Samuel Mather, the son of Cotton Mather, was born in 1706. In him, evidently, the ancestral fire had become almost extinct. He had abundant learning; was extremely industrious; published many things; but there was not in them, as there was not in him, the victorious energy of an original mind, or even the winning felicity of an imitative one. He was a sturdy and a worthy man. He left no successor to continue the once-splendid dynasty of his tribe. He was the last, and the least, of the Mathers. _The Laity in New England Literature._--In the history of literature in New England during the colonial time, one fact stands out above all others,--the intellectual leadership of the clergy, and that, too, among a laity neither ignorant nor weak. This leadership was in every sense honourable, both for the leaders and the led. It was not due alone to the high authority of the clerical office in New England; it was due still more to the personal greatness of the men who filled that office, and who themselves made the office great. They were intellectual leaders because they deserved to be; for, living among a well-educated and high-spirited people, they knew more, were wiser, were abler, than all other persons in the community. Of such a leadership, it was an honour even to be among the followers. And in the literary achievements of New England in the colonial time, the clergy filled by far the largest space, because, in all departments of writing, they did by far the largest amount of work. After the first half-century of New England life, another fact comes into notice,--the advance of the laity in literary activity. By that time, many strong and good men, who had been educated there in all the learning of the age, either not entering the clerical profession or not remaining in it, began to organise and to develop the other learned professions--the legal, medical, and tuitionary--and, appealing to the public through various forms of literature, to divide more and more with the clergy the leadership of men’s minds. Moreover, in the last decade of the seventeenth century, an attempt was made to establish a newspaper in New England. The attempt failed. In the first decade of the eighteenth century, another attempt was made, and did not fail; and long before the end of our colonial epoch, a new profession had come into existence, having a power to act on the minds of men more mightily than any other,--the profession of journalism.