-%- • •• • • - '^i .0^ '■^, '->'rn^'> .■■.:^'.:' >. D ■, ■' v^^^; %./ .s^^. « ' ^. .0 .0 ^ '^^- o^ 'J ' -5 ' * = N o s-«- ^ Xn ,0. ,-;;■ o -.,,•' .0-' ~ ■; ■■■• vV ^^^ '•• A^' ^,, ''.. ^- /N <■. 'o. ■^'-'S.-. .'i-^ -0' •^...^ \ Vf , ■r '- :^::^::; \^ >. .0' o -t- 0^ V- 1 • 7 J"' ^O'^.:^:.^ V ^N^ .V-'' ^ '^^^-^^ a' ^ <^ <■> .^ /y^-"-- . •>:. '^^'V^; N^^ •\- -VV, ,v ■^^^■V .^> '^ •.... ,-%'- .0' '-t.-oV .0 -r o ■'■\ V ■ O- ,\ <;• <■. <* -^.-o^ '.'■ .v o-.--, ■^^ ■. r . ^ •r- '^ ■■N ,> s V V% ' f .0- ■"\- .0' ,. -' ," •'■ o ,0' O *• » , r • .0 * f ■ .) ^ , ,:/ / 'yo^ Y'^ ( "< -ere U^ fi A MEMORIAL EDAVAKD EVERETT, TIIK CITV OF BOSTOK X BOSTON: PniNTED BY OKDEl! OB' THE CITY COUNCIL. Murm.xv. E-64-0 COMIMI.KD I!V ,J. M. liUCiiiKK T II K M A V" It's CLK n K . FIMNTII' V.\ ,1. i: lAUWi: M. A. (OMfAM'. 1- l; I X T r (t ^ 1 -J 1 II [ ( I T ^ . This voliiiiif li:is hi-cii |iit"paicil. uiultr the diirrtidii of a C'otmiiittcf of tin- City (iniiHil, fur tlic piu|M)>f of |irc'srrviiii,'. in u pciruaiifiit furiii, somr of the ihiiiktous tiil)iit»'s of rispcct to till- iiuriiory of J'.dw aud ]".\ ikkit, whoso :,'rf;it accomplisliniriits and nnsurpassed t'loi[Ucn(T wrri- ahva\s ili-votcd to tin- canso of good morals, to till" rifvation of tlic liuiiian lacc. and to cri'ating in tlif licarts of liis counlix men •• Tin: I,o\i. ok Liiieuty I'uo- ( (KNT KNTS. Memoir of Eilw.irJ Kvercti, liv Kuv. E. E. Ilali' '•' Orilir of tiK- Prcsiiknc of tla- I'nitcil Statis I'.i ProcL'cilinKs in tin- lloanl of AUIeniien 23 l'rocttdin;;s in tlie Coinnum Council 1'8 Mucting in Faniuil Hall ■'■3 AilJriss of Mayor Lincnin. . 35 Risoliitionri 37 Hi'Miarki of lion. CliarUs G. Lorinj; 10 Rtniark'* of Hon. Hobtrt C. Wintlirop 4.") Remarks of lion. AU-Nandcr II. liullock l.'onimitlcf on the Enction of a Stalur flO Funeral 71 A JJrcss of Rov. Rufus Elli> "3 Procession "•' Procceilings of itie School Coniniiltee >^'< Proceeilin);^ of the Tru. ' '- Renmrka of Kev, S. K. I.otlirop. 1). 1). 1'3 6 CONTENTS. V.M.I'. lU'iiiarks (if Hon. .lolin C. (irny lUf liiniarks of Guiirge' Ticknor. Es(| ir, 1 Rfiiiarks uf Hon. Jolin II. Clift'onl 177 lit-niarks of Hev. James Walkor. 1). D ixr, Pofni of Dr. O. W. Holmes ls:i Keniark.s of Hon. liichard H. Dana, Jr 1''- Kemaiks of Hon. B. F. Thomas I'.i i lieiiiarks of Hon. James Savage 2iin Kcmarks of Hon. Emory Washli\irn L'lU Letter of John G. Wliiltier L' 1 1 Proceedings of the Thursday-Evening C'hih 217 Remarks of Dr. J. Mason Warren L' 1 7 Remarks of Mr. E. P. Wliipple 1'1'J Remarks of Bishoii Eastliurn 227 Remarks of Dr. A. A. Gould 231 Proceedings of the New England Hislorie-Genealogieal Soiiely 2;),''> Remarks of Mr. .Tolni H. Shejipard 2jJ Resolutions 2'M> Proceedings of tlie American Aniiciuarian Society 24] Remarks of Hon. Stephen Salishury 241 Resolutions 242 Remarks of Rev. Dr. Sweetser 244 Remarks of Rev. Dr. Hill l'4S Rem.arks of Hon. Isaac Da vis 2,"4 Remarks of Judge Barton 'j'li', Remarks of Hon. Levi Lincoln L'Cl Remarks of Hon. Henry Chapin 2(14 Meniorial Services at the Everett School 271 Remarks of Frederic F. Thayer, Escj 1.'7 1 Remarks of Rev. R. C. Waterston 27.S Remarks of Charles \V. Slack, Esq 2.s7 Proceedings of the Overseers of Harvard University Proceedings of the Faculty of Harvard College 2!I7 Proceedings of the Standing Committee of the First Cliiircli 2'.iS Proceedings of the Franklin Medal Association :!()() Proceedings of the Mercantile Lihrary Association Oc:! Proceedings of tlie Franklin Typograjihical Society 305 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics' Association 307 Proceedings of the Bunker Hill Monument Association :!0;i Proceedings of the Lincoln Guard :',! 1 CIn-oncdogical Table 31;! MEMOIR OP EDWARD EVERETT. MEMOIR OF EDWARD EVERETT. Edward Everett was born in Dorchester, Norfolk County, near Boston, on the 11th of April, 1794* His father, Rev. Oliver Everett, had resigned the ministry of the New South Church, in Boston, in 1792, and re- moved to Dorchester, where he spent the remainder of his life. On his father's side Mr. Everett was descended from Richard Everett, or Everard, of Dedham, one of the early settlers in New-England, who is said by tra- dition to have been a soldier in the Low Countries. His mother was Lucy Hill, daughter of Alexander Sears Hill of Boston, and Mary Richey, and granddaughter of Alexander Hill, a merchant of Boston through the greater part of a long life. On both sides Mr. Everett was descended from ancestors almost all of whom were of the first Puritan emigration. His maternal grand- mother, Mary Richey, was born in Philadelphia. His grandfather, Alexander Sears Hill, graduated at Har- vard College in 1764, and died in 1771. * In tlu- prtparatioii of this sketch, we have in some pass.iges availed ourselves of a careful article publislied in the Boston Daily Adiertisei; the day .ifter Mr. Everett's death. 10 MEMOIR OF EDWARD EVERETT. Eev. Oliver Everett, the father of Edward Everett, was the minister of the New South Church, in Boston, from 1782 to n9'2, when, with failing health, he re- tired from the ministry. lie was appointed Judge of the Circuit Court in 1799, and is sometimes spoken of as Judge Everett in the contemporary journals. He died on the 19th of November, 1802, and, in the spring of 180:3, his widow, with her large young family removed to Boston. Edward Everett was then a boy of nine years of age, and since that time to his death he has been nearly connected, by residence or by official duty, with this town. Ilis mother's residence at that time was in the street then known as Proctor's Lane, now the eastern part of Richmond Street. He was placed at school at the reading and writing schools in North Bennet Street, under tlie care of Master Ezekiel Little and Master John Tileston. At tliis " double school," in 1804, he received a Franklin ^ledal. La that year his mother removed her residence to a house now standing in Richmond Street, and on the death of her grandfather, ^Ir. Hill, removed again to a house in the upper part of Newbury Street, now Washington Street, nearly opposite the head of Essex Street. About this time Mr. Everett's regular preparation for college was begun, and he was sent to a private scliool, kept by Mr. Ezekiel Webster, of New Hampshire, a gentleman, says Mr. Everett himself, " of eminent talent and great worth, well entitled to be remembered for his own sake, but better known as the elder brother of Mr. Daniel Web-' ster." On one occasion, during his brother's absence, MEMOIR OF EDWARD EVERETT. H Mr. Daniel Webster took charge of the school for a week. It was thus that an acquaintance began, which afterwards ripened into the closest regard. Mr. Webster himself says of it, [July 21, 1852,] : " We now and tlien see stretching across the heavens a clear, blue, cerulean sky, without cloud, or mist, or haze. And such appears to me our acquaintance, from the time when I heard you for a week recite your les- sons in the little schoolhouse in Short Street to the date hereof." — Few things, probably, were less in the thought of either, in that schoolhouse, than that the boy, as Gov- ernor of Massachusetts, would one day sign the commis- sion of his teacher as Senator of the United States, or, at a later day, succeed him in the State Department. In 1805 he was sent to the Latin Grammar School, then temporarily under the charge of Mr. Samuel Cooper Thacher, who soon afterwards left it in the charge of Mr. William Biglow. At this school, his classmates, as named in its own Catalogue, were William Turell An- drews, Samuel Blagge, John Borland, Charles Pelham Curtis, Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham, Benjamin Daniel Greene, Alba Hayward, George Edward Head, Harrison Gray Otis, William Parke, Edward Reynolds, William Smith, Solomon Davis Townsend, Benjamin Lincoln Weld, with two boys named Simpson whose other names are not given. At this school, in 1806, he received another Franklin Medal. In the same year he was sent to Exeter Academy, then under the charge of Dr. Benjamin Abbot, with the assistance of Nathan Hale and 12 MEMOIR OF EDWARD EVERETT. Alexander II. Everett, Edward Everett's older brother. Here be remained till be was fitted for Harvard Col- le<^e, which he entered in the summer of 1807. He o-i-aduatcd in 1811, and entered immediately on the study of Divinity, under the direction of President Kirk- land, acting, at the same time, as Latin Tutor. In 1813 he was invited to become the minister of the Brattle Square Church, in Boston, and resumed his residence here. He Avas ordained on the 9th Feb., 1814. In 1815 he was called by the government of Harvard College to the chair of the Greek Professorsliip, then recently established by ]Mr. Samuel Eliot. Accepting their invitation, he made his first visit to Europe to pre- pare for his new duties, and, in company with Mr. George Ticknor, went at once to Guttingen, they being among the first Americans to resort to a CTcrman university. Keturning to America in 1819, after a long course of study and travel, he entered upon his professorship, where he gave, in the next four years, an impulse to the study of Greek literature in America which is not yet lost. In 1822, while a professor at Cambridge, he married Charlotte Gray, daughter of the late Hon. Peter Chardon Brooks. By this marriage he liad three sons and four daughters. Pour of these children are not now living. One of the daughters died soon after her birth. Grace Webster Everett, named for the wife of Hon. Daniel Webster, died in her ninth year. Anne Gorham Everett, who grew to womanhood, and shewed at an early age many of the traits of character and genius which distin- guished her fatlier, died in London, Oct. 18, 1854. Dr. MEMOIR OF EDWARD EVERETT. 13 Edward Brooks Everett, who graduated at Cambridge in 1850, died November 5, 1861, leaving two children, Edward and Louisa Adams, by his wife, Helen Cordis, daughter of Benjamin Adams, Esq. of this city. The children who survive Mr. Everett are Charlotte Brooks Wise, Avife of Captain Henry Augustus Wise, of the United States Navy ; Henry Sidney Everett, who graduated at Harvard College in 1855, now Major in the Volunteer Army of the United States, — and William Everett, who graduated at Harvard College in 1859, and took the degree of B. A. at the University of Cambridge, England, in 1862. Mr. Everett was elected to Congress, at the election in 1824, from the Middlesex district, and, leaving his aca- demic pursuits, entered upon a new and more public career as a statesman. He took his seat in the House of Kepresentatives in 1825, as a supporter of Mi\ Adams, and served there for ten years. He was at once ap- pointed to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. To the foreign relations of the country, therefore, he gave espe- cial attention, — bvit his interest was not limited to them. These years were marked by discussions on the most important interests in our legislation, and in many of these discussions he took a leading place. He served in Congress through Mr. Adams's administration, and part of that of General Jackson's. In 1835 Mr. Everett was elected Governor of Massa- chusetts, and held that office for the four years follow- ing. His official terra was a period of unusual interest in the historv of the State. The Board of Education 14 MEMOIR OF EDWAKD KVEUETT. was then organized, the Normal Schools founded, the State subscription to tlie stock of the Western Railroad was made ; and the division of the surplus revenue of the United States presented a unique question of State policy. Losing his reelection by a single vote in 1839, Mr. Everett, thus released from public duty, sailed for Eu- rope the second time, in June 1840, with his family, and passed a winter in Italy. General Harrison's election, however, brought his political friends into favor, and Mr. Everett was appointed [Minister at the Court of St. James. The questions relating to the Northeastern Boundary, the fisheries, the Caroline, the C'reole, the case of McLeod, and other matters of dispute, were then at their most critical stage. Mr. Webster's intimate knowledge of tlie powers and qualitications of his friend gave the latter full scope for unfettered action ; and never, it is safe to say, was a difficult diplomatic duty discharged with more judgment, delicacy, and grace. Multiplied marks of re- spect, — among which we may name only the honorary degrees conferred upon him by the Universities of Ox- ford, Cambridge, and Dublin, — testified tlie apprecia- tion of the cultivated public opinion of England; and many personal friendships, with men of the highest po- sition in societv (u* in letters, remained until his last mo- ment as the memorials of this period of his life. We may add that, more than once during the present war, proposals to accept diplomatic responsibilities of a con- fidential nature have marked the recollection of his tri- umphs in this part of Jiis career, by members of the present administration. MEMOIR OF EDWARD EVERETT. 15 Eeturning home in 1846, Mr. Everett was recalled to academic life, by his Alma Mater, which in that year elected him President, to succeed the venerable Josiah Quincy. Holding this position for three years, Mr. Everett resigned it in 1849, and for some years re- mained in comparative retirement. While still at Cambridge, he had given an impulse to a movement for a Public Library in Boston, and he no sooner left the presidency of the College than he addressed himself to its establishment on a generous scale. In a letter to the Mayor of the City of Boston, Hon. John P. Bigelow, he suggested the plan which has been steadily carried forward from that moment, and now exhibits a result of the greatest interest and value. Different suggestions had been offered with re- gard to such a library, but they had slept without action, until Mr. Everett proposed the scheme to the Mayor. Mr. Bigelow immediately made the first contribution in money towards this purpose, and Mr. Everett sketched out a plan for the conduct of the institution. He had, while in Cambridge, made a large gift of books to the city, as a part of the nucleus of such an institution. A Board of Trustees was appointed, of which he was the chairman, a position which he held until his death. This Board, in conjunction with the appropriate com- mittees of the City Government, opened a library, tem- porarily, in 1852. Mr. .Joshua Bates, the intimate and confidential friend of Mr. Everett, in the autumn of the same year, made the first of a series of magnificent pecuniary gifts to it. This institution differs from every 16 MKMilIK OF EDWAKI) EVEnin'T. other large library in the ccniutry, in being a cirru- lating library, from which every ])er.son resident in the town mav take hooks, withont charge, so long as he observes the regulations. Mr. Everett lived long enough to witness the complete success of his plans and an- swer to his wishes in its operations. He justly con- sidered it as essential in u system which aims at universal education. At the death of :\lr. AN'ehster, in October, ISo'i, Mr. Everett was called by President Eillmore to the Department of State. During the few months that he was Secretary of State, he had occasion, in the matter of the proposed tripartite convention respecting ('ul)a, to leave upon record a memorable token of the reach and vigor of his policy in foreign affairs. The change of administra- tion, however, withdrew him from office, and in 1853 he took his seat in the United States Senate, as successor of lion. John Davis. His health, however, which had for some years been impaired, had now almost given way, under the pressure of his labors iu the Cabinet. His sufferings during that winter were intense. He spoke against the repeal of the Missouri Compro- mise, — a measure which he has termed the Pandora's box from which our ills have flowed, — but was com- pelled in May, 1854. to resign his seat; and this event terminated his career in public office in the service of the Nation, with a single memorable exception. The great work which he performed in the next four years, when, with infirm bodily powers, he labored MEMOIK OF EDWARD EVERETT. 