or three tunes on the organ by one
of his daughters, I took my leave, with an
invitation and promise to renew my visit."
Of the doctor's trial and his conduct
throughout the ordeal, and of the justice
of the verdict given against him, young
John Eliot, not yet ordained, with char-
acteristic bitterness against the old minis-
ter, and with the cocksureness of youth
writes to Jeremy Belknap: "I will ac-
quaint a little about our Bostonian court.
The first called to the bar was the mag-
nificent Doctor. He had on his large
whig [sic], long band, a black coat, &c.
He appeared without counsel, and upon
the nomination of the g'uiy he objected to
one Fallas, commonly called Fellows, be-
cause he said he would not be tried by
Jeliowt. The evidence was much more in
favour of him than against him. All
that could be proved was that he is a
silly, impertinent, childish person; I should
say incoa»i3tent, if his whole conduct

170 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

did not manifest him to be oae conaistent
np of absurdity. ... It was to the
very great surprise of every one present,
as well as to the whole town, that he
should be bro't in guilty. Hi« general
character has been so despicaL''^ that he
seems to have no friends to pity him, tho
all allow upon such evidence he o't not be
condemned. The women all proclaim a
judgment from Heaven as r punishment
for his ill treatment of his wives. Ven-
geance has at length overtaken him, they
say, and his present sufferings will now
bring him to reflection, and he will now
find that a Righteous Being taketh notice
of all unrighteousness among men, and
at proper times humbles the most haughty
and self-sufficient. The Doctor is still
confined to his house, deprived of visitors,
to be removed at the pleasure of the Board
of War. How are the mighty fallen !" "
From Miss Catherine Byles, the doc-
tor's youngest daughter, we have an in-

TRIAL BEFORE THE TOWN 171

teresting account, written on the thirteenth
of October, 1778, of the trial of her father
by the church and the town authoritiei.
Miu Byles writes: "Upon the first open-
ing of the town [after the evacuation], the
people among whom my father had offi-
ciated for forty-three years had an irregular
meeting and desired his attendance ; when
a charge of his attachment to government
was read, of which, as he never could ob-
tain a copy, I am unable to give an exact
accoimt. Among others were included his
friendly disposition to the British troops,
particularly his entertaining them at our
house, indulging them with his telescope,
&c., his prayers for the King, and for
the preservation of the town during the
siege. Some time after this a few lines
were sent him, informing him that six
weeks before (without so much as the
advice of any Council) he had been dis-
missed from his pastoral charge. Thus
they left him without any support, or so

17* THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

much as paying his arrears, so that from
the Idf of April, 1775. to this day he has
received no assistance from them. They
then repaired the church, which had been
occupied as a barrack for the British
army, and made choice of a new pastor.
In May, 1777, at a town-meeting he was
mentioned as a person inimical to America ;
a warrant was served and bonds given
for his appearance the 2°^ of June, for a
trial, when as they expressed it, 'after a
candid and impartial examination,' he was
brought in Guilty, confined to his house
and land, and a guard placed to prevent
the visits of his friends; and (except the
removal of the guard, which was in about
two months) in this confinement has he
remained ever since; and had it not been
for the generous assistance of his benevolent
friends he must inevitably have suflFered." "
In addition to the somewhat con-
temptuous witticisms in the presence of
his judges in which Doctor Byles is re-

TRIAL BEFORE THE TOWN 17S

ported by M^ Bailey and M'. Eliot to
have indulged, we have the following
stories, handed down by tradition, of his
humour while he was suflFering political
disgrace. In his trial before the justices

of the peace a certain Ebenezer ,

commonly known as "Ebby" was sum-
moned to give evidence. The man was
probably giving his testimony in too low
a tone for the doctor to hear, when sud-
denly the old wit leaning forward, with
his hand to his ear called out: "What
does that Ebby-dunce say?" "Who is
that man in uniform before your house?"
once queried some one of the doctor
while he was being guarded by a sentinel.
"O," said Doctor Byles quickly, "that
is my observe-a-Tory !" One warm day
during his imprisonment, Byles wanted
some cool water and begged the sentinel
to go to the well and get some for him.
At first the soldier, a simple fellow, re-
fused, but on the doctor's telling him

-m

174 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

that he himself would keep guard, the
man consented to go. Doctor Byles then
taking the man's musket put it on his own
shoulder, and with a true military air paced
up and down before his door till the soldier
returned. As we have said. Doctor Byles's
guard was for a time withdrawn, then re-
placed, and at last removed altogether.
Alluding- to this fact; the witty minister
is reported to have said: "I have been
guarded, re-guarded, and disregarded."

General Howe with his troops left Boston
on the IT^ of March, 1776, and on the 20^
General Washington's troops came in over
the Neck. Colonel Henry Knox, afterward
General Knox, who had previously kept a
fashionable book-store in Comhill and was
extremely well known to Doctor Byles, was
in command of the artillery, and he had
grown very stout." At some point on their
route through the town Doctor Byles was
standing on the sidewalk watching the
troops and when Knox came along he ex-

TRIAL BEFORE TRE TOWN 175

claimed : "I never saw an ox fatter in my
life !" When Knox was told of the pun he
is said to have remarked that Doctor Byles
was "a damned fool."

It is recorded that ona before the
Revolution, 'he doctor created almost a
panic among the British troops by report-
ing that on the fourteenth of June forty
thousand men would rise up in opposition
to them, with the clergy at their head.
Doctor Byles's meaning was that the l**!"
of June was to be the annual New Eng-
land Fast Day, when political sermons
would be generally preached and all the
grievances of the colonies against England
with great warmth be discussed. "We
smile," says Rev. George L. Chaney, "at
the possibility of finding anything for-
midable in a Fast-day congregation, but
in that day, in this Province, it meant,
in all literalness, an army of two-score
thousand men, headed by their clergy,
and animated with the dangerous resolu-

'it

176 THE FAMOUS MATHER, BYLES

tion to defend their liberties." From the
time of the Stamp Act, in 1765, to the
period of the Revolution, says the author of
"Dealings with the Dead," the cry had been
repeated "in every form of phraseology"
that Massachusetts' grievances should be
redressed. In October, 1768, the British
Government sent two Irish regiments, and
a detachment of trbops from Halifax to
the assistance of Governor Bernard ; " some-
thing short of a thousand men, in red coats,
with glittering firelocks charged and bayo-
nets fixed, marched through the town, with
drums beating and fifes playing." Doctor
Byles watching the new forces is reported to
have said that Massachusetts had sent over
to England to obtain a redress of her griev-
ances, and that these grievances had re-
turned "red-dressed." "True, Sir," said an
acquainUnce standing near, "but you have
two d's." "To be sure, I have," quickly
answered the Doctor, "I had them from
Aberdeen in 1765." "

CHAPTER X

Social Staxding. Friendships
The place held by Mather Byles in the
social life of Boston in the Provincial
period was distincUy an important one.
There were people in the community who
disliked him. for the air of superiority
he seems commonly to have worn, for
the combative spirit of the Mathers. wUch
he had inherited to a certain degree, for
the sometimes far too caustic tone of his
humour, and indeed, it is quite evident,
for the humour itself, and we more than
suspect from the preference he showed in
social intercourse for men of po-ition and
influence, but there were few, we believe,
who would have ventured to question his
intellectual superiority, or his right in
the caUlogue of locally important men to

178 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

a place beside the scholarly Doctor
Thomas Prince of the Old South, Charies
Chauncy, Byles's contemporary through
all but the last year of his life, Joseph
Sewall, Jonathan Mayhew, or any others
of the most eminent preachers and writers
of Boston or the lesser New England
towns. What estimate the most critical
people of his time put on his poetry we
do not know, but his poems as a young
man in welcome of royal governors, and
the accession and death of monarchs, and
in commemoration of local men and women
who had occupied high official or social
stations in the community, must have
given him the local distinction of almost
a New England poet-laureate.

The exact social rank Doctor Byles
had in Boston to the time of the Revolu-
tion we may without much difficulty and
with a good deal of certainty make out.
By the time he reached manhood the
supremacy of the famous Mather

I: n

SOCIAL STANDING. FRIENDS 179

dynasty under which he had been born
had passed, his grandfather Increase, "the
most powerful individual foroe in
America" in his day, and his stupendous
uncle Cotton, having died within less than
five years of each other, the latter in
February, 1728, but the prestige that
these eminent relatives had for so long
enjoyed was not by any means forgotten,
and Byles could not have failed in some
measure to inherit the distinction the
Mathers had earned. As the pastor for
over forty years of one of the less influen-
tial churches of Boston his ecclesiastical
iwsition would not necessarily have en-
titled him to the social consideration he
was evidently given, but at the outset of
his mmisto^. if not earlier, he came into
confidential relations with the rich Gov-
ernor Belcher, whose niece he soon mar-
ned, and his friendly intercourse with
royal governors did not cease when Belcher
yielded the reins of government to Shirley

180 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

or indeed probably untU G^je's brief,
.tormy rule came to an end. A» the
Stion drew on he identified inm^l

clowly in political sympathy w,Ui the
crown official, and rich merchant, and
leading lawyers, who for the most part
were Tories, and although many of these
were staunch supporters "* the A.ghc.n
Church and worshippers at King s Chapel,
his intercourse with them must necessanly
have been exceedingly friendly, and h.s
^M separation from the less »™toc«Uc
Patriot Congregational famd.es of the town
correspondingly great. „,,,., ...
The Boston of Doctor Byles's WeUme.
before the B«volution drove its actoowl-
edged aristocracy away, was much hke a
flourishing English provincial town. In
1760 it had about twenty-five thousand
inhabiUnts and was probably the larges .
and certainly, from the extent o its for-
eign commerce, the amount of capita^
it had accumulated, and the fact that it

SOCIAL STANDING. FRIENDS 181

wu the central point and chief city of
the most compact population to be found
on the American seaboard, the most im-
portant town in the new world. It had
many wharves from which vessels were
constantly plying to other parts of
America, the West Indies, Europe, and
the Orient, the most noted of these of
course being Long Wharf, Imed with ware-
houses, from which busy State Street,
then King Street, led to near the centre
of the town. At the head of this street
was the Town House, where the govern-
ment in all its branches met, and beneath
which some of the well-known merchants
had their stores. On the summit of
Beacon Hill stood the tall beacon, on
cross-timbers, resting on a stone founda-
tion and supported by braces. The
Common was a huge grassy public field,
and the Mall, which led along the eastern
side of this historic inclosure, from Park
Street to West Street, bordered by lux-

182 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLE8

uriant trees, the first of which were planted
between 1788 and 1789, waa the fashion-
able promenade. On Tremont, School,
Beacon, and Washington streeU were
"mansions" of considerable size and ele-
gance, whose owners lived luxuriously,
some of them indeed in what local his-
torians are accustomed to call "princely
style." One of the most conspicuous of
these mansions was the fine brick house
on Tremont Street built by Peter Faneuil,
the richest Bostonian of his day, who
died in 1742, shortly after having made
his gift of Faneuil Hall to the town.
There, to the time of his death, Faneuil
lived elegantly, with slaves, an abundance
of heavy plate, and a cellar stocked with
wines. At the time of the Revolution
the house was owned by John Vassall of
Cambridge, who probably lived in it in
winter, but Vassall, an aristocrat and
staunch Tory, was proscribed and ban-
ished, and the Faneuil house like his other

SOCUL STANDING. FRIENDS IBS

propertiea wu confiscated ud thereafter
wa« occupied by humbler folk. On Beacon
Street, a little to the westward of the
SUte House grounds, stood Thomas Han-
cock's house, one of the "noblest private
mansions" in Boston, built b 1787, which
in time passed to John Hancock, wuo
alone of the merchant-aristocraU of Bos-
ton, for one reason or another, did not
give his sympathy to the royal cause.
The estate that had originally belonged
to Rev. John Cotton, on Tremont Street,
a little to the north of Peter Fantuil's,
was owned at the Revolution by William
Vassall, while Richard Clarke, Copley's
father-in-law. who with Joshua Winslow,
Benjamin Faneuil, Jr.. and Elisha and
Thomas Hutchinson, was a consignee of
the tea that was thrown into the harbour,
lived on School Street, a litUe below
where the Parker House stands now. Of
other men of prominence. William Phillips
lived in the house built by his father-in-

184 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

law, Edward Bromfield, on Beacon Street,
almost opposite the Atheneeum; James
Bowdoin had a house, which almost
rivalled the Bromfield-Phillips house "in
solidity and elegance," a little to the west
of this house; Gilbert De Blois had a
house on Tremont Street, at the comer
of Bromfield Street; Judge Robert
Auchmuty, Jr., when the Revolution be-
gan lived in School Street; Jonathan
Snelling lived in Hanover Street; Harri-
son Gray lived probably on Washington
Street, north of State Street; while Gov-
ernor Thomas Hutchinson, and before his
death Sir Charles Henry Frankland, as
b well known, lived in the extreme North
End." One of Doctor Byles's intimate
friends was John Singleton Copley, whose
estate of eleven acres, the largest at the
time in Boston, lay on the southwest
side of Beacon Hill, between Beacon and
Pinckney, and Walnut and Charles streets.
His house of two stories was of wood.

SOCIAL STANDING. FKlENDR 185

and possibly not a ver,- handsom ; one,
but in it he painted some ot hla most
noted portraits, and received visitors, clad
magnificently in a crimson velvet, gold-
laced suit, his income of three hundred
guineas a year enabling him to live in a
style befitting his position as Boston's
most eminent "court-painter."

