Johnson's Wonder-working providence, 1628-1651

Front matter

lit'

ORIGINAL NARRATIVES OF EARLY AMERICAN HISTORY

REPRODUCED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

Book I. The Sad Condition of Old England 23

The Call of Christ's People to New England; their Churches . . 25

The Demeanor of their Church Oflficers 26

The Demeanor of the People 28

Their Civil Government; the Maintenance of the First Table . . 30

Their Care for Warlike Discipline 33

Their Liberty; their Charter; their Means 36

The Massachusetts Indians 39

The Pestilence 40

The Men of Plymouth and the Indians 42

John Endicott 44

The Settlement of Salem 45

The Founding of the Salem Church; Mr. Higginson and Mr, Skelton 46

The Glorious Beginnings of a Thorough Church Reformation . . 49

The Farewell to England 50

The Cost of the Peopling of New England 54

God's Providence in Transporting his People Safely .... 56

An Exhortation to the Advancing of the Kingdom of Christ . . 68

Providences in Deliverance from Perils of Waters .... 61

The Arrival of Winthrop's Fleet; the Old Planters .... 63

The First Elections, 1630; the Death of Isaac Johnson and Others . 65

The Gathering of the Church of Charlestown-Boston; Mr. Wilson . 67

The Church and Town of Dorchester; Mr. Maverick ... 69

The Church and Town of Boston 70

The Church and Town of Roxbury; Mr. Eliot . . . . . 71

The Church and Town of Lynn; Mr. Batchellor .... 73

The Church and Town of Watertown; Mr. Phillips .... 74 The Trials of the Wilderness; Governor John Winthrop re-elected,

1631 75

The Lord's Protection of his People from the Indians; the Small Pox . 78

V

f vi CONTENTS

PACK

The Elections of 1G32; Deputy Governor Thomas Dudley . . 81

Mr. James of Charlestown 82

Mr. Weld of lloxbury 83

Mr. Wilson of Boston; his Return 84

The Elections of 1G33; Mr. Increase Nowell 85

Supplies in Time of Need 86

Arrival of Mr. Haynes, Mr. Stone, and Mr. John Cotton ... 87

The Church and Town of Newtown or Cambridge; Mr. Hooker . 90

The Elections of 1634; Mr. Stone 93

The Escape of Mr. Norton and Mr. Shepard from England . . 94

The Church and Town of Ipswich; Mr. Nathaniel Ward ... 95

The Arrival of Mr. Bellingham and Mr. Lothrop .... 97

The Church and Town of Newbury; Mr. Noyes and Mr. Parker . 98

The Arrival of Mr. Symmes 100

The Arrival of Sir Henry Vane and Sir Richard Saltonstall . . 102

Of Mr. Harlakenden and of Eleven Ministers; Mr. Norton . . 103

Mr. Richard Mather 105

The Founding of Connecticut 105

The Gathering of the Second Cambridge Church; Mr. Shepard . 107

The Arrival of Mr. Hugh Peters 109

The Church and Town of Concord; Mr. Bulkley . . . .110

The Laborious Work of Planting it; Mr. Jones Ill

The Church and Town of Hingham; Mr. Hobart .... 115

The Arrival of Mr. Thomas Flint, Mr. Carter, and others . . . 117 The Elections of 1636; Mr. Fenwick's Plantation . . . .118

Mr. Partridge of Du.xbury; Mr. Nathaniel Rogers of Ipswich . . 119

Mr. Whiting of Lj^nn 120

Satan raises Enemies against Christ's People 121

Justification by Faith; Mr, Cotton 125

The Magnifying of Free Grace 126

The Gainsaying of Mrs. Hutchinson 127

The Shallowness of the Erronists 128

They slight the Ordinances of Christ 129

They disturb the Churches 131

The Distress of a Poor Soul landing at this Time .... 133

The New England Churches prone neither to Heresy nor to Tyranny 136

The Form of Civil Government in New England .... 140

Mr. Simon Bradstreet 141

The Principal Deputies 143

Book II. The Beginning of the Pequot War 147

The Lord delivers his People from Error; the Calling of the Synod . 152

Prosperity in Outward Things 153

The Lonl Preserves his People from Morton and the Bishops . . 154

The Malignancy of the English Prelates and their Downfall . . 157

The Embassy to Canonicus 161

CONTENTS vu

PAGE

The Insolence of the Pequots 164

The March against them; the Ministers' Exhortations . . .165

The Destruction of the Pequots 167

The Assemblage of the Synod 170

Four Sorts of Men who might profitably have Attended . . . 171

The Disarming of Dangerous Heretics; Excommunication of Some . 175

The Planting of the Colony of New Haven 176

Mr. John Davenport 177

Mr. Theophilus Eaton; Mr. Hopkins 178

The Church and Town of Dedham; Mr. Allen 179

The Church and Town of Weymouth 181

The Establishment of a Printing Press 183

The Church and Town of Rowley; Mr. Ezekiel Rogers and Mr.

