which Cotton Mather ascribed to Governor Dudley, whom he considered a bitter enemy. Dudley had political reasons for passing over Cotton Mather: the clergy had always been friends of freedom, a privilege which he did not greatly covet for his country; and knowing Mather's restless and unmanageable spirit, he was not willing to put the means of extensive influence into his hands. As a letter from Cotton Mather, read to the king, had secured the appointment of Governor to Dudley, it was not unnatural to expect that the compliment should be returned. But it was ordered otherwise and after this, Cotton Mather speaks of his Excellency, as the wretch' our wicked Governor' - and other terms of the kind, which indicate no good will. At one time he says, that he mentioned his enemies (of whom Dudley was one,) by name unto the Lord, imploring that he might be delivered from their power, and he immediately received assurances to that effect, with which he was greatly comforted.

Presidents are mortal- and after seventeen years of usefulness and honor, President Leverett died. Cotton Mather records that event in his diary, with all the sorrow that might be expected, saying that the unhappy man, who had so long presided in the college, was at length dead. This, he says, will open a door for his doing singular service to the best of causes: he preaches and writes on the subjects of the college, the importance of choosing the proper men to govern it, and the best means to make it extensively useful. He held a fast, to pray for direction in his conduct; but while he was thus preparing to accept the trust, which he has no doubt will be offered him, he hears that another person is chosen. His journal kindles at once; he says that he always foretold that the corporation would act like fools, if it was a possible thing, and also that they would pass over him, if they dared. Meantime, he says it was a great mistake to fancy that he desired such an office. He never could look upon the prospect of his accepting it, without dismay; and he accounts it a singular mercy of heaven that he is not thus compelled to sacrifice his private feelings to a sense of public duty. His experiences on this occasion furnish a specimen of profound selfdelusion, well worthy to be studied by those who desire to be acquainted with what Dr. Johnson calls, the anfractuosities of the human mind.

Owing to these disappointments of ambition, and still more so, perhaps, to domestic troubles, he became gloomy in his views and with his usual openness, he writes in his diary a full expression of his feelings. He says that there is not a person living who has done more for others than he, and who has been so vilely requited. He has always loved his family with the utmost affection, and studied out ways in which he might do favors to his relations: but he is afflicted with relatives who are perfectly monstrous for ingratitude and malice, and he can say with the patriarch, I am a brother to dragons.' No man, he says, ever treated the female sex with so much deference; he has written the lives of females, and done every thing possible to exalt the claims of the sex; but so far from meeting with any gratitude in return, he does not believe that there are twenty women in Boston, who have not, at times, been guilty of slandering him. To seamen he has always been a fast friend, advocating their claims to instruction, and laboring to raise the standard of character among them; but he says it is notorious that no one was ever so cursed by the sailors as he. And moreover, the negroes, whom he has pleaded for so strongly, endeavoring to impress on their masters

the duty of giving them religious instruction, so far from feeling grateful, do actually impose on their offspring the name of Cotton Mather, so that whatever evil is done by the young negroes, may be charged to him. There was, undoubtedly, some foundation for his remarks, for he had many and zealous enemies; but his feeling that he was thus universally disliked, was the natural growth of a mind ingenious in all its efforts, and particularly so in the art of self-tormenting.

I would not have it inferred that Cotton Mather was a weak man. On the contrary, it is well known that his talents were great, and his industry and attainments almost without example. This, however, only makes curiosity more active to learn every particular respecting his habits and character. It is true that his diary reveals many infirmities; but it is necessary for us to know them, in order to make up our opinion of the man. Infirmities and passions make a large proportion of the history of every heart.

P.

'THIS have I observed, oftentime, that divers people do possess divers views within their mindes of Hades and Sathanus. Every man, most part, will make unto himself a material picture of either, the which he colors with hews from his own fancie.'

THE DIALL OF PRINCES.

OAKUM,' said I, to an old maintop-man, they say you tell a very good story.'

The old tar shifted his position in the halliard-rack, and after rolling a huge chew of tobacco about in his mouth, with the air of a stray shot in a gale, replied:

They have giv'n me the credit of spinning a tolerable yarn upon the berth-deck, and in the top; but there 's blue-jackets in the ship who beat me hollow: for instance,' continued he, there's Jim Bitts, the mastman, and Dave Tank, the holder - why you'd s'pose, Sir, to hear 'em, that they'd gone a cruise or two to the devil's cruisin' ground, with Skipper Vanderdecken.'*

I requested him, however, to relate one of his own stories, and postpone the examination of the merits of Bitts and Tanks, until some other night.

* The distinguished commander of the 'Flying Dutchman.',

'Well, Sir,' said he, 'to begin, as the boy said, when he robbed the church, I once knew a chap that hailed from the main deck of America, and answered to the name of Jack Marlinspike: he was a thoroughbred sailor, too, every inch of him, from truck to kelson, and know'da ship better than my old grandmother does her prayers; 'cause you see, Sir, he did n't make his first cruise in a man-o'-war. Why, a lad might as well go to h1 to larn powder-making, as come on board of a craft like this to larn the duties of a seaman. The marchant service makes the sailor, the States' service, the lubber-'cause why? Why, in one we have only five or six hands, where every one must haul his own rope; here we have two or three hundred, and old hands enough among 'em to do the work, while the green-horns and youngsters skulk round the galley, or lofe their watches out in the head, and be d-d to 'em.

