Page:The works of Anne Bradstreet in prose and verse.djvu/36

 XXVlll INTRODUCTION.

gestion that they insensibly merged their sorrow at leaving England in that of leaving the "Church." The genuine- ness of their affection for the latter was too clearly shown by their conduct on arriving in New England ; for " the very first church planted by them was independent in all its forms, and repudiated every connection with Episcopacy or a liturgy."* On the 8th of April, the vessels set sail. Two days before the ladies had gone ashore to refresh them- selves ; but, from that da}^ until the 12th of the following June, they did not again set foot on dry land; and then it was to tread the soil of the New World. After a stormy voyage, w^ith much cold and rainy weather, the monotony being alleviated by preaching, singing, fasts, and thanks- givings, on the seventy-second day passed aboard ship the sea-worn voyagers came in sight of the rocky but welcome shores of Mount Desert. A modern pleasure-seeker has spoken in the following glowing and perhaps rather exaggerated terms of the appearance of this picturesque spot from the sea : " It is difficult to conceive of any finer combination of land and water than this view. . . . Cer- tainly only in the tropics can it be excelled, only in the gorgeous islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. On the coast of America it has no rival, except, perhaps, at the Bay of Rio Janeiro." f What an enchanting sight it must have been to those who had gazed on the blank sur- face of the broad sea so long ! " We had now fair sunshine weather, and so pleasant a sweet air as did much refresh us, and there came a smell off the shore like the smell of

t A Summer Cruise on the Coast of New England. By Robert Carter. Boston : 1S65. p. 252.
 * Story's Commentaries on the Constitution, Vol. i. § 64.

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