Another warm friend of Doctor Byles
for many years was a Boston bom man,
slightly older than himself, who, however,
early separated himself from the town of
his nativity, and in the great Revolution-
ary struggle sympathized with and cham-
pioned not the royalist party to which
Doctor Byles belonged, but the Patriots,
whose actions this ardent upholder of
British supremacy in New England cor-
dially hated and scorned. This friend of
Doctor Byles's was no less a person than
Doctor Benjamin Franklin," with whom,
although his early associations in Boston
were somewhat different from Franklin's,

a..!.

\y' iS

186 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

as a boy and young man he probably had
some little acquaintance. Just how this
acquaintance really started we do not
know, but it is evident that it began at
an early age, and that the two men
throughout their whole lives, though their
correspondence was infrequent, never quite
lost interest in each other's affairs. In
an earlier chapter we have spoken of the
fierce controversy on the subject of in-
oculation between the Mathers and James
Franklin, which occurred while Byles was
a student at Harvard, and of the con-
temptuous way in which the militant
editor and the combative young freshman
spoke of each other in print. About a
year later than this, for a statement he
had made in his paper, the New-England
Courant, which was regarded as a serious
affront to the authorities, James Franklin
was imprisoned for a month, and when
he was released he was forbidden to print
anything that was not first rigidly cen-

Db. benjamin franklin

From an eiigra\'ing by T. B. Welch

SOCIAL STANDING. FRIENDS 187

sored by the Secretary of the Province or
some one whom he should appoint. For
some time previously Benjamin Franklin
had been his brother's apprentice, and
on James's release from prison the latter
made Benjamin nominal editor of the
paper. Although Benjamin Franklin to
this time had been merely an apprentice,
his formal assumption of the editorship
of the Courant must now have made him
somewhat known in the community, and
before he left Boston for Philadelphia,
which he did, however, long before his
name as editor disappeared from the
Courant, it is far from unlikely that Byles
and he had occasionally met.** That they
somehow became early acquainted is shown
by an interesting correspondence between
them that from various sources we have
recently been able to gather up. From
Benjamin Franklin's obscure editorship of
the Courant, to the distinguished public
position he held in his later years, is in-

188 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

deed a far cry, but from the letters to
which we refer it is evident that amidst
all the activit'es of his busy life and the
great honours that came upon him at
home and abroad he never lost his friend-
ship or a certain spirit of deference for
the grandson of Increase Mather, whom
he had known more or less distantly in
early life.'

In the old letter-book of Doctor Byles's
now owned by the New England Historic
Genealogical Society, several letters from
which we have been permitted to use, we
find, undated, the following epistle, which
must, however, have been written not long
after Byles received his doctorate from the
University of Aberdeen:

"To THE HoNOtmABLE

"D? Benjamin Franklin

"London.
"Sm;

"It was with great Surprize and Pleasure,

that I received your Picture from Philadelphia.

SOCIAL STANDING. FRIENDS 189

And it u with no little Pride, that when the
Picture introduces talk of the Original, a Theme
always pleasing to the Lovers of Learning, that
I can pronounce 'This was sent me by Df
Franklin himself.'

"But my Ambition has been strangely aug-
mented by a Copy of a Letter from London,
written by you to some tmknown Person, in
which you Honour me with a Character so far
beyond any Merits of mine that I blush to read.
It was the utmost wish of one to be known only
by the Title of 'Sir Phillip Sidney's Friend.'
I can boast, and point to yoiir own Hand to
prove it, that I have been at least Jy. Frank-
lin't long Acquaintance. I had not the least
Apprehension that any Foreign Honours were
design'd me, till I was informed of it by a Letter
from your side of the Water ; and received this
Transcript of your Friendship. My Uttle offer-
ing of gratitude will make no perceptible
Addition to the Acknowledgements universally
paid you by the whole World of literature and
Science.

"I should be exceedingly glad. Sir, if you
could be prevail'd on to furnish me with a
catalogue of your Publications. Those of thesi

i'i-
f

■1*

190 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

that I am possess'd of are some of the most
Agreeable Ornaments of my Library.

"Whatever Title my partial Friends may
honour me with, none can more delight me
than that of

"Dear Sir,

"Your most Affectionate Friend
"and oblig^

"humble Servant,

[Mathi» Btles]

"The young Gentleman who brings you this,
M^ Edward Church, is a Son of one of my
Deacons. He has had a Uberal Education in
our college, but now visits London on affairs of
merchandize. He will be pleased to see the
Doctor he has read so much of.

"Shall I ask the Favour of you to forward the
enclosed to Aberdeen with as little Expense as
may be.

"I have just been reading a beautiful Letter
of yours, written Feb. 22, 1756, tin the Death
of your Brother, which is handed about among
us in Manuscript Copies. I am charmed with
the Easy and Gay Light in which you view our
Leaving this Little Earth, as Birds among the

SOCIAL STANDING. FRT'JNDS 191

Immortals: and as setting out on a party of
pleasure a little before our Fi)eiids are ready.
The Superstition with which we Seize and pre-
serve little accidental Touches of your pen,
puts one in mind of the care of the bishop to
collect the Jugs and Galipots with the paintings
of Raphael."

On the 14* of May, 1787, Doctor Byles
wrote Franklin again :
"Sir,

"It is long since I had the pleasure of writing
to you by M^ Edward Church, to thank you
for your friendly mention of me in a letter that
I find was transmitted to the University of
Aberdeen. I doubt whether you ever received it,
under great weakness by old ii„'e and a palsy, I
seize this opportunity of employing my daughter
to repeat the thanks which I aimed to express in
that letter. Your Excellency is now the man
that I early expected to see you. I congratulate
my country upon her having produced a Frank-
lin, and can only add, I wish to meet you where
complete feUcity and we shall be for ever united.
I am my dear and early friend your most affec-
tionate and humble servant, ,,11, „

"M. Btles.

192 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

"P.S. I refer you to the bearer, M- Pier-
pont, to inform you how my life, and that of
my daughters, have I -tea saved by your poinU."

The letter of Franklin's to the Principal
of King's College, Aberdeen, written from
Franklin's residence in Craven Street, Lon-
don, for which Doctpr Byles was so grate-
ful, was indeed » flattering letter. It is
dated July «, 176*, and is as follows :

"Sib, ,.,

"I have been acquainted many years with
the Rev. M^ Mather Byles, of whom you tell
me some account is desired. He is a native of
New England, descended of the ancient Mather
Family, of which there have been two Doctors
in Divinity, both famous in that Country for
their learning and piety. Viz. Doctor Increase
Mather and Doctor Cotton Mather ; the former
president of Harvard College at Cambridge.
This Mr. Byles was educated at that College,
where he distinguished himself by a dose and
successftil application to his studies ; with the
usual degrees ; and is now one of ite Visitors or
Superintendents. He is pastor of a Congre-

SOCIAL STANDING. FRIENDS 19S

gational Church in Boiton, the Capital of New
England. The principles or doctrines of thoae
Churches are the same with those of the
Church of Scotland, except what relates to
Church Government. He is a gentleman of
superior parts and learning; an eloquent
preacher and on many accounts an honour to
his Country.
"I am Sir your most humble Servant

"B. Franklin."

In reply to Doctor Byles's letter of
May 14, 1787, Doctor Franklin wrote the
aged minister :

"Phil* June 1, 1788.
"Dbab Oua Friend,

"I duly received your kind Letter of May 14,
87. I was then busily engag'd in attending
our General Convention, which, added to the
ordinary current Business of this Government,
took up so much of my Time, that I was oblig'd
to postpone answering many Letters of Friends
which gave occasion of my mislaying some of
them, & among those was yours, only last
Week come again to hand. I think I never

194 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

I
I si

Kceiv'd what you mention reipecting the Uni-
venity of Aberdeen, but the Good will I might
ihow on that Occaiion was not of Importance
enough to deserve your repeating the Acknowl-
edgement. It was in me only paying a Debt;
for I remember with Gratitude, that I owe one
of my first Academical Honours to your Recom-
mendation. It gives me much pleasure to
understand that my Points have been of
Service in the Protection of you and yours. I
wish for your sake, that Electricity had really
prov'd what it was at first suppos'd to be, a
Cure for the palsy. It is however happy for
you, that when Old Age and that Malady have
concurr'd to infeeble you, and to disable you
for Writing, you have a Daughter at hand to
nurse you with JUi4il attention, and to be your
Secretary, of which I see she is very Capable,
by the Elegance and Correctness of her Writing
in the Letter I am answering. I too have a
Daughter, who lives with me and is the Com-
fort of my declining Years, while my Son is
estrang'd from me by the Part he took in the
late War, and keeps aloof, residing in England,
whose Cause he espous'd; whereby the old
Proverb is exemplified :

SOCUL STANDING. FRIENDS 194

'"My Son u my Son till he Uke him a

Wife,
But my Dau^ter's my Daughter all Dayt of

her Life.'

"I remember you had a little Collection of
Curiosities. Please to honour with a Place in it
the inclosed Medal, which I got struck in Paris.
The Thought was much approv'd by the Con-
noiseurs there, and the Engraving well executed.
My best Wishes attend you, being ever your
affectionate Friend and humble Servant

"B. Fkanklin.""

Eight years before this letter of Frank-
lin's was written from Philadelphia, Doctor
Byles had given his grandson, Mather
Brown, on going to England, a letter to
Doctor Franklin, and as we shall see in a
later chapter, Franklin treated the young
painter with great cordiality, and intro-
duced him "at Versailles as being grand-
son to one of his most particular friends in
America."

h ' I

CHAPTER XI

Last Yeabs

Or Doctor Byles's life after the Revolu-
tion there is comparatively little to say.
A lonely figure the old minister must have
been as he went silently about the town,
his friends among the crown officials and
rich merchants far away, in England or in
Nova Scotia, his son Mather also an exile
in Halifax, his former parishioners passing
him with averted eyes, and every promi-
nent minister of his denomination, as indeed
the town and state authorities and the
new occupants of the confiscated houses
of the proscribed Loyalists, regarding him
as a traitor to the liberties of the people
and returning with interest the scorn he
had earlier visited on the champions of the
popular cause. Under the most depressing

! I

Dr. MATHER BYLES

From the uriginal painting by Copley, 1707

il
II \

LAST YEABS

197

circumstances, however, his wit never for-
sook him. In 1780 he gave his grandson,
Mather Brown, a letter to his old friend
Copley in England, which presumably in
reference to Copley's exalted position
abroad he addressed "To Mr. Copley in
the Solar System." For many years Doc-
tor Samuel Cooper of the church in Brattle
Square had been a fellow-minister with
him in Boston and of course after the
Revolution that notably patriotic and
highly eloquent divine had little friendly
feeling toward the ex-minister of Hollis
Street. In his walks out of town Doctor
Cooper frequently passed Doctor Byles's
house, but never deigned to call. One
day Doctor Byles met Doctor Cooper
and said to him: "Doctor Cooper, you
treat me just like a baby I" "I hardly
take you, Sir," the Brattle Square min-
ister with becoming dignity replied.
"Why," said the humorous Byles, "you
go by, by, by I" On the occurrence. May

198 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

19, 1780. of what was long known in
Boston as "the dark day," a lady in alarm
sent her young son to the doctor to know
if he could explain the terrifying phenom-
enon. "My dear." said Doctor Byles.
"tell your mother I am as much in the
dark as she is." "This for sententious
brevity," says the author of Dealings wUh
the Deed, "has nevw been surpassed, un-
less by the correspondence between the
comedian, Sam Foote, and his mother —
'Dear Sam, I'm in jail'; 'Dear Mother,
so am I.'"

Some time in 1783, Doctor Byles was
seized with paralysis, and from that time
until his death, some five years later, was
a confirmed and gradually faUing mvaUd.
We have before spoken of the frequent
notices of him in the correspondence of
Doctor Jeremy Belknap, who was his
great-nephew, Belknap's mother having
been a daughter of one of Doctor Byles's
elder half-brothers.'" In a letter to Ebe-

LAST YEABS

199

nezer Hazard of the IS*!* of December,
1783, Doctor Belknap says; "It is not
usual with me to entertain you with an
account of my bodily ails and complaints,
but the situation I am now reduced to by
an unlucky strain in my hip bears so near
a resemblance to the state in which I
lately found my punning uncle. Dr. Byles
(who by the way, is the only surviving
brother of Thomas Byles, late of Phila-
delphia, deceased) that I mention it for
the sake of telling you one of his stories;
and that I may give you a true idea
of the man I will endeavour to relate it
with its attendant circumstances. He is
seventy-eight years old, and usually sits
in an easy chair which has a back himg
on hinges. In such a chair I found him
sitting, and as I approached him he held
out his hand. 'You must excuse my not
getting up to receive you, cousin; for
I am not one of the rising generation.'"
Doctor Byles then went on to say. Doctor

200 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

Belknap says, that he had the same disease
a good man he had once heard of had
gone to his pastor, the Rev. M^ Willard,
to complain of. W Willard was very
fond of using scholastic terms and in a
sermon shortly before had used the word
synecdoche. Some one had told the man
he had sciatica, and this word was so like
synecdoche that the man felt sure the
parson had used "sciatica" in his sermon
and told him so. "I have," he said, "a
disease the name of which you mentioned
in your sermon on such a day. I cannot
remember the word but it begins with
«. M? Willard looked over his notes
and found synecdoche, and the man said,
"Yes, that's it, I have synecdoche in my

hip!"