17 incessantly for the Blount Vernon Fund, is fresh in the minds of all. The sum collected by his efforts for this noble object was little less than one hundred thousand dollars, and his motives for undertaking such a task, recently alluded to in one of his own public speeches, will command admiration as long as his name shall be remembered : — " After the sectional warfare of opinion and feeling reached a dangerous height, anxious if possible to bring a counteractive and conciliating influence into play; feel- ing that there was yet one golden chord of sympathy which ran throughout the land ; in the liope of con- tributing something, however small, to preserve what remained, and restore what was lost of kind feeling between the two sections of the country, — I devoted the greater part of my time for three years to the attempt to give new strength in the hearts of my countrymen to the last patriotic feeliirg in which they seemed to beat in entire unison, — veneration and love for the name of Washington, and reverence for the place of his rest. With this object in view, I travelled thousands of miles, by night and by day, in midwinter and mid- summer, speaking three, four, and five times a week, in feeble health, and under a heavy burden of domestic care and sorrow, and inculcating the priceless value of the Union in precisely the same terms from Maine to Georgia and from New York to St. Louis." The single exception alluded to, in which Mr. Everett once more discharged a high public function in the National service, was his fulfilment of the imposing 18 MEMOIR OF EDWAKD EVERETT. charge given him by the peopk^ of Massachusetts, when they chose him their iirst Presidential Elector, in No- vember, 1864. With this exception, his constant service as a Trustee of the Public Library of the city has been his only official duty. Ihit in every walk of life he used his closing years in the service of his fellow-men. He had recently promised to deliver before the Dane Law School a course of lectures on International Law, and he was engaged in the preparation of these when he died. The last occasion on which his voice was heard by his fdlow-citizens in public, was at the nreeting in Faneuil Hall on Mcmday, .lanuary l,*, for the relief of the people of Savannah. To those who heard liim on that occasion he seemed to exhibit more than his usual animation, and his face was free iVom the expression of subdued suffering which has too often marked it. Upon his return home, howcAcr, after a day of fatiguing engagements, he was obliged to summon his physician, and did not again leave his house, — suffering from a serious oppression of the lungs. He slept well through Saturday night, until shortly after four, when a sudden attack of an apoplectic nature ensued, wdiich, in a few minutes, proved fatal. He died on the 15th of .Tanuary, 1865, in the seventy-first year of his age. ORDER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Department ok State, Washington, January 15, 18G5. The President directs the undersigned to perform the painful duty of announcing to the people of the United States that Edward Everett, distinguished not more by learning and eloquence than by unsurpassed and disinter- ested labors of patriotism at a period of political disorder, departed this life at four o'clock this morning. The sev- eral Executive departments of the Government will cause appropriate honors to be rendered to the memory of the deceased, at home and abroad, wherever the national name and authority are acknowledged. WM. H. SEWARD. PROCEEDINGS IN THE CITY COUNCIL. IN THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN, A SPECIAL meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held on jNIonday, January 16, in response to a call by his Honor the Mayor, for the purpose of taking appropriate notice of the death of 'Sir. Everett. The Mayor, on taking the chair, submitted the following communication : — To THE HON'ORABLE THE ClTY CoUNCIL : Gentlemen: Yesterday, Sabbath morning, January 15, the Honorable Edward Everett was suddenly summoned by the Great Disposer of Events to finish his course on earth, and to enter upon the happiness of an im- mortal existence. The sober cares of God's holy day were sanctified by the hallowing influence of this sad event, and our community, which had been so long blessed by his presence, felt that they had sustained a loss which never can be filled by tliis generation. I have deemed it my duty to order the bells of the city chitrchcs to be tolled, to aimounce to our inhabitants the death of their most distinguished cit- izen, and I have called you together at this unusual hour that you may take such measures as your own 24 MEMORIAr. OF KDWAKP KVEKEIT. hearts and the proprieties of this solemn occasion may snggest. Mr. Everett, throngh liis long and honorable career, has been strongly identified witli tlie reputation of Boston ; and although his great talents and splendid accomplishments have often been at the service of the nation and the commonwealth, yet his dearest interests have been concentrated upon the community in which his home was chosen, and which depended upon him for advice and assistance in every great emergency and in all good works. Boston never had a citizen who responded with more alacrity to her demands. He was ever ready to serve her in othcial relations, or on those more informal occasions, which were graced by his eloquence and power, llis ]^en and tongue, whenever wanted, were devoted to her service and honor, and his highest happiness, I believe, was in ministering to the welfare of her people. Commencing his public education in Boston, when nine years of age, as a pupil in the Eliot School, at the North End, where, in 1S()4, he received his first Franklin medal, he devoted a portion of the latter vears of his great life to the care of the Public li- brary, acting, from its organization until his death, as the President of the Board of Trustees. Faneuil Hall, so often the scene where tlic inspi- ration of his powerful and impassioned eloipicnce stirred the hearts of our people, witnessed his last intellect- ual effort; and his closing speech, before a popular IN' THE BOARD OF ALDEUMEN. 25 assembly, was, by a wise Providence, ordained to be a pathetic and patriotic appeal in behalf of the sufferino- inhabitants of the city of Savannah. It was a o-rand and appropriate termination to a life of unselfish patri- otism and distinguished public service. His merits as a statesman, a scholar, and a philanthro- pist were acknowledged throughout the civilized world. AVe, Avho were drawn nearer to him in local matters, knew how to appreciate him as a citizen, as a man true in all the relations of social and domestic life, and one whose commanding influence was always brought to bear on the side of religion and morals, who was an example to youth, and a prompter of noble deeds to those in riper years. Mr. Everett's memory will ever be cherished with pride by Bostonians, as one who has added to the fame of the city which he loved; and I have no doubt you will agree with me that, as he shared to so large an extent our admiration and respect while living, so he should be suitably remembered by the Municipal Government now that he is gone. As the representatives of the people, it is our duty in their behalf to testify in some form our sense of the bereavement we have sustained by his death ; and your action is respectfully invoked for such measures as may be proper, and which will comport with the dignity and character of the occasion. He has left no contemporary as his equal, and his name will be hon- ored through many generations as a good and great man. F. W. LINCOLN, Jr., Mayor. 0(3 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. Alderman Clapp tliereupon offered the followiiii,' jjreamble and rcsoliition.s : — Whereas, iu the ripeness of his years, and in the full possession of his great intellect, the Honorable Edward Everett has fallen by the hand of death, — taken from a field of usefulness boundless as his own love for his native country, — therefore it becomes us, iu behalf of the C^ity of Boston, to place on our records an expression of the grief which pervades all hearts, in a community realizing the great loss which the nation, the state, and the city sustained, when the immortal spirit of the statesman, patriot, and Christian broke from its earthly tenement for its journey through eternity. Resolved, That the City Council of Boston, feeling a deep sense of obligation to the deceased for his invalu- able services to its local institutions, and recognizing iu his public life — almost without a parallel for the varied positions of trust which he has held at home and abroad — those elements of true greatness which are rarely combined in one man, do most sincerely unite in acknowledging that in every walk of life his no- bility of character gave him a claim to our admiration, while the monuments of his literary ability and phi- lanthropic effort will keep his memory sacred through- out all time. Resolved, That the sympathy of the City Council l)e tendered to the bereaved family, in this the hour of their great affliction. There is consolation in the thought IN THE 130AKD OF ALDERMEN. 27 that it pleased God, in liis goodness, to prolong the life of his servant, that he might prove, in the darkest hour of our history, a hright and shining light. Resolved, That His Honor the Mayor be requested to call a meeting of tlie citizens, at Faneuil Hall, on Wednesday, at noon, that a public expression of the great loss sustained by this community may be a tribute of respect to the memory of the deceased. Resolved, That a joint special committee of the two branches of the City Council be appointed, to express to the family the desire of the city to take such part in the funeral ceremonies as may be appropriate. Resolved, That the committee be also empowered to make all arrangements for such other tokens of respect to the deceased as may be deemed due to his exalted fame. Alderman Tyler spoke briefly in support of the resolutions, after wliicli tliey were unanimously adopted, the members rising in their places. Aldermen Tyler, Messinger, and Dana were appointed on tlie committee, on the part of the Board, to take charge of the funeral ceremonies. Adjourned. IN THE COMMON COUNCIL. A SPECIAL meeting of tlic Common Council was also held on Monday, at 12 o'clock, M. to take action in concurrence with the Board of Aldermen in relation to the death of Mr. Everett. Tlie President, AVilliam B. Fowle, Jr. Esquire, occupied tiic chair. The communication of His Honor, tlie Major, and the reso- lutions of the Board, were received and read. The President then spoke as follows : — Gkntlemen oy the Common Councii, : — It is rarely our fortune, in deploring tlie loss of a distinguished and valued citizen, to be able with our grief to combine so many truly pleasurable emotions. A retrospective view of the life of Edward Everett brings with it peculiar satisfaction. Endowed by Prov- idence with an intellect rarely if ever surpassed, that intellect has been employed by him in single, honest effort for the true good of his country, and in ])ro- moting the welfare of his fellow-men. Especially have the citizens of Boston felt his intlu- ence, and gloried in his intellect. To him, before all others, have we ever looked, in time of trouble, for IN THE COMMON COUNCIL. 29 counsel and advice, and at such times he has ever proved a pillar of strength and wisdom. We mourn our loss ; yet in our grief we thank a kind Providence that his great intellect was spared to the last, and that to the latest moment his usefulness was unimpaired. The resolutions passed unanimously, the members rlsino;. The following members were appointed to join the com- mittee of the Board : Clement Willis, Granville Mears, Jonas Fitch, John P. Ordway, and Benjamin F. Stevens. On mo- tion, the President of the Council was added to this com- mittee. On motion of Mr. Stebbins of Ward 10, it was voted that the Clerk be autliorized to send a copy of the resolutions passed, and the addresses of His Honor the Mayor and of the President of the Common Council, to the fmiily of the deceased. Adjourned. MEETING IN FANEUIL HALL. MEETING IN EANEUIL HALL. By invitntion of His Honor the Mayor, a number of the prominent citizens of Boston met at the City Hall on IMonday afternoon, January 16, for the purpose of consulting upon arrangements for a meeting in Faneuil Hall. It was decided to hold the meeting on AVednesday, January 18, 1865, at noon. The following Committees were appointed : — On Organization : George B. Upton, J. Huntington Wolcott, Edward S. Tobey, Otis Norcross, and George C. Richardson. On Resolutions : Samuel H. Walley, George S. Hillard, Kev. S. K. Lothrop, George W. Bond, and H. P. Kidder. The following notice was published in the newspapers : — ilAYOR's Office, City Hall, Boston, January 16, 1865. To THE Citizens of Boston : — In conformity with a resolve passed tltis day by the City Council, the citizens of Boston are invited to as- semble in Faneuil Hall, on AVednesday, January 18, at I'i o'clock, for the purpose of taking such measures as may be deemed appropriate to express their sense of the loss the nation and this community have sustained by the recent decease of their late eminent fellow cit- izen, Edward Everett. F. W. LINCOLN, Jr. ;34 MEMORIAL OF KDWAKIJ KVEKliTT. At tlie liDiir designated m tlie above iiatiee, tlio eitizens of Boston convened in Faiieull Hull, — attraeted there, as tlieir ap- pearance would indicate, througli no idle curiosity, Ixit tliroiigli a desire to tcstity, l)y their presence, to tlie sorrow wliich pervaded tiic coiuniunity. The darkened liall, tiie symbols of mourning upon the walls, the sad and subdued expression of the assemblage, combined to make the scene remarkably im- pressive. At twelve o'clock, Mr. George B. Upton came forward upon the platform, and read, as the report of the Committee on Orfranization, the following list of oBicers for the meeting: — rRESiniCNT, His Honok, F. W. MXCOLX, Ji;. VlfK-PRKSIDENTS, Chief Justice G. T. Rigelow, Charles G. Ijoriiig, George Ticknor, tlolin C. Gray, liobert C. \\ intliro[), Kev. G. W. Hlagden, James Savage, Stephen Fairbanks, Rt. Rev. Manton Eastburn, Charles Wells, J. G. Palfrey, David Sears, Dr. James Jackson, Francis C. Lowell, AA'llliam B. Reynolds, el. Thomas Stevenson, Charles (J. Greene, Rt. Rev. J. B. Fit/i)atrick '1 liomas Aspinwall, Silas I'eirce, George W. Lyman, fl. Z. (ioodrich, Dr. (ieorge Ilavward, Joseph T. Bailey, Albert Fearing, Josiali (^uincy, James W. Paige, Patrick Donahoe, James Read, AIKETING IN FANEUIL HALL. 35 SECRETARIES, AVilliam W. Greenough, Patrick T. Jackson, Edwin P. Whipple, J. Tisdale Biadlee. Mayor Lincoln took tlie cliair, and prayer was offered by Rev. S. K. Lothrop, D.D., Pastor of the Brattle Street Church. The Mayor then addressed tfte meeting as follows : — Fellow-Citizens : — The official position which it is my fortune to occupy brings with it, through your courtesy, the distinguished honor of presiding over the deliberations of this as- sembly. The sad event which has called us together has cast a shadow over all the land, but its deepest gloom is naturally felt in this community; and this venerable hall, clad in its mourning habiliments, feebly represents the grief which oppresses all our hearts. The opening dawn of the first day of the week closed the earthly career of our foremost man ; and we are assembled, be- fore his body has received its funeral rites, and has been " committed to the holy mystery of the ground," to do honor to his memory, and to express our sense of the bereavement we have sustained by his death. AVe have met, fellow-citizens, to dwell for a while on the merits of one who has so often led our thoughts in contemplation of the distinguished dead. It is hard for us to realize, especially within these w-alls, that those eloquent lips are dumb, and that he, too, is gone, never more to stand on this platform, before a waiting 36 MKMOIU.VI. OF KDWAHl) EVKKKTT. multitude eager to hear tliosi; words of wisdom and cheer, which dropped Hke manna when he spoke. It has been ray great privilege, for a number of years past, to be a personal witness, on public occasions, or in more private ways, to Mr. Everett's zeal and devo- tion to the welfare of this community, and his stanch and unswerving loyalty to his native land. His presence w^as a benediction. The world is better that he has lived in it; and his memory W'ill be one of those rich treasures which can never be taken awav from his countrymen. Boston, as his home, was ever dear to him. lie was interested in its most trivial concerns, while his comprehensive mind extended and took delight in those vast affairs which constitute our strength and character as a luitiou. It does not liccome me, in this presence, surrounded as I am In the talented and gifted of the community, to speak to you of his genius, and of the rich fruits of his noble career. The consummate ability which distinguished his public c^brts, and tlie dignitv and grace of his private life, will be discoursed upon bv those who, in fitting words, can do justice to such topics. My only duty is, with your indulgence, to con- duct in some degree the proceedings of tlie meeting, and by my official presence, in an humble way, to be the representative of