to himself a change from the legal profession to the ministry.  By a second marriage, December 6, 1615, to Thomasine Clopton, of a good family in the neighborhood, he had the promise of renewed joy in a condition which his warm-hearted sociability and his intense fondness for domestic relations made essential to his happiness, if not to his virtue.  But one single year and one added day saw her and her infant child committed to the tomb, and made him again desolate.  His biographer, not without misgivings indeed, but with a deliberation and healthfulness of judgment which most of his readers will approve as allowed to overrule them, has spread before us at length, from the most sacred privacy of the stricken mourner, heart-exercises and scenes in the death-chamber, such as engage with most painful, but still entrancing sympathy, the very soul of the reader.  We know not where, in all our literature, to find matter like this, so bedewed and steeped in tenderness, so swift in its alternations between lacerating details and soothing suggestions.  The author has put into print all that remains of the record of John Winthrop’s “Experience,” in passages written contemporaneously with its incidents,—­a document distinct from the record of his “Christian Experience,” written here.  The account of Thomasine’s death-bed exercises, as deciphered from the perishing manuscript, must, we think, stand by itself, either for criticism, or for the defiance of criticism.  What we have had of similar scenes only in fragments, and as seen though veils, is here in the fulness of all that can harrow or comfort the human heart, spread before us clear of any withholding.  It was the same year in which Shakspeare died, in a house built by Sir Hugh Clopton, a member of the same family-connection with Thomasine.  Hour by hour, almost minute by minute, the stages of her transition are reported with infinite minuteness.  Her own prayers, and those of a steady succession of religious friends, are noted; the melting intonations of her own utterances of anxiety or peace; the parting counsels or warnings addressed to her dependants; the last breathings of affection to those dearest; the occasional aberrations and cloudings of intelligence coming in the progress of her disease, which were assigned to temptations from Satan:  all these are given to us.  “Her feaver increased very violently upon hir, wh. the Devill made advantage of to moleste hir comforte, but she declaringe unto us with what temptations the devill did assault hir, bent hirselfe against them, prayinge with great vehemence for Gods helpe, & that he would not take away his lovinge kindnesse from hir, defyinge Satan, & spitting at him, so as we might see by hir setting of hir teethe, & fixinge her eyes, shakinge hir head & whole bodye, that she had a very greatt conflicte with the adversarye.”  The mourner follows this scene to its close.  Having transfigured all its dreariest passages with the kindling glow of his own undismayed faith, he lets his grateful spirit crown it with a sweet peace, and then he pays a most tender tribute to the gentle loveliness, fidelity, and Christian excellence of her with whom he had shared so true, though so brief, a joy.