deed, almost the only other allusion to the king, in the first twelve years, is the half-way compliment of an order, in 1636, six years after the settlement, that "the Kings majesties armes shall be erected in all places of judicature soe soon as they can be hadd."

In this view of the relations of the Colony, we see nothing improbable in the story, repeated by most of the older writers, that in 1636, 1637, or 1638, Hampden, Haslerigg, Pym, and Cromwell proposed to join it. There is no doubt that their associate, Rowe, did. Mr. Bancroft rejects the story, because it has no Puritan authorities in its support, and because it argues a desertion of the good cause by those men. This latter view cannot be sustained, if, in their minds and in the minds of its leaders, the ultimate prosperity of the Colony was regarded as quite independent of the favor of the king.

In 1643, the House of Commons passed the statute under which the Colony enjoyed free trade with the mother country, with a decided compliment to the value of the Colony to England.

Our limits do not permit us to extend these illustrations of the unusually close connection of the rulers and politics of the two commonwealths. It seldom happens that the same body of political experimenters have the opportunity to test their principles in two fields. The Puritans were thus favored. They had started Massachusetts well, when Providence gave them a chance to try their skill in England. In the larger experiment, after magnificent successes, they were swept away at last, by the latent power of English conservatism, to make room for rulers as manly, as religious, as skilful in statesmanship, and exhibiting such divine right to rule, as Charles II. and his brother James. In Massachusetts, the little experiment, they were more successful. When, a few years ago, the English Parliament, in ordering that the statues of the sovereigns of England should be set up in its new palace, thought fit to omit the statue of Cromwell, that sovereign to whom England owes it that she ever ruled the seas, could not but think that it would be a fit memorial of the services which that great man rendered to the men of Massachusetts, and which the men of Massachusetts rendered to him,

we

The

if his statue should be erected in some public place in her capital. It is true that his system did not survive long in England. It is as true that it has survived to this day here. statue might stand in Boston till it was wanted in London. We must pass by many of the curious details of early Colonial customs which come to light on the perusal of the Records for the first twenty years. The encouragement early given to internal improvement, in cutting a canal in Cambridge from the river, enlarges into an effort to make Cape Ann an island, and shows itself afterwards in other forms. The encouragement of manufacturing industry is curious, beginning with an effort on the wild hemp (Apocynum cannabinum), and passing to salt, saltpetre (so essential for "gunpowder, the instrumentall meanes that all nations lay hould on for their preservations "), glass-works, iron-works, wool, shipbuilding, wine-making, and leather; and its history in so short a time shows a speedy development of real independence here. The rapid growth of the foreign commerce of the Colony has often been remarked. It was as early as 1645, that its noble protest against the slave-trade was uttered:

Oct. 1, 1645. "The Court thought fit to write to Mr. Williams, of Pascataqua, (understanding that the negers which Capt. Smyth brought were fraudulently & iniuriously taken & brought from Ginny, by Capt. Smith's Confession, & the rest of the Company,) that he forthwith send the neger which he had of Capt. Smyth hither, that he may be sent home, which the Court doth resolve to send back without delay."

Nov. 4, 1645. "The Generall Corte, conceiving themselves bound by the first oportunity to bear witness against the haynos & crying sinn of man stealing, as also to prescribe such timely redresse for what is past, & such a law for the future as may sufficiently deterr all others belonging to us to have to do in such vile & most odious courses, iustly abhorred of all good & just men, do order, that the negro interpreter, with others unlawfully taken, be, by the first oportunity, (at the charge of the country for present,) sent to his native country of Ginny, & a letter with him of the indignation of the Corte thereabouts, and iustice hereof, desireing our honored Governor would please to put this order in execution." - Vol. II. pp. 136, 168.

It must be observed, that for authorities regarding the Eng. lish associations of the founders of the Colony, we have been

drawing chiefly from Mr. Haven's paper, which serves as an Introduction to the Records. The State's edition of the Records very properly omits all notes of whatever sort, except such as are necessary in explaining the handwriting of the manuscript, or other mechanical peculiarities. The two volumes are admirably printed, and are said to be the most precise reproduction of manuscript ever attempted in type. This is what the Massachusetts edition of the Massachusetts Records should be. All the ancient spelling is exactly followed. Even the abbreviations are copied, in type arranged for the purpose. If a bit of short-hand appears in the margin of the text, a facsimile of it is in the printed book. And, as the book has been stereotyped, it has been possible, we learn, to secure, by successive revisions, a degree of accuracy which could not have been otherwise attained, and which leaves no danger of error. A very good fac-simile of the ancient seal is on the title-page. It is the same as the present seal of the State, but that now the State arms bear a crest, the right arm holding a sword, —and that the old motto, “Come over and help us," so hospitable and at the same time so modest, is changed for Sydney's line (of which the arm is the nominative case): —

"Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem."