the City of Boston on this occa- sion. [Ion. Samuel H. U' alley was introdiiceil, ami read, witliout iirelatoi'v remark, the followinfr series of resoliitioii.s : — MEETING IN FANEUIL HALL. 37 It having pleased Almighty God, in the exercise of his all-wise Providence, to remove by death our fellow- citizen, Edwaid Everett, whose decease occurred at his residence in this city, on Sunday morning, January 15, 1865, in the seventy-first year of his age; therefore, Besolved, That we bow with humble acquiescence to the will of God, knowing that the Judge of all the earth will do right ; that all men and all events are at his disposal ; and that it becomes us to believe that he knows infinitely better than we do, or can, the most appropriate season for the departure of each in- dividual, however lowly, or however highly exalted, from time to eternity. Resolved, That we are bound by every sense of obli- gation of which we are capable to acknowledge with gratitude the goodness of God, in granting to our com- munity so rich a gift as we all feel was contained in the natural endowments, the rare opportunities, the con- scientious nature, the extensive influence, and the pro- tracted life of our departed friend. Resolved, That in the death of Mr. Everett, not alone his family, not alone the city where he lived, the com- monwealth to which he belonged, the bleeding and dis- tracted nation of which he was an essential part, — not alone all of these, but the world of letters and cf learning, the Avorld of eloquence and refined culture, the world of science and of profound scholarship, the cause of humanity at large and of human freedom in. particular, the cause of Christian morality and of humble, unostentatious Christian life and conversation, — 38 MEMOKIAI. (IF KDWAHI) KVKRETT. mouiu the loss of" a bright, iiiHexible. and consistent exemplar. Resolved, That in tracing the A-aried and eventful life of him wliose decease we this day niourn, we are forcibly reminded of its fitting commencement and close. His earliest strains of eloquence, ere he had reached the age of manhood, having sounded forth from the pulpit to crowded audiences, who hung upon his lips with thrilling interest ; Avhile his almost dying Avords Avere an eloquent plea to his felloAv-citizens to give heed to the teachings of Holy Writ — "If thine enemy hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him drink." Resolved, That in revieAving the claims to our respect and admiration furnished by the life of our friend, kindly continued beyond threescore and ten, Ave are forcibly reminded of tlie fact that, unlike most men, his severest trial Avas to satisfy himself, as he Avas ahvays his oAvn great rival, — ncAcr failing to meet the expectations of his friends, but never satisfying his OAvn demands upon himself. And AAith all his native mod- esty and diffidence, at times mistaken, by tliose Avho did not know the Avorkings of his heart and his true nature, for coldness of manner, it was apparent to all careful observers that each step in his progress through life seemed to be onward and upAvard. — not ahvays pleasing all men, for then he Avould have been of little Avorth, but ahvavs acting from a high sense of conscientious obligation to the Giver of his splendid talents. Resolved. That Avliile Ave are at a loss Avhich most MEETING IN FANEUIL HALL. 39 to admire of all the rare endowments of the departed, his course may well be likened to the sun in the heavens, — rising full-orbed in a cloudless sky, shining brightly as it approached meridian, and continuing with undiminished splendor until its setting hour ; when, still full-orbed and large, undimmed and in unclouded light, it quietly sank below the horizon. Thus did he of whom we speak ; constantly adding to his knowledge, that he might instruct the more from the rich store- house of his cultivated mind ; and went forward in life instructing the people in the church, in the col- lege, in the senate, at the foreign court, and in the cabinet at home, till wearied of the vexations of politi- cal strife, and with impaired health he sought rest in retirement. But with renewed health he rose again to view, more bright than ever, and, with a zeal and a power unsurpassed, labored to save his country from civil war, by commending to North and South the ex- ample and counsels of Washington ; and failing in this effort, — finding his flag assailed and his country im- perilled, — with a magnanimity and self-forgetfulness, and a power of eloquence worthy of all praise and imita- tion, he devoted all his energies to the single work of saving his country, and reuniting it upon a secure and righteous basis, with no stripe erased, no star blotted from its flag, no stain upon its fair escutcheon. It was in this, the last epoch of his eventful life, that he shone out full-orbed, and secured an abiding place for the record of his fame on the imperishable scroll of a nation's gratitude. 40 MEMORIAL OF EDWAKl) KVEIIKTT. Resolved, That a life so full of ucU-directed, indus- trious effort, coupled with powers of a high order, — a life marked strongly throughout, hut hrilliantly at its close, by deeds of unselfish patriotism, deserves to be held up no less for tlie imitation of posterity than for the commendation of contemporaries ; and in order to associate in the minds of future beholders the linea- ments of his person with the history of his greatness, it is expedient that a statue should be erected in honor of Edward Everett. Resolved, That a committee of tifty citizens be ap- pointed by the Chair, in accordance with the previous resolve. Resolved, That while wc do not presume to trespass on the sacred retirement of domestic grief, called forth by the loss of one who was so admirable in all the domestic relations, — we may be permitted to tender our heartfelt sympathy to the family of tlie deceased, in this hour of sudden and heavy sorrow ; and at the same time to point them to the abundant consolations afforded by such a close to such a life. Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be for- warded by the officers of this meeting to the family of Edward Everett. The President tlieri intrudiiced Hon. Cliarles G. Lurin in testifying to our sense of liis worth, and our just appreciation of tlie loss which this community es- MEETING IN FAKEUIL HALL. 45 pecially, and ovir whole country, has sustained in his death. I heartily second the resolutions. Hon. Robert C. Winthrop was the next speaker. He ad- dressed the meeting in the following words : — I hardly know, fellow-citizens and friends, 1 hardly know either how to speak or how to be silent here to-day. I dare not trust myself to any off-hand, impul- sive utterance on such a theme. And yet I cannot but feel how poor and how inadequate to the occasion is the best preparation which I am capable of making. I am sincerely and deeply sensible how unfitted I am, by emotions which I shoidd in vain attempt to restrain, for meeting the expectations and the demands of such an hour, or for doing justice to an event which has hardly left a heart unmoved, or an eye unmoistened, in our whole community. Most gladly woirld I still be permitted to remain a listener only, and to indulge a silent but heartfelt sorrow for the loss of so illustrious a fellow-citizen and so dear a friend. I have so often been privileged to follow him on these public occasions of every sort, that I feel almost at a loss how to proceed without the encouragement of his friendly countenance and the inspiration of his matchless tones. I seem to myself to be still waiting for his ever-welcome, ever brilliant lead. I find it all but impossible to realize the fact, that we are assembled here in Faneuil Hall, at a meeting at which whatever is most eloquent, whatever is most impressive, whatever is most felicitous and most finished, ought justly to be 46 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. heard, and that Edward Everett is not here witli us to say the first, the best, the all-sufficient Avord. I feel myself impelled to exclaim — and you will all unite with me in the exclamation — " Oh, for tlic sound of a voice that is still'J, And the touch of a vanished hand." Certainly, my friends, I can find no other words to begin with, than those which he himself employed, when rising to speak in this hall on the death of that great statesman, whose birthday, by a strange but touching coincidence, we are so sadly commemorating to-day by this public tribute to his life-long friend and chosen biographer : " There is but one voice," said Mr. Everett of Daniel Webster, and certainly I may repeat it of himself to-day, " There is but one voice that ever fell upon my ear which could do jus- tice to such an occasion. That voice, alas, we shall hear no more forever." Yes, fellow-citizens, as a celebrated lioman historian said of the consummate orator of his own land and age, that to praise him worthily required the eloquence of Cic- ero himself, so we cannot fail to feel that full justice to the career and character of our American Cicero could only be rendered by tlie best eftbrt of his own unequalled powers. It is hardly an exaggeration to say of him, that he has left behind him no one sufficient to pronounce his eulogy as it should be pronounced ; no one, certainly, who can do for him all that he has done for so many others who have gone before him. But, indeed, mv friends, the event which has called us MEETIXG IN FANEUIL HALL. 47 together has occurred too suddenly, too unexpectedly, for any of us to be quite prepared either for attempting or for hearing any formal account of our departed friend's career, or any cold analysis of his public or private charac- ter. There must be time for us to recover from the first shock of so overwhelming a loss before his eulogy can be fitly undertaken or calmly listened to. His honored re- mains are still awaiting those funeral rites in which our whole community will so eagerly and so feelingly imite to-morrow. The very air we are breathing at this moment is still vocal and vibrating with his last public appeal. It seems but an instant since he was Avith us on this platform, pleading the cause of humanity and Christian benevolence in as noble strains as ever fell from human lips. And no one, I think, who had the privilege of hearing that appeal, can fail to remember a passage, which did not find its way into any of the printed reports, but which made a deep impression on my own heart, as I stood on yonder floor a delighted listener to one whom I could never hear too often. It was the passage in which, in terras quite unusual for him, and which seemed as if the shadow of coming events were passing over his mind, he spoke of himself as '■ an old man who had nothing but his lips left for contributing to the public good." Nothing but his lips left! Ah, my friends, what lips those were ! If ever since the days of the infant Plato, of whom the story is told, if ever since that age of cunning fable and of deep philosophy with which he was so familiar, the Attic bees have lighted upon any human lips, and left their persua- sive honey there without a particle of their sting, it must 48 MEMOI!I.\], OF i:i)\VAi;i) evkrktt. have been on those of our hunented friend What lips they were ! And what have they not accompHshed since they were first opened in mature, articukite speech ! "What worthy topic liave they not ilkistrated ! "What good and noble cause have they not advocated and adorned ! On Avhat occasion of honor to the livint;; or to the dead, — at what commemoration of the glorious i)ast — in what exi- gency of the momentous present — have those lips ever been mute? From what call of duty or of friendshi|), of charity or of patriotism, have they ever been withheld ? Turn to those tliree noble volumes of his.works, and fol- low him in that s])lcndid series of Orations which they contain — from the earliest at Cambridge, in which he l)ronouuccd that thrilling welcome to Lafayette a little more than forty years ago, down to that on the 4th of July, IS.IH, which he concluded by saying, that in the course of nature he should go to his gra\c before long, and he wished no other epitapli to hv jdaced upon it tlian this : " Through e^ il report and through good report he loved his whole country:'" — Follow hiui. I say. in his whole career as unfolded in those noble volumes — the best manual of Anuuican Eloquence — and then take uj) the record of those other Orations and Addresses which are still to be included in his collected works, the record of the last few years, as it is impressed upon the minds and hearts of every patriot in our land — with all its grand appeals for Mount Vernon and the memory of "Washington, for the sufferers of East Tennesee, for the preservation of the "Union, for the defence of tiic country against rebellion and treason, for the support of the National Administration MEETING IN FANEUIL HALL. 49 agreeably to his own honest convictions of duty : Follow him, I say again, along the radiant pathway of that whole career, illuminated as it is from his earliest manhood to the last week of his life by the sparkling productions of his own genius, and then tell me, you who can, what cause of education or literature, what cause of art or industry, what cause of science or history, what cause of religion or charity, what cause of philanthropy or patriotism, has not been a debtor — a debtor beyond the power of payment — and, now alas ! beyond the power of acknowledgment, — to his voice or to his pen ! Who has ever more fairly won the title of " the golden- mouthed," since the sainted Chrysostora of old, than he who, bv the music of Lis voice and the ma»ic of his tongue, has so often coined his thoughts into eagles and turned his words into ingots, at one moment for the redemption of the consecrated home and grave of the Father of his Country, and at another for the relief of an oppressed and suffering people ! And who, my friends, as he reviews this marvellous career, can fail to remember how singularly applicable to him, in view of his earliest as well as of his later callings, are those words in which the immortal drama- tist has described the curious felicity and facility of speech, and the extraordinary versatility of powers, of one of the great princes and sovereigns of England : — " Hear him but reason in divinity, And, all-admiring, with an inward wish You would desire the king were made a prolate : Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs, 7 50 MKMUKIAL OF KDWAHl) KVKKKTT. You 'd say, it hulh been all-in-all Lis study : List bis discourse of war, and you sliall hear A fearful battle rendered you in music : Turn him to any cause of policy. The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, Familiar as his jrartcr ; that when he speaks. The air, a chartered libertine, is still. And the mute wonder lurkcth in men's ears, To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences." Tt is hardly too much to say of liiiii that he cstabHshed a new standard of American eloquence, that he was the founder of a new school of occasional oratory, of which he was at once the acknowledged master and the best pupil, and in which we were all proud to sit at his feet as disciples. Would tlmt we had been better scholars ! Would that, now that he has been snatched so suddenly from our sight, and as we follow him to the skies witli our ])artiug acclamations of admiration and affection, w^e could feel that tiiere were some shoulders not wholly unworthy to wear, not altogether incapabk^ of sustaining, his falling mantle ! I need not dwell for a moment, my friends, upon the details of his official life. We all remember his earlier and his later relations to tlie University to which he was so ardently attached, and which has ever counted him among its jnoudest ornaments. We all remember how long and how faithfully he served the State and tlie Na- tion in tlieir highest departments at home and abroad. But public office was not necessarv to his fame, and be never held his title to consideration at the precarious MEETIXG IX FANEUIL HALL. 51 tenure of public favor or popular suffrage. Office "ave no distinction to the man ; but the man gave a new dis- tinction and a new dignity to every office which he held. Everywhere he was the consummate scholar, the brilliant orator, the Christian gentleman, — greater, even, as a pri- vate citizen than in the highest station to which he ever was, or ever could have been called. I need not dwell for a moment, either, my friends, upon the purity and beauty of his daily life, upon his de- votion to his familv, his fidelitv to his friends, his inteir- ritv as a man, his untiring willingness and easerness to do kind and obliging things for all who, reasonably or un- reasonably, asked them at his hands, at any cost of time or trouble to himself. I can never fail, certainly, to re- member his countless acts of kindness to myself during a friendship of thirty years. I do not forget that at least once in my life I have differed from him on important questions, and that recently ; but I can honestly say that there was no living man from whom I differed with a deeper regret, or with a greater distrust of my own judg- ment. Nor can I fail to remember with inexpressible joy at this hour, that within a week, I had almost said within a day, after that difference was avowed and acted upon, he reciprocated most kindly and most cordially an assur- ance, that our old relations of friendship and affection should suffer no estrangement or interruption, and that we would never distrust each other's sincerity or each other's mutual regard. " I am not afraid," he wrote me, " that we shall give each other cause of offence ; and we will not let others put us at variance." 