t of it is said in the right Ercles vein. Here, for example, is
the manner in which Fire ends her little speech:

"What shall I say of Lightning and of Thunder
Which kings and mighty ones amaze with wonder,
Which make a Caesar (Romes) the worlds proud head,
Foolish Caligula creep under 's bed.
And in a word, the world I shall consume
And all therein at that great day of Doom."

This is not impressive; and we may gladly skip the rest of the remarks
made by the Elements. The second quaternion of poems, as shown by the
title page, is concerned with the four Ages of man, wherein the first
Age exclaims:

"What gripes of wind mine infancy did pain
What tortures I in breeding teeth sustain!"

which is very excellent realism, but not highly poetical, either in
sentiment or expression. The Seasons have but little more claim to a
hearing than the Elements, and in the poem on the Four Monarchies, which
is merely a rhymed version of Raleigh's History of the World, the only
notable lines are those containing Mrs. Bradstreet's defence of her sex:

"Now say, have Women worth? or have they none?
Or had they some, but with our Queen is't gone?
Nay Masculines, you have thus taxed us long;
But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong.
Let such as say our Sex is void of Reason,
Know 'tis Slander now but once was Treason."

The queen to whom these lines refer is of course Elizabeth; and we can
well believe that in her day so to asperse the sex as to decline to
admit their possession of the attribute of reason may well have been
treason sufficient, if reported to the highest quarter, to be punished
by the _terrible peine forte et dure_. Although we may entirely
sympathize with Mrs. Bradstreet's vigorous defence of her sex from the
foul slanders of the "Masculines," it is difficult to see wherein she
makes good her claim to be considered the Tenth Muse, or the Hundred and
Tenth, if so many could be named. Nevertheless, at her death sermons
laudatory of her life and work were preached in nearly every church in
New England, and her afflicted family must have been greatly comforted
by the number and expressions of the elegies with which they were fairly
deluged. Here is a specimen from the pen of the Rev. John Norton:

"A Funeral Eulogy, upon that Pattern and Patron of Virtue, the truly
pious, peerless and matchless Gentlewo