In the great fire that raged in the south
part of Boston in April, 1787, laying waste
much of the region about Hollis Street,
and burning the church. Doctor Byles's
house was in so great danger that his

LAST YEARS

201

hoard of books, papers, prints, instru-
ments, and most of his household goods,
were dislodged from their nearly fifty
years' repose and thrown out in chaotic
confusion in an adjoining green field.
Doctor Byles was taken for the night to
some hospitable house near by, but was
able to return to his own house the next
day;" One of the latest glimpses we get
of the old minister's mind is in the letter
he dictated to Doctor Franklin on the
14^ of May, 1787, which we have given
at length on an earlier page.

It seems probable that after his dis-
missal from his church. Doctor Byles,
while he was able to walk, more or less
regularly worshipped with his daughters
at Trinity Church. It b doubtful if he
ever again entered a church of his own
denomination. While, as we have said,
he never so far as is recorded showed any
wish to enter the ministry of the Anglican
Church, as his son Mather, Jr., had long

202 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

before done, he could not have had any
great dislike for the Prayer Book wor-
ship, and his friendship with Rev. Samuel
Parker, Rector of Trinity, furnishes a
presumption that he was more or less
frequently seen at that Church. On the
S^ of July, 1788, he died, and Doctor
Sprague in his "Annals of the American
Pulpit" says that ' Rev. Samuel Parker
(afterwards Bishop Parker) was at his
bedside shortly before the end came.
Probably in allusion to friendly con-
troversies the two had had on the subject
of a threefold miuistry. Doctor Byles in
an almost inaudible voice said to his friend
as he bent over him: "I have almost got
to that world where there are no bishops I"
"I hoped. Doctor," said Mr. Parker kindly,
"that you were going to the Shepherd
and Bishop of Souls." The Massachu-
letts Centinel of Wednesday, July 9, 1788,
says briefly: "Died on Saturday last,
the Reverend Doctor Byles, aged 81."

LAST YEARS

20S

The body of the aged divine waa laid to
rest in tomb No. S in the Granaiy
Burying Ground, but whether Rev. Sam-
uel Parker performed the burial service or
not we cannot tell."

July 17, 1788, Ebenezer Hazard writes
Doctor Belknap facetiously: "So the old
Doctor has left off punning at last. What
must the grave spirits in heaven think on
the approach of so ludicrous an one as
his." " September 14, 1790, Doctor Bel-
knap writes Hazard: "I add for your
amusement and for a laugh among a few
friends, a number of articles found in the
house of the late D^ Byles." These he
enumerates as, five or six dozen pairs of
spectacles, "of all powers and all fash-
ions"; more than twenty walking sticks,
"of different sizes and contrivances," about
a dozen jest-books, several packs of cards,
"new and clean," a quantity of whetstones,
bones, etc., "as much as a man could
carry in a bushel basket on his shoulder,"

M4 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

a large number of weights for shopi,
money-scales, etc., "some in sets, and
some broken," a large collection of pic-
tures from Hogarth's celebrated prints,
"down to the comers of newspapers and
pieces of linen." He says also there was
a large parcel of coins, "from Tiberius
Caesar to Massachu^tts cents," a parcel
of children's toys, — among these two bags
of marbles, a quantity of Tom Thumb
books and puerile histories, — about a dozen
bird-cages and rat-traps, a set of gardeners'
tools and one of carpenters' tools, a parcel
of speaking-trumpets and hearing tubes,
with many other things. The miscellaneous
character of Doctor Byles's accumulations
during his lifetime, which caused Doctor Bel-
knap so much amusement, is fully borne
out by 'the recorded inventory of Byles's
estate.

CHAPTER Xn
The Btlbb Family

By his first wife, as we have said, Doctor
Byles had six children, three of whom,
Mather. Jr., Elizabeth, and Samuel, lived
to grow up; by his second wife he had
three, two of whom only, the Misses
Mary and Catherine lived to maturity.
Mather Byles, Jr., was born in Boston
January twelfth, 17S4," and graduated
at Harvard College in 1751. Six years
later he formally entered the Congrega-
tional ministry at New London. Connecti-
cut, over the church in which town he
remained for between ten and eleven years.
At his ordination his father preached the
sermon and gave the charge, and a very
impressive and serious sermon and charge
these efforts of the older Mather Byles

206 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

illf!

were. The sermon as printed is entitled
"The man of God thoroughly furnished
to every good work," and it is a strong
and earnest presentation of the minister's
duty and opportunity. To his first minis-
terial charge the youthful Byles brought
the prestige of his distinguished Mather
descent, his father's ecclesiastical, social,
and literary importance, and his own edu-
cation and brilliant promise, and naturally
he at once became a great favourite in
the Connecticut town. The chief cause
of discomfort to him in) New London for
a long time was the presence there of an
obscure Sabbatarian sect known as the
Rogerenes, with which people he soon
began a violent controversy, chiefly on
the question of the special day that should
be observed as the day of rest. We have
a portrait of the younger Byles taken,
it would seem, soon after the Revolution,
when he was about forty-five years old,
which shows him, as he was, a man of

Dr. MATHER BYLES. Jr.

Frum the uriginal pumting

THE BYLES FAMILY

807

somewhat delicate mould, probably smaller
than his father, with a nervous, excitable
face, rather thin lips, firmly pressed to-
gether, and the unmistakable look and
pose of an aristocratic feeling man. On
the Hi' of May, 1761, Byles married at
Roxbuiy, Massachusetts, his second cousin,
Rebecca Walter, a daughter of the Rev.
Nathaniel Walter of that place, whose
older sbter Sarah x tis married to Sir
Robert Hazelrigg, a Leicestershire bar-
onet, and whose brother William when a
few years out of Harvard embraced Epis-
copacy, went to London for ordination,
and a little later became Rector of Boston's
Trinity Church,

It is not to any one di£Scult in these days
to see why the younger Mather Byles should
not have remained always a Congregation-
alist. He had in Boston probably asso-
ciated almost as much with Episcopalians
as with Congregationalists, and he was the
sort of man to whom a classical liturgy and

i
I

208 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

dignified ecclesiastical ceremonial would
naturally strongly appeal. For the last
three years of his New London pastorate
he was, he says, at heart virtually an
Episcopalian, and at length in April, 1768,
he formally so declared himself to the
people of his charge. In some way his
change of feeling had become known in
Boston, and suddenly, quite unexpectedly
to him, he announced, the wardens and
vestry of Christ Church had given him
an invitation to become their Rector in-
stead of minister of the New London
Congregational Church. His statement of
this fact and of his wish immediately to
sever his connection with the Congregation-
alists was received by his church with
profound amazement and disgust. The
people at first strongly remonstrated with
him, but when they found that his mind
was made up, they bitterly denounced
and mercilessly ridiculed him, and on
their church book recorded angrily that

THE BYLES FAMILY 209

"the Rev. Mather Byles had dismul him-
te{f from the congregation." To the
moment of his resignation of his pastorate
his popularity had been general, but now
in the streets could be heard a wretched
doggerel song on his conversion, called
"The Proselyte," sung to the tune of the
"Thief and Cordelier," while into general
circulation from some local press came a
"Wonderful Dream," in which the spirit
of the venerable Richard Mather was
introduced rpbuking his great-grandson for
his degenerate apostasy from the Puritan
faith. On his part M'- Byles regarded
the call from Christ Church as "mani-
festly a call of Providence inviting him to
a greater sphere of usefulness, and plainly
pointing out to him the path of duty,"
and at once he left New London for
Boston, thence sailing for England, to be
reorJained a priest of the Anglican Church.
In Episcopal Orders he soon came back
to his native town and began his pastorate

«10 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

in Boston as Rector of Christ Church,
and in this rectorship he remained until
the 18* of April, 1776. On that day he
formally resigned this charge, his resigna-
tion probably being due largely to the
fact that his royalist sympathies had
become too pronounced to allow him to
remain with a people, the majority of
whom desired sepaktion from the British
empire. The excuse he gave for resigning,
however, was that he had received a call
from St. John's Church, Portsmouth, New
Hampshire, to become Rector there. To
the Portsmouth church for some reason he
did not go, but when Howe's fleet sailed
from Boston in March, 1776, he with his
children, in company with his brother-
in-law, WiUiam Walter, Rector of Trinity,
and tie Rev. Doctor Caner, Rector of
King's Chapel, went with the great body
of Boston Tories to Halifax, and there
was soon appointed, assistant to Rev.
Doctor Breynton, Rector of St. Paul's

THE BYLES FAMILY

211

Church, and chaplain to the British troops.
In May, 1789, he removed to St. John,
New Brunswick, in that town assuming
the rectorship of Trinity Church, and as
in Halifax, the garrison chaplaincy as
well.

Rev. Mather Byles, Jr., took his mas-
ter's degree at Harvard, in course, in 1754,
and from Yale College received a similar
degree in 1757. In 1770 the University
of Oxford conferred on him a doctorate in
divinity. He married three times, first
as we have said his second cousin, Bebecca
Walter, second, in Halifax, another second
cousin, Sarah, daughter of Byfield Lyde,
third, also in HaUfax, the widow of an
officer, M? Susanna Beid. By his first
wife Rebecca, who died a little over four
months before he left Boston for Halifax,
he had nine children, by his second wife
four, and from him, in later generations,
not a few important people in the British
Colonies have been descended. For the

«1« THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

most part, however, these have borne
other names than Byles."

Of the tender relations that always
existed between Mather Byles, Jr., and his
father we gain sufficient idea from one of the
last letters that the aged Hollis Street min-
ister ever wrote. On the 24^ of February,
1787, M"? Sarah Lyde Byles died in Halifax,
and the 14*^ of the following April the senior
Doctor Byles by the hand of one of his
daughters wrote his widowed son :

"MT DEABI.T BELOVED SoN AND FiBST BoBN,

"I am unable to write a Word, but my ten-
der sympathy with you compels me to attempt
to dictate. I feel tor your Distresses, but can
only carry you afresh to Him into whose hand
I have so many thousand times committed
you. You Preach to others, Preach now to
yourself. Carry my tenderest Blessings to
Mather and my other Dear Grandchildren,
whom I leave in the kind Hands of my Lord
Jesus, I am

"Your most affectionate and dying Parent
"M. Btles."

THE BYLES FAMILY «13
Doctor Byles's daughter Elizabeth, bom
March twenty-second. 1737. was married
as his second wife, in 1760. to Gawen
Brown of Boston, a noted maker of watches
and clocks." and became the mother of
Mather Brown, a painter of some note,
bom October seventh. 1761. who in 1780
left Boston for London, with letters from
h.s grandfather to Copley and Doctor
Benjamin Franklin. Brown's later sue
cess m London was probably due in great
measure to the fact that through FranUin
he came almost immediately to the favour-
able notice of Benjamin West. When he
reached London. West was in Paris, and
thither Brown almost immediately went.
In a letter home in 1781 he writes: "Df
Franklin has given me a pass, and recom-
mendatory letter to the famous W West
He treats me with the utmost politeness;
has given me an invitation to his home
I delivered him my grandfather's message
he expressed himself with the greatest

814 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

r'jj

esteem and a£Fection for him, and has since
introduced me at Versailles, as being grand-
son lo one of his most particidar friends
in America." In another letter Brown
vrites: "In consequence of the recom-
mendation of Jy Franklin, who gave me
letters to his fellow-townsman, the famous
ly West of Philadelphia, I practise gratia
with this gentleman, who affords me every
encouragement, as well as M' Copley,
who is particularly kind to me, welcomed
me to his home, and lent me his pictures,
etc. At my arrival M' Treasurer Gray
carried me and introduced me to Lord
George Germaine."

As a pupil of West, Brown studied some
time in Paris, but in 1782, and thereafter
for fifty years, he painted and exhibited
at the Royal Academy in Lond-jn. In
England he painted, besides many noted
military and naval officers and other com-
moners. King George Third and Queen
Charlotte, and the GentleTnan's Magazine

MATHER BROWN
Prem the original pamting by himself

:i.

THE BYLES FAMILY «i«

■tylM him "Hutorical Painter to His
Majesty and the late Dulcc of York." In
!"• lart years Brown grew eccentric and
lived in a forlorn way; his death occurred
in London on the W* of May, 18S1.

Doctor Byles's sixth and last child by
his first wife was Samuel, bom twenty-
third of March, 1748. who studied medi-
cine and seems to have already reached
his profession when he died, June six-
teenth, 1764. After his death his father
published a litUe volume called "Pious
Remains of a Young GenUeman lately
Deceased," the book consisting of a touch-
ing prose episUe to one of Us half-sisters
whom he calls "AminU," in which he
gives a fervid imaginaiy account of the
experiences of his own sister, Elizabeth,
inunediately after she died; and eight
selected poems, the whole prefaced no
doubt by Doctor Byles, his father, and
the preface bearing date July seventh.
1764.

«16 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

When Doctor Bylra died his only living
descendants in Boston were his two
younger daughters, the Misses Mary and
Catherine Byles. Of these ladies in their
earliest youth we hear very little, but at
the time of the Revolution they come
before us in a rather clear and entirely
picturesque way. In 1775 Miss Mary
was twenty-five and Miss Catherine
twenty-two, and while the siege was in
progress the British officers of highest
rank, as we have shown, seem to have been
frequent visitors at their father's house;
one of these visitors being Earl Percy,
whose letters from Boston to his father,
the Duke of Northumberland, and to the
Rev. Doctor Percy, editor of the noted
"Reliques of Ancient Poetry," a distant
relative of the Earl, were recently pub-
lished in Boston. To the end of their
days the Miss Byleses were staunch royal-
ists, and among their most cherished recol-
lections were the flattering attentions they

III

MiM CATHERINE B'iXES
From the origiiul painting by Hmry Prilum

THE BYLES FAMILY 817

had received from Lord Howe and Earl
Percy during the siege. Of Earl Percy
they remembered with satisfaction that
he had net only once ordered them sere-
naded by a regimental band, but on some
still happier occasion had promenaded with
them arm-in-arm on the fashionable Mall.
The Miss Byleses lived, Mary until
October 1, 18S8, Catherine until July 19,
18S7, the former dying at over eighty-two,
the latter at almost eighty-four, and for
many years before their deaths they were
regarded, as indeed they were, as lonely
relics of a period very remote in Boston's
social history.