52 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. Fellow-Citizens : I knew not how to commence these imperfect and desultory remarks, and T know not how to close them. There is, I am sensible, much to console us in our bereavement, severe and sudden as it is. We may well rejoice and be grateful to God, that our illustrious and beloved friend was the subject of no lingering illness or infirmity, that he was permitted to die while in the full possession of his powers, while at the very zenith of his fame, and while he had a hold on the hearts of his coun- trymen such as even he had never before enjoyed. We may well rejoice, too, that his voice was last heard in ad- vocating a measure of signal humanity which appealed to every heart throughout the land, and that he lived to see of the fruit of his lips and to be satisfied. I hold in my hand one of his last notes, — written on Thursday evening to our munificent and excellent fellow-citizen, Mr. Wil- liam Gray, and which, in liis own necessary and regretted absence, he has kindly permitted me to read : — " Summer Street, 12 Jan. 18 Of). " 3/i/ (lair Ml. Gray: I aru greatly obliged to you for send- ing me woic] of the success of the Savannah subscription. What a large-hearted, open-handed place we live in ! It is on these oc- casions that I break the tcntli commandment, and covet the vveahh of you millionaires. I have been in bed almost ever since IMon- day, having narrowly escaped an attack of pneumonia. I had been in the court-house all the morning, and had to return to it for three hours in the afternoon to attend to a harassing arbitration case, and left Faneuil Hall with my extremities ice, and my lungs on fire. But in sucli a cause one is willing to suffer. •' Ever sincerely yours, " Edward Everett." MEETING IN FANEUIL HALL. 53 This little note, my friends, in his own unmistakable and inimitable hand, written within two dajs of his death, shows clearly what thoughts were uppermost in that noble heart, before it so suddenly ceased to beat. In such a cause he was willing to suffer. In such a cause he was not unwilling to die. But whatever consolation may be found in the circum- stances of his death, or in the occupation of his last years, or months, or days, we still cannot but feel that no heavier public calamity could at this moment, if at any moment, have befallen our community. We cannot but feel that not Boston only, not Massachusetts only, not New England only, but our whole country, is called to deplore the loss of its most accomplished scholar, its most brilliant orator, its most valuable citizen. More and more, as the days and the years roll on, will that loss be perceived and felt by all who have known, ad- mired, and loved him. The public proceedings of this day, the sad ceremonials of to-morrow, will find their place on the page of history. All the customary trib- utes of respect and gratitude to our lamented friend will at no distant day be completed. We shall hang his portrait on these hallowed walls in fit companion- ship with the patriot forms which already adorn them. We shall place a statue of him, in due time, I trust, on yonder terrace, not far from that of his illustrious and ever-honored friend. But neither portrait nor statue, nor funeral pomp, nor public eulogy, will have done for his memory, what he has done for it himself. The name and the fame of Edward Everett will in no way more 54: MK.MOKIAL OF KDWAKD KVKUKTT. surely be periietiuited than by the want wliich will l)e ex- perienced, by the aching void which will be felt, on all our occasions of commemoration, on all our days of jubilee, on every literary anniversary, at every festive board, in every appeal for education, for charity, for country, in every hour of peril, in every hour of triumph, from the loss of that ever-ready, ever-welcome voice, which has so long been accustomed to say the best, the most appropri- ate, the most effective word, in the best, tlic most approi)ri- ate, the most effective manner. For nearly half a century no public occasion has ever seemed complete without his presence. By a tliousand conspicuous acts of pub- lic service, bv a thousand nameless labors of love, for young and old, for lich and poor, for friends and for stran- gers, he has rendered himself necessary — so far as any one human being ever can be necessary — to the wel- fare and the honor of the community in which lie lived. I can find no words for the oppression 1 feel, in common, I am sure, with all who hear me, at the idea that we shall see his face and hear his voice no more. As I looked on his lifeless form a few hours only aftci his spirit had returned to God who gave it, — as I saw those lips which we had so often hung upon with rapture, motionless and sealed in death, — and as I reflected that all those marvellous acquisitions and gifts, that matchless memory, that exquisite diction, that exhaustless illustration, that infinite variety, which no aae could wither and no custom stale, — that all, all were henceforth lost to us forever, I could only recall the touching lines which I remembered to have seen MEETING IN FANEUIL HALL. 55 applied to the sudden death, not many years ago, of a kindred spirit of old England, — one of her greatest statesmen, one of his most valued friends — " Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low Some less majestic, less beloved head? Those who weep not for Kings shall weep for thee, And Freedom's aeart grow heavy at thy loss ! " Hon. Alexander H. P)unock, then spoke sis follows : — Mr. Mayor and Fellow-Citizexs : — This place which welcomed him through so many years, this hour of noon in which he so often charmed and instructed us, the tones of his voice yet lingering here to plead a . sublime charity, are better than the written or spoken words, with which you seek to en- compass with mournful honors the name of our illus- trious and departed citizen. And yet the ties of state, the pride of fellowship, the memory of services, bring us by instinct here to form the long train of those who lament this death, so unexpected, so timely. Our as- sembling is not to add honors to him who had won his own, but to testify in the general grief, that, born among us, living his life in the presence of us, placed by us in the highest positions with which we could invest him, he kept to the last, bright and electric the sympa- thies of the mutual relationship, so that when he passed away, we, above all others, felt the shock of the separ- ation. He not only died among his kindred, but in the midst of a people who had made him especially their 56 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. own. He was the contemporary of two generations in the State, but liis mental activity, his increasing Avis- dom, his maturing fame, had made ]Mr. Everett, beyond the lot of most men, a brighter and more particular treasure to the second generation, than he had been to the first. The pall fell from heaven at the right mo- ment. Never before had we respected him so greatly, never before had we esteemed him so tenderly, as when he died crowned with age that bore the emblems of youth, rich in renown that blended the splendor of manhood with the mellow lustre of later years, carry- ing to the portals of immortality that noble vindication of a long life wliich devotion to patriotism and philan- thropy best furnishes as the closing scene. This is not the time to [)ass in review the varied career of our lamented statesman and scholar. He was statesman and scholar in tlie highest sense, and he made the two characters reflect upon each other, that light and glory which, when blended, makes the life of a public man most radiant. Here in this mart of com- merce I hold up his name in behalf of the retreats of the schools. His early academic success, which for example and fascination was the first and best our country has supplied, ui)on which he never turned an averted face, as men are accustomed too frequently to do in the rude turmoil of our politics, was a life-long and elemental power which he wielded in every sphere of his labors. He carried it from yonder shades into Congress ; was never ashamed to use it there ; never fell away from it, and rose upon it to the respect and MEETING IN FANEUIL HALL. 57 admiration of his associates. No man from Eton or Oxford ever did more in this respect for the parliament of Great Britain, than he has done for onrs. So Canning graced and delighted her Commons; so the ignorance of Castlereagh was more than once rebnked ; so Pitt made a broad scholarship an instrnment of power — a weapon for an onset. Our Canning produced the same effect by the scope and beauty of his exam- ple, though among older, more arrogant, more over- powering men, it was not in accord with his nature to lead in the positive attack. This was the bed whence blossomed the flowers of a large and enduring influence. Entering Congress in its palmiest period, and continu- ing there ten years, while its great Senators were wont to come into the House to listen to our Everett and Choate, it was fortunate for us that he so kept high the standard of debate, and so adorned the counsels of statesmanship, with the graces of learning and of elo- quence, that when he came away to take the chair of our State at home, he left behind a treasured memory of cultured mastery for the State at the capitol. I know that Mr. Clay, listening to him for the first time, then thirty-five or six years of age, said to a bystander, '" this is the acme of eloquence." Our Commonwealth cannot afi"ord to forget her sons who have given her the first place in the Federal councils — who, opening a brilliant career for themselves, have illustrated her institutions and enlarged her capacity for beneficence. It has been our good fortune, to have had there a long line of such statesmen, which began with Ames, which 58 MEMOKIAI. OF EDWARD EVERETT. found a complete representative in Everett. Each one has been a stimulation to the other. Mr. Choate once told me that while residing in Washington it was his pride to gather up the scattered traditions, floating through all that social life, of the forensic eflbrts of Webster ; and who shall say how nuicli his own trans- cendent idea may have been quickened by the magic of such rumor'? Mr. Everett in the twelve years he served in the two houses, so far -as I know, brought never to any discussion, a rhetorical treatment that would have done discredit to Burke, or Fox, or Kom- illy. Such attainment deserves our perpetual remem- brance. It is among the enduring forces by which we may hope to influence greater States and greater num- bers than our own in all after time. From his academic and Congressional course Mr. Everett passed to the curule chair of Massachusetts. He held it in those dull times of peace, four years, while it furnished no deep excitements to his ambition. It was not a time or a place for special originations. The genius of that period was the genius of some improvement, but of more routine. And yet I conceive that he performed a good work for us, and for poster- ity, in his support of our grand State system existing already, and as the official patron of those greater and better plans of education and charity which make States immortal. It is now a quarter of a century since his administration terminated, and in the more conspicuous action which has since distinguished him on broader and more fertile fields of fame, that has been compari- MKETING IN FAXEUIL HALL. 59 tively obscured. But it was an essential portion of his life. His record as chief magistrate is without blemish. He never lowered the dignity of state ; he never called unworthy counsel around him ; lie left the office un- tarnished as he found it. It does not comport with my purpose of brevity to detain you with reminiscences which belong to protracted address or stated biography. I regard as among the more striking services he has rendered, his connection at two periods with our foreign affairs. You remember how the advent of Mr. Webster to the Department of State found Mr. Everett in a foreign land, whither he had repaired for a scholar's travel and a scholars sol- ace. At the call of the President he accepted the cre- dentials for the highest court of Europe. It was a critical period. History is too busy now with graver matters at home to have much space for that ; but it was a critical epoch. The shadows of war frowned from the Canadas ; the fires of the Caroline lighted up the frontier. We came out of the crisis without the stain of blood or the discolor of smoke upon our diplomatic robes. You may distribute the honors as you "please among Webster, and Ashburton, and Everett, but he who stood our representative before the grandest court of the world, in constant correspondence and mutual counsel with his great friend at the capitol, cannot be overlooked in the impartial distribution. ' About ten years later, he himself was called to the Department of State, which was vacant. It had been vacated by the death of Daniel Webster. It was a 60 MEMOIUAL OF KDWAKl) KVKKETT. great vacancy, wliicli no man could fill so well. Think a moment, to what statesmanship in diplomacy Mr. Ev- erett succeeded. Have you sufficiently reflected, that great as Webster has been at the bar, and in the Senate, he was greater still at the august international tribunal, in the court of nations, before the juries of history? Such he proved himself to be. How, under Harrison, he asserted himself, and vindicated his country to un- precedented grandeur. How, in the case of the Caro- line, he dramatized the literature of the international code by the elements of his conception and the majesty of his rhetoric. How, in the question of impressment, he settled all that Rush and those after him had left loose and unadjusted, by the memorable despatch, which has never received a reply and never can receive a re- futation. How, in the Treaty of "Washington, he drew those nortlieastern lines with the precision of science and with the ])ower of destiny, that shall last forever. INIr. Everett succeeded to his chair, and carried with him the confidence of Massachusetts that he would prove equal to the exigency. The teacher liad departed, but the disciple remained to complete his mission. It was a new era in his life; but he more tlian matched its necessities. By one comprehensive study, by one continuous and magnetic triumph of his pen, he raised what some of us thought the effete and demoralized administration of Fillmore, to tlic respect of a chival- rous people. His tri-partite letter, unique, original, and independent, justified our America upon a base exclu- sively her own. The philosophy of that letter was well MEETING IN FANEUIL HALL. 61 then ; it is better now. It is a quiver from which we may draw the weapons against any and every European intervention. Mr. Everett of the Cabinet of 1852 is our diplomatic instructor this day. He asserted a pol- icy upon which we will stand and defy interference ; he touched chords of country which will vibrate while this war shall last ; he lifted the clear signal to nations which may in some day of the future become the flam- ing cross of deliverance to Mexico. In the ripeness of his age he was, at the hour of his death, I apprehend, one of the most just and equitable and learned and best balanced expounders of international law on the globe. If he might have lived to execute his purpose, the volume which he proposed upon the laws and rights of nations would, I believe, have placed him at the head of that sublime jurisprudence which is founded upon the historic lessons of Christian civilization. We are about to bury our foremost scholar and ora- tor. Uo not suppose that I intend to analyze now the remarkable eloquence of Mr. Everett. I only