H. C. Shelley's "John, Harvard and his Times"

If the first biography of John Harvard has been long delayed, its publication is surely well timed in the month when we are preparing to celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of his birth. It was doubtless the scarcity of biographical details that so long kept the field free for the present biographer; and, despite Mr. Shelley's careful gleaning, we have here still but a slender sheaf of facts. To make a volume of some three hundred pages it has been necessary to eke it out with much matter descriptive of times of our founder, and the places in which he lived, and to indulge freely in speculation. The book might, indeed, be fairly called, "A Probable Biography of a Possible John Harvard."

Some facts, however, have geen gathered. We now know the name and occupation of his father, the parentage, name, and marriages of his mother, the place and date of his baptism, something of his education, his marriage, his emigration to America, his short ministry in Charlestown, his bequest to the infant College, and his early death. Of his brothers and sisters we know the names, and the dates of their deaths. From these a few other matters may safely be inferred; his Puritanism, for example, his feeble health, his interest in learning. Still other matters are conjectured by the author, such as that it was William Shakespeare who introduced John Harvard's father, his neighbor in Southwark, to the Stratford girl whom he married. These guesses are for the most part put forth with due reserve and supported with ingenuity. The "Life" is, as a whole, a worthy attempt to give definiteness and to do honor to a figure to whom we all owe a grateful reverence.

The book is fitly dedicated to President Eliot, and it is abundantly and admirably illustrated.