Some time before the death of Miss
Mary Byles, Miss Eliza Leslie, of whom
we have already spoken, sister of Charles
Bobert Leslie the painter, came to Boston
to visit, and in January and February,
1842, in Graham's Magazine, as we have
said, she published some interesting
reminiscences of a visit she was permitted

818 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

to make to these ancient spinsters. Miss
Mary she describes as "a rather broad-
framed and very smiling old lady, habited
in a black worsted petticoat and a short
gown, into the neck of which was tucked
a book-muslin kerchief. Her silver hair
was smoothly arranged over a wrinkled
but well-formed , forehead, beneath which
twinkled two small blue eyes. Her head
was covered with a close, full-bordered
white linen cap, that looked equally con-
venient for night or for day." "Miss
Catherine was unlike her elder sister, both
in figure and face, her features being much
sharper (in fact excessively sharp), and her
whole person extremely thin. She also
was arrayed in a black bombasin petti-
coat, a short gown, and a close lined cap,
with a deep border, that seemed almost
to bury her narrow visage." The old
ladies kept no regular servant, and when
visitors arrived Miss Mary always came
to the door. Miss Catherine, however.

THE BYLES FAMILY

219

unfailingly produced her own eflfect by
not making her appearance till callers had
sat for some time in the parlour. Naturally
the conversation of both sisters was much
of the past, and always, as Miss Leslie
says, "they gloried, they triumphed, in
the firm adherence of their father and his
family to the royalty of England, and
scorned the idea of even now being classed
among the eitoyennes of a republic, a
republic, which, as they said, they had
never acknowledged and never would ; re-
garding themselves still as faithful subjects
to His Majesty of Britain, whoever that
majesty might be." To Miss Leslie these
ancient ladies expressed much regret that
they had not been able to prevail on their
father after the Revolution to renounce
America entirely and remove with his
family to England, in which case, said
Miss Mary, they should all have been
introduced at court and the King and
Queen would have spoken to them and

220 THE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

thanked them kindly for their loyalty.
In Boston it was a matter of common
knowledge that on the accession of William
the Fourth one of the sisters had humbly
addressed his sailor Majesty, assuring him
that the family of Doctor Byles of Boston
had never renounced their loyalty to the
throne of England and never would.

One of the most conspicuous treasures
of these ancient ladies was a handsome
chair, brought from England long before
by their grandfather, Lieutenant-Governor
Tailer, on the top of which was carved a
royal crown. As a special favour each
visitor was permitted to sit a moment in
this chair, and always the hostesses' ex-
clamation, as the privileged person took
his seat, was: "We wonder that you, a
republican, can sit comfortably under the
crown !" Of their revered father, and
other members of their family, living or
dead, the Miss Byleses had many remi-
niscences, some of their father's witty say-

THE BYLES FAMILY

221

ings they being especially proud to repeat.
For their absent nephew, Mather Brown,
they had deep affection, and of course no
one was ever suffered to forget that this
moderately successful portrait painter had
the very great honour of having painted
members of the Royal Family. On the
walls of their parlour hung the notable
portraits of Doctor Byles which we have
described, the latest of the two Copleys
having the greatest value in their eyes,
not because of its general intrinsic merit
but because it portrayed faithfully their
father's cornelian ring. "My eyes," says
Miss Leslie, "were soon riveted on a fine
portrait of Doctor Mather Byles, from
the wonderful pencil of Copley. . . . The
moment I looked at this picture I knew it
must be a likeness, for I saw in its linea-
ments the whole character of Doctor Byles,
particularly the covert humour of the eye.
The face was pale, the features well-formed,
and the aspect pleasantly acute. He was

SM 'jL^HE FAMOUS MATHER BYLES

represented in his ecclesiastical habili-
ments, with a curled and powdered wig.
On his finger \hi j a signet ring containing
a very fine red < melian. While I was
contemplating t.' . admirably depicted
countenance hii daughters were both very
voluble in directing attention to the cor-
nelian ring, which they evidently con-
sidered the best part of the picture;
declaring it to be an exact likeness of that
very ring, and just as natural as life."
In the Byles parlour abo hung an attrac-
tive portrait of Mather Brown by himself,
and in other parts of the house portraits
of the Miss Byleses themselves, in the
freshness of young maidenhood.

From the time of their father's dis-
missal from the pastorate of the HoUis
Street Church, and perhaps before, the
Byles sisters had worshipped at Trinity
Church, their Rector at first being the
Rev. Samuel Parker, who in 1804 became
the second Episcopal bishop of Massachu-

THE BYLES FAMILY

tas

setts," and as long as their health permit^ sd
they went to service regularly on Sundays,
dressed with slight regard for changing
fashions, and closely veiled, "not so much
for concealment as for gentility." During
many of their declining years, however,
they rarely went, otherwise, far beyond
their own door. In their wills they re-
membered scrupulously by name each of
a considerable number of their brother's
descendants in England or in Canada, and
on the death of Miss Catherine, as had
been agreed between the sisters before
Miss Mary died, the treasures of the old
house on Tremont Street, of which there
were not a few, were almost without ex-
ception removed directly to Halifax, Nova
Scotia, where some of the most valuable
of them still remain.

NOTES
Charib I

■Spngue'i "Aniub <A the Amerioa Pulpit" ind
other world which mention DI Bylei lay that he wu
t«U, well-proportioned, and altofether of commanding
preience, that hi< voice wa< at once mdodioiu and power-
ful, and that hii manner of addreia both in public and in
private waa highly pleaiing.

CsAnsB n

' Reverend D^ Samuel Hather, in coniequence of lerioua
diuffection againit him in the Old North Church, in 17M
led off a portion of the church and formed a new church,
with a meeting houie at the comer of Hanover and North
Bennet atreeta. This church, however, lasted only until
shortly after Samuel Blather's death in vm.

■ Beverend D! Increase lifather was ordained over the
Old North Church, May 27, 1064, and died still as its
chief pastor, August 23, 1723.

< D? Cotton Mather's Diary, Vol. «, p. M.

'Before the close of the \T^ century no leas than
ten members of the Mather family had been graduated
at Harvard.

* His master's degree came in course three years later.

' One of theae was Joaiah Smith of Charleston, South
Carolina, the first atudent from the Carolinaa to come to
Harvard, the other waa Thomas Clap of Scituate.
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NOTES

•or Byles'. uncle Cotton Sfather was not ordained
until seven years after graduation.

•See Joseph T. Buckingham's "Specimens of News-
paper Literature: with Personal Memoira, Anecdotes,
and Reminiscences," Boston, 1840.

" In an address to the public in the Botkm Gautte of
January 89, 17«*, Increase Mather attacks the Cmrant,
calling ita sUtement that he had been a supporter of that
paper a wicked Ubel and saying: "I cannot but pity
poor Franklin, who tho' but a Younf Man it may be
Speedily he must appear before the Judgment Seat of
God, and what answer wiU he give for printing things so
vile and abominable? And I cannot but Advise the
Supporters of this Courant to consider the Consequences
of being Partaker, in other lien; Sins, and no more Coun-
tenance such a Wicked Paper." -^

" The Nea England Weekly Journal in its initial num-
ber announced that it intended publishing the most re-
markable occurrences, both foreign and domestic, of the
time. It bore the imprint, first of S. KneeUnd, then of
S. Kneeland and T. Green.

"D? Cotton Mather died February IS, 1788; his
father, D? Increase Mather, died, as we have bdoie
noted, between four and five years earlier.

CHAPTBBin

'• Honorable Jonathan Belcher was Governor of Massa-
chusetts for eleven years. In the "Belcher Papers"
(Mass. Hist. Coll., e* Series, Voh. 6 and 7) we find some
mteresting correspondence between Governor Belcher in
Boston and Mr Thomas HoUis in London concerning the

NOTES

«7

organicBtion of the parish and the building and fumiahing
of the HoUis Street Church. October S, 17S3, the Gover-
nor. who calla hinuelf "chief patron" of the church,
writes : "Upon laying out a considerable tract of land in
this town about two years ago into streets and house lots,
one of the main streets was named HoUis Street, since
which a number of worthy men have erected and finish'd
a handsome c", whereof the Rev« Mr Mather Byles
was ordain'd the pastor in Deeemb' last. He is grand-
son to the Ute Hev" learned and exceUent Dr Increase
Mather. Altho' this new congregation are a number of
sober good Christians, yet they are not in the most plenti-
ful! circumstances, and I have promist to mention to you
the procuring for them by yourself & friends a smaU bell
for this new c"* in HoUis Street." The beU was given
by Mr. Hollis in 1734, and was "generaUy thought the
beat in this country." The same year a handsome clock
was placed in the interior. May t, 1741, D5 Byles
formally presented to the church, from Hon. William Dum-
mer, late lieutenant-governor, "a hirge and rich folio
Bible, on condition that it should be read as a part of
publick worship on the Lord's day among us." The con-
gregation voted their thanks to Mr Dummer for this
"sUtely church Bible," and May 9, 174J, reading from
the Scriptures was introduced in the church.

""History of the Old South Church," by Hamilton
Andrews Hill (1890), Vol. I, p. 461.

"Df Byles scrupulously mentions the pUce of his
wedding in the family record which he kept. It is doubt-
ful whether the Congregationalists at this time often
celebrated marriages in their meeting-houses.

228

NOTES

" Pelhun and Smibert were then painting in Boaton,
Copley having not yet come on thia earthly acene.

" Proceeding! of the MaiuchuMtta Hiatorica! Society,
I860-18e«, pp. l«4-ljie.

"Thia witticiam of D'- Bylea alao cornea to ua aa
followa; "Your tabce in diatempera miiat be very bad
when it haa led you to prefer Quincy to Bylea."

"There aeema little doubt that thia early love affair
of Dr B.vlea'a waa with Elixabeth Wendell, daughter of
Abraham and Katarina (De Key) W dell, who waa
baptized Auguat *0, 1704, and waa marri .prij H, 17M,
to Edmund Quincy. Writing from Boaton to hia friend
Ebenezer Hazard on the MH" of March, 1788, Df Bylea'a
grand-nephew, Jeremy Belknap, aaya of Judge Quincy'a
end : "Old Daddy Quincy died here about the time that
you mention DF Croaby did at New York. He waa
buried the day before TK Bylea." — "Belknap Papere,"
Fart 2, Haaa. Hiat. Soc. Cdl., Vol. 3, Sf Seriea, p. 5t.

ChaptsbIV

" At the aame time D? Bylea'a wife Anna waa received
from the Brattle Street Church.

" Wr Belcher waa a daughter of Lieutenant-Governor
William Partridge of New Hampahire.

"We have aeen thia ponderoua aermon, delivered
October 17, 17M, in which D* Prince diacuasca not only
the natural hiatory of death, but the viewa of death and
the future held by Greek and Roman philoaophen, and
many other daaaea of men, including the alavea of Africa
and the North American Indiana, and in which he givea
a minute account of many deatha by earthquakea, plaguea.

NOTES

S29

deluge., and conflagration*, since the time of Chriit. A»
we read the sermon we cannot help being amazed that in
any age people could have lat patienUy through such a
(earful discourse.

» "Yankee heraldry,"writes Professor Barrett Wendell,
"ha. never been punctilious. Lon| before the Revolution
people who found themselve. pro.perou. were apt to adopt
armorial bearings, often far from grammatical, which are
rtiU reverently preserved on .Uver, tombstone., and em-
broidered hatchmento."-"A Literary Hijtory of Amer-
ica," p. MS.

"The« three were Blather, Jr., Elizabeth, who be-
came the wife of Gawen Brown, and Samuel, a young
phyucian, who died June 16, 1764, aged dightly over
twenty-one, having written a little prose and poetry,
which hi. father printed after hi. death.

•' The burial phice of the Byles famUy from thi. time
wa. Tomb No. « in the Granary Burying Ground, buUt
by DT OUver Noye^ Anna ByW. father, in 1780, at the
ume time that Governor Belcher built hi. tomb in thi.
cemetery.

" Hon. William Tailer's death had occurred at Dor-
che.ter, March 8, 17S« (new .tyle).

" Dr. Byle. paid for the property £S«0, the estete being
dcKribed a. "aU that certain messuage, tenement or
dwelling-houM, with the land thereto belonging, mtuate,
lying, and being at the Mutherly end of Bo.ton afonaaid,
butted and bounded a. foUow. . . . together with all
and singuhir the houses, out-houses, ediSces, buildings,
easement., and fences thereon .tanding." Thi. wa. the
first pnqwrty the Suffolk Deed, record Mather Byle. a.

880

NOTES

having owned. The bend in the nwd when the hoiue
■tood wmi long known u "Bylei*i Corner."

At some tixae late in the livef of the Miit Byleees the
Byles property wu deicribed by Mr. Nathaniel Bradlee
aa "One old dweUing-hotue in the town of Boaton, two
■tories high, built of wood, 18} feet front and 38 feet deep.
The lot of land measure* ISf feet front and 81 feet deep,
containing in the whole about 11,800 iquare feet, a great
part of which ia unimproved. The house itself is so
much decayed from age as to be scarcely tenantable. This
estate belongs to Misses M. and C. Byles, and has never
been taxed by the towa." In ISS8, after the death of
Miss Catherine Byles, the property in Tremont Street
was sold at auction to a Roxbury man bearing the familiar
name of Harrison Gray.

