SOURCE: "Virginia: Its Literature During the Remainder of the First Period," in A History of American Literature, Vol. I, 1878. Reprint by G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1881, pp. 60-92.

In the following excerpt, first published in 1878, Tyler praises Mather for his simple, straightforward literary style.

… Of the six sons of Richard Mather, four became famous preachers, two of them in Ireland and in England, other two in New England; the greatest of them all being the youngest, born at Dorchester, June twenty-first, 1639, and at his birth adorned with the name of Increase, in grateful recognition of "the increase of every sort, wherewith God favored the country about the time of his nativity."²

Even in childhood he began to display the strong and eager traits that gave distinction and power to his whole life, and that bore him impetuously through the warfare of eighty-four mortal years. At twelve, he entered Harvard...