Memoirs of the Maxwells of Pollok > Correspondence

1711.] FAMILY AND DOMESTIC LETTERS. 357
And this I can say, that I am perswaded the lady that marries him wdl be
happy in a good humoured, sober gentleman.
I am, my Lord,
Your Lordship's affeetionatt freind and humble servant!,
To my Lord Pollock att Edinburgh, Scotland,
[re-addressed] att Nether Pollok, Glasgow.
Dr. Cotton Mather, Boston, New England, to Sir John Maxwell,
Lord Pollok.
Boston, N. England, 25 d - l m - 1711, [25 March 1711.]
359. Honourable Sir, the most undeserved, and as much unexpected, respect which
your university has putt upon your American servant, calls for most grateful
acknowledgments. But in your single hand, when signing the noble token of
your love, I see nothing less than a whole university, and a testimony of kind-
ness written by a friend of so superior a quality. Surely I should bind it as a
crown unto me.
Your merits are better known, Syr, in these distant regions, than your
various titles of honour ; my leaving of which unmentioned, is owing to my
fear of committing some mistake thro' an ignorance in them, which will not
alwayes continue ; and that which further apologizes for my omission is, my
assurance of your being above them all. The name of so learned, so pious, and
so meritorious a Maxwel, the rector of such an university as that of Glasgow,
will signify more than a Lord of the Sessions, or any other Lordship.
The Rectorate of a famous Colledge has before now had that account given
of it : " Sceptrwm illud scholasticum plus habet sollicitudinis quam pulchritu-
dinis, plus curce quam auri, plus impedimenti quam argenti" But the public
spirit of such a Maxwel, and his excellent zeal to serve the best interests, carries