“The diaries of Increase and Cotton Mather are extant, but only extracts of them have been printed. Much in them is wisely suppressed. Increase, though a most faithful, devoted, and eminently serviceable man, was morbid, censorious sometimes, and suffered as if unappreciated. The younger Mather was often jealous, spiteful, rancorous, and revengeful in his daily records, and thus the estimate of his general worth is so far reduced through materials furnished by himself.”[379] There is among the Sparks manuscripts in Harvard College library a bound quarto volume which is superscribed as follows: “To Mr. Samuel Savile, of Currier’s Hall, London, attorney-at-law: Dear friend,—I here present you with an abstracted Historical Account of that part of America called New England; to which I have added the History of our voiage thereto, Anno Domini, 1740.” This account presents one of the best pictures of New England life, particularly of that in Boston, from a contemporary pen.[380] There are various other diaries of lookers-on, which are helpful in this study of New England provincial life, like the journals of Whitefield, the diary of Francis Goelet,[381] the journal of Madam Knight’s journey, 1704,[382]—not to name others. Among published personal records, there are George Keith’s _Journal of Travels from New Hampshire to Caratuck_ (London, 1706); Capt. Nathaniel Uring’s _Voyages and Travels_, published at London in 1727;[383] and Andrew Burnaby’s _Travels through the middle settlements in North America in the years 1759 and 1760_, London, 1775.[384] Burnaby passed on his way, from Bristol through Providence to Boston. The early part of the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is of exceptional value as a reflex of the life of New England as it impressed a young man.[385] Among the modern treatises on the social condition of New England, a chief place must be given to Henry Cabot Lodge’s _Short History of the English Colonies_, the chapters in which on the characteristics of the colonies and their life are the essential feature of a book whose title is made good by a somewhat unnecessary abridgment of the colonies’ anterior history. Lodge groups his facts by colonies. Dr. Edward Eggleston in some valuable papers, which are still appearing in the _Century Magazine_, groups similar, but often much minuter, facts by their topical rather than by their colonial relations. Mr. Horace E. Scudder prepared an eclectic presentation of the subject in a little volume, _Men and Manners a hundred years ago_ (N. Y., 1876), which surveys all the colonies. The Rev. Jos. B. Felt’s _Customs of New England_ (1853) has a topical arrangement.[386] For Massachusetts in particular, most of the local histories[387] contribute something to the subject; and in the _Memorial History of Boston_ there are various chapters which are useful,[388] and a survey is also given in Barry’s _Massachusetts_ (vol. ii. ch. I).