N00595:10
Memoria Wilsoniana. Or, Some dues unto the memory of the truly Reverend & renowned…
Memoria Wilsoniana. Or, Some dues unto the memory of the truly Reverend & renowned Mr. John Wilson, the first Pastor of Boston: who expired August. 7. 1667. Aged, 79. Paid by Cotton Mather. ; [Two lines of Latin quotation]
Boston : Printed for and sold by Michael Perry, at his shop, under the west end of the Town-House, in Boston, in N.E., 1695
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Memoria WILSONIANA. THE LIFE OF Mr. JOHN WILSON.
S. 1. SUCH is the Natural Tendency, in Humane Minds to Poetry, That, as tis Observed, the Roman Historian, in the very first Line of his History, fell upon a Verse, Urbem Romam, In Principio Reges habuere;
So, the Roman Orator, though a very Mean Poet, yet making an Oration for a Good One, could not let his First Sentence pass him, without a perfect Hexameter, In Qua me non Inficior mediocriter Esse.
If, therefore, I were not of all men the most poetical, my Reader might now Expect an Entertainment altogether in Verse; for I am going to Write the Life of that New-English Divine; who had so nimble a Faculty of putting his Devout thoughts into Verse, that he Signalized himself by the Greatest Frequency, perhaps, that ever Man used, of sending Poems, to All Persons, in All Places, on All Occasions; and upon this, as well as upon Greater Accounts, was a David unto the Flocks of our Lord in the Wilderness: Quicquid tentabat Dicere, Versus erat;
If, therefore, I were not of all men the most poetical, my Reader might now Expect an Entertainment altogether in Verse; for I am going to Write the Life of that New-English Divine; who had so nimble a Faculty of putting his Devout thoughts into Verse, that he Signalized himself by the Greatest Frequency, perhaps, that ever Man used, of sending Poems, to All Persons, in All Places, on All Occasions; and upon this, as well as upon Greater Accounts, was a David unto the Flocks of our Lord in the Wilderness: Quicquid tentabat Dicere, Versus erat;