Ralph Waldo Emerson | Page 3

one of a hundred and twenty-eight grandparents, if indeed the
full number existed in spite of family admixtures, may have transmitted
his or her distinguishing traits through a series of lives that cover more
than two centuries, to our own contemporary. Inherited qualities move
along their several paths not unlike the pieces in the game of chess.
Sometimes the character of the son can be traced directly to that of the
father or of the mother, as the pawn's move carries him from one square
to the next. Sometimes a series of distinguished fathers follows in a line,
or a succession of superior mothers, as the black or white bishop
sweeps the board on his own color. Sometimes the distinguishing
characters pass from one sex to the other indifferently, as the castle
strides over the black and white squares. Sometimes an uncle or aunt
lives over again in a nephew or niece, as if the knight's move were
repeated on the squares of human individuality. It is not impossible,
then, that some of the qualities we mark in Emerson may have come
from the remote ancestor whose name figures with distinction in the
early history of New England.
The Reverend Peter Bulkeley is honorably commemorated among the

worthies consigned to immortality in that precious and entertaining
medley of fact and fancy, enlivened by a wilderness of quotations at
first or second hand, the Magnolia Christi Americana, of the Reverend
Cotton Mather. The old chronicler tells his story so much better than
any one can tell it for him that he must be allowed to speak for himself
in a few extracts, transferred with all their typographical idiosyncrasies
from the London-printed, folio of 1702.
"He was descended of an Honourable Family in Bedfordshire.--He was
born at Woodhil (or _Odel_) in Bedfordshire, January 31st, 1582.
"His Education was answerable unto his _Original_; it was Learned, it
was Genteel, and, which was the top of all, it was very _Pious_: At
length it made him a Batchellor of Divinity, and a Fellow of Saint
_John's_ Colledge in Cambridge.--
"When he came abroad into the World, a good benefice befel him,
added unto the estate of a Gentleman, left him by his Father; whom he
succeeded in his Ministry, at the place of his Nativity: Which one
would imagine Temptations enough to keep him out of a Wilderness."
But he could not conscientiously conform to the ceremonies of the
English Church, and so,--
"When Sir Nathaniel Brent was Arch-Bishop _Laud's_ General, as
Arch-Bishop Laud was _another's_, Complaints were made against Mr.
Bulkly, for his Non-Conformity, and he was therefore Silenced.
"To _New-England_ he therefore came, in the Year 1635; and there
having been for a while, at Cambridge, he carried a good Number of
Planters with him, up further into the Woods, where they gathered the
Twelfth Church, then formed in the Colony, and call'd the Town by the
Name of Concord.
"Here he buried a great Estate, while he raised one still, for almost
every Person whom he employed in the Affairs of his Husbandry.--
"He was a most excellent Scholar, a very-well read Person, and one,
who in his advice to young Students, gave Demonstrations, that he
knew what would go to make a Scholar. But it being essential unto a
Scholar to love a Scholar, so did he; and in Token thereof, endowed the
Library of _Harvard_-Colledge with no small part of his own.
"And he was therewithal a most exalted _Christian_--In his Ministry he
was another _Farel, Quo nemo tonuit fortius_--And the observance
which his own People had for him, was also paid him from all sorts of

People throughout the Land; but especially from the Ministers of the
Country, who would still address him as a Father, a Prophet, a
Counsellor, on all occasions."
These extracts may not quite satisfy the exacting reader, who must be
referred to the old folio from which they were taken, where he will
receive the following counsel:--
"If then any Person would know what Mr. Peter Bulkly was, let him
read his Judicious and Savory Treatise of the Gospel Covenant, which
has passed through several Editions, with much Acceptance among the
People of God." It must be added that "he had a competently good
Stroke at Latin Poetry; and even in his Old Age, affected sometimes to
improve it. Many of his Composure are yet in our Hands."
It is pleasant to believe that some of the qualities of this distinguished
scholar and Christian were reproduced in the descendant whose life we
are studying. At his death in 1659 he was succeeded, as was mentioned,
by his son Edward, whose daughter became the wife of the Reverend
Joseph Emerson, the minister of Mendon who, when that village was
destroyed by the Indians, removed to Concord,