Miller 183

The Earthquake; the Banishment of the Erronists . . . .185

Their Bad End 186

Mr. John Harvard and Harvard College 187

The Elections of 1639 ; the Church and Town of Hampton; Mr. Dalton 188 The Church and Town of Salisbury; Mr. Worcester . . . .189

Mr. Knowles added to the Church of Watertown .... 190

Sad Accident at Boston 191

The Elections of 1640; the Arrival of Mr. Burr and Mr. Rayner . 192

Of other Ministers 193

The Planting of Long Island 195

The Church and Town of Sudbury; Mr. Brown . . . .195

The Church and Town of Braintree; Mr. Thompson and Mr. Flint . 197

The Desire for the Promotion of Learning 198

The Founding of Harvard College 200

Hopeful Plants raised up therein 202

President Dunster 204

The Church and Town of Gloucester; Mr. Blinman .... 205

The Church and Town of Dover 206

Sundry Misguided Persons sail for the Isle of Providence . . . 207 The Elections of 1642; the Fall in the Price of Cattle . . .209

The Prosperity of New England 210

The Founding of the Town of Wobvim 212

The Gathering of the Church 214

The Church Covenant 216

The Ordination of Mr. Thomas Carter 217

The Elections of 1643; the New England Confederation . . .219

The Struggle between Miantonomoh and Uncas 220

The Death of Miantonomoh 222

The Outrageous Conduct of the Gortonists 222

Their Punishment 224

The Elections of 1644; The Church and Town of Reading; Mr.

Green . 225 viii CONTENTS

PAOX

The Church and Town of Wenham; Mr. Fisk 226

Military Precautions and Arrangements 227

The Military Commanders 229

The Fortifications 231

Book III. The Elections of 1645 234

The Church and Town of Haverhill; Mr. John Ward ... 234

The Sons of Canonicus overawed 235

The Church and Town of Springfield; Mr. Moxon .... 236

Fasting and Prayer for the Brethren in England 238

The Elections of 1046; the Petition of Dr. Child and others . . 240

The Mission of Winslow 241

The Second Synod of Cambridge; the Cambridge Platform . . 242

The Images of the Sun 243

The Compiling of the Laws of 1648 244

The Elections of 1647; the Rise of Manufactures .... 245

The Elections of 1648; the Church and Town of Andover . . 249

The Church and Town of INIalden 250

The North Church of Boston 251

The Death of Winthrop and other Eminent Persons .... 251

Other Disasters 253

Of 1651; Special Providences 255

Verses on God's Dealings with His New England People . . . 257

The Preaching of Christ to the Indians 261

Ministers sent to the Godly in Virginia 265

Judgments following their Expulsion 266

The Church in the Bermudas 267

The Time of the Fall of Antichrist 268

Concluding Verses on God's Wonder-working Providence . . . 272

Index 277

MAP AND FACSIMILE REPRODUCTIONS

Title-Page of the "Wonder-working Providence." From a copy of

the original in the Woburn PubHc Library . . . Frontispiece

PAGE

Map of New England in 1628-1651. From Palfrey's "History of New

England" 64

First Page of the Records op the Town of Woburn. Handwriting of

Major William Johnson, son of Captain Edward Johnson . . .213

WONDER-WORKING PROVIDENCE OF SIONS SAVIOUR IN NEW ENGLAND

1628-1651

Introduction

Late in the year 1653, but under date of 1654, Nathaniel Brooke, a London publisher, ''at the Angel in Cornhill," brought out a small octavo book of two hundred and thirtysix pages, entitled A History of New-England, from the English planting in the Yeere 1628 untill the Yeere 1652, etc. The title, inexact in any case, for the book is rather a history of Massachusetts than of all New England, was evidently affixed by the publisher. His advertisements show that at one time he thought of giving the book the title Historicall Relation of the First Planting of the English in New England in the Year 1628 to the Year 1653 and all the Materiall Passages happening there. But many reiterations in the text of the book show that the author's own title for his production was that which appears in the running headlines of the printed book, and by which it has been generally known, The Wonder-working Providence of Sion's Saviour in New England. The author's name nowhere appears in the book.

