"
The spirit of a reformer always sees work to be done, and Ward emphasized
three remedies for mid-seventeenth-century ills: (1) Stop toleration of
departure from religious truth; (2) banish the frivolities of women and
men; and (3) bring the civil war in England to a just end. In proportion to
the population, his _Simple Cobbler_, designed to mend human ways, was
probably as widely read as Carlyle's _Sartor Resartus_ in later days.
In criticism, Ward deserves to be remembered for these two lines:--
"Poetry's a gift wherein but few excel;
He doth very ill that doth not passing well."
SAMUEL SEWALL, 1652-1730
There was born in 1652 at Bishopstoke, Hampshire, England, a boy who sailed
for New England when he was nine years old, and who became our greatest
colonial diarist. This was Samuel Sewall, who graduated from Harvard in
1671 and finally became chief justice of Massachusetts.
[Illustration: SAMUEL SEWALL]
His _Diary_ runs with some breaks from 1673 to 1729, the year before his
death. Good diaries are scarce in any literature. Those who keep them
seldom commit to writing many of the most interesting events and secrets of
their lives.
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