ed as his share of "New
England's First Fruits" a list to make a modern author green with
envy--three hundred and eighty-two different works; three hundred of
these may be seen in the library of the American Antiquarian Society:
not all were brought out in America, however. His "Magnalia" was printed
in England, and the exigences and vicissitudes of publication at that
time are fully told in his diary; also the exalted and idealized view
which he took of authorship. At the first definite plan which he
formulated in his mind of his history of New England, he "cried mightily
to God;" and he went through a series of fasts and vigils at intervals
until the book was completed, when he held extended exercises of secret
thanksgiving. Prostrate on his study floor, in the dust, he joyfully
received full assurance in his heart from God that his work would be
successful. But writing the book is not all the work, as any author
knows; and he then had much distress and many troubled fasts over the
best way of printing it, of transporting it to England; and when at last
he placed his "elaborate composures" on shipboard, he prayed an entire
day. No ascetic Papist ever observed fast days more vigorously than did
Cotton Mather while his book was on its long sea-voyage and in England.
He sent it in June in the year 1700, and did not hear from it till
December. What a thrill of sympathy one feels for him! Then he learned
that the printers were cold; the expense of publication would be L600, a
goodly sum to venture; it was "clogged by the dispositions" of the man
to whom it was sent; it was delayed and obstructed; he was left
strangely in the dark about it; months passed without any news. Still
his faith in God supported him. At last a sainted Christian came forward
in London, a stranger, and offered to print the book at his own expense
and give the author as many copies as he wished. That was in what
Carlyle called "the Day of Dedications and Patrons, not of Bargains with
Booksellers." In October, 1702, after two and a half long years of
waiting, one copy of the wished-for volume arrived, and the author and
his dearest friend, Mr. Bromfield, piously greeted it with a day of
solemn fasting and praise.

Can the contrast of that day with the present, can the character of
Cotton Mather be more plainly shown than by this story of the
publication of the "Magnalia?" Many anxious days did he pass over other
manuscripts. Some were lost in London fo