Page:The works of Anne Bradstreet in prose and verse.djvu/14

viii have presented the text of the first edition entire. There are no foot-notes in either of the early editions.

The miscellaneous writings, which, under the titles of "Religious Experiences and Occasional Pieces" and "Meditations," precede the "Poems" in this volume, are printed from a small manuscript book, which belonged to the author, and which has been kept, since her death, as a precious relic by her descendants. It is about six inches high and three and three-quarters inches broad. The covers are of common sheep-skin, and are very much soiled and worn. The remnants of two small brass clasps still adhere to them. The paper is yellow, stained with water, blotted with ink, and bears marks of having been much read and handled. It has ninety-eight pages, the first forty-one of which are taken up with the "Meditations Diuine and morall," in Mrs. Bradstreet's handwriting. The forty- second page is blank; but, from the forty-third to the sixty-seventh page inclusive, her son Simon has copied in the contents of another manuscript book left by her, which is now probably lost. Mrs. Bradstreet's handwriting is large and distinct; while that of her son is very small and delicate, though clear, and marred by few erasions or alterations. The sixty-eighth page is blank, and then follows a Latin translation of the first four "Meditations" and their dedication, by her great-grandson, the Rev. Simon Bradstreet, of Marblehead, Massachusetts. This covers only four pages. Six pages have been at some time cut out after these. The next twenty-four pages are blank; and on the two sides of the last leaf there are some verses in Mrs. Bradstreet's handwriting, beginning, "As weary pilgrim, now at rest." Several leaves, how many it is uncertain, have been torn