allude to it. He was a perfect literary artist ; but this idea of him has in some minds been the source of most unjust conception as to the wider domain of his force and his power. And this injustice, while it is according to ex- perience, is also unphilosophical. Mr. Webster in his practice was scarcely less observant of the dramatic cir- cumstances of public eloquence ; but rising on broader and deeper foundations, being less frequent and conver- sant with the schools, cast in the mould of country life and mpre familiar with its sympathies, and more than all, (J2 MExMOUIAL OF EUWAKU E\El{l-n T. trained in tliat most cleinocratical discipline of trials before juries, he escaped the reputation of speaking ac- cording to art. No man, however, ever understood this art better than he. "With him, this characteristic assumed the form not of a fine art, but of the power of drama. It is not worth while to cite illustrations, but the fact is known to all close critics. His library, his study was veiled to the world, but lu; himself passed tlie long and solemn hours behind the curtain, before his stately form emerged to attract the wonder of men. "Mr. Everett never could extinguish the midnight lamp, never could disguise the alcoves he loved. But no man in our day has painted so well, and left no specific trace of how the colors had been applied. I doubt if at any time, until within the last ten years, educated men have quite done him justice in this particular. Art is apt to conceal the substance of greatness ; manner oftentimes overshades the matter. It is so through all of life, llobert Walpole was really one of the ablest of British ])remiers ; but his adherence to the arts of his office lost him the credit of his administration in the ])opular judgment. He who shall ])ronounce your formal eulogy upon Mr. Everett cannot say that his ekxpience had exactly the sweeping majesty which bore Chatham or Webster through periods swelling and resounding like a national anthem, or like the thunders of great armadas on the sea ; such pas- sages come rarely to human ears ; they "Come as tli<,' wiiuls come, when forests arc rciided : Coiue as tlie waves come, when navies arc stranded." MEETINC. IX FANEUIL HALL. 53 But he shall accord to him the finest and most complete proportions that have marked any orator of this ao-e. The mould of personal form, all the graces, the voice, the cadences, partly constitutional and partly acquired, all that is histrionic and attractive, all that nature could furnish and art could add, belonged in largest measure and in purest style to him. But this is only the form, the style and the stage. There was a greatness of character behind all this. You sometimes overlooked the depth of his philosophy, the richness of his reflection, only because he pleased and beguiled you. Xot a sen- tence unnecessary, not a word unessential, can you find in all that he has said or written. He never rejected truisms if they might be profitable ; but he illuminated them with the choicest colors of the rainbow. He never neglected the lessons of religion, or science, or experi- ence, but he had the genius to make them winning as a first love. He had exquisite humor and subtle art ; but if it escaped his tongue or pen it was quite likely to min- gle with some pensive thought that toned it down to marvellous sobriety and beauty. His smile on the plat- form was of that kind which we are told belongs to genius, because melancholy is a part of genius ; and yet it i)leased us, because it was uncommon and serene. He had a peculiar tenderness of oratory. But the eloquence of Mr. Everett ended not here. He had all knowledge, all gifts, all tongues. No man of this generation, save Macaulay, had equal command of the treasures of the ages. No orator in America, from the first until now, has so woven into his addresses the in- 54 MKMOKIAI- t)F KI)\VAi;i) EVK15ETT. sti-uctions of history. 'I'liis I have thought to he his specialty. His memory \vas comprehensive, retentive, and perfect. He liad read everytliing, and lie remem- bered all tliat he had read. There is no such treasury for an orator as that, if he have all the other plenitudes, powers and graces, as Mr. Everett possessed them. Ac- cordingly, for an entire generation, he has instructed his countrv in historical knowledge and historical analogies, and his instructions have had the charm of freshness, and naturalness, and fitness. In this department of usefulness, broad enough for the highest ambition, he has had no ecjnal among all his countrymen. In this we have always delighted to call him our master and our guide. And thus, to our Congress and our Cabinets, to our cultured men and to all our people, he has been a splendid educator. His instructions have descended from his own elevated table-land, through our social strata, puri- fying and ennobling every class of mind, fascinating bv their gorgeous but natural array, and carrying on tlieir W'ing the transport of communicated thouglit and knowl- edge. I appropriate to him tlie eulogy from Milton ; " I shall detain you no longer in the demonstration, but strait conduct ye to a hill-side, were I will point ye out the right path of a virtuous and noble education ; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but also so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect, and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming." His greatest days were his last. The country did not know him perfectly until 18()1. Then he renewed his MEETING IN FANEUIL HALL. (^5 youth ; then he broke away from his own traditions and associations, and mounted to that wise, large patriotism which has guided twenty loyal millions to life and glory. He waited not for others, nor for the victory of our arms; but in those first days of war and gloom, his voice sounded like a clarion over this land. Almighty God be praised that he has been spared to us these four years ! In these temples of your eloquence, in that commercial metropolis where his counsel was more needed, everywhere, and every day, by public speech and through the popular press, he has confirmed hesi- tating men at home, he has inspired your armies in the field. These victories which fill the air to-day, peal grandly over his inanimate form ; they cannot wake him from sleep, but they are a fitting salute for his burial. He passes to his rest when the whole heaven is lighted up to proclaim that his mission has been accomplished. The same page of the calendar shall repeat to the next age, the death of Everett and THE NEW LIFE OF HIS COUNTRY. Mr. James M. Beebe offered the following additional resolution, which was inserted in the list orijrinally reported, and the whole series was then unanimously adopted : — Resolved, That as a tribute of respect to the mem- ory of Mr. Everett, this meeting recommend to our fellow-citizens that the banks, insurances offices, and other places of business be closed to-morrow at the hour set apart for his funeral. 66 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. In accordance with one of the resolutions the Chairman ap- pointed the following-named gentlemen a Committee to take measures for the erection of a statue in honor of Edward Everett. Charles G. Loring, Robert C. Winthrop, George Livermore, J. II. Wolcott, Geo. B. Upton. Geo. C. Kichardson, Otis Norcross, Edward S. Tohey, Natlianicl Tiiayer, elas. M. Beebc, James Lawrence, Eben Dale, Martin Brimmer, F. E. Parker, Gardner Brewer, Sidney Bartlctt, Geo. S. Hillard, Daniel N. Haskell, Charles F. Dunbar, Geo. Wni. Bond, J. Tisdale Bradlee, John S. Tyler, Wm. Endicott, jr. Henry A. Pierce, J. AV. .Scavcr, Henry P. Kidder, Wm. B. Fowlcjr. (ieo. Ticknor, Jacob Bigelow, J. Mason Warren, Wm. Amory, Chas. Amory, Edw. Austin, J. J. Dixwell, Sam'l 1). Crane, W. W. Clapp, jr. Josiah Quincy, Oliver Ditson, Jos. T. Bailey, J. G. Palfrey, Geo. W. Messinger, S. K. Lothro[), C. G. Greene, Albert Fearing, Sam'l H. AValley, Rufus Ellis, rl. Ingersoll Bowditch, Ciias. O. Rogers, Francis Bacon, Wm. Gray, Henry I. Bowditch, Albert Bowker, Albert J. Wright, O. W. Holmes, MEETING IN FANEUIL HALL. 67 Samuel G. Ward, Thomas G. Appleton, Eichard H. Dana, James L. Little, Tliomas Gaffield, Peter Harvev, J. M. Wightman. On motion, the name of His Honor Mayor Lincoln was added to the Committee. The meeting then dissolved. FUNERAL. THE FUNERAL The funeral of Mr. Everett took place on Thursday, Jan- uary 19. The public solemnities were under the charge of the Committee of the City Council, and were conducted with as little display as the proprieties of the occasion would permit. Since the death of Mr. Webster no such general and profound manifestations of sorrow liad been exhibited. The announcement made by order of the President of the United States, on Sunday, had led many to expect that he would honor the obsequies with his presence ; his official duties, however, rendered it impracticable ; and on Wednesday, a despatch was received from Mr. Seward, stating that fact, and tendering to the Commonwealth the condo- lence of the President and the Heads of Departments, " on tlie lamented death of Edward Everett, who was worthy to be enrolled among the noblest of the nation's benefactors." The public services were held in the First Church in Ciiauncy Street, where Mr. Everett had been a constant attendant for many years. Although the weather was unusually cold, and the ground was covered with snow, the streets In the vicinity, and along the whole route of the procession, were crowded with people long before the hour appointed for the ceremonies to begin. It being understood that tiie galleries of the church would be reserved 72 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. for ladies, an inunonse number congregated in front of tlie doors as early as ten o'clock, and waited patiently, until the doors were opened at eleven o'clock. All [juhlic buildings, and many of the ijlaces of business in the city were closed. In the Merchants' Exchange, the Public Library, the ^Mercantile J>ibrary, and the I inion Club House, emblems of mourning were displayed, and on public and private buildings the national Hag appeared at half-mast. Previous to the public ceremonies in the church, there were private services at Mr. Everett's house in Summer Street, at which Eev. Edward Everett Hale officiated. None but the relatives and intimate personal friends of the deceased were pres- ent. The Independent Corps of Cadets, Lieutenant-Colonel Holmes, performed guard duty in front of the house during the services, and at their conclusion escorted the remains to the church. The following-named gentlemen acted as pallbearers : — E.MOi; V AVasihsl' kn , Ex-Governor of Massachusetts. Thomas Hill, President of Uarvanl University. George Ticknok, Trustee Pulilic Library. Charles G. Loiuxg, Vice-President I'nion Club. .T. D. Graham, Ccilnncl United States Army. E. AV. Lincoln, Ji:. Mayor of the City. GEORCiE T. P.IGELOW, Chief Justice Supreme Court. KOBERT C. WlNTHROP, President Historical Society. Asa Gray, Pres. of Acad, of Aits and Sciences. Silas H. Stringham, Rear-Adniiral United .States Navy. In accordance with the notice issued by the Ciiief Marshal, the delegations from various organizations which had signilied their desire to partlci[):itc in tlie ceremonies, assembled at the City Hall at half-past eleven o'clock, and marched thence, at twelve THE FUNERAL. 73 o'clock, to the chiircli. His Excellency the Governor, the mem- bers of his staff, the President of the State Senate, the Speaker of tlie House, the Joint Committee from the General Court, and the Overseers of Harvard University, arrived at the church at the same time. Shortly after twelve o'clock, the body was borne into the church, and up the main aisle. The entire congregation arose and remained standing, until the coffin was placed upon the table below the pulpit. A chant was performed by the choir ; and Rev. James Walker, D. D., the venerable ex-President of Harvard University, then offered prayer, and read appropriate selections from the Scriptures. Rev. Rufus Ellis, pastor of the church, made the following address : — We are on our way to commit to the earth all that was mortal of a great and good, and justly famous man; a man so great, so good, so famous, that the honors decreed for him by the head of the nation will be most gratefully rendered, and that to the very letter of the decree, at home and abroad, wherever the national name and authority are recognized. We have paused for a few moments and laid down our burden within these consecrated walls — so familiar and dear to him who has gone from us — that we may acknowledge the Giver of Life, the Father of Him who is the resurrec- tion and the life, the best and the only comforter. It is for this that we are here, believing that our burden will be lightened for hands, which are so ready to hang down, if only we can obtain help from God. And yet, before we seek the refuge of prayer, in the name and the faith of Christ, a word must be 10 74 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. spoken to this great company — a word from heart to lieart — of him whom you revered and admired, and loved; for I am sure that the most halting speech, so it he sincere, will do more justice than silence, to the spirit of this hour, so solemn, and yet so rich in memories and in hopes. Tn these few and swiftly passing moments, I cannot tell the story of this grandly completed life, as full of works as of days, from its hoyhood, mature as manhood, to its age, vigorous as youth. I may not attempt any analysis of this fine intellect, or try to explore with you, the hiding-places of this great power. T shall undertake no delineation of a character which was always most admired hy those who were brought nearest to it, and which like some of the works of the most conscientious artists, was most finished where it made the least show. We arc on our way to a grave, and our words must he few, and they may be very simple, for uppermost in our minds and abounding in our hearts, are proud and grateful thoughts of the departed, which the tongue of the most unlettered might tell. What is it, friends, tliat has made this man so very dear to the people, I do not say to scholars, to the few, but to the peo])le, yea, their foremost citizen in these times when (iod has made " a man more precious than fine gold, even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir ! " Why is the announcement of his sudden death, by the President of the United States, only the utterance of a nation's sorrowing heart? I answer, — you answer, — not merely because he was your scholar THE FITNEIUL. 75 and a ripe and good one ; not merely because he was your orator, one of the most eloquent and instructive of men, your chief speaker for every grand and good occasion ; not merely because of his life-long service to letters and to the education of the people ; not merely because of his labors for the State, at home and abroad," in ordinary times, honorable, admirable, as he ever was in these things ; but because in the hour of sore trial, and when the nation's very life hung in the balance, and patriotism Avas something more than an idle word for the trifler to ring changes upon, he has proved himself to be first, last, only, and altogether a Christian patriot, an American, indeed, in whom was no guile, resolved at all costs to himself, of old friend- ships if need be, of old prejudices, our costliest possessions, to do his whole duty to the land and the people of his affections, as to the mother that bore him and nourished him, and led him up to his grand and serviceable manhood. I mean no disparagement of former services ; nay ; where some might criticise, I should justify, and yet on this day of his solemn burial I say honor to this large, this regal soul, which could not sacrifice itself to obsolete ideas, or go about, with the dead burying their dead, or crush the throbbing life of to-day under any old traditions ; honor to him who could see that old principles may demand new methods, and that the wisdom of yester- day may be the folly of to-day. During these grand historic years, years in which many an hour has been worth whole months of commonplace existence, with 76 MEMORIAL Oh' KDW'AHD EVKKKTT. the rest of the nation, he has been ])assing through tlie refiner's fire, and you have found, dear friends, to your joy, for nothing refreshes and delights us so much as to be able to reverence and admire, and love — you have found that the finest gold Avas in him, that he was more than your great scholar, more than your great orator, more than your trusted statesman aud dijilomatist, that he was your great citizen and your brother man, your country liis country, your political faith his political faith — not a man to babble gar- rulously of foreign despotisms, but a lover and a servant of our republican institutions, his heart throb- bing with your hearts, and alive with sacred national memories, and precious hopes for humanity sighing to be uplifted and redeemed. How manly, how con- sistent, how steadfast, how unwearied he has been, in all his glorious speaking and doing from the first moment when our nation's life was assailed, to that day so fatal to ns, but so honorable to him, wlien weighed down as he was by sickness, and already entering into the death-shadow, he asked help in sudi eloquent words for those who, as we hope, are ceasing to l)e our enemies, in the name of that holy and sweet charity which St. Paul, inspired by our Lord, has taught us, saying, " If thine enemy hunger, feed him." So he took up in the time of his age and for his last public act, the sacred office which he had laid down in youth, and was found at the last a gospel preacher. "When tlie liistory of our nation's regeneration shall be written. — and it will be an illuminated record, — THE rUNEKAL. 