When I was the size of that monkey there, who knows how to do nothing but gnaw hard tack, and strike the bell, I could reef, hand, and steer, with the best aboard. To be sure, I was n't very strong, being but a lad; but what I did n't do in dancing, I made up for in turning round, 'cause I was 'prentice, you see, to a skipper that know'd his duty, and had a way of teaching other folks theirs. Ah, poor old Reeftackle! he took an extra allowance one cold morning, and walked overboard-thinking, no doubt, that he was going below. We lowered a boat for him, but it was no use: the devil was on the look-out, and nabbed him the very moment he plunged into Davy's fish pond; but, avast a bit — I am yawing from the p'int; and so here's at you again,' as the boy said when he kicked the cow.

Jack Marlinspike returned from an India cruise, with deep water in both pockets, and after having rigged out in long togs and bootsfor you must know Jack was a bit of a 'damn-my-eye' and given his old mother something in memory of old scores, he took a regular blowout, and was not sober again for a month.

'When Jack came to himself, he found his pockets as dry as a powder-horn, and his coppers as hot as a loggerhead: the land-sharks had been afoul of his rigging, and instead of his long togs, he found his timbers cased up in an old purser's jacket, that looked as if it had been a target for canister shot; they had walked off, too, with, the slack of his boots and bandanna; and when he had overhauled damages, he felt a little queerish. But it was no use to grumble, and so he philosophized, saying: Here I am, without a penny in my pockets, or a drop in the bottle stripped to a girtline, too for these rags a'nt fit for a Scotch Jack in or'nary.' And so he thought he must try it again afloat, for Marlinspike was n't a man to sling his hammock in Bilboa.

'Jack made a straight wake for the shipping; but trade was dull, and berths were not to be had; and Jack Marlinspike, who had been first dickey of an Indiaman, could n't get a situation afore the mast of a Ballyhoo coasting-brig. So one day, as he was standing on the wharf, with a face as long as the debtor side of a purser's log, he heard himself hailed by a strange gent'man in black, who asked him if he wanted to ship. In course, Jack said he did, and did n't much care if 'twas on a voyage of discovery to h—, you know where, Sir.' 'It's a bargain,'

New-York is thus denominated by sailors.

said the stranger; and he gave Jack three months' advance, and a week's leave, telling him he must meet him at that place the very moment his liberty was up. Jack then asked him what was the name of his ship, and where she was bound; but the skipper told him not to mind that, as it mattered but little, seeing as how the bargain was closed. Jack went to his lodgings, and after laying in stores, and rigging for his cruise, he squared yards with all hands, and met the strange gent man at the app'inted day, bag and hammock.

The skipper told him he was glad to find him so punctual; Jack said that he always made it a p'int to be present at muster, as he did n't like to hear a bo'son's mate roaring out his number between decks. The other then pointed to a long, black six-oared gig, and told him to gallop his rags into it, as he was in a hurry to shove off. When Jack was done stowing his luggage, he was about to jump out, but the skipper told him to take his seat, as he was going aboard.

'But where the deuce are the boat's crew?' roared Jack; 'd - 1 the one, blue jacket or marine, do I see here: the chaps, may be, are gone up to Moll Ferguson's, at the Shad-and-Anchor; had n't I better run up, and

But the skipper clapped a stopper on his tongue, by ordering him to sit down; and so Jack took up an oar, but the stranger told him to put it down again.

Curse my rigging, Sir,' said Jack, 'do you expect the craft to move of herself? But may be you 've got the starn-boat of the Flying Dutchman; if that 's the case, she can work her own traverse; for they say that she'd take you to h-ll against a head-beat sea, in a dead calm.'

At this remark, the stranger's brow grew as black as a thunder-storm; but he did n't answer, merely giving the order to shove off. As there was nobody in the boat but he and Jack, the chap picked up the boathook, when, to his astonishment, the gig flew fifty feet from the wharf, even afore he had time to shift the staff end for end. Let fall!' said the skipper; and sure enough the oars fell, as if they had been handled by a crew of man-o'-war's men. He then sung out,' Give way!' and the boat began to move through the water at the rate of about twenty knots an hour ships, wharves, and houses flew by them like lightning, and the water roared around the bows like thunder.

Going to h-ll, or I'm a liar!' muttered Jack, in amazement, while the hair of his head rose on end with sheer fright. Well, it's just as I expected: but blast my top-lights! if I ever dreamed of being smuggled there by old Square-toes himself. Hark ye, Mister Von Belzebub, or whatever ye call yourself, I begin to believe you 're a skulking, kidnapping scoundrel, that goes about the world seeking whom you may devour,' as the preacher says, and that gets the weather-gage of honest seamen in distress, by h'isting out false lights. Where is your ship bound?'

.

To the place you have just mentioned, on a voyage of discovery,' said the skipper, with a grim smile, reminding Marlinspike of the conversation on the wharf. With that, Jack got up in the boat, and hauled off, to give the devil - for it was that renowned old fellowmauling; but afore he could let him have it, his arms some one behind, and he was forced down on his seat.

a good were gripped by Marlinspike now