capital prevented them from engaging in cod-fishing, and furs bartered from the natives were almost their only articles of export. The merchant adventurers were disappointed at the small return from their investment; and though holding the settlers to their labor contract, refused them further aid. The colonists did succeed, however, in 1625, through their agent, Captain Standish, in borrowing £200 at the exorbitant rate of 30 per cent.

During the next six years they managed, by hard labor and strict economy, to buy up the shares of the London merchants for £1,800. From this time they were really free men, and could spend what they earned in developing the settlement. The Plymouth Plantation ended its distinct existence in 1691, when it was incorporated with the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

§ 3. The Characters.

Such was the community that Longfellow chose as the setting for his story. He makes us feel, as we read the poem, that old Plymouth atmosphere with its strange mixture of stern enthusiasm, austere piety, and undemonstrative tenderness. Under a cold and forbidding outside glowed many a heart that was warm and true. The deep human feelings of the characters stand out in all the stronger relief because of this contrast with their surroundings. Just as the little mayflower (our trailing arbutus) is all the sweeter and more precious because it blooms among the rocks and dying leaves and melting snow, so is the blossoming of the love of the dear Puritan girl the more beautiful for its uncongenial environment.

This scenic background of "The Courtship" is not its only historical feature, for all the principal characters are based on real persons. Priscilla, Alden, and Standish had in Plymouth their living counterparts who are mentioned by name in the early chronicles. By comparing these originals with Longfellow's characters we may get a glimpse of his method of work. We shall then be able to say how far the poet has added to or subtracted from their characters, and to what extent he has idealized them.

Much less is known of Priscilla Mullens than of either of her rival suitors. From this simple fact we may infer that hers was a sweet, retiring nature that avoided publicity. No doubt she regarded the log home her proper sphere, and was happy with the domestic duties of the fireside and garden.

On the passenger list of the "Mayflower" were the names of "Mr. William Mullines and his wife, and two children, Joseph and Priscilla; and a servant, Robart Carter." A later record states that "Mr. Molines, and his wife, his son, and his servant, dyed the first winter. Only his daughter Priscilla survived and married with John Alden, who are both living and have eleven children." Her father was the tenth signer of the Compact, and Morton mentions him as "a man pious and well deserving, endowed also with a considerable outward estate; and had it been the will of God that he had survived, might have proved a useful instrument in his place." It was a dreadful experience thus to lose all her relatives within a few weeks in a strange land. But there is evidence that she did not give herself up entirely to grief, but ministered to the sick and dying. "There die sometimes two or three a day," says an eye-witness. "Of a hundred persons scarce fifty remain; the living scarce able to bury the dead; the well not sufficient to tend the sick, there being, in their time of greatest distress, but six or seven, who spare no pains to help them.""

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The records are meager, but from what we know of conditions at Plymouth, we may infer much in regard to Priscilla's good constitution, which must have been sound indeed to withstand such hardships. She must have been a brave girl to outlive those distressing experiences, and her womanly

character must have matured rapidly. Longfellow was descended from his beautiful heroine through his mother, Miss Wadsworth, and no doubt has drawn her true in the main to the family traditions faithfully handed down. She was "the loveliest maid in Plymouth," modest, yet frank, and true to her own heart; industrious, sympathetic, endowed with a delicate sense of humor, practical, and deeply pious. From an entry in the poet's Journal in December, 1857, we learn that he thought then of giving her name to the poem. “I begin a new poem," he wrote, ""Priscilla,' to be a kind of Puritan pastoral; the subject, the courtship of Miles Standish."

We know slightly more of John Alden. He was born in England in 1599. His trade and general reputation are settled by a reference in Bradford: "He was hired for a cooper at Southampton where the ship victualled; and being a hopeful young man, was much desired, but left to his own liking to go or to stay, when he came here (to Plymouth, that is); but he stayed and married here."" He was twenty-one years of age when he embarked in the "Mayflower," and we find it hard not to believe that the presence of a certain maiden on that ship helped him to decide.

He was the seventh to sign the Compact, and took an active share in organizing the government of the new settlement. When the Pilgrims grouped themselves into nineteen families, so that they might build fewer houses, all single men that had no families being willing to join with some family, Alden, being a ready writer, was attached to Captain Standish as his secretary. Further than the fact of his having wedded Priscilla, little more is known of his history, except that he served as a magistrate for more than fifty years, and was of great assistance in planting the colony firmly. He died at Duxbury on September 12, 1687.

From these suggestions we may trace the character of Alden as it rounded out in all its gentleness, unselfishness, sensitiveness, and nobility. The poet has so delicately and strongly treated the young man's loyalty to his companion, that he has immortalized it as one of the famous friendships of literature.

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Captain Standish is more of a genuine historical personage than his scholar-friend. He was born in Lancashire, England, in 1584, "a gentleman," says Morton, "and heir apparent unto a great estate of land and livings, surreptitiously detained from him, his grandfather being a second or younger brother from the house of Standish." One of his name had been knighted for slaying Wat Tyler, and another, Sir John Standish, had fought at Agincourt in 1415. Young thinks that the captain was "a scion of this ancient and warlike stock from his giving the name of Duxbury to the town where he settled, and calling his son Alexander.""

From his subsequent career it is evident that plenty of good warrior blood flowed in his veins. Educated as a soldier, he fought as a lieutenant in the forces sent over by Queen Elizabeth to aid the Dutch against the Spaniards. During the truce he attached himself to Robinson and his congregation, though he never became a member of the church. Liking their principles, or perhaps through mere love of adventure, he accompanied them to America as their military leader.

There is frequent mention of him in the Plymouth chronicles. He is described as “a man of small stature, but of such an active and daring spirit that he spread terror through all the Indian tribes." His little army of sixteen men, which had been drilled into a perfect fighting machine, was able to defeat twenty times their number of savages. Their captain's daring, skill in dealing with the natives, and his promptness in suppressing their conspiracies is shown in an expedition against the Massachusetts in 1623. Longfellow works the

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incident into his poem finely. "The governor, on receiving this intelligence," says Holmes, "which was confirmed by other evidences, ordered Standish to take with him as many men as he should judge sufficient, and, if a plot should be discovered, to fall on the conspirators. Standish, with eight men, sailed to the Massachusetts, where the natives, suspecting his design, insulted and threatened him. Watching his opportunity, when four of them, Wittuwamet, Pecksuot, another Indian, and a youth of eighteen, brother of Wittuwamet, and about as many of his own men, were in the same room, he gave a signal to his men; the door was instantly shut; and snatching the knife of Pecksuot from his neck, he killed him with it, after a violent struggle; his party killed Wittuwamet, and the other Indian, and hung the youth. Proceeding to another place, Standish killed an Indian; and afterwards had a skirmish with a party of Indians, which he put to flight. Weston's men also killed two Indians. Standish, with that generosity which characterizes true bravery, released the Indian women, without taking their beaver coats, or allowing the least incivility to be offered to them."1

The military training of Captain Standish was invaluable at a time when fighting was necessary to existence. But he knew how to do other things as well. Another and equally admirable side of the little soldier appears in Governor Bradford's narrative of "the terrible winter" already referred to. When all but seven of the settlers were ill, a rare example and worthy to be remembered were Mr. William Brewster, their reverent elder, and Myles Standish, their captain and military commander, unto whom myself, and many others were much beholden in our low and sick condition; and yet the Lord so upheld these persons, as in this general calamity they were not at all infected either with sickness or lameness." Elsewhere we are given particulars of how these men "spared no pains, night nor day, but with abundance of toil