Five years later the publisher took advantage of this latter fact, since the sale of the work had been so disappointing as to leave many copies on his hands, to utilize the sheets in another of his ventures. He had in hand a book entitled America Painted to the Life. Of the four parts of which he composed it, the first and fourth were apparently written by Ferdinando Gorges, Esquire, grandson of the celebrated patentee Sir Ferdinando Gorges, while the second was by that knight himself. Brooke impudently sandwiched-in the unsold sheets of Wonder-working Providence as Part iii., ''Written by Sir Ferdinando Gorges Knight" (the grandfather), and

"Publisht since his decease by his Grandchild Ferdinando Gorges Esquire, who hath much enlarged it and added severall accurate Descriptions of his owne."

The reader who has any remembrance of the relations between Sir Ferdinando Gorges and the Massachusetts colony, and of the diametrical difference between his state of mind and that which breathes through every page of the Wonderworking Providence, will say that imposture could hardly be more shameless. The younger Gorges protested publicly. In the newspaper called Mercurius Politicus for September 13, 1660, appeared the following advertisement:

I, Ferdinando Gorges, the entituled Author of a late Book, called America Painted to the Life, am injured in that additional Part, called Sions Saviour in New England (as written by Sir Ferdinando Gorges;) that being none of his, and formerly printed in another name, the true owner.

The last statement is erroneous. So far as is known, no copies of the original book were issued with the author's name. In New England it has been known for more than two hundred years that it was written by Captain Edward Johnson of Woburn, Massachusetts. The accurate Thomas Prince, in the preface to his Chronological History of New England (Boston, 1736), after speaking of the false attribution of the book to Gorges, says: "But the true Author was Mr. Johnson of Wobum in New England, as the late Judge Sewall assur'd me, as of a Thing familliarly known among the Fathers of the Massachusetts Colony." In Prince's own copy of the Wonderworking Providence, now preserved in the library of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, is a manuscript note which is still more explicit:

Judg Sewall tells me, this Book was known to have been written by Captiiin Johnson of Woburn, Father to Hon^' W™ John-

son Esn'" of Wohurn, w" was chosen tissistant in 1684 at the same time w"^ Judg Sewall Himself, and as it was commonly known th*^

Capt. Johnson was the author of this Book; so the Judg was intimately acquainted w*^ his son the assistant, and had conferred w*^ Him about it. This the Judg tells me this [symbol for Friday] aug. 23, 1728.

There are also various internal evidences which point to this authorship. The foundation of the town and church of Woburn are related at much greater length than is the case with any of the other Massachusetts towns, some of them much more important. Other transactions in which Captain Johnson is known to have had an official part are likewise narrated with especial fulness. In chapter xxvi. of the second book, in which the author names the other officers of the military companies of the colony, he says, "The band of Concord is led by Capt. Simon Willard, being a Kentish souldier, as is Capt. Goggin [Gookin], . . . the band of Woburn led by another Kentish Captain." Now we know that the unnamed trainband captain of Woburn was Captain Edward Johnson, and that he came from the county of Kent in England.

The editor of this volume, a descendant of Captain Johnson, takes pleasure in remembering that by a little simple investigation in Canterbury, some years ago, he established with practical certainty the captain's genealogy and local position. The will of one of his sons, who died in Maryland, had recently disclosed the fact that the captain came from Canterbury. It now appeared that he was of the parish of St. George, that he was christened September 16 or 17, 1598 (born therefore in all probability a few days earlier), and that the future town clerk of Woburn was son of William Johnson, parish clerk of St. George's parish. He was married about 1618, and had five sons and two daughters, all born in England and christened in St. George's Church, the last three in 1631, 1633, and 1635, after their father's first voyage to New England. He was possessed of a considerable estate in Canterbury and elsewhere in Kent; and on his first appearance in New England is among the moderate number of those whom the official records of the colony call "Mr."