77 when victory and peace, which are as sure to be ours as that the sun burns in the heavens, shall be the reward of patient struggle, no name shall shine out more brightly upon the page, or be pronounced more thank- fully by the lips, than the name of him for whom we both rejoice and mourn to-day. In these last great years we have seen the beauty, Ave have breathed in the fragrance of the fair, consummate flower of a noble plant. Never has the bright sun of his life shone with such refulgent brightness as when it neared the setting, but was even more a giant than when it climbed the morning sky. And all this strength was blended with so much gentleness, all this earnest speech was so free from bitterness and wrath, all this public virtue was bound up with so much private worth and household love and Christian faith. Alas! that his day must needs come ! Strange ! that when so many only cumber the earth, and eat and drink, but do not. die to-morrow ! Alas ! that we are here and without him, with only this sacred dust, precious indeed in our sight and to be borne away most tenderly, and yet so sadly reminding us, that himself is gone. Alas ! for our necessity is still so great and our counsellor Avas so wise and so noble, so prudent and so charitable, so thoroughly furnished for the hour ! Would, we say, that God who hath an eternity to give from, had given more time to him who knew so well how to redeem time ! And yet, my friends, who are Ave that Ave should reply against God? and hath the Christ been so lono; time Avith us and have Ave not yet learned to trust utterly in the 78 MEMORIAL OK EDWARD EVERETT. Divine Providence, in llim that taketh away as well as in Ilini that giveth, in Him who said by the lips of his own dear Son, " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it ahideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit] " Let us rather give thanks for the life in the light of which we have lived and which God hath crowned with glory and honor and immortality, for its years of devotion to the things which are highest and holiest; stricken, bereaved, let us bow reverently and submissively to the Divine decree, and have no will but that Will which is for- ever Love ; let us have faith that with his blessing Avho appoints for us our works and our days, and meteth out our span with an unerring wisdom, there shall come forth, life from this death, beauty from these ashes, life and beauty for earth as well as for heaven. Being dead he doth yet speak to us, if only we have open ears, more eloquently than even he, worthy to be named with the most famous masters of speech since the Avorld began, could speak to us, being yet alive. But Avhy do I say " being dead," seeing that the righteous live for- evermore, seeing that their reward is with the Lord and the care of them with the most High, and that below and above. He giveth to them a beautiful kingdom and a glorious crown and an abiding ministry I Honor to the dead ! and what fitter honor can we pay to the dead than by consecrating ourselves, about these re- mains, to that dear country whose holy cause he who is gone can plead no longer in the name of Humanity, of Christ, of God, to whom in death, and in life be glory fore^ cr and ever ! Amen. THE FUNERAL. 79 Rev. Mr. Ellis, then offered prayer, and after a liymii had been sung, he descended from tlie j)ulpit and read a portion of the burial service. An anthem was sung, and the services were concluded with a benediction, pronounced by Rev. Dr. Walker. The funeral procession was formed soon after one o'clock, under the direction of the following officers : — Chief Marshal. Brevet Brig. Gen. F. A. Osborn. Geo. II. Kingsbury, David H. CooLinGE, T. B. Winchester, Elias B. Gleason, Maj. Edw. C. Richardson, h. h. coolidge, Capt. J. H. Lombard. Aids. LiEUT.-CoL. O. W Peabody Marshals. A. J. C. Sowdon, y. A. Stetson, Capt. J. C. Maker, W. Ralph Emerson, E. R. Mears, Capt. John N. Partridge. The military escort was under the command of Lieutenant- Colonel C. C. Holmes, with Lieut. G. C. Winsor acting as Aid-de-Camp. The order of the procession was as follows : — Drum Corps. First Unattached Co. Infantry, M. V. M. (Lincoln Guard,) Capt. M. E. Bigelow. Marine Band. Battalion of Four Companies U. S. Marines. Capt. Lowry, Commandin":. ,S0 MKMOKIAI, OK I':DWARI) EVERETT. Clielsea Band, (niountetl.) Company B, First Battalion Liglit Dragoons, (Boston Light Dragoons,) Capt. diaries T. Stevens. Company A, First Battalion I/ight Dragoons, (Xational Lancers,) Capt. Lucius Slade. Pall Bearers in Carriages. Brigade Band. Independent Corps of Cadets, Major Charles B. Raymond, C'omniandinu'. Cadets. Cadets. Howitzer Battery of the Cadets. Belatives of the Deceased in Carriages. Chief Marshal and Aids. City Council, Sciiool Committee, and Trustees of the Puhlic Lilirarv of the City of Boston. His Excellency, the Governor, and his Staff. Executive and Legislative Dejjartments of the Commonwealth. Corporation and Overseers of Harvard College. Oflicers of the Army and Navy. Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court. Delegations fiom : — American Antiquarian Society. Massachusetts Historical Society. Massacliusctts Charitahle Mechanic Association. Boston Board of Trade. I'rofessors and Students of Harvard Colh'ge. City (iovernment of Worcester. ( 'ity ( iovernment of Charlestown. Biudicr Hill Monument Association. Jjcxington ^Monument Association. New England Historic (ienealogical Society. THE FUNEUAL. 81 Franklin INIedal Scholars. Mercantile Library Association. Committee, Master, and Pupils of the Everett School. Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, in citizens' dress. The procession began to move at two o'clock over the following route: through Chauncy, Washington, School, Beacon, Charles, and Cambridge streets to Cambridge Bridge. The bells on all the cliurches in the city were tolled, and minute-guns were fired by a section of Light Artillery, on the Common, during the passage of the procession through the city. The streets were lined with spectators, many of whom reverently uncovered their heads as the hearse passed. At Cambridge Bridge a portion of the procession was dismissed. The Cadets and the Brigade Band, were conveyed to Harvard Square in cars. The procession was there reformed again, and then proceeded to Moimt Auburn Cemetery. The remains of Mr. Everett were interred in the family lot. No. 17 Magnolia Avenue. There were no services at this place. Wreaths of wliite flowers and evergreens were placed upon the coffin, and as it was lowered into tlie grave, the Brigade Band be<;an the solemn strains of the "Dead March" in Saul. 11 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE. IN THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE. At a meeting of the Scliool Committee of the City of Boston, on Tuesday, January 24, IStiy, His Honor the Mayor in the Chair, Eev. S. K. Lothrop, D. D., made the following remarks : — Mr. President: Since the last meeting of this Board, an event has occurred which has thrown a gloom over our city, our community, our country. Edward Everett, whose name for more than fifty years has been held in honor among us, associated with learning, literature, eloquence, statesmanship, philanthropy, and patriotism, — who has filled a great variety of public offices and adorned them all by rare abilities and eminent fidelity, — whose career has been marked by an unspotted in- tegrity, purity, and a large usefulness, has suddenly been called from among us, and the places that have so long known him here, shall know him no more for- ever. The City Government have taken appropriate notice of this sad event. The authorities of the State have not let it pass unobserved ; the Chief Magistrate of the nation has called the attention of the country to !S() MEMOlilAI, OK EDWAinj EVKKK'l'T. tlic loss of a devoted patriot — its foroinost private citi- zen, — and as the intelligence of this event is borne over the land and over the sea, many in all parts of tlie Christian world, \\ill receive it with a deep regret, and give it some form of reverent notice. A medal scholar of the Boston Public Schools, receiving the first rudiments of his education at those institutions which arc under the special charge of this Board ; retaining at all times and up to the close of his life a strong interest, not only in the great cause of popular educa- tion, but especially in the Public Schools of our city, it is due not only to him, but to ourselves, that our llccords should contain some expression of our gratitude for his services, our sorrow at his death, our respect for his memory. I ask leave, tlierefore, Mr. J'resident, to submit tlie following resolutions, and, if adopted, to have tliem placed upon our Pecords : — Mliereas, The Hon. lldward Everett died suddenly, after a brief illness, at his residence in Simimer Street, on Sunday morning, the loth instant, the School Com- mittee of the City of Boston, on this their tirst meeting after his decease, desire to adopt, and place upon tlieir Records the following resolutions. liesohed, That we share in the universal regret and sorrow which this event awakens, and sympathize in all the private and public tokens of profound respect so justly paid to the memory of one who has enriched our literature by his learning and scholarship, illustrated our history, and instructed our people, by many eloquent IN THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE. S7 orations and atldresses, elevated public and political life among us by faithful service in exalted station, and l)y the dignity, purity, and unstained integrity of his char- acter and conduct ; who has often stirred our patriotism by his fervent appeals, confirmed it by his cogent argu- ments, guided by his illustrious example, and who, through a long life of unremitted industry, and the noble exercise of great and versatile powers in manifold positions and offices, and by a beautiful exhibition of the Christian virtues, in private and domestic relations, has adorned our common humanity, and left us, in his fame, a legacy to be cherished with gratitude and pride. Resolved, Tliat it is specially incumbent upon this Board, instituted for the promotion, and entrusted with the guardianship of the Public Schools of the city, to recognize and honor his name and services as connected with the cause of popular education. Receiving his own first distinction in life — the Franklin Medal — twice, first at the North School in ISO-l, and again at our Public Latin School in 1806, he has never ceased, for half a century, amid all his honors and avocations, to feel a deep interest in these primary fountains of learning, whose healing waters arc for the enlightenment of the whole people ; and has repeatedly manifested his respect and confidence by using them for the education of his children and his children's children ; and his Chief Magistracy of our Commonwealth, wise and firm in its > administration of all our affairs, was distinguished by two events, — the inauguration of the Board of Education, and of our State Normal Schools, which are as honorable yy MKMOUIAI. OK EDWAKl) EVEKETT. testimonials of patriotic wisdom ami usefulness as any incumbent has ever left in the Chair of State, and <,n-andly beneficent in the effect they have had to enlarge, elevate, and advance that popular education wliich is the secret of the past and present position, power, and jirosperity of Massachusetts. liesolved, That, while we bow in devout submission to the Divine Will, which has removed from among us so eminent and useful a citizen, it is alike a duty, a pleasure, and a benefit to recall with gratitude his distinguished services, to cherish tlie memory of all tliat was l)eautiful, useful, honorabk'. and Christian in his life and character, and make it an incentive in our individual liearts to a like fidelity, — a fidelity that in us, also, shall meet the measure of our ability and our opportunities. The Ikcsolutioiis were unanimously iuloptcd. PROCEEDINGS OE THE TRUSTEES OE THE PUBLIC LIBRARY. 12 TRUSTEES OF THE TUBLIC LIBIURY. A special meeting of tlic Trustees of the Public I^ibrarv was held oil tiie 17th of January, 18()5, at 11 o'clock, A. Ji. to take suitable notice of the death of their President, the lion. Edward P^verett. The following resolutions were offered by George Tick- nor, Esq., chairman of tiie meeting, and were unanimously adopted l)y the Board : — Resolved, That, while the Trustees of the Public Li- brary, in common with all their fellow-citizens, look back, Avith proud gratitude, to the record of the eminent ser- vices rendered by Mr. Everett in trusts and w;iys so vari- ous and so distinct, not only to the highest interests of our country and our Commonwealth, but to the inter- ests of letters and religion, and to the promotion of all that is good, faithful, and worthy everywhere, during his long life, an uncommon portion of which has been marked and honored on both sides of the Atlantic, — we yet feel at this sad moment an obligation more especially resting on this Board thankfully to acknowledge, how much is due to him from our own citv as one of tliose 92 MEMORIAL OF KDWAKl) KVKIiETT. wlio earliest and most earnestly eonnselled and promoted the fonndation of this Public I/ibrnry, to wliose interests and progress, — amidst the many high and graver claims that were constantly crowded on his care, — he devoted himself faithfully from its first beginnings down to the very day before his death, acting, during the whole of its organized existence, with uniform wisdom, gentleness, and dignity, as its presiding officer. liesohrd, That, as a mark of respect to tlie memory of our late honored and lamented President, and, in deference to the feeling of this whole community, the Trustees direct the Library to be closed during the day of his interment, and that it be draped in mourning for the thirty days sub- setiuent. liesvlci'd, Tliat the chairman of tiiis meeting address to the family of Mr. Everett a certified copy of these i)ro- ceedings, expressing to them, at the same time, our heart- felt sympathy in this, their great sorrow, and commending them to the gracious (jod in Aviiom he always trusted, mid to the Christian consoliitions, in whicli — during such times of trial and bereavement as come to all men — lie found an unfailing support. PROCEEDINGS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE. MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE. IN THE SENATE. Monday, January Ki, 181)'). j\Ir. Wcntworth, of Middlesex, offered tlie following order : — Whereas, Intelligence has been received announcing the death of the Hon. Edwaid Everett, at his residence in this city, Ordeied, That a committee of five on the pait of the Senate, with such as the House may join, be appointed to consider and report what measures it may be proper for the Ix^gislature to adopt as a testimonial of its gratitude for the public services and respect for the memory of the illustrious dead. The order was adopted, and Senators AYentworth of" Middlesex, Loud of Plynioiitli, Parker of Suffolk, Foster of P^ssex, and Kneil of Hampden, were appointed as the Conunittee on tiie part of the Senate. IN THE HOUSE. The order from the Senate in regard to measures to be taken in relation to the decease of the lion. Edward Everett was concurred in. 96 MICMOKIAL OF EDWAKD I-:VE1!I;TT. i\m\ the ibllowing i;cntlenuMi were joined to tlie S(>nate eoiniiiiltce on tlic subject: Messrs. Kinil);ill ot' lio.-ton, AVells of ('l)i('o|i('(', Sciultler of Dorchcsler, Stone of Cliarlestown, Hills of lioston, Stone of Wiiltliani, (iallii|> of Brookfield, Dwelley oi Hanover, Warren of AVinilsor, and Hall of Dennis. 