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| Volume 4, Page 460
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varies only as one relat. of so disgust. a story must be expect. to differ
from ano. especial. as every admir. of horrors could then be easi. gratif.
when the Gov. had, as he tells us in his hist. by advice of the magistr.
and min. caused the decaying remains to be disinterr. Yet what thus
bec. fully kn. to prob. most of the men, women, and half gr. ch. within
four miles (and Weld liv. only two miles off), is by the Hist. of Boston
held for proof, that Winth, not Welde, was the author, as "two men
without close confer. could not have writ. things so exactly coinciding."
See Drake, 218. Ano. proof of the same nature is brot. forward by a
writer with the signature of Hutchinson in the recent. issued Historical
Magazine for Nov. 1857, fill. almost four pages at the begin. of the No.
After the apology (wh. covers thirteen pages) for the early proceedings
at the Gen. Ct. against Wheelwright's Fast sermon, near the top of 59th
page, begins prob. Weld's "additions to the conclusion of the book," written
in a very different style from the apology, and evident. a continua.
from near the bottom of p. 43, and now reaching to the end of the little
vol. on p. 66. What gives the chief value to his humble 4to. however,
is the Preface, signed T. Welde, in small Rom, cap. for the earlier copies,
in small Italic, not cap. in the later. It fills sixteen pages of small type,
and is written with great spirit. Equal in pungency to the style of this
preface, is that of the conclusions in the last seven pages. Such pungency,
using a mild term to express what in the writing of any but a
clergym. seems malignity, is not seen in any other writer on that subj.
But bef. the Preface is print. a remarkab. address "To the Reader." "I
meeting with this Book, newly come forth of the press, and being earnestly
pressed by divers to perfect it, by laying down the order and sense
of this story (wh. in the Book is omit.) tho. for mine own part, I was
more slow unto it; not as if I think it contains any thing but truth, but
because the names of some parties that acted in our troubles, that have,
since that time (I hope) repented, and so God having pardon. their sins
in Heaven, I should have been loth to have reviv. them on earth. But
considering that their names are already in Print. without any act of
mine, and that the necessity of the times call for it. and its requisite that
God's great works should be made known, I therefore, in a straight of
time, not having had many hours, have drawn up the following Preface,
and prefixed hereunto with some additions to the conclusion of the Book.
I commend thyself and this to the blessing of God. T. W."
If to disting. the tone and temper of the Apology, that may natural.
be presum. the composition of Gov. Winthrop [see his Hist. I. 221]
from other parts of the tract, except the documenta. pieces proper [Ib.
248] resort be had to critic. comparis. of style, slight difficult. will
attend the separat. of what is betw. the two covers of the binding.
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