Edward Johnson came over to New England in 1630 with Winthrop, probably in the Arhella. He was licensed by Governor Winthrop to trade with the Indians along the Merrimac River, and in May, 1631, was admitted a freeman of the colony; but he returned to England, probably in that year, and remained there till the spring of 1636, when he came out again, this time bringing his family. This absence accounts for some of the meagreness and vagueness of his information respecting the events of the years 1631-1635. In an official list of passengers sailing from Sandwich, England, in 1636, for America, we find the entry, ''Edward Johnson, of Canterbury, joiner, and Susan, his wife, seven children, three servants." Data respecting the occupations of emigrants were often given in a form intended to mislead the royal officers; but the records of St. George's parish also call him a joiner, and two of his sons were shipwrights and carpenters.

Arriving in Massachusetts at the height of the Antinomian excitement, of which he gives a vivid though prejudiced account, Johnson threw himself heart and soul into the life of the colony and of its orthodox party. Settling in Charlestown, where we find him in 1638 in the possession of considerable land-grants, he found abundant opportunity for his active and optimistic spirit in the ''wilderness work" of founding a new town, that process so typical in American history. The General Court in May, 1640, on the petition of Charlestown, made a grant, enlarged a few months later to four miles square, for a new town to the northward, called at first Charlestown Village, but after incorporation Woburn. Of this new town Johnson was the leading man. For thirty years, from its incorporation in 1642 to his death in 1672, he was almost constantly one of its "selectmen" or executive committeemen, the captain of its trainband, its town clerk, and its representative in the General Court, and a great part of his time was given to its business. To his deep interest in its affairs we owe it that in Wonder-working Providence, book ii., chapter XXII., he gives an exceptionally full account of the successive steps in the founding of this new town and church — the appointing of a committee of seven by Charlestown, the committee's careful scrutiny of would-be settlers, its arrangements for village sites and the allotment of outlying farming lands, the engaging of a minister, the gathering of a covenanted church, the minister's ordination by the democratic methods of the new Congregationalism — an account so full and so interesting that it has been one of the classical passages for the student of the origins of town and church government in New England. At the first meeting of the persons chosen by the Charlestown church to manage the new settlement, Edward Johnson was chosen as their recorder or town clerk. Accordingly the first pages of the town records, preserved in a copy in his son's handwriting, furnish a parallel narrative, of all these transactions, to that which he gives in his book. Characteristically, he opens the town records with a rude ''copy of verses," which are worth quoting (with clarified punctuation) for their exhibition of the writer's spirit and for their relation to the verses which so thickly bestrew the pages of his printed book.

Records for the Towne of Wobume ffrom the year 1640 the 8 day of th 10 month Paulisper Fui In peniles age I woburne Towne began; Charls Towne first moved the Court my lins to span. To vewe my land place, compild body Reare, Nowell, Sims, Sedgwick, thes my paterons were.* Sum fearing He grow great upon these grownds, Poor I wase putt to nurs among the Clownes,

' Increase Nowell, Rev. Zachary Symmes, Robert Sedgwick, in compliment to whom the town was named; see notes on their names, on pp. 85, 100, 212t post.

Who being taken with such mighty things

As had bin work of Noble Qeeins and Kings,

Till Babe gan crye and great disturbance make;

Nurses Repent they did har undertake.

One leaves her quite; an other hee doth hie

To forcn lands, free from the Babys Crye;

To [two] more of seaven, seing nursing provd soe thwarte.

Thought it more ease in following of the Carte.

A naighbour by,' hopeing the Babe wold bee

A pritty Girle, to Rocking har went hee.

Too [two] nurses less undanted [danted ?] then [than] the rest,

Its Rare to see how this poore Towne did rise

By weakest means, two [too] weake in great ons [ones'] eys.

And sure it is that mettells cleere exstraction

Had never share in this Poore Towns erextion;

Without which metall and sum fresh suplys

If ever she mongst ladys have a station,

Say twas ITrom Parentes, not har education.

And now conclud the lords owne hand it wase

That with weak means did bring this work to pass,

Not only Towne but Sistor church to ade

Which out of dust and Ashes now is had.

Then all Inhabit woburne Towne, stay make

The lord, not means, of all you undertake.^

Greatly as Captain Johnson was interested in the affairs of the town of Woburn, yet from the time of his entrance into the legislature or General Court as representative of that town we find his practical talents largely employed in the concerns of the colony at large. He was placed on nearly every military committee, and in 1659 became surveyor-

' Johnson himself. Under the designation of nurses he alludes to the seven members of the managing committee appointed by Charlestown.

