ART. IV. History of the Town of Plymouth, from its first Settlement in 1620 to the Present Time; with a Concise History of the Aborigines, &c. By JAMES THACHer. Second Edition. Boston: Marsh, Capen, & Lyon. 1835.

THE rapid circulation of the former edition of the work, if not a sure test of its merit, was an indication, we think, both of the interest taken in the subject-matter by the public, and of the opinion they entertained of the author's ability to do it justice. And there were good reasons, we need not say, for the opinion, as well as for the interest. The contributions which Dr. Thacher had made to our historical matériel, not less than to other departments of our literature, authorized the expectation that the annals of his own Town, and such a town, too, as it has been,- would, in his hands, be wrought into a volume of substantial and permanent value. We are rejoiced to see this expectation realized, especially in the issuing of the edition before us, with the very considerable improvements on the first, which several years of revision might be supposed to suggest. Its appearance must be a source of more than ordinary satisfaction to historical readers, - to most students, particularly, of our own peculiar history,to all, who are anxious, as at least all Americans should be, to appreciate, and see appreciated, as it deserves, both the character of the Pilgrims, and that of the great enterprise by which their names are chiefly known.

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Nor do we feel the necessity of apologizing for venturing to congratulate the venerable Chronicler himself on the completion of this latest (we hope not last) public labor of the more than four-score years, of which so large a portion has been devoted to his country's service. No idle employment is it for even years like these, to bestow them on the noble task of rendering this tribute to the generations which have gone before us. He who performs such a work well, deserves the privilege he secures, of connecting his own memory with theirs. Next, in these cases, to the doing a good thing, is the recording it fitly; and if, indeed, the good men do is worthy to survive them, if its value involves its influence as an example, on Shakspeare's principle, that..

"One good deed dying tongueless, Slaughters a thousand hanging upon that,"

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then is the "bene-dicere" not so much the preservation, as it is the sequel, of the "bene-facere" of the act. The historian consummates, more than he celebrates, the career of his heroes. He coins the bullion which they leave in rude obscurity, and gives it currency with the race. This is the "clarum fieri, vel pace, vel bello." No wonder if" et qui fecêre, et qui facta aliorum scripsére, multi laudantur."

This is no time for going again over the old ground of the character of the extraordinary men who are commemorated in this volume; nor need we attempt a new disquisition on the mighty consequences, which have followed, and may follow, from the equally extraordinary events they were principally active in producing. All, however, will concur in the desirableness of preserving whatever data may be still collected. Philosophy, and theory, and poetry, we had before. These we can have at any time, almost as well without data as with them, - sometimes a great deal better; but now we wanted facts. Let us have these, while they may yet be had; and the more of them, the better. The inferences may pretty safely be left to themselves.

A large proportion of this matériel, in some shape or other, has of course seen the light before. The art of inventing facts is an accomplishment as little to be desired, with the historian, as the art of suppressing them, or as the somewhat popular system of bringing them up, and putting them down, and turning them round about, after the fashion of a puppet-show, and according to the particular effect which the showman wishes to produce. We do not want showmen in history, but workmen. We do not want effects, but facts. We want no machinery, nor theory, but the truth; and the more of this, as we said before, the better.

On these principles, we do not at all object to our author's informing us how much the Town agreed to pay the French Doctor for curing Hunter's wife." We are deeply interested in the affecting story of the loves of Captain Miles Standish and Miss Priscilla Mullins, of Cape Cod; not omitting how Alden managed to get the "damages" for himself, instead of his gallant friend, whose messenger he should have been; nor how, when he went to marry her, that famous journey was performed. Governor Winslow, too, we admire more than ever in his new capacity as Skipper of a corn-craft, with some others of the old "standards" for a crew, on a peddling expedition down

to the Kennebec. We would not spare a single one of all the particulars of his two days' walk through the wilderness, forty miles, to the royal hut of Massasoit, when with his mixture of sassafras-roots and strawberry-leaves he cured that Monarch of his ails, and so on; especially when we find that his Excellency's right-hand man in this humble errand was possibly a personage still more illustrious finally than himself, and none other than Hampden, the renowned Patriot, destined so early afterwards to commence in his own country the overthrow of the monarchy, in "the first daring attempt (as Mr. Baylies calls it, in his Memoir of Plymouth,) for a free constitution in England." Well is it added, little did he think, when wandering in this manner along the banks of Taunton River, of the fate which awaited him. For ourselves, however, we confess our doubts about this statement.

Again, no gorgeous picture of the most splendid modern coronation could have an interest for us, compared with the simple sketch, which our annalist has borrowed from Mr. Winthrop's Journal, of a visit paid by that gentleman, with the Rev. Mr. Wilson of Boston, and a few other friends, to some of the dignitaries of Plymouth.