3Iu. Knn;Al,l>, of JSoston, moved that, out of resjjcct for the uieniory of A[r. Everett, the House iniuiediately adjourn. Adjourned. IN rilK SKNATE. TniTHsnAV, January 20, ISlI.'. A comninnieation was received from His l^xeellenry the (iover- iior, as follows : — Hon. J. E. Field. Pycs'uh'iif i>f tlic Scnafc : — Sir : I perceive that tiie Senate Avill l)e in session at 10 o'clock this morning to consider and adopt appro- priate measures in honor of the memory of our late illustrious fellow-citizen, Euward Evei{i;tt. In the utmost sympathy ^vith the Senate, and sharing its sense of bereavement, the Executive Department of the Commonwealth will cordially unite with the Ueneral Court in every demonstration of affectionate respect for the departed which it may adopt. The Governor and Council propose to attend tlie funeral to-day in a body. The military staff of tlie Commonwealth llead(iuarters have been directed to re[)ort at the Council ("hamber at 1 1 o'clock A. M., and an appropriate military detacli- ment is under orders to perform the duty of escorting tlie funeral procession, the Independent Corps of Cadets IN THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE. 97 acting as a guard of honor to the remams of the de- ceased statesman, whose body guard they were in his former capacity of Governor of Massachusetts. I am, sir, with high respect, your obedient and hum- ble servant, John A. Andrew. Mr. Wentwortli of Middlesex, from the committee on resohi- tions of respect to the memory of ]Mr. Everett, submitted the following, which Avere read by the Clerk : — Resolved. That, as members of the Senate and House of Representatives • of the Commonwealth of Massachu- setts, we deem it our public duty to express the pro- found emotions with which we, and the people whom we represent, have received the intelligence of the death of the Hon. Edward Everett. Resolved. That we mourn with deep regret the loss of a citizen who, for fifty years, has been the pride and ornament of the Commonwealth ; who in early youth attracted public attention as a poet and scholar, and during a period in which he was the active associate of three generations of men had never ceased to occupy it as an accomplished man of letters and a finished and captivating orator ; who united to singular gifts of speech and action an equally unusual power of application and habit of industry ; who touched no subject, however light, without leaving upon it the mark of conscientious care, and who investigated no question, however grave, without throwing over it the inimitable charm of genius ; 13 98 SIEMOlilAL OF EinVAKD EVEUETT. who, having begun active life vvitli the patience and ripeness of age, still retained in age the grace and spirit of youth, and, when he had passed the allotted age of man, so completely filled the ]ml)lic eye and satisfied the public expectation, that had he no better claim for gratitude, his death would still be an irrepa- rable loss. RcsolrcfL That we recollect with pride that the life of IMr. Everett was spent in the public service, and that we cherish in respectful remembrance the fidelity and signal success with which he filled the highest offices of his native State; that he administered these great public trusts as a personal duty, and devoted to all their details the same attention which he bestowed on his most splendid eftbrts ; that he added dignity to the national councils by his profound learning as a states- man, and maintained the national honor abroad by the intelligence and wisdom of his diplomacy ; that he was never seduced by public indulgence to act on any measure without thorough investigation, and during liis long and eventful public service, never failed to api)re- ciate the magnitude and difficulty of the questions liefore him, and to give to them, all the strength of liis great talents, and the illumination of his various knowledge. Xor are we to forget that he dignified his public station by private virtues ; by the profession of a Christian faith, and the practice of a Christian life. liesokcd. That, while we thus gratefully recognize the eminent usefulness and importance of INIr. Everett's public life, we regard, and would here commemorate. IN THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE 99 as his highest title to honor and gratitude from the people of this Commonwealth, the timely and decisive service which he has rendered during the last four years to our common country, in her struggle for national unity and national existence ; and that we consider the prompt- ness Avith which he emhraced the cause of the Union, the distinctness with which he saw the vital issues of the present war, the cordial support which he gave to the Government, the research and unequalled clearness of the pi'oductions by which he sought to form, and did form, an enlightened public opinion, the temperate and luminous papers by which he upheld our cause to the world, the confidence which his presence and his speech inspired in the success of our arms, and, more than all, the ardent love of country which animated his spoken and written words, and prompted him to those grand enterprises of national charity, of which he has left so little for others to complete, as the crowning glory of his long and brilliant life, and as entitling him to an imperishable place in the history of the United States as an Illustrious Citizen. Resolved. That an eulogy on his life and character, be pronounced before the Executive and Legislative branches of the government of the Commonwealth, at some time during the present session. Resolved. That His Excellency the Governor be re- quested to transmit a copy of these resolves to the family of Mr. Everett. Resolved. That a Committee, consisting of the Pres- ident and ten members on the part of the Senate, and 100 MEMOKIAI. OF EDWARD EVEHETT. the Speaker and t\vciity members ou the part of the House, be appomted to attend the funeral of the deceased. ]\Ir. AVcntwoitli addressed the Senate as follows: — The resolutions which have been read to the Senate are designed to express the sentiments of the Legisla- ture upon the melancholy event they are intended to commemorate. It is peculiarly fitting that we should, in an appropriate manner, and by public action, call the attention of our fellow-citizens to the loss the coun- try has sustained in the death of Edward Everett. The orator, the statesman, the patriot, the philanthro- pist and Christian, is no more ! For forty years, with few and short intermissions, the exertions of Mr. Everett liave been devoted to the public in various positions in the service of this, his native State, and of the nation. Of the eminent ability and success which has marked his entire public career, of the patriotic efforts which have so signally illustrated the last years of his Aalu- able life, and of the philanthropic labors which have been so gracefully and bounteously yielded by him to every call of suffering and distress, there will be fitting occasion elsewhere for others to speak, — an occasion when a delineation of his character, life, and services will give to mankind a splendid example of the high- est talent employed for the noblest ends ; of a life de- voted with unusual fidelity to the welfare of the human IN THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE. 101 race, and which has adorned the policy, the poUtics, and the literature of his country. I content myscdf with expressing my entire concurrence with the Legis- lative action proposed, and move the adoption of the resolutions. Mr. Worcester of Essex said : — Mr. President : I tiud myself constrained to violate a resolution which I had formed, in coming into this body, — that I would not occupy the attention of the Senate, except for a few moments at a time, — per- haps, for months to come. But I owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Everett, and must speak of him some- what with the feelings of a son. Were it not for this, my voice would probably now be silent. It was my privilege to be a member of the College at Cambridge, when he returned from his four years of sojourn in Europe, to enter upon his duties as Eliot Professor of Greek literature. I may almost say, that his lecture-room in the old Harvard Hall was the birth- place of my mind. Sure I am, that no one of all the officers of the College had such an awakening power of influence upon my own mind ; and what is true of myself, I believe, was also true of my class generally. We were one of the five classes only, if I remember rightly, that enjoyed his instructions, in the senior year. He laid out a programme for a course of lectures upon Greek literature and the antiquities of the classic lands, which, instead of some twenty-five or thirty lectures, 102 MEMOIUAL OF EDWAKU EVERETT. would have required three hundred for its entire com- pletion. Ilis manner of lecturing Avas colloquial and exceedingly familiar. He would read a few pages from his carefully prepared manuscripts, and then turn from the written lecture, and indulge himself in extemporized excurses, suggested by some word or association. In these he was no less interesting and instructive, than in the most finished parts of his lectures, as he read them in his deliberate and earnest manner. Often have I seen him roll up his papers, and close the hour, when he did not appear to have delivered more than a third, if more than a sixth part, of what he had written for the occasion. It seemed to be his constant aim to arouse the interest and the emulation of the students, in exertions to qualify themselves for distinguished usefulness. He has been represented as if he was not a man of warm heart, but was characteristically cold and unapproachable. He cer- tainly was not thus, as he appeared in the lecture-room, and as I saw him at other times, when he gave a few of us private instructions in an extra course of study, to which all were kindly invited. He seemed as if he wished to break down those conven- tional barriers, which were designed probably to keep the students at a respectful, but which practically kept them at a disrespectfu} , distance from the ofhccrs. And it is no disparagement to any of those with whom he was associ- ated in the instruction of the College, to say that no one of them was more highly esteemed. He was truly beloved. It was most easy to follow him as he lectured. A second or third rate reporter could have taken down IN THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE. 103 almost every word, whether he was reacUng or extem- porizing. I took myself extended notes of his lectures. And as I yesterday looked over some eighty or a hundred pages, I was surprised on being reminded of the great amount of labor which he accomplished, and the range of topics Avhich he illustrated, or alluded to, as worthy of remembrance or research. The first time I saw Mr. Everett, was in the latter part of my freshman year, — the summer of 1819, — and when he had just returned from Europe. His appearance then, when but twenty-five years of age, was not in the full and somewhat portly, bodily form which we have seen in his later years. His countenance was that of a hard student, and his bearing was by no means that of a man who gave promise of the length of days which he has been permitted to enjoy. It was a slender and diminutive figure, even, which he presented, when he walked from University Hall across the College yard, as I have seen him, — lean- ing upon the arm of his younger brother John, who, as he now comes before ray memory in his stalwart form, " from his shoulders and upward was higher." Some have thought, that in native intellectual endowment, that brother, who went down to an early grave, had as much superiority, as he had in bodily presence, over the lamented man whose death we are now called to mourn. From the reputation which preceded Mr. Everett's com- ing to enter upon his duties as Professor, the students had high expectations. The first displays which he made before us, were from the pulpit. But although he drew large audiences, and was highly extolled and glorified by 104 ME.MOKIAL OF EDWAUD EVEKF.TT. many, I do not think that he made any great impres- sion upon llie nnder-graduates. The pulpit was not his appropriate place. I heartily rejoiced when he withdrew from it, and gave himself so devotedly to the instruc- tion of the College classes ; and afterwards to the instruc- tion of the country and of the world. Soon after his return from Europe, he was editor of the North American Ecvlcir, which he reneiccd, by giving it a character and reputation such as it never had before. The students were much interested in the articles which he wrote for it, and which they thought could be easily iden- tified. The style of those articles had a great effect, in stimulating them to cultivate a high order of literary com- position. A^'e were specially interested in the articles, which vindicated our institutions and character against the mendacious reports of British travellers in America, and the savage assaults of the Edinburgh and London Quar- terly Reviews. At this time there was much written in the spirit of Sydney Smith's sneering interrogatory, — " Who reads an American book ? " In refuting the statements and repelling the assaults of British travellers and reviewers, Mr. Everett came forth with a manliness which he had not before displayed. His compositions had often seemed to belong rather to the fem- inine than to the masculine gender. While he showed that he had the same delicacy of taste and kindliness of tem- per, which had been so admirably exhibited by Washing- ton Irving, in the essays of the Sketch Book, which portrayed and defended our national character, — he also IN THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE. 1()5 showed a vigor and masterly strengtli, wliich, perhaps, he owed in part at least, to his intimacy with Webster, whom he so greatly admired, and with whom he so in- tensely sympathized. In those vindications of our country which appeared in the North American, from the pen of • Mr. Everett, you may see the germs or the elements of the same patriotism which has so nobly distinguished the efforts of these last years of his life. He could say very hard things in very mild words. He could take a man's head off, by a feather, as well as by any more potent instrument. An example of his manner now occurs to me. He was commenting upon some flagrant statements. " This," said he, " is a spe- cies of fiction in which gentlemen of veracity are not accustomed to indulge." One or two articles he wrote on the Missouri ques- tion, with signal ability. One of these, I think was in the early part of 18'.