*The meaning is, "Then all who inhabit Woburn town, make the Lord, not the mere means or instrumentalities, the chief stay of all that you undertake." See these verses in the fac-simile opposite p. 21.3. The most important extracts from the early town records of Woburn are printed in the introduction to Poole's edition of the Wondcr-ivorking Prondence, pp. Ixxx-lxxxix. The full text of them, with notes by Hon. Edward F. Johnson and Mr. William R. Cutter, was printed in the Woburn Journal newspaper in 1888.

general of the arms and munitions of the colony. He took part in the arrest of Gorton in 1643. In 1645-1647 he served on some of the important committees for the codification of the laws. He had apparently especial skill in surveying, and often had duties in that field assigned to him by the General Court. Thus it will be seen that when he undertook the writing of a history of the colony, he had had good opportunities of knowing its towns, by personal visits or through their representatives, and that he was familiar with many portions of its public business, by reason of several years of active participation, in a subordinate but still influential capacity. This participation he continued for many years after the composition of the book, and indeed until his death, which took place on April 23, 1672.

A systematic attempt to discover from internal evidence the date at which Captain Johnson wrote the Wonder-working Providence, shows that it was not all the product of one time. Various passages would seem to show that it was written, not only after the deaths of Winthrop and Shepard in March and August, 1649 (pp. 108, 251, 252), but also after the fourth election of Dudley as governor in May, 1650 (p. 81), yet before the third election of Endicott in May, 1651 (p. 44). Also the reference on p. 247 to Boston's soon-defeated hopes of being made a city would seem to fix the date between June, 1650, and May, 1651. But on another page (p. 255) Endicott's election in May, 1651, is recorded, and the account on p. 202 of the Harvard Commencement of August 12, 1651, and the graduation of Seaborn Cotton, compels a later date, though on p. 63 the latter is referred to as still "a young student in a Colledge." The truth no doubt is, that the book was mostly written in 1650, or before May of the next year, but that additions and amendments were made later in 1651. The numerous descriptions given of the various towns seem to refer to their condition at about that date.

The motive for the composition of the book appears from several passages. The author was convinced in every fibre that there had been set up in New England an ecclesiastical and civil polity more closely according with the Word of God than any other which the world had seen, and that the Lord had manifested His approval by doing marvellous things in the wilderness for these His chosen people. Persons disaffected to this holy experiment, lewd fellows like Morton and Gardiner, presumptuous heretics like Gorton, had spread in England reports injurious to the Massachusetts plantation, and these ought to be combated by any one who cared for the material and political welfare of the colony, or who valued intelligent English opinion. What was perhaps still more grievous, there had been bitter criticism even from a portion of the godly in England, for in the recent debates, in and out of the Westminster Assembly, on the reforming of the ecclesiastical polity of England, the Presbyterian party, dominant in Parliament, had hotly assailed the ''New England Way," the principles and practices of -Congregationalism. One to whom those principles were as clear as the sun, those practices invested with the absolute warrant of Scripture, could not rest easy without exhibiting to all English readers the marvellous providences, the gracious and evident mercies, by which Jehovah had proclaimed to every attentive ear His approval of New England methods.

So came into existence the first published history of Massachusetts, a book which, whatever its shortcomings, represented the honest attempt of a Puritan man of affairs to set forth to his fellow-Englishmen the first twenty-three years' history of the great Puritan colony. A book on that subject, we may be sure, met a real want in the Puritan England of 1653 and 1654, although in the changed atmosphere of 1659 Nathaniel Brooke might find it slow of sale. But, printed as it was with the author three thousand miles away, it appeared with many typographical defects, and with vagaries of punctuation which must have made many passages difficult of comprehension even at the time of its appearance, and are still greater hindrances now. Printer's punctuation, executed under such circumstances, cannot be regarded as sacred. The editor of the present volume has by no means attempted to systematize the punctuation; even a pointing that may appear eccentric has in most cases not been altered if after all it leaves the sense clear. But where a stupid compositor has given to the punctuation of the original a form which perverts or obscures the sense, yet the meaning intended is to an experienced eye perfectly clear, the needful alteration has been made without compunction. A good example occurs in the beginning of chapter xx. of the first book, where the author is made to say that Boston is ''invironed with the Brinish flouds, saving one small Istmos, which gives free accesse to the Neighbour Townes; by Land on the South side, on the North west, and North East,, two constant Faires are kept for daily traffique thereunto." Since ''Faires" is obviously a misprint for ''Ferries," to retain a punctuation which represents two ferries as operating in three different directions, and one of them by land, would be a Chinese fidelity for which the editor sees no occasion. Printing "Faires" but adding "Ferries" in square brackets, he silently alters the reading above to "Istmos, which gives free accesse to the Neighbour Townes by Land on the South side; on the North west," etc. But such alterations of punctuation have not been made save where the sense is indubitable. Brooke's printer's italics have been deemed no more sacred than his punctuation.