A change of motto could hardly be expected to show so well the change from a colony to a state.

We can conceive no motive but curiosity which shall ever induce any student henceforth to refer to the venerable manuscripts.

A small edition only has been printed, but the General Court itself is so well satisfied with the manner in which the task has been performed, that it has ordered a second edition, and directed that the next three volumes, and the beginning of the sixth, shall be printed in the same way. These bring up the records to the time of President Dudley, in 1686. For the presidency of Dudley in 1686, and for the first year of the usurpation of Andros, the records have recently been restored by copies from the State Paper Office in London. But from December 29, 1687, to the overthrow of Andros, there is a gap, the only important gap in the records of the State,

The resolve now

amounting to rather more than a year. passed contemplates the printing of these copies, so as to bring the records up to the time when the folio edition of "The Acts and Laws, published in 1699 by Order of the Governor and Council," begins.

Such an authentic and complete monument of history as the two volumes which are now published make, is so interesting, when read with Mr. Haven's careful Introduction and his and Dr. Young's notes, and with Winthrop and the" Chronicles of Massachusetts " for guides, illustrations, and lighters where the text is heavy, that the "Records" lose the character of a statute-book, and assume much more that of volumes of annals.

It is an honor to Governor Clifford's administration, that he has opened them to his constituents. It would be impossible to ask that the work should be better done.

ART. IV.-1. Reports of the Trustees, Steward, and Superintendent of the Insane Hospital. [Maine.] 1854.

2. Reports of the Trustees, &c. of the Butler Hospital for the Insane. Providence, R. I. 1854.

3. Twenty-first Annual Report of the Trustees of the State Lunatic Asylum. [Massachusetts.]

4. Thirty-sixth Annual Report on the State of the Asylum for the Relief of Persons deprived of the Use of their Reason. [Frankford, Pa.] 1854.

5. Report of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, &c. 1854.

6. Annual Report of the Officers, &c. of the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum. 1854.

7. Eleventh Annual Report of the Managers of the State Lunatic Asylum. [New York.] 1854.

8. Sixteenth Annual Report of the Ohio Lunatic Asylum. 1854.

9. Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the President, &c. of the Western Lunatic Asylum. [Virginia.] 1854.

10. Annual Reports of the Commissioners, &c. of the Indiana Hospital for the Insane. 1854.

11. Report of the Trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital. 1854.

THESE documents remind us of a class of charitable institutions among us, strongly indicative of the philanthropy and science of our times. Those worthy people who see, in the future progress of the race, only a steady increase of selfishness and vice, would do well to consider the history of the noble enterprise which has been so rapidly and satisfactorily accomplished. Eighty years ago we had not a single establishment devoted exclusively to the care and treatment of the insane. Now they number nearly thirty, and contain about six thousand patients, supported, more or less, at the public expense. If modern humanity had no greater triumph to record than this, it would be amply sufficient to redeem the character of the age from the imputations which the faithless and desponding have been too ready to cast upon it. Such is the contrast between the management of the insane now, and what it was fifty years ago, that one can scarcely help suspecting that even the most faithful description of the latter is heightened by exaggeration and false coloring. But it is a fact, abundantly verified, that this unfortunate class has always included many who, long before the impress of the Divinity was entirely erased from their minds, were banished from the sight, and sooner or later, from the kindly sympathies of friends and relatives, and dragged on a wretched existence in jails and poor-houses, in cold and filth, in solitude and chains, abandoned to the tender mercies of ignorant and irresponsible keepers. Insanity is a terrible calamity at best, but then it was the climax of all human woes, for it contained an ingredient unknown in any other misfortune, -exclusion, not only from hearts and homes to which nature gave a claim, but from the sight of familiar faces, from the ministrations of kindness, and from every circumstance of hope or of joy. In this condition, the process of derangement and destruction was rapidly hastened, until nothing but a clod of the valley, a caput mortuum of humanity, remained. Now, on the con