»■• Cards of Boston

containing a

Variety of fact,s and descriptions

relative to that City

In past and present times ;

so arranged as to form

An Instructive and Amusing Game

for young people

By Miss Leslie.

(Entered according to Act of Congress in the Clerk's
office in the District of Massachusetts, ISSl, by Munroe
and Francis.) "

"The baptisms of all DF Byles's children were per-
formed by their father, who recorded them lovingly on his
church register aa of "my Mather," or "my Belcher," or

NOTES

SSI

"my Samuel," "fint, accond, or third child," u the ate
might be.

" The Ute Rev. Df Henry S. Naah once Mid tiench-
antly to hia class in Cambridge that a certain pioui
church father "had lived too much with godly womoi."

Chaptkr V

» The persons who, November 14, 1732, subscribed
the Covenant as the original members were : John Clough
Joseph Payson, Henry Gibbon, James Day, Jonathf
Neal, Hopestill Foster, Ebenezer Clough, Nathaniel Fi
field, John Cravath, and Alden Bass, all of whom hau
been in communion with other churches. Besides these
there were John Blake, Thomas Trott, and Isaac Loring,
who then for the first time were received into full com-
munion.

" See "Some Aspects of the Beligious Life of New
England, with Special Beference to Congregationalists,"
by George Leon Walker, D.D., 18A7.

** "I can't suppose," says Bev. Samuel Phillips of
Andover, "that any one . . . who at all times faithfully
improves the common grace he has, that is to say, is
diligent in attending on the appointed means of grace,
with a desire to profit thereby . . . shall perish for want
of special and saving grace."

" In 1741 the number of persons admitted was six, in
174S thirteen, in 1743 five, and in 1744 nine.

" The Rev. Samuel A. Eliot, D.D., says in a preface to
"Pioneers of Religious Liberty in America" (1903) : "Two
hundred and seventy-two years ago John Cotton, minister
of the First Church in Boston, with the cooperation of his

232

NOTES

minuteri.! unciatei aUbliihed what came to be known
u the 'Great and Thurwlay Lecture.' Thii weekly lee-
ture was in colonial timet the chief locial and ndigiaiu
event in Boaton."

•• Three other miniaten of Boaton, DT Chauncy, D?
Samuel Cooper, and Dr Andrew EUot, had received their
doctoratea from the University of Edinburgh. The Rev.
Ebeneier Pemberlon, Jr., had received his from Prince^
ton. Before 1771 Harvard had given the degree of S.T.D.
only once: this was in 1692, to Increase Mather. Ip
1771 Harvard gave it next to Rev. Nathaniel Appleton
of Cambridge, who had graduated in 171J.

"See an article by James R. Gihnore ("Edmund
Kirke") in the New England Jfayanw for August, 1897,
on "Nathaniel Emmons and Mather Byles." D?
Emmons was pastor of the Second Church. Wrentham.
In tl-js article the writer gives a pleasant account of the
relations between DF Emmons and Dr Byles, as Dr
Emmons himself had described them to him. In the
same issue of the New England Magmne a a poem of
twelve stanzas by Henry Ames Blood, entiUed "The
Byles Girls" (the two daughters of Dr Byles).

Chaptkb VI

" Dr Isaac Watts Uved between 1874 and 1748. Alex-
ander Pope between 1688 and 1744. Johnson says of
Lansdowne : "He had no ambition above the imitation of
Waller, of whom he has copied the faults and very litUe
more."

" So far as we can learn. Pope never wrote Dr Byles
more than one letter. We have not seen this letter, but it

NOTES

S88

>wn
lec-

kiua

leir

'XT.

ice-
.D.
It
ton

rad
97,
IK
m.
iie

lie
of
he

ii Mud that although Dr Byles lued to ahow it with pride,
it had not a remarkably pleaaant tone. IK Byle« had
apparently lent Pope tome of hii own verMt, for Pope
remarks with lome irony that he had feared the Muiee
had fonaken England, but it wa> evident they had only
taken up their abode in the new world. D^ Bylee'i latest
letter to Pope, preserved in his letter book, is entirely
wanting in the effervescent praise of his earlier letters.

Chaptxb vn

" "Memorial History of Boston," Vol. t, pp. 4tJ-427.

" Mr. Sargent calls DF Byles's humour " that frolicsome
vein which was to him as congenital as is the tendency
of a fish to swim."

" See for this ballad the New Engknd Historic Genea-
logical Register, Vol. IS, p. 131.

« Mackintosh is said to have rolled on the floor m an
agony of laughter at one of Sydney Smith's jokes.

" See "Drake's Landmarks of Boston." This story is
also given as follows : The architecture of King's Chapel
was unfamiliar to Bostonians generally and was at first
much ridiculed. When IK Byles tare the building mcled.
with some sarcasm he made the remark wc have given
here.

" "Memorial History of Boston," Vol. t, p. 48S, and
elsewhere.

« D'- Belknap tells it in its briefer form in a letter to
Ebenezer Hazard, dated August 28, 1780.

"Joseph Green, a Boston merchant of considerable
fortune, is said to have had also the largest private library
in New England. At the Bevolution he was appointed

X84

NOTES

• muduniu eouncUlor, though he never took the oath.
Uter he wu proKribed ud twiiihed. and we Bnd him
•rnong the twenty-two memben of the LoyJut dub
who met weekly in London, where he ipent hi> lut yean.
A crayon portrait of him wa> made by Copley. In the
earlier part of hi< life, when he waa unfriendly toward*
Governor Bekher, he waa not » con«rvative in his poUt-
ical viewi a> he afterward became.

" Thi. aUuaion ij of coune to D! Bylei'. cat, on whoM
death Green had written an elegy.

« For thia paiuge at arms between Bylet and Green
•ee Duyckinck's "Cyclop«lia of American Literature,"
and Mass. Hist. Soc. CoU., «» Series, Vol. t. pp. 70-78.

Chaptib vm

"The friend was James H. Gilmore ("Edmund
Kirke"). See in the ATfl. Enfland Magazine for August,
1807. the article we have before mentioned on "Nathaniel
Emmons and Mather Byles."

" For the dramaUc ending of Dr Byles's pastorate, see
a sketdi of Joseph May in the N. E. Hist, and Gen
Register, Vol. *7, p. 116; and the "Belknap Papen" iii
the Mass. Hist. Soc. CoU., Vol. 4, p. I07.

" See Mass. Hist. CoUections, O"? Series, Vol. 4 pp
IM, 1«8, and pp. 10«, 107.

" "Historical Notices," by Ephraim EUot, quoted in
the "History of the Old South Church," Vol. », p. iSfl.

Chapter IX

" Mass. Hist. CoU., 6 Series, Vol. 4, part S, p. Iii. note.
" Dr Ezra Stiles's "Literary Diary," Vol. t, p. 168.

NOTES

8S5

•• D; Uather Bylet, Jr., luul written Mr. lUOt, inm
Halifax, under date o( February 17, 1778, telling him
that he (Bailey) wai entitled to apply tor fifty poundi
to an English fund for the relief of diitreucd clergymen
in America. — "Life of Bev. Jacob Bailey, the Frontier
Miiaionary."

"Bev. John Eliot wai n iprightly letter writer
and hii letten are none the len entertaining becauie of
the writer'! poeitive opinionj. It would Mem at if both he
and Jeremy Belknap may have had lome pciwnal grudge
againat Dr Bylea.

" "Memorial Hiitory of Boeton," Vol. 8, p. 160.

" See Knox's portrait in the third volume of the
"Memorial History of Boston."

** See "Dealings with the Dead," and Drake's "History
of Boston," pp. 740-748. The former reporte D! Byles as
saying when he saw the troops : " Well, I think we can no
longer complain that our grievances are not red-dressed I"

CbaptzbX

*■ It will be remembered that some of the leading
Tory families, like the Brinleys and Royalls, who were
obliged to leave Massachusetts at the time of the Rt vo-
lution, livw'd chiefly out of town, in Cambridge, Roxbury,
or Medford.

•> Franklin was bom January 17, 1706, and died April
17, 1790.

" The Neva-England Courant was first I ued August
7, 1721, the only earlier Boston newspapers having been
the BotUm Nem-Letter, begun in 1704, and the Bmlon
Ottutle, started in 1718. With these two papers the

«• NOTES

Comma ran •loDg uoUl June 4, I7M, when it ttopped.
Between February H, 17(8, ud July tO, 17M, it wu
nominally printed by Benjamin FranUin in Queen Street ;
from July 17, 17M, until June 4, 17Sa, it wa< iMued in
Union Street, still in Benjamin FranUin'e name. Ben-
jamin, however, finally left Boiton, in October, 17«S.

"Thi» letter ii printed in "Dr Franltlin't Life and
Lettera." It appeared abo in "The Bower o( Taite,"
Karch 1, I8t8.

Chaptu XI

"IX Jeremy Belknap, the eminent hiatorian and
liberal theologian, wai the eldeit child of JoKph and
Sarah (Bylei) Belknap. He wai bom in Boeton June 4,
1744, and died June «0, 1708. In 1784, when he wai
debating whether he ihould enter the miniatry or not,
in diitreu of mind he wrote hi< great-uncle ezprening
hia fear that he wai not fit ipiritually for the minia-
terial office. To the young man'i frank letter D'. Byle*
replied in the kindlieet and moat judicious and Christian
way that while he is gkd of the deep piety his nephew
shows he feels that he is mistakenly writing bitter things
against himself. "My dear Child," he tenderly says,
"it is with a mixture of pleasure and sorrow that I
read your letter. I am pleased to see your great care not
to enter the ministry in a state of unrenewed nature;
and I am grieved at your censure upon yourself." "May
God bless you, my Son," the writer closes, "and sanctify
and comfort you; and introduce you with the noblest
preparation into the ministry. So prays your affectionate
M. Byles." To this kindly letter Belknap replies asking

NOTES

C87

Um uncle to pray Uut he might not be mutaken in a nutter
of luch everluting importance i that he might not build
on a fake foundation.

•• See the " Belknap Papen," Vol. I, p. 470; "Memorial
Hiitory of Boaton." Vol, S, p. 7; "Hiatory of the Old
South Church," Vol. t, p. <40.

" A declaration made by the daughter! of Df Bylee
in connexion with the aettlement of their father'e eitata
includes the itatement that a number of their friend*
" raiaed a lum of money by luLacription to defray the «-
pensei of hit funeral without any charge to the eatate."
v. Hilt. Coll., a, SI.

Chaptsb xn

" Hii father baptixed him, recording the baptism
affectionately as of "my Mather." He graduated at
Harvard, as we have said, in 1751, but his ordination at
New London did not take place until November 18, 1717,
What he was doing from 17A1 to 17M we do not know,
but from 17M to 17«7 he was (the STf) librarian of Har-
vard College. See " Library of Harvard University, Bio-
graphical Contributions," Edited by Justin Winsor, No.
it; "The Librarians of Harvard College im7-1877," by
Alfred Claghora Potter and Charles Knowles Bolton,
Cambridge, I8V7. In the BotUm Etming-Pott of May i,
1768, we read : "On Friday last the Rev. Mr. Mather
Byles, and Family, came to Town from New London;
and we hear he embarks in the first Vessel for England, in
order to receive Episcopal Ordination to qualify himself for
Minister of Christ Church here, from whom he received
an invitation, as lately mentioned."

i' '-n

998 NOTES

At the evMUBtion of Boaton, with acrenteen other
Anglican dergymen he went to Halifax, one of theK
clergymen being the Rev. Df Caner. "boit with bodily
infirmities and in hi> Mventy-ieventh year." A letter
from Dr Caner aoon after, from Halifax, aays: "Aa
to the Clergy of Boston, indeed, they have for eleven
months past been exposed to difficulty and distress in
eveiy shape; and as to myself, having determined to
maintaiu my post as long as possible, I continued to
officiate to the snull remains of my parishioners, though
without a support, till the lO"? of March, when I suddenly
and unexpectedly recei\<ed notice that the King's troops
would immediately evacuate the town. It is not easy
to paint the distress and confusion of the inhabitants on
this occasion. 1 had but six or seven hours allowed to
prepare for the measure, being obliged to embark the
same day for Halifax, where we arrived the 1? of April.
This sudden movement prevented me from saving my
books, furniture or any part of my interest, except bed-
ding, wearing apparel, and a little provision for my small
family during the passage.

"I am now at Halifax with my daughter and servant,
but without any means of suRwrtt except what I receive
from the benevolence of the worthy Dr Bieynton."

"The well-known Nova Scotia families of Almon,
Des Brisay, and Bitchie, are among his descendants.

"EBiabeth Byles was married to Gawen Brown a
little more than three months after Brown's first wife
died. The HoUis Street Church records sUte that Gawen
Brown was admitted to that church on a letter of recom-
mendation from a Dissenting Church at IVamlington, in

S'fel

NOTES

Northumberland, August 10, 1760. He married first,
April S, 17j0 (Rev. Joseph Sewall) Mary Flagg, who died
March S8, 1760, and was buried in the Granary Burying
Ground, after luiving borne her husband six children, all
of whom were baptized in the Old South. Brown married,
second, July 3, 1760 (intention June 18, 1760), Elizabeth
Byles, who bore her husband one son, Mather, baptized
October II, 1761. Elizabeth died June 6, 1763, her death
evidently plunging the Byles family in deep grief. Octo-
ber IB, 1764, Gawen Brown married third, in the New
South parish, Elizabeth (Hill) Adams, widow of Df Joseph
Adams, brother of Samuel Adams the patriot. Brown
diLil August 8, 1801, aged 82. See notes on Gawen and
Blather Brown by Frederick L. Gay in Mass. Hist. Soc.
Froceedmgs, XLVn, pp. 289, «93 (March-April, 1914).