With whatever helps an editor may supply, the Wonderworking Providence remains hard reading. Though the author can tell plain facts in a plain way when he chooses to do so, and gives us many valuable details respecting business matters.

his enthusiasm for the great cause of militant Puritanism frequently leads him astray into rhetorical flights which, though often vigorous and imaginative, are turgid, bombastic, and tedious. Hardest of all to peruse are the labored verses which, with excellent motives and a pathetic patience, he has hammered out whenever he has felt that an eminent leader in the upbuilding of his Zion calls for especial commemoration. Yet the prose style has picturesque imagination and a certain manly vigor, and though the diction of the rhetorical passages is all borrowed from the one Book the author knew well, a diction borrowed from that source will never wholly lack beauty and elevation. Even among the verses, one may discriminate. There are worse verses than those in the ninth chapter of the third book, beginning,

"From silent night, true Register of moans."

Johnson's habit of "dropping into poetry" has been so much commented on by those who have in any way written of him, that it is natural to ask the question what models he followed, in the three varieties of metre which we see in his work. On this point the editor has consulted his friend Professor R. E. Neil Dodge, of the University of Wisconsin, an accomplished student of Elizabethan verse. Of the metre of which Johnson's first two "poems," those in honor of Cradock and Endicott, are specimens, he says: "The measure as a whole, the fourteen-syllable couplet ('fourteeners' or, more learnedly, 'septenars'), would in its general swing be familiar to every good Puritan in the metrical Psalms of Sternhold and Hopkins, e. g., Ps. xxii. :

*0 God my God, wherefore doest thou

forsake me utterly: And helpest not, when I do make

my great complaint and cry.*

Sometimes, by rhyming the half-lines, these versifiers make of the original couplet a fully rhymed quatrain, e. g., Ps. xcv. :

* O come let us lift up our voyce,

and sing unto the Lord: In him our rock of health rejoyce

let us with one accord.'

The double ending is rare in these Psalms, as is also internal rhyme except in the quatrain arrangement given above. See, however, Ps. xxii., stanza 21 :

*And from the Lyons mouth, that would

me all in sunder shiver: And from the homes of unicornes,

Lord safely me deliver.'

The particular arrangement of internal, or sectional, rhymes which you say is characteristic of his verse may be found in TotteVs Miscellany (v. Arber's English Reprints), a book very popular with the Elizabethans under its title of Songs and Sonnets, which Master Slender wished he had with him when he set eyes on Mistress Anne Page (Merry Wives of Windsor); see p. 62 of Arber's edition:

' O Goodly hand

Wherein doth stand My heart distract in pain:

Dear hand, alas!

In little space My life thou dost restrain.'

Write this out as a septenar couplet and you have exactly the measure with sectional rhymes used by Captain Johnson. It was common, but I cannot say just how common."

The variety next seen, in the verses on Higginson, is the elegiac quatrain, that of Gray's Elegy. It had been used, saya Professor Dodge, by Wyatt, Surrey, Sir John Davies, and

Spenser (Colin Clout's Come Home Again). All the verses in the book are in one of these two measures, except the poem alluded to above, beginning,

"From silent night, true Register of moans,"

and that with which the volume closes. Of this six-line stanza. Professor Dodge says that it is "used by Spenser in January and December of the Shepherd's Calendar, in The Tears of the Muses, and elsewhere. It is to be found also in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, in Drayton's Legend of Gaveston and in several of his Eclogues, in fact in poetry about 1600 very often." He adds:

All these measures were sufficiently common to make specific investigation of the good Captain's models needless. He may have had his favorite poets and may have imitated them, but to decide who they were would require the reading of all his verse, and even by that process one would probably not arrive at any very exact conclusions, for it takes a man of artistic temperament to imitate style recognizably, whereas a man of ordinary facility with the pen may turn out verse according to familiar measures readily enough.