COTTON MATHER.

THIS eminent divine was born in Boston on the 12^th of February, 1662-3. After availing himself of the advantages of the free schools of his native town, he entered Harvard College, where he was graduated at the early age of sixteen. Before he was nineteen, he received the degree of M.A. Dr. Mather would have ranked high as a scholar, at the present day, and in the times in which he lived was considered a prodigy of learning. Wonderfully precocious, and possessed of a powerful memory, he gathered up knowledge with the greed a miser exhibits in amassing gold. He became the greatest linguist of the age, and wrote more books than any other man. He became known through-out Europe as well as his native country, and was in constant correspondence with the learned men of the world. In forty-one years, he wrote and published two hundred and eighty-three books, averaging nearly seven books to each year. His "Magnalia" was, without doubt, the most remarkable of his productions, and the one that is inseparably connected with his name. He was a firm believer in witchcraft, never doubting but that is was the immediate handiwork of the Father of lies. Perhaps, had he lived in these days, he would have been a full convert to mesmerism and spiritual rappings.
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The 100 individuals pictured and described in Volume I as having taken an active part in the shaping of American history are not all Americans. Cotton Mather, the 17th century American cleric is there, as is George Washington, the first American president. But also included are Lt.Gen. John Burgoyne, who led British troops against the Colonies in the American Revolution and the Marquis de Lafayette, the Frenchman who came to the aid of the colonists in the 18th century and became a close friend of General Washington.

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