N00595:13
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.
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;
Wherein, if the Curious Relished the Piety sometimes rather than the Poetry, the Capacity of the Most, therein to be accommodated, must be Considered. But I intend no further Account of this matter, than what is given by his Worthy Son, (Reprinting at Boston in the year, 1680 the Verses of his Father, upon the Famous Deliverances of the English Nation, Printed at London, as long ago, as the year 1626) Whose Words are, What Volumes hath he Penned, for the help of Others, in their several Changes of Condition? How was his Heart full of Good Matter? And his Verses past, like to the Handkerchiefs carried from Paul, to uphold the Disconsolate, & Heal their Wounded Souls? For indeed this is the Least Thing, that we have to Relate of that Great Saint; and accordingly,