" It was owing to the Christian thoughtfulneas of Rev.
Dr Andrew Eliot of the New North Church, who, we have
stated, was one of the three Congregational ministers who
stayed in Boston during the siege, that Rev. Samuel
Parker did not go away with the other Anglican clergy-
men when Howe evacuated the town. The Rector of
Trinity Church at the time was the Rev. DF William
Walter, a brother-in-law of Rev. Mather Byles, Jr., and
his assistant was the Rev. Samuel Parker. When the
word was given that the Tories must leave, Df Caner, Dt
Walter, and Rev. Mather Byles, Jr., at once took refuge
with Howe's fleet, and Mr. Parker also was packing his
books to go. DF Eliot had been an opponent of Epis-
copacy but he realized the deplorable state religiously
that the Boston Anglicans would be in if no minister of
their faith was left in the town. Accordingly, he went

«40 PUBLISHED WRITINGS

to Mr. Pwker md told him tUt m he, occupying .
«condary position in Trinity Church, had not i»,uMd
the anti«oni,m of the Patriot, he would be «fe in .taying
and that he had better not de«rt hi. people. Mr Parker
took hi. advice and .tayed, with the result that in 1804 he
became for a year (until hi. death) the «cond Bishop ol
MawachuKtt.. The evacuation took pUce in March
and the foUowing July, on Mr Parker', representing that
he could no longer «fely pray for the King, the warden.
«.d v«try instructed him to omit the prayer, for the
Royal Family. -Footo'. "History of King's Chapel," Vol
«, pp. 306-309.

DOCTOR BYLES'S CHIEF PUBUSHED

WHITINGS

A Poem on the Death of His Ute Majesty King George,

rf Glorious Memory, and the Accewion of our Prerent

Sovereign, King George n, to the Britirii Throne. Printed

A Poem prewnted to Hi. EiceUency William Buraet,
E«l. : on his arrival at Boston, July 19, 1748. Printed in

The Character of the Perfect and Upright Man; his
Peaceful End de^ribed ; and Our Duty to observe it hud
down. InaDiscourwonPsahnSTiST. Printed for S
Gerrish, 17«9.

A Disco-irae on the Present Vilenes. of the Body, and
its Future Glorious Change by Christ. To which is added
a Sermon on the Nature and Importance of Conversion.
Both occasionally deliver'd at Dorehester April «S, 173*
Punted by S. Kneeland and T. Green for N. Ptoctor, 1738

PUBLISHED WRITINGS 241

The Faithful Servant, Approv'd at Death, and Entring
into the Joy of His Lord. A Sermon at the Publick Lee-
ture in Boston, July in, 17S«. Occasioned by the much
lamented Death of the Honourable Daniel Oliver, Esq. ;
one of Hia Majesty's Council for the Province. Who
Deceased there the «S? of the same month, in the 69"?
year of His Age. .. . With a Poem by Mr. Byles.
[Psalm K : 1.] Printed by S. Kneeland and T. Green for
D. Henchman, in Comhill, 17318. Second title. An
Elegy, address'd to His Excellency Govemour Belcher:
on the Death of his Brother-in-law, the Honourable
Daniel Oliver, Esq.

To His Excellency Govemour Belcher, on the Death
of His Lady. An Epistle. By the Reverend Mr Byles.
Printed in 1736.

On the Death of the Queen. A Poem. Inscribed to
Hia Excellency Govemour Belcher. By the Reverend
Mr Byles. Printed by J. Draper, for D. Henchman in
Comhill, 17S8.

Affection on Things Above. A Discourse delivered at
the Thursday Lecture in Boston, December 11, 1740.
Printed m 1740, by G. Rogers and D. Fowle for J. Edv. aids
and H. Foster, in Comhill.

The Glories of the Lord of Hosts, and the Fortitude
of the Religious Hero. A Sermon preached to the Ancient
and Honourable Artillery Company, June i, 1740. Being
the Anniversary of their Election of Officers. [Text II
Kings 9 : 4, «, 6.] Printed in 1740, and sold by Thomas
Fleet and Joseph Edwards at their shop in Comhill.
(Reprinted in Gmerai Magaiine and Hutorieal Ckrmide,
Vol. 1, pp. 84-34, Phikdelphia, 1741.)

848 PUBLISHED WRITINGS

The Flouruh of the Annual Spring, Improved in a
Sermon Preached at the Ancient Thursday Lecture in
Boston, May 8, 1789. [Text, Numbers 17 : 8.) Printed
in 1741, and sold by Rogers and Fowle at the Printing
Office over against the South-east Comer of the Town
House.

Bepentance and Faith the Great Doctrine of the
Gospel of Universal Concernment. Printed in 1741, and
sold by J. Eliot.

The Visit to Jesus by Night. In Evening Lecture.
Printed by Bogera and Fowle, at the head of Queen
Street, near the Town House, in 1741.

The Character of the Perfect and Upright Man, His
Peaceful End Described; and our duty to observe it laid
down, in a Discourse on Psalm 87 : 87. To which is added
an Exemplification of the Subject in a Short Account of
the Peaceful Death of ilf Anna Byles. By Mr. Byles.
The Second Edition. Printed by B. Green and Company
for D. Gookin, at the comer of Wat«- Street, Comhill,
1744.

The Comet : A Poem. Printed and sold by B. Green
and Company in Newbury Street, and D. Gockin at the
comer of Water Street, Comhill, 1744.

God Glorious in the Scenes of the Winter. A Sermon
preach'd at Boston, December «8, 1744. Printed by B.
Green and Company for D. Gookin, over against the Old
South Meeting House, 1744.

Poems on Several Occasions. By Mr. Byles. Printed
by S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1744. This collection in-
cludes thirty-two poems, several of which are given sepa-
rately in the present list. One poem of this collection is

PUBLISHED WRITINGS 243

addrened, "To the Rev. Df WstU on his Divine Poenu."
The preface to the collection aays : "The Poenu collected
in then Pages were for the most Part written as the
Amusements of looser Hours, while the Author belonged
to the College, and was unbending his Mind from severer
Studies, in the Entertainments of the Classicks. Most
of them have been several Times printed here, at Lon-
don, and elsewhere, either separately or in Miscellanies:
And the Author iias now flrawn them intb a Volume.
Thus he gives up at once these lighter Productions, and
bids adieu to the airy Muse."

The Glorious Rest of Heaven, A Sermon a^. the Thurs-
day Lecture in Boston, January 3, 1744/5. Py Mr. Byles.
[Tezt, Matt. 17 : 4.] Published at the Request of many
of the Hearers. Printed by B. Green and Company for
D. Gookin, over against the Old South Meeting House,
1745.

The Prayer and Plea of David to be delivered from
Blood-guiltiness, Lnproved in a Sermon at the Ancient
Thursday Lecture in Boston, May 16'!', 17J1. Before the
Execution of a Young Negro Servant for poisoning an
Infant. (Psahn 40 : 9, 10.] Printed and sold by Samuel
Kneeland, opposite the Prison in Queen Street. 1751.

God the Strength and Portion of His People under
all the Exigencies of Life and Death : A Funeral Sermon
on the Honou. .ible M" Katherine Dummer, the Lady of
His Honour, William Dummer, Esq.; late Lieutenant
Governor and Commander in Chief over this Province.
Preach'd at Boston, January 0, 1752, the Lord's Day after
her Death and Burial. Printed by John Draper, 1752.

Divine Power and Anger Displayed in Earthquakes.

244 PUBLISHED WRITINGS

A Sermon occuiooed by the Ute Earthquake in New
England, November 18, ITif. And Preached the next
Lord'a Day at Point Shirley. . . . Published at the
Pressing Importunity of the Hearers. [Six line* of Scrip-
ture texts.] Printnl and sold by S. Kneeland, in Queen
Street, l7iS.

The Conflagration, Applied to that Grand Period w
Catastrophe of our World, when the face of Nature is to
be changed by a Deluge of Fire, as formerly it was by
that of Water. The God of Tempest and Earthquake.
Printed and sold by D. Fowle, in Ann Street, and Z.
Fowie, in Middle Street. The catalogue of the Boston
Public Library gives the date as 17M, that of the Mass.
Hist. Soc. a3 I7M. The poem was first printed in the
New-EngUmd Weekly Journal, May 19, 1729.

The Man of God Thoroughly Furnished to Every Good
Work. A Sermon preached at the ordination of the
Reverend Mr. Mather Byles to the Pastoral Office, in the
First Church of Christ in New London, November 18,
1757. To which is Added the Charge given him upon
that Occasion. By his Father. (Text, Proverbs SS : \S,
16.] Printed and sold by Nathaniel Green and Timothy
Green, Jr., 1758. (The copy in the Mass. Hist. Soc.
library has manuscript corrections by the author.)

The Vanity of Every Man at His Best Estate. A
Funeral Sermon on the Honourable William Dununer,Esq.,
Late Lieutenant-Governor and Commander in Chief over
the Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England,
who Died October 10, 1761. Aged 84 years. [Text,
Ecclesiastes 12 : 7, 8.] Printed by Green and Russell in
Boston, 1761.

PUBLISHED WRITINGS 245

lezt
tlw
rip.
een

or
I to

by
it.

Z.
ton
ua.
the

the
the
18.
mn
If,
thy

iq.,
ver
ad,
xt.

Hie Flourish of the Annual Spring, Impraved in a
Sermon Preached at the Ancient Thuraday Lecture in
Boeton, Hay I, 1739. With a Hymn for the Spring.
The Second Edition. Beaton: Beprinted by Thoniaa
and John Fleet at the Heart and Crown in Comhill in
1769. (The copy in the Maaaachuaetta Hiatorical Society
Library haa in it the autograph "Catharine Bylea.")

The Glories of the Lord of Hoata, and the Fortitude
of the Religioua Hero. A Sermon preached to the Ancient
and Honourable Artillery Company, June 2, 1740. Being
the Anniversary of their Election of Officers. [Text II
Kings 9:4, 5, 6.] The Third Edition. Reprinted by
Thomas and John Fleet, at the Heart and Crown in Com-
hill, 1769.

A Sermon on the Nature and Necessity of Conversion,
reprinted by Edes and Gill in 1769 [First printed in 1732].

New England Hymn [Adapted to tune America].
Printed in "The New England Psalm-Singer or American
Chorister." Edea and Gill, probably 1770.

A Discourse on the Present Vileness of the Body and
Its Future Glorious Change by Christ [Text, Acts 17 : 18.]
The Second Edition. Reprinted by Thomas and John
Fleet, at the Heart and Crown, m Comhill, 1771. Printed
with this sermon, in the second edition, is an essay called
"The Meditation of Cassim, the Son of Ahmed," which
was first printed in the Neic-England Weekly Journal in
1727.

The Death of a Friend lamented and improved. A
Funeral Sermon on John Gould, Esq. ; who Died January
8, 1772. Boston : Printed by Richard Draper, 1772.

An "Epistle," in two pages, introducing a sermon on

246

LETTERS

' ' f!

the death of "the Hononble Abigail Belcher, late Con-
tort of Jonathan Belcher, lUq. ; Late Lieutenant Governor
and Commander in Chief and Hii Majeaty'i present
Chief Jiutice of Hii Province of Nova Scotia, de-
livered at Halifax in the aaid Province, October 20,
1771, by John Secombe rf Cheater, A.M. With an
Epiitle by Mather Bylea, D.D., of Boaton." (Tezta,
John 17:«4; Luke iS:4S.] Boeton, New England,
Printed by Thumaa and John Fleet, 177*. The " Epijtle "
ia addresaed to Chief Justice Jonathan Belcher of Nova
Scotia, son of Governor Jonathan Belcher, and is signed,
"Your Honour's moat affectionate Kin.m.n and faithful
Friend and Servant, Mather Byles," and dated "Beaton,
January, iO, 1772." [Rev. John Secombe was a Congre-
gational minister settled at Cheater, Nova Scotia.]

DRAFTS OF LETTERS IN MAND8CR1PT

A list of the names of persons to whom drafts of letten
in manuscript are found i- D? Byles's letter book in the
library of the New England Historic Genealogical Society
is as follows :

Mr Alexander Pope, Oct. 7, 17187.

The Honourable Isaac Window, Esq., Marshfield. No
date.

The Rev. Mr. James Gardner, pastor of the Church in
Marshfield. No date.

The Rev. Mr. Isaac Watts at my Lady Asbury's, in
Lime-Street, London, May 3, 17128.

M? Alexander Pope, May 18, 17«8.

Alexander Pope, Esq., Nov. iS, 1748.

The Reverend Isaac Watts, D.D., May 8, 1729.

>te Con-
jovemor

present
>tu, de-
iber JM,
With an

(Tczti.
Bnglandi
Epiatle"
of Nova
I (igned,

faithful
'Boston,
Congie-
I

IPT

>f letters
k in the
1 Society

lid. No
tiurch in
iry's, in

!9.

LETTERS 947

JP Nathanael Walter in Glocester, Oct. 14, I7M
The Right Honourable John Lord Barringtoii at

Beckett House. Dec. U, 1780.

