Talk:Deodat Lawson

Help with Lawson's letters from Bodleian

Some 20th c. monographers seem to thrill on beating up the old "antiquarians" (if they credit their scholarship at all) but George Henry Moore's work on the bibliography seems unsurpassed (cf. his work on Dunton's London editions of WIW to all the 20th c. confusion around the 1693 date). When dealing with someone as slippery and obfuscatory as Cotton Mather, it seems unwise to exclude such careful scholarship.

And we have GH Moore to thank for reprinting Lawson's entire letter from 1714.

Unfortunately, I've only been able to access info on Lawson's 1713 and 1715 letters as presented in short sum here, 1893 finding aid p.589

If anyone can provide more from these letters, would be much appreciated!!!! Lewismr (talk) 17:50, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Why Deodat Lawson?

Why is the only contemporaneous account of Salem published under his ("collected by") name? The Salem association of ministers --Noyes, Higginson, Parris, Hale-- were close at hand, well-educated, and could gain license to print and publish. Why not one of them?

Perhaps because Cotton Mather had travelled to the Village early and these men (correctly) assumed he planned to follow up his ongoing obsession on the subject with another book. Likewise, his father Increase Mather had led the push away from Calvin's narrow providential view and attempted to expand it to include a very wide variety of "remarkable providences" beginning in 1681 (a 1684 work that cites "Sprenger" aka Heinrich Kramer, and many other theologians but there's one key exception-- no Jean Calvin). The Salem association of ministers likely assumed Increase Mather would soon write his own book, making it a crowded field from the start.

That's a good explanation for why these ministers did not write an account but doesn't answer the question-- why ole Deodat did? Of all people?

The answer is probably burned to ash and buried in what WC Ford called "the Mather bog." But maybe there are some clues.

1. If Cotton Mather showed hesitancy in publishing an early account of Salem, and some sneakiness in hiding his own role there (see #3 below) others may have picked up on this and decided it was shrewd to do the same. This seems most noticeable in Parris whose household was initially so forward, but unlike the household of the (presumably less shrewd) Thomas Putnam, they quickly exited the scene, especially Parris beloved daughter and wife. The "expendable" members of Parris household, including the enslaved trying to survive and the vulnerable young niece, continue pressing on thru May, as we see in the account of N. Cary on May 24, but even they basically drop out of the records by end of June.

2. In Cotton Mather's letter to Stephen Sewall on Sept 20, he continues soliciting Stephen to write to him about Salem as if he (CM) is a disbeliever. Stephen refuses this opportunity to become an author, and further (tho he'd provided copies of recs to the Nurse family) Stephen withholds court records (CM asks Chief Justice Stoughton to pressure Stephen to give him these recs, see #3 below). There are several interesting things about this but one is the possibility Stephen was looking back and was reluctant to share the same fate he'd seen happen to ole Deodat.

3. Cotton Mather's letter to Stoughton on Sept 2 characterizes the unseen yet essential nature of his role. In feeling the need to declare, with a signed covenant, his allegiance to Stoughton's prosecutorial approach, despite various "designed contrivances" that might sometimes make it appear otherwise, we get the sense that CM may have been a bit too successful in hiding his role and this may have made Stoughton paranoid that he would be left holding the bag if Phips finally decided to pull the plug. This would help explain why Stoughton would be eager for CM to get his book out, and to England, and it might also reflect back on Deodat and suggest he may have been used as an "instrument" during the time when Cotton Mather, for whatever reason, felt the need to hide the full extent of his zeal.

4. The anonymous and posthumous bio of Phips, as mentioned in the article, is a broad and complex subject but to understand what a slippery greased pig we are dealing with in Cotton Mather, we have to notice his treatment of Phips after Phips was no longer around. Deodat's various ties to Andros, the parsonage house, and George Burroughs, suggest that Deodat may have been perhaps the most vulnerable minister (well, after Burroughs, of course) on the scene and this might be the reason he or his name were chosen. If during the spring or summer of 1692, CM approached Deodat with an offer that was similar to the one made to Stephen Sewall, Lawson would not have been in a good position to refuse.

Lewismr (talk) 16:23, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Similarities in the work of Lawson and Cotton Mather

[to be updated, and open to all of course, or start a "dissimilarities" section]

Satan's Malignity sermon

1. Zechariah Symmes, a longtime minister in Charlestown, has a prison anecdote on p. 60 of sermon. He died in February 1671 before Lawson arrived in MA. Cotton Mather was still a young boy but no doubt already exhibiting a great precocity with regard to interest in the condemned. Cotton Mather includes him in 1702 Magnalia.

2. "Brands Plucked from the Burning" -- a refrain in the sermon and a favorite verse for Cotton Mather in 1693, used as a title for anonymous manuscripts about Mercy Short and Margaret Rule.