enowned
Cotton Mather, minister of the Old North Church in Boston.

"And author of the Magnalia, Grandfather, which we sometimes see you
reading," said Laurence.

"Yes, Laurence," replied Grandfather. "The Magnalia is a strange, pedantic
history, in which true events and real personages move before the reader,
with the dreamy aspect which they wore in Cotton Mather's singular mind.
This huge volume, however, was written and published before our chair came
into his possession. But, as he was the author of more books than there
are days in the year, we may conclude that he wrote a great deal, while
sitting in this chair."

"I am tired of these school-masters and learned men," said Charley. "I
wish some stirring man, that knew how to do something in the world, like
Sir William Phips, would set in the chair."

"Such men seldom have leisure to sit quietly in a chair," said
Grandfather. "We must make the best of such people as we have."

As Cotton Mather was a very distinguished man, Grandfather took some pains
to give the children a lively conception of his character. Over the door
of his library were painted these words--BE SHORT--as a warning to visitors
that they must not do the world so much harm, as needlessly to interrupt
this great man's wonderful labors. On entering the room you would probably
behold it crowded, and piled, and heaped with books. There were huge,
ponderous folios and quartos, and little duodecimos, in English, Latin,
Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, and all other languages, that either originated
at the confusion of Babel, or have since come into use.

All these books, no doubt, were tossed about in confusion, thus forming a
visible emblem of the manner in which their contents were crowded into
Cotton Mather's brain. And in the middle of the room stood a table, on
which, besides printed volumes, were strewn manuscript sermons, historical
tracts, and political pamphlets, all written in such a queer, blind,
crabbed, fantastical hand, that a writing-master would have gone raving
mad at the sight of them. By this table stood Grandfather's chair, which
seemed already to have contracted an air of deep erudition, as if its
cushion were stuffed with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and other hard
matters.

In this chair, from one year's end to another, sat that prodigious
book-worm, Cotton Mather, sometimes devouring a great book, and sometimes
scribbling one as big. In Grandfather's younger days, there used to be a