We like to know precisely how much of the 'journey was achieved by water, and how much on foot; and what was the time consumed each way; and how the company were entertained on their arrival; what were the ceremonies of the Sabbath, and of the sacrament, especially, which they partook of; how Mr. Roger Williams "prophesied," and then propounded a question for discussion; and how, after the Boston gentry had spoken to this in turn, Deacon Fuller put the congregation in mind of the contribution, "upon which the Governor and all the rest went down to the Deacon's seat, and put into the bag, and then". "returned." It seems, when they went home, the Wednesday after, "the Lieutenant," Holmes, was one of their escort. There was no mistaking this functionary, evidently, for any other man. title was a distinction, and a great honor, as the office it indicated, and the circumstances of the times, demanded that it should be. These titles were never given for nothing. The "Captain's Mount," in Duxbury, and the "Cornet's Rocks in Scituate, are monuments to this day of the feeling with which they were regarded; (the former named, we take it, after Standish, who lived in Duxbury some years, and died

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there, and the latter after Cornet Robert Stetson, of the first troop of light-horse raised in the Colony, and lineal ancestor of the six or seven generations, of his own name, who have ever since tenanted the neighbouring estate.)

All this, indeed, may be the gossip of history. Yet who would be willing to part with it? Who does not see that it pours a flood of light on the character of the men, and on the condition of the times? Who does not perceive, that it is the multitude of trifles, like these, which make up the life of the volume ? Would there were more of them! How should we rejoice over the discovery of the private journal of Standish, for example,

had that worthy been so obliging as to keep one; or of Elder Brewster, or the handsome John Alden himself. How should we riot in even the log-book of honest Tom Clark, the master's-mate of the May-Flower?

What fresh interest, too, might gather about the glorious old Compact itself, signed in that vessel's cabin, could all the countless little circumstances of its execution, of the controversy, the ceremony, the long, solemn, solitary discussions which occurred in connexion with it, be restored to their old proximity with the words of the Instrument and the names attached to it. That would be a history, indeed, of the origin of our government. The system of American Republicanism would be laid bare to its roots. The character which has been the vitality of all the Pilgrim institutions, great and small, from that day to this, might then be subjected to a scrutiny almost as rigid as a chemical analysis. We should see men and things, worth seeing, as they were, and are. And this, we repeat, is what we need. This is history, as it should be. The nearer we can get to it, the better.

These remarks apply with peculiar emphasis to the case of Plymouth. There was the commencement of the colonization of New England, and here is the account of it. There was the first actual American government, the first pure democracy in the world,-established; the model of most which have followed it. Here were the legitimate appurtenances, and consequences belonging to it,—all the systems of minor institutions, developed; and its true principles, in all their application to practice, set forth in theory, and in operation. Here were the lives of the founders of the Republic passed. Here, in the midst of them, at the fountain-head of the great stream, must be gathered, if gathered at all, the true philosophy

of those vast phenomena of after-days, and of ours, which, as the sequel of the sublime labor of the Pilgrims, have placed them in the first rank of the champions of the race.

As a town, merely, the annals of Plymouth are of rare value. From first to last, it has seen perhaps as much, as any other, of the various fortunes, which, as they have given interest to the experience, ought in proportion to impart spirit to the annals of the country. Its share in the trials of the settlement, its connexion with the natives, and especially its part in Philip's War, its various experiments in civil, social, and religious polity, from time to time, are indices, as characteristic as can be anywhere found, of the several great subjectmatters and the successive stages of history, to which they correspond. They are distinctive specimens of those states and stages, - disinterments of the strata of the past. No local annals could give a better notion of the history of the country at large.

The part taken by the town (one hundred years after the deadly struggle of King Philip) in the Revolution of 1775, was such, that it seems to have been but a slight accident, in our historian's opinion, which prevented the first battle being fought at "Plymouth instead of Lexington," [Concord]. The men of the Old Colony were in the whole service of the war, on land and sea. It was the gallant Sampson who received from our Provincial Congress, the appointment of one of the first naval captains in the defence of the country.* It was James Warren, (a lineal descendant of the Richard Warren who came over in the May-Flower,) who had the credit of originating, with Samuel Adams, the famous plan of general correspondence and Committees of Safety, which did so much for the public welfare; and who, as a member of the Provincial Congress, on the death of Joseph Warren, was appointed to succeed him as the President of that body. James Otis was here also for a time. General Peleg Wadsworth, whose adventures in Maine alone have afforded President Dwight matériel for a chapter of romance in real life, and the brave Scammel, who fell at Yorktown, were teachers of the town's youth about the same period. The names of Chauncy,

* There is an anecdote, in the text, of Admiral Nelson, who at one time cruised off the harbour, and was visited from town. He was then a Captain.