Details
[MATHER, Cotton (1663-1728)]. A vindication of the ministers of Boston, from the abuses & scandal lately cast upon them, in divers printed papers. Boston: B. Green for Samuel Gerrish, 1722.
8o (172 x 112 mm). (Title slightly cropped at top, just shaving portion of rule border, last leaf partially detached). Disbound. Provenance: Library of the Surgeon General's Office (oval stamp on title and withdrawn for exchange on A2r.
FIRST EDITION of this anonymous response to attacks on Mather and other ministers in Boston who supported the successful test of the practice of inoculation for smallpox undertaken at Mather's urging during the 1721 Boston epidemic (see note lot 652). The ministers, who included Cotton, his father Increase Mather, Benjamin Colman, William Cooper and others, had been the subject of violent editorials in the New England Courant, published by James Franklin and the 16-year-old Benjamin Franklin. Mather and Boylston, the doctor who performed the inoculations, were attacked by a mob, and a bomb was thrown into Mather's study before the controversy finally subsided.
Austin 1980; Evans 2396; Guerra a-76; Holmes Cotton Mather 530; Norman 1456.
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FIRST EDITION of this anonymous response to attacks on Mather and other ministers in Boston who supported the successful test of the practice of inoculation for smallpox undertaken at Mather's urging during the 1721 Boston epidemic (see note lot 652). The ministers, who included Cotton, his father Increase Mather, Benjamin Colman, William Cooper and others, had been the subject of violent editorials in the New England Courant, published by James Franklin and the 16-year-old Benjamin Franklin. Mather and Boylston, the doctor who performed the inoculations, were attacked by a mob, and a bomb was thrown into Mather's study before the controversy finally subsided.
Austin 1980; Evans 2396; Guerra a-76; Holmes Cotton Mather 530; Norman 1456.