^0, when he reviewed the history of slavery in our country, — referring to the principles and sentiments of the founders of the republic, and earnestly imploring, that the area of the '^ peculiar institution" should be no farther extended. These views he seems to have modified, after he became a member of Con- gress : perhaps more seemingly, than in reality, yet afford- ing too much occasion for the terrible rebuke of John Randolph, who, as some will remember, gave him to understand, that slave-holder as he was himself, he had little respect for the heart or the head of any man, from u 106 MEMOlilAL OF KDWAHD EVERETT. the North, wlio would stand up there to apologize for Southern slavery. In August, 1824, Mr. Everett delivered an oration before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, which was received with the highest applause. General Lafayette had just arrived, on a visit to the United States, and his coming stirred up and called forth all the patriotic feeling, which could be moved by tlie remembrances and asso- ciations of the revolutionary war. His presence in the assembly at Cambridge added greatly to tlie interest of that 27tli dav of August, — a dav most memorable in ml ~ > "^ Mr. Everett's public life. The subject of the oration, as then stated by the orator, was " The peculiar motives to intellectual exertion in America." In a revised edition of Mr. I'Aerett's works, the oration appears under tlie title of '' Circumstances favor- able to the progress of literature in the United States."' In the treatment of this subject, he displayed a wealth of learning and a wealth of language, which perfectly amazed his auditory, and far exceeded all the most sanguine expec- tations of his greatest admirers. It would be utterly impos- sible to describe the effect produced as with liis graphic and thrilling power, as from an inspiration he depicted, " the theatre upon whicli tlie intellect of America was to a|)- pear ; " " the motives to its exertion ; "' " the mass to bo influenced by its efforts ; " •' tlie crowd to witness its ener- gies;" and "the glory to crown its success." And when in liis i)eroration he addressed Lafayette, the enthusiasm of admiration knew no l)ounds. The closing words of •• /(•<■/- IX THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE. 107 come" " WELCOME," were received with a kind of rapture and the wildest excitement, that can well be imagined. Never before, and I believe, never since, was such a scene witnessed at Cambridge. And I much incline to the opinion, that for all in all, considering the occasion and the circumstances, not one of all Mr. Everett's greatest efforts, throughout his whole subsequent career, has sur- passed that memorable Phi Beta oration of August 27, 1824. In the autumn of this year, 1824, the young men of Middlesex nominated Mr. Everett for the House of Rep- resentatives in Congress. The course which he ]nusued in his ten years as Representative in Washington. — his services in Europe, — his administration as Governor of our State, — his presidency at Cambridge, — and even the wonderful efforts of the last glorious period of his life, — it is not now the time, nor is this the place, to review and describe. But whatever may have been thought of him, at certain times, in respect to his politi- cal action, — I believe that no man could ever say with greater sincerity and propriety, that "through good report and through evil report, he had truly loved his whole Country." The bereavement which we mourn, is a bereavement of all the loyal people in our land. We are all mourn- ers to-day, as if the affliction were in our own family circle. Although the beloved man had lived so long, and had accomplished so much by his integrity and learn- ing, his patriotism and philanthropy, — and although 108 MK.MOKIAL OF EDWAHI) KVEKETT. " gathered to his fathers," " as a shock of corn cometh in his season," his death appears to us untimely. Our duty is to bow witli entire submission to God's Sovereign will. " Even so, Father, for so it see.meth cjood in thy sight." Little did we think, when we so lately saw him, that he was so soon to fall asleep. But if it had been known, that his days were so near the end, and there had been the opportunity. — I think that I should have ventured to congratulate him, that (iod had spared him so long ; and that for himself, for our land, and for the world, he was not taken from us four years since. Grateful should we be that he so early gave himself to the pure, the beautiful, and the just. As we gather hiiu to his burial, let us all be admonished of our personal duty to our Country and to God. I would that I could speak to all the young men of the land. I would exhort them to study those volumes which are tlie memorial of his erudition, his ehxpience, and his beneficence. We cannot doul)t what he would say to tbem. and to all of us. And here comes to my mind, at tliis moment, the words which he uttered when approaching the end of that ora'ion on tlie 27th of August, 1824. — "If I err in this happy vision of my Country's fortunes, I thank God for an error so animating. If this be false, may I never know the truth. Never may you, my friends, be under any other feeling than that a great and growing, an immeasurably expanding country is calling upon vou for your best services. Mr. President, there is a spot in front of this edifice, — IN THE MASSACHTSETTS I.EGISLATUKE. 109 on the other side of that which is occupied by the statue of the great defender of the Constitution. Whose statue shall have that vacant place 1 Whose can occupy it so worthily as that of liim whose sudden departure Ave all so deeply deplore"? But however it may be, it is our "joy of grief," that his monument is everywhere in the land ; his renown is in all lands ; and for ages to come, his Country " redeemed, regenerated, disenthralled," shall cherish among her choicest treasures, the transcendent name of Edward Everett. Mr. Cliadbourne of Berkshire said : — Mr. President : It is eminently proper that we should turn aside from the ordinary duties of this chamber to pay our brief tribute of respect to the memory of a great man. Edward Everett was a great man among great men. It was his lot, sir, to live and walk with a race of intellectual giants. And if we consider the rare combination of native power with vast acquirements, he was hardly surpassed by any man of his time. He was a scholar, an orator, a statesman, and a patriot. How perfect and beautiful Avas his life, how transcen- dently beautiful its close ! No broken shaft can be its symbol. It was like the lofty marble column, without spot or blemish, its flutings perfect, its capital entire. I shall ever consider it among the fortunate events in my life, sir, that I heard his last Avords in Eaneuil Hall. There his great heart gushed forth, breaking down the forms of elaborate and studied oratory so commonly at- 110 MEMOKIAL OF EDWAKD EVERETT. tributed to him. AVith what loving eiitliusiasm was he greeted by the hundreds who had so often hung upon his lips. And how did his words give ns courage for the conflict and charity towards the returning prod- igals, lie did not live to see the Union restored, but, as has been well said, he saw it by the eye of faith. Those who heard his last speech will never forget his eloquent words respecting the people of Savannah. " They do not know as we do," said he, " that the Savannah River shall sooner reverse its course and roll its flood of waters back to the mountains than the stars and stripes be again replaced by the flag of the Rebel- lion." His eloquent words remain, but his eloquent lips are closed forever in death. He has completed his warfare. We may place his statue in the vacant place in front of the capitol, but his spear leans against the wall, and who is there left, mighty enough to wield if? But how little, sir, of such a man can die ! His death seems to me like one of those splendid summer nights in the far north, where the sun indeed sinks beneath the horizon, but where his midnight light curtains the heavens with purple and gold, more gorgeous and beau- tiful than his noonday glory. His name will live forever. Henceforth, they who make pilgrimages to Mount Vernon will couple the name of Everett with the name of Washington. Pie Avill be remembered as the proud product of republican institutions, as the orator who launched his thunders against the C'atilines of our dav, and as the patriot who IN THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE. 1 1 1 ever preferred his country to party, and never despaired of the republic. Tlie resolutions were adopted. Senators Wentwortli of Middlesex, Loud of Plymouth, Codman of Suffolk, Parker of Suffolk, Stoddard of Worcester, Frost of Norfolk, Foster of Essex, Kneil of Hampden, Ide of Bristol, and Parsons of Franklin were appointed a Committee on the part of the Senate to attend the funeral. Adjourned. IN THE HOUSE. A communication was received from His Excellency, the Gov- ernor, stating that the Executive Department would unite with the General Court in any demonstration of respect to the mem- ory of Mr. Everett, which they might adopt. The resolutions of tlie joint special Committee, in relation to Mr. Everett, were received from the Senate, and read by the clerk. Mr. Wells of Chicopee said : — Mr. Speaker: The brief time that remains before we are to proceed to join in the funeral ceremonies, as well as the fact that our action contemplates a formal eulogy at some future day, forbids that I should enter upon any extended discussion of the life or character of Mr. Everett. Were it otherwise, I should not venture, with my limited powers, and limited knowledge of the subject, to undertaka its delineation. But I am sure it would not comport with the feelings of this house, — ir2 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. it would not comport with the propriety of the occasion, that the Resolves should pass to their adoption by a mere formal vote. There is one consideration in the life of Mr. Everett, which seems especially to force itself upon our attention. Although for so many years in public life ; — elected to Congress forty years ago ; — havinsr tilled the office of Governor of this Common- wealth more than a quarter of a century since ; — ap- pointed in 1841 as our Minister to the Court of St. James ; — in 1852 succeeding Mr. Webster as Secretary of State of the United States ; — and having filled all these and other prominent positions of public trust with dis- tinguished ability, and honor to himself as well as to the country ; — he has nevertheless rounded out his life, and placed upon its record an enduring crown of sur- passing excellence, by the display of that patriotism, and the performance of those duties to the country, ■which come within the province of th(^ private citizen. Great and honored as he was among men when exer- cising the influence which attends the possession of high official position, lie was greater, more honored, more powerful in the influence he was able to exert for the good of his country, in his last capacity as a private citizen. lie thus nobly illustrated the true spirit of the insti- tutions of our country; — where the private citizen is the real potentate, — above all office, and not dependent upon it for the possession of his true dignity and influ- ence. In the death of Mr. Everett the countrv lias IN THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE. 113 indeed suffered a great loss. And yet his life is not lost to the nation. It is fortunate for ns, — fortunate in view of that immortality which is said to be possi- ble to a nation, that its great men do not die. It is not in the power of death to tear away the life of such men from the life of the Nation. Their acts, their example, their written and spoken words, their influ- ence upon the passing events of their time, — all that which is the expression of their lives is wrought into the public life, — woven as it were into the web of the history of the country. And although they may be withdrawn from our mortal vision, all that Avhich was great in them, all which connects itself Avith the public life, remains forever. Passing time will remove whatever of cloud may be thrown upon the character by the prejudice or passion of to-day, and as we look back from some future period, we shall recognize, more fulh'j all that is great and good in such a life, and cherish it as a part of the national life and history. Mr. Scudder of Dorchester said that this was not the time for an extended eulogy ; the subject did not demand, nor the occasion require it. The very air was full of the praises of the illustrious dead, mingled with sighs and lamentation at his loss. He felt justified in saying, that within the last half century no man had walked among us wiio had so completely the char- acteristics of a truly great man, or whose life and character would so adorn the pages of our history. More than sixt^' years of the threescore and ten of his life are a history famil- iar to us all. The fame of his extraordinary promise as a boy still lingered in his native town of Dorchester, — a promise so 15 114 MEMORIAL OF EDWAKD EVERETT. vvondcrfullv fulfilled In his after career as prcaelier, jjrofessor, sen- ator, (liplomate, governor, college president, and cabinet minister. Certainly Edward Everett embodied in himself all tiie virtues and excellences wiiieh are the components of greatness. The resolutions were unanimously adopted, the members of the House rising in their places. The following gentlemen were appointed by the Speaker on the Committee of the' House to attend Mr. Everett's funeral : — Messrs. Kimball of Boston, Scudder of Dorcliester, 8ti)ne of Charlestown, Hills of Boston, Stone of Waltliam, Gallup of Brookfield, Dwelley of Hanover, Warren of Windsor, Hall of Dennis, Holden of Salem, Bartlett of Greenfield, Lovering of Taunton, Shortle of Provincctown, Osborne of Edgartown, Mitchell of Nantucket, Stone of Lowell, Winchester of Spring- field, Mudge of Petersham, Stevens of Newburyport, and Dudley of Northampton. Adjourned. PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF TRADE. PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF TRADE. A SPECIAL meeting of the Government of the Board of Trade was held on Tuesday, January 17, at noon, to consider what meas- ures should be adopted in relation to the death of Mr. Everett. The meeting was called to order by the President, Hon. George C. Richardson, who briefly stated its objects. Edward S. Tobey, Esq. then addressed the meeting as follows : — ■ Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board of Trade : It is but recently that this Board has had occa- sion to perform the solemn ofRce of a public expression of its sense of the personal worth and eminent character of a distinguished American merchant, whose death de- prived the commercial world of one of its most promi- nent and honored representatives. "We are now sum- moned to this place, to bear our highest tribute of re- spect for the character and worth of our preeminent and revered fellow-countryman, Edward Everett, whose sud- den departure has thrown the pall of sadness over our land. Although not directly connected with the commercial history of this community, Mr. Everett has, in former 118 MEM0T5IAI. OF EDWAKl) EVEKETT. years, as the able miuister of the United States in (ireat Britain, rendered signal service to the commerce of this country, especially in giving his valuable influence in the adjustment of questions in controversy as to the rights of American Fishermen. At an earlier date, his series of letters on the subject of our Colonial trade, doubtless had no inconsiderable influ- ence in forming an intelligent public opinion on the com- mercial questions involved. Notwithstanding the grave and protracted controversy in reference to the Northeast- ern boundary, the Oregon question, and other kindred topics, which at one time threatened the peace of this country and of England was ultimately transferred to Washington, through the arrangement of a special am- bassador from England, it is not doubted that Mr. Everett's previous discussions of tliose questions with the British Government largely contributed to prepare the way for tlie amicable settlement, which was finally attained by tlie commissioners of both governments. His appointment by the government in 1843, on a mission to China, with a view to establish improved commercial relations with that country (an appointment which he felt constrained to decline), shows the estima- tion in wliich his ability on commercial questions was held. But, Mr. President, it is not by reason of any relations to the commerce of the countrv which Mr. Everett sus- tained, that we are now convened to do appropriate honor to his memory. Our country mourns the loss of one of her ablest and most devoted statesmen ; and one of Mas- PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOAKD OF TRADE. 119 sachusetts' gifted sons, one of the great constellation of brilliant statesmen, whose lives during the last half cen- tury have adorned and illuminated the pages of our country's history, has been withdrawn from these earthly scenes. This is, therefore, no ordinary occasion. Generally we may well be guarded against the use of words of fulsome eulogy, which too indiscriminately uttered, may alike do injury to the living and injustice to the dead. But when one of such rare combination of virtues and excellences of character as was possessed by Mr. Everett passes from earth, we may safely commend his exem- plary public and private life to the emulation of his fellow- citizens in no measured terms. I, therefore, Mr. President, regard it both an honor and a privilege, cordially to unite with this Board in the present appropriate demonstrations of respect for the character of our deceased fellow-citizen. Long will the tones of his matchless eloquence be treasured in memory, as with all the fervor of a pure, devoted patriotism he sought to rally the people to the standard of his country, and in support of its lawfully constituted government in its struggle with treason ; or in his last pathetic appeal to the sympathies of our citi- zens in behalf of the suffering poor in Savannah. But, Mr. President, I do not feel at liberty to indulge the promptings of my own heart in more extended re- marks, aware, as I am, that there are others present who, I am sure, desire to give expression to their hearty approval of these proceedings. I have the 120 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. honor to submit the following resolutions for yoxu consideration : — Resolved. That this Board would reverently acknowl- edge the hand of Divine Providence in the sudden de- parture from this life of our deeply lamented