The Right Honourable George GranviUe My Lord

Lansdowne, Dec. M, 17S0.

The Right Honourable George. Lord Lansdowne.
March 4, 173).

The Reverend Mr Thomas Bradbury, London, March

4, nsj.

The Rev. Dr baac Watts, Jan. S. 1786/7.
Alexander Pope, Esqr., Twickenham. Nod/te.
Mr Junes Thomson. To be left in New-Street, Lon-
oon, Jan. 4, 178(1/7.

The Honourable D- Benjamin Franklin, London. No
date.

The Rev? Dr John Chalmers, Principal of the King's
CoUege and University of Aberdeen. No date.

His E-cceUency the Governor [Hutchinson], AprU 8,

The HonourableA jdrewOUver, Esqr,Salem. No date

M? Livingstone, sent the Day after her Husband and
others had been here on a visit, when 800 dolhirs was
found left in the chamber closet. May U, 1780.

M' Murray, Glocester, Jan., 1781.

Mr Enoch Brown, Boston, Feb. 10, 1781.

His daughter-in-Uw in Halifax, on the death of his
[second] wife. No date.

Mr Frederick William Geyer, London, July 1, 1788.

Mr Holmes, London, Nov. 4, 1788.

Mr Frederick William Geyer, merchant in London,
Nov. 14, 1788.

I I

248

LETTERS

Hi* (Uughter-in-kw in lUifu, Dee. 10, ITM.

Bev. Ens SUIm. Prerident of Yale CoUege, New
Haven. April IS, 1787.

Df Bylei, Halifu, April 14, 1787.

His Excellency Benjamin Franklin, Eiq', Philadelpliia,
Hay 14. 1787.

Hr Gawen Brown, Petertburg, Virginia, May 14. 1787.

(Following these letters of D! Byles's are many from
his daughters to various friends, especially their brother
and his family in Halifax.]

New

IpUm.

1787.
from
other

INDEX

— . mm),

Aduu, Bnr. Joko, ts,
Adunib JoMph. «N.
Aduni^ Suniwl, 147, IW.
Alnua. Or. WiUiun Bnin, 11.
AtawB. iMiily, o*H«U«^ Nov.

Scotia. US.
Amofy, Jokn. H.
A11M17, Mn. Jalu, M.
Appleton, Rev. Nathuid, IM.
Aptkorp, Mn. Jobs, St.
Artillefy Compuiy. 84.
Attucki, Cliqiiu, 14«.
AochmuUr, Judo Bobert. Jr.

1S4.

.. Her. Jacobb 1V7-1M,
tM.

Buna. Mn. Jobn, «s.
Bui, Akkn. ISl.
Mdwr, Andrew, 88, S», 80.
Bdcher, Andrew, Jr.. 41, 40,
Belcher, Ann, 48.
Belcher, (unily, 41, 80, 81, u».
Belcher, Governor JonaUun, 38
M, 48, J8, ISO. 178, 888, Sit!
Belcher, Mn. Jonatbim, 58-60.
" Belcher lapen," 888.
Belcher. Sarah, 48.
Belknap, Eev. Jeremy, 88, 118,
IM. 158, 188, lSS-800, 803
MS, 883, 835, 838.
" Bellmap Papen," 888, 834, 837.
BeUmap, Sarah (Bylea), 198.

848

Boaetl, JoMph'i aasomt <A

Boiton. 48-51.
BilUnti, Willlan, 110.
Blake. John, 881.
Blood, Henry Amei. 888.
Bolton, Charlei Knowlea, 897,
Bolton, church at, 158.
Board ol War, wamuit to de-

hyer Byla to, 185.
Boeton. Athen«uni. 184*
■""COO, 181; Beacon Hill,'
181; Common, 181, 188;
Copp'f Hill, 13; Dock Squares
IS ; evacnatico of, by General
Howe, 174, t\0; Emin,
Pot, 887; QaattU, 87, 34,
*M, 835; Mall, 48, 50, 817;
"MMionf, 188-185; minia-
teri, doggerel baUad on, 180;
Htm-lMtr, 885; North
Square, 14; Old North or
Second Church, 14; hi Pro-
vincial period. 180-185; "Pul-
pit of the Revolution," 143;
in the Kventeentb century,'
13, 14; liege of, 143; lodal
hiitory of, in the Provincial
period, 47; TUeston Street,
18; Town Houie, 181;
wharves, 181.
Bowdoin, James, 184.
" Bower of Taste," 836.
Bowman, Rev. Jonathan, ST.
Boyliton, Elisabeth, 68.

INDEX

\li

BojrUtao, Thocui, M.

Bndtord, Mr., IM.

Bndlet. NsthuM MO.

Bn**' "^tnct meeUiic-hoilM,
Bt.uo. tnwpa qurtcnd in,
151.

Bisttk Squu« Cliiiick, 1(7.

Bnyntoo, Rev. Dr. John, 110,
M8.

Brinky tunily, tU.

Britiih troofw, quartered In
BoUii BtTMt guetiiic-kiMiM,
Kl.

BramfieU, Edwird, 184.

Bromfidd-PhilliiM home. 184.

Brown, EUiabetb (ByW; 818.
815, 888.

Brown, Gawtn, 818 880.

Brown. Mather, hU birth, 818,
839 ; portnUt of, 888 i beloved
by hii aunt*. 881; leavei
Boaton with lettera to Copley
and Beniamin Fianklin, 81S;
kindly treated by Dr. Franlt-
lin and introduced to Benja-
min Weit, 185, «1S; itudien
with Weat. 814: mtroduced
by Weat at Veruiliea, 814;
becomea painter to George
III and other royal and not-
able perc.4ia, 814, 815.

Bucldnfham, joaeph T., 81«.

Burnet. Governor William, 05.

Bylea, Anna, 41, 48, 57, 85. 888,
880.

Bylca, Belcher, 85.

Byle^ Catherine, 170-178.

Bylea, children'a baptiama. 880.
881.

BylcK Eliiabetb, Sr.. 16-19, 4«,
57, 889.

Bylea, EUuoatk, Jr., 808. 818,
888.

" Bylea Giria," a poam, 888.

Bylei^ Joalaa, 18-18.

By\M, Mather, no lila ol him
hitherto written, 8; birth. 17:
Mather and Cotton anccatry.
8, 5, 17 ; renambeied in Ua
grandfather Incieaae Mather'a
will, 80, 81 : atudiea at the
North Latin Scho ' -.nd entera
Harvard College, .1, 88; ill
health and Cotton ilather'a
aoUcitude tor, 81, 88; college
career. 8S-80 ; hia grandfather
aenda him to Jamea Franklin.
87; letter hi the Aofdm
OauUe, 31-84 ; connexion
with the Wewcaftawl WtsUy
Journal, 84, 85; ordained
miniater of HoOia Street
Church, 84, 89-41 ; probable
influence on him of Cotton
Mather, 85 ; unaucceaaful
love-making, 55 ; marrica in
the Province Houie Anna
(Noyea) Gale, 4l-(\ 887;
haa lix children bom, 85;
probable Brat dwelling after
marriage, 57 ; buya a houie of
hia own, 7, 6f ; price paid for
property, 889; hia wife dlea
and he preachea her funeral
lermon, 85-47; he marriea,
aecondly, Rebecca Tailer, 67 ;
haa three children bora, 78;
leceivea degree of S.T.D.
from Aberdeen, 85; letter to
S. Chahnen, 85, 86; givea
kindly advice to Jeremy
Belknap. 886. 887; atroog

INDEX

poHtiod lyinpatUn, IM-
IM: •riakxniic tendmcin
ud mkUI pontiun. 9, M, ns-
]M>; pKjudkc* agninit him.
«. «, 88; > (rind III Britiih
offlccri and lUunch Tory in
Uk Rcvolutiiin. >, S, 4, t, 148,
IM, 151. lU, IMi wttchct
funeral promfioa of Critpui
Attucki, I4II: IrUi Mon
hil cllurrli, », lM-197. 171,
17fl; diiapprovd of other
ministeri ot the coune of
the church, lt7-l«S: tried
before the town and lenteoced
to traniportation, but lentence
not carri-d out. «. 7, BR. lei-
187 ; i- .^riioaed in hii hou«e,
IM. le7; hi> daughter Cathe-
rine's account of the two trial*,
170-17«; life after the Revo-
lution. 88. SR, laS; friend-
■hip with Rev. Nathaniel
Enuuons, 00, 01; relations
with Dr. Benjamin Franklin,
18<-10Ji probably attended
Trinity Church. Ml ; viaited
by Rev. Jacob Bailey, 187 j
ii leiied with paralyiii, 108;
Dr. Belknap deacribea his
infirmities, 100; taken from
hia house in the great fire.
MO, Ml; tender reUtions
with his son. 812; visit of
Rev. Samuel Parker to him
V -m he was dying. M2; his
death. tOt, t03: buried in
the Granary burying-ground,
MS; money subscribed for his
funeral expenses. 237; the-
ological position, 78 ; made no

original eoatribnlloa to th»
olofr. II : a brilliant prevher,
<, 70 ; his printed sermons, 78,
70; avoids polilirs in the
pulpit. 14S-14S; prays at
town meeting and preachea
Thursday tecturet, 84, 108;
"lashed" by Rev. Eleuer
Wheelock. 87; Rev. John
Eliot's criticism, 78; Rev.
John Eliot's account of (in
1777). IM; Ephiaim Eliot's
strictumoa, MO; showed no
desire to become an Anglican*
84 ; character of his ministry,
7S ; pnaence, voice, dress. R-
11; portraits of. 10-12 ; pro-
lific writings. 2; attempt of
friends to exalt as a great poet,
08-100; a "New EngUnd
pij. t laumte," 178; Epistlea
to Governor Belcher, 81-83,
08; poem of welcome to
Governor Burnet, 03, 08;
"The Conflagration." written
in his fifteenth year. 08-08;
letter to Pope, 101-lOS; cor-
respondence with Pope,
Watts, and Grenville. lOS,
104, 103, 288; poem to Dr.
Watts, 112-114; receives the
Odyssey from Pope and in-
scribes lines in it, 103, 106;
attention to the art of poetry,
IOd-108; interest in music.
Ill; interest in natural
science, 01; his overflowing
wit, 1. t, 4; Lucius Manlius
Sargent charccteriaes bis hu-
mour. 2S3 ; pun on the names
Quincy and Byles. 33; pat-

252

INDEX

;|:.f

•age-at-amu with Joaeph
Green. 114; Governor Bel-
cher's practical joke on, ISO-
IS2; Green's parody of his
hymn written at sea. 133-
1S7 ; he retorts on Green, 137,
140 ; his " brown study," 141 ;
witticism at his tnal before
the justices, 173; humoi^
ously relieves his guard, 173,
174; frightens British troops
by his joke on Fast Day, 175,
176; makes fun of General
Knox. 175 ; pun on redressing
New England's grievances,
176; letter to "Mr. Copley
in the solar system," ^97;
tells Dr. Cooper he treats him
like a baby. 197; the "dark
day," 198; estimate of, 118;
estimate of, by Dr. Nathaniel
Emmons, 90, 01 ; opinions of
expressed in " Memorial His-
tory of Boston." 117, 118;
where his gift of humour
came from, 121; William
"Odor's verdict on, 168, 164;
his library, 01 ; his letter^
book. 188; miscellaneous ef-
fects of, MS, to*.
Byles,Mather, Jr., 7; bom, 65,
M5; baptiied,i37; graduated
at Harvard, tOS; librarian
of Harvard, 837; ordained at
New London, 806; portrait
<d, 80S, 807; becomes an
An g l i ff a n , 808; is lampooned,
809; notice of, in AMtottEtwn-
uiy Poit, tstii embarks for
EngUnd. 887; assumes the
Bectorship of Christ Churt^

Boston. 809, 810; Inva for
Halifax, Nova Scotia, with
Howe's fteet, 810; marries
three times, 811 ; ministry at
Halifax and St. John, New
Brunswick, 819, 811; receives
degrees from Harvard, Yale,
and Oxford, 811: letter from
his father, 818; writes Rev.
Jacob Bailey, 835; his de-
scendants, 811, 818.

Bylea, Misses Mary and Cath-
erine, 7, 8, 68, 70. 78, 89, 187,
188, 805. 816-883.

Byles. Bebecca. Sr., 67, 78, 187,
188, 811.

Byles, Rebecca, Jr., 811.

Byles, Samuel, 815, 889.

Byles, Sarah, 15.

Byles, Sarah (Lyde), 811,818.

Byles, Thomas, 199.

Byles chair surmounted by
crown, 880.

Byles's Comer, 890.

Byles house, 7, 68-78, 83a

Byles tomb, 889.

Caner, Rev. Dr., 810, 838, 839.
'Cards of Boston." 69. 830.
Castle William, 60, 138.
Chalmers, Rev. Dr. John, 85.

198.
Chaney, Rev. George L., 160,

175.
Charleston, South Carolina, 885.
Chauncy. Rev. Dr. Charles, 159,

178, 838.
Chief Publiahed Writings. 840-

846.
Christ Church. Boston, 808, 810.
Clap, Thomas, of SdtuaU, 885.

INDEX

253

Cbrk, Rev. Mr., c( Dedham,

Its.
Clarke, Dr. John, 119.
Clarke, Richard, 18S.
Clough, Ebeneier, «SI.
Clough, John, iSl.
"Collection of Foenu by Ser-

eral Handa," 8S-101.
CoUingwood, Cuthbert, 4.
Committee of Correspondence
and Safety, Recorda of, 161.
Contributions to fiev} Etijfland

Weekly Journal, SS.
Cooper, Rev. Dr. Samuel, 197,

ist.
Copley, John Singleton, 41, St,

lU, 148, 184, 18S.
Copley portrait of, 221, tit.
Cornelian ring in Copley por-
trait, ttl.
Comhill, Knox'a bookstore in.

174.
Cotton, Rev. John, 71, 18S, iSI.
Cnvath, John, 231.
Crosby, Dr., 228.
Curwen, Judge Samuel, extract
from journal of, 150.

Dantorth, Rev. John, 87.

Dartmouth College, 87.

Day, James, 2S1.

"Dealings with the Dead," 118,
2U.

De Bids, Gilbert. 184.

Degrees (of S.T.D.) given by
Harvard. 232.

DesBiisay family ol Nova
Scotia, 238.

Dorchester Heights, troopa en-
camped on, 157.

" Dorothy Q.," 58.

Drake's "Hiatoiy of Boston,"
235.

Drake's "Landmarks of Boa-
ton," 233.

Dummer, Hon. William. 59,
227.

Durell, Captain, of warship
Scarborough, 131.

Duyckiuck's "Cyclopnlia of
American literature," 80,
234.

" Earl Percy's Dinner Table," 4.

Earl Ferv^y's house, 151.

Early Congregational Churches

of Boston, 37-3*.
Edes and Gill, publishers, 109.
Edinburgh University, 232.
Eliot, Rev. Dr. Andrew, 143,

144, 232, 239.
Eliot, Mr. Ephraim, 143, 159,

234.
Eliot, Rev. John, 73, 88, 158,

169, 170. 235.
Eliot, Rev. Samuel, D.D.. 231.
Ellis, Rev. Dr. George, I '
Emmona, Rev. Dr. Nathaniel,

90, 119. 146, 147.
Evelyn. Captain, 4.

Faneuil, Benjamin, 183.
Faneuil, Peter, 182.
Fairfield, Nathaniel, 231.
Fifield, Richard, 40.
Fint Church, Boston, 231.
Fitch. Timothy, 53.
Fitch, Mis. Timothy. 53.
"Flourish ol Annual Springs"

80,106.
Foote, Rev. Heniy Wilder, 51,

240.

254

INDEX

Forter, HopotiU, t»l.

Foi. Hon. Hcniy Edward, 4.

FrukUnd. Sir Charlea Henry,

184.
Flmnklin, Dr. Benjamiii, lBi~

m. 201, tan.

Franklin. James, iS, 18«, 1S7.

Gage, Governor, 180.

Gale, Anna (Noyei), 41, it.

Gale, Azor, Jr., 4(.

Gardiner, Anne, A3.

Gardner, Joseph, 165.

Gay, Frederick Lewis, It, tS».

Germaine, Lord George, 214.

Gibbon, Henry, 2S1.

Gill, Moses. 53.

Gill, Mrs. Moses, 1st & 2d,' 54.

Gilmore, James R. ("Edmund

Kirke"), 232.
Gowns, worn by New England

ministers, 8, 10.
Oraham't Sfagazine, 60, 217.
Granary Burying Ground, 58.
Gray, Harrison, 184, 214.
Gray, Rev. Mr., 88.
" Great and Thursday Lecture^"

84, 231, 232.
"Great Awakening," 76, 82, 83.
Great fire in the South End, 200,

201
Green, Joseph, 134, 135, 1*7,

141, 233, 234.
Green, T., 226.
Green's Elegy on Dr. Byles's

cat, 114-116, 284.
Greenleaf, Joseph, 165.
Greenough, Elizabeth, 16.
Greenough, William, 16.
Gienville, George, Lord Lans-
downe, 104.

GrerUle. Charlea Cavendadl

Fulke^ 121.
Gunning, Lieut.-Col., 4.

Halifax, Nora Scotia, Boston

Tories at, 48.
Halifax, Nova Scotia, social life

of, 47. 48.
Halifax. Nova Scotia, St. Paul's

Church at, 8, 210.
Hancock, John, 147, 188.
Hancock, Mrs. J'-hu, 55.
Hancock, Thomas, 183.
Harratt, Peter, 60,
Harrison, Peter, architect of

King's Chapel, 123.
Harvard College, the Mathers'

relations to, 22.
Harvard College, President and

Fellows of, 59.
Harvard College, report of im-
morality of students of, 24, 25.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 43, 45.
Hazard, Ebenezer, 199, 203. 228.

233.
Haselrigg. Sir Robert, of Leices-
tershire, 207.
Hell-Fire Club, 33.
Hill, Hamilton Andrews, 227.
Hill, John. J. P., 165.
Hill, Thomas, 126.
'Historical Notkes," by Eph-

raim Eliot, 234.
HoUis Street Church, organiza-
tion and founders of. 39-41,
231.
HoUis Street congregation, an-
ger of, 151, 152.
HoUis Street meeting-house,
British troops quartered in,
151.

INDEX

Sdi

Hopkuuunum, 76.
Howe, General, 6, 174.
Hutchinjon, Eluha, 183.
HutchiDMii, Governor Thomu,
__ 14, 40, SB, 183, 184.
"Hymn for the Spring," 108,

Hymn vritten at lea, 181, 133.

Iruh regimenta come to Boston

(rom Halitai, 176.
Inoculation for amaU*iKi 26

31, 186.

Johnion, Dr. Samuel, i32.
Jones's (Morton) doggeiel bal
lad, IM.

Eng George 1st, death of. 83,

King George id, accession at. 94.

IQng William Fourth, ttO.

King's Chapel, architecture of,
233.

King's Chapel, architectuisl
drawings for, 1!3.

Kmg'a Chapel congregation. 47.

King's Chapel, history and de-
scription of, «1, St, 240.

King's Chapel, worshippers at.
180. I

Kneeland. S.. M6.

Knoi. Gennal Henry, enters
Boston, 174. 17<.

I*«»downe (George Grenville),

232.
lAthrop. Rev. John. '83.
lolie. Miss Eliia, 6», 217. 2IB

Ml. 230.
Leslie, Robert. 217.
I<tter-boak of Dr. Byba. 85.

Letten of Dr. Byfc. in Manu-

__ •cripl, 240-248.

" Library of Harvard University,

Biographical Omtributions."

237.
"Life of James Otis." 163.
Lincohi, Major General, 119.
"Literary History of America,"

229.
londm Menury, »,. 28.
Long Wharf, building of, 42.
Loring, Isaac, 281.
Lyde, BySeld, 46, 211.
Lyde, Sarah, daughter of By.
add. 211. ''

Lynde, Benjamin, Esq., «».

MassachusetU Charter of 1691.

75.
MassachusetU Council, 50.

Mattaekuutti Qtaette, 123.

MassachusetU Hutotical So-
dety's Collections, 130. 162
«34, 237.

MassachusetU Historical Soci-
ety, Froeeeduigs of, 228, 239.

MassachusetU SUte Archives,
volume pertaining to Royal-
ists, 164.

Mather, Rev. Dr. Cotton, 2, 14
15, 18, 19, 22, 23, 36, 46, 78, 79.
117, 179. 225, 226.

Mather dynasty, 84, 179.

Mather, Elisabeth. 16.

Mather, Rev. Dr. Increaa^ 2,

14, 15, 19-41, 26-34, 75, 179,
ns, 226, 232.

Mather, Maria, 46.
Mather, Rev. Richard, 75.
Mather, Rev. Dr. Samuel, 14

15, 46, 143, 225.

INDEX

vi
hi

Hatlier, Suah. M.

Matlwn, gnuluatea U Harvud,
Ui.

May (uniljr, 147, 148.

M>y, JoMph. iS4.

Mayhew, Rev. Jooatfaui, 8A,
178.

"Mediution of Cunm," 80-gt.

Meeting-faoiuef, chirf places
where mdependence wu fos-
tered, 142.

"Memorial Histoiy of Boston,"
117, 143, 8SS, tas.

Milton's " Paradise Lost," 83.

Muidock, Harold, ISO.

"Nathaniel Emmons and
Mather Byles," 132.

Neal, Jonathan, 231.

JVne England Courani, 26-34,
186, 187, 226, 236, 236.

New En^^d Historic Genea-
logical Society, 95.

New EngUnd Historical and
Genealogical Begister, 147,
223,234.

"New England Hymn," pub-
lished by Edes and Gill, <0S,
110.

Km England Magaxint, 232.

New England patriots. Dr.
Emmons's opinion erf, 147.

"New England Paalm-Singer,"
108.

New England WtcUf Journal,
34, as, 86, 100, 226.

New England's GrieTaocea " Kd-
dressed," 176, 23S.

New light opinions, 123, 124.

New North Church, 143, 238.

Newport, R. I., 123.

Noyes, Anna, 42.

Noyes, Dr. Oliver, 42, 228.

Noyes, John, 42.

Noyes, Sarah (Oliver), 42.

Odell, Beginald, 18.
"Old Calvinism," 77, 78.
Old North Church, 47, 223.
Old South Church, 40, 47, 60,

87, 142, m, 227, 284, 237.
Oliver, Hon. Daniel, 88.

Parker, Bishop Samuel, 202.

238.
Parker House, Boston, 183.
Payson, Joseph, 231.
Pelham, Peter, 10, 11, 228.
Pemberton, Rev. Ebeneser, 84,

232.
Pemberton, Samuel, J. P., 163.
Percy, Earl, letters to his father

and Henry Reveley, Esq.,

149, ISO.
Phillips. Rev. Samuel, 231.
PhiUips, William, 183.
Phipps, Lieut. Governor Spen-
cer, 59.
"Pious Remains" of Dr. Samuel

Byles, 219.
Pitoum, Major John, 4.
Poem describing a Harvard

Commencement, 100, 101.
Poem on the death of King

George 1st, and the ac' ession

of George 2d, 84.
Poem — "The Comet," lOO.
Poems on Several Occasions,"

82,83.
Popr, Alexander, 101, 232, 233.
Potter, Alfred Claghom, 237.
Pownalborough, Maine, 167.

INDEX

S57

"0,

lot.

Friocc Ker. Dr. Thomu, M

47, 80, iir, lit, IIS, 178, na.

Princeton College, tst.
ProK Writingi of Dr. Bylei, M.
Province Hoiue, deicription mod
biitorj of, *a-U.

Quincjr, Judge Edmund, M, tU.
Quincy (amily, 5S,

Hmwdon, Lord Franc'a, 4.
Befugees with Howe's fieet, 8.
Heid, Mrj. Su«ann«, in.
Keveley, Henry, E«)., letter of

Earl r rcy to, 140, I»0.
Revere, i'uid, no.
Ritchie fsmily of Halifai, 838.
Rogerenei in New London, 808.
Royall family, i3«.
Royal, Col. Iiaac, 4.

Sargent, Lucius Manlius, 118

11*. iSS.
Second Church, Wientham, tSi.
Sergeant, Peter, 43.
Settlement of Dr. Byles over

the HolUs St. Church, 41.
Bewail, Chief~Justice, 17, 18, 84,

85.
Bewail, Her. Dr. Joseph. 87, 84,

178, 8S».
Sheafe, Roger, 4.
Shirley, Governor, 179.
Smibert, John, 888.
Smith, Josiah, US.
Smith, Sydney, 181, K33.
Snelling, Jonathan, 184.
Solemn League and Covenant,

149.
Sprague's "Annals of the Amer-
ican Pulpit," 88S.

Stamp Act, 178.

SUte Street, Boston, 181.

Stiles, Rev. Dr. Ena, eztnct
from diary of, W, 188, 834.

St. John, New Brunswick, Trin-
ity Church at, 3, 811.

St. John's Church, Portsmouth.
810.

St. Paul's Church, Halitai, 3,
810.

Tailer, Dr. Gillam, 88.

Taller, Rebecca, 87.

Tailer, Hon. Lieut.-Gov. Wil-
liam, 38, 87, 880, 889.

Tailer family's connexions, 87,
68,

Teal, Emilia Louisa, 48.

"Topographical and Historical
Description of Boston," 44.

Tories leave for Halifax, 810.

Trees aloig the Mall, 188.

Trinity Church, Boston, 8, 801,
839, 840.

Trinity Church, St. John. N. B..
3, 811.

TYott. Thomas, 831.
Tudor's (William) "Life of
James Otis," 163.

'Twice Told Tales," 43.
Tyler, Moses Coit, 98.

Unitarianism, moderate and

advanced, 78, 77.
University of Aberdeen. 83.

Vassal!. John. 181.

Walker, George Leon, U.D., 881.
Walter, Rebecca, 6nt wife of
Mather Byles, Jr., 807.

«58

INDEX

Walter, Rev. Nebeniiah, M.

Walter, Rev. Dr. William, Hec-
tor of Trinity Church, Boaton.
8, 8, «10, t3».

Warnut of Court of Seniooa
for aiTMt of Dr. Bylea, 1(14,
IM.

Watti, Rev. Dr. Iiaac, ftS, 104,

txt.

Webteed, Rev. William, 83.
Wendell, Abraham, its,
Wendell, Eliiabeth, SS, US.
Wendell, Profeiaor Banett, n».

Wendell, r >win* De Key, MS.
Weit. Benjamin, bee met patron

of Mather Brown, 21S, tl4.
Weit Street, Borton, 181.
Whedock, Rev. Dr. Eleuer,

t7.
WhiteHeld, Rev. George, 83.
WilUrd, Rev. Mr., too.
Wnulow, Joahua, 188.
Wmior, Juatin, i37.
Winthrop, Adam, £aq.. Aft.

'Yankee heraldry," tt».

tron

14.