position which, alike, Dudley and Bradstreet held. "Steward" then,
had a very different meaning from any associated with it now, and
great estates were left practically in the hands of managers while
the owners busied themselves in other directions, relying upon the
good taste as well as the financial ability of the men who, as a
rule, proved more than faithful to the trust.

The first two years of marriage were passed in England, and held
the last genuine social life and intellectual development that
Anne Bradstreet was to enjoy. The love of learning was not lost in
the transition from one country to another, but it took on more
and more a theological bias, and embodied itself chiefly in
sermons and interminable doctrinal discussions. Even before the
marriage, Dudley had decided to join the New England colony, but
Simon Bradstreet hesitated and lingered, till forced to a decision
by the increasing shadow of persecution. Had they remained in
England, there is little doubt that Anne Bradstreet's mind,
sensitively alive as it was to every fine influence, would have
developed in a far different direction to that which it finally
took. The directness and joyous life of the Elizabethan literature
had given place to the euphuistic school, and as the Puritans put
aside one author after another as "not making for godliness," the
strained style, the quirks and conceits of men like Quarles and
Withers came to represent the highest type of literary effort. But
no author had the influence of Du Bartas, whose poems had been
translated by Joshua Sylvester in 1605, under the title of "Du
Bartas. His Duuine Weekes and Workes, with a Complete Collection
of all the other most delightfull Workes, Translated and Written
by ye famous Philomusus, Josvah Sylvester, Gent." He in turn was
an imitator; a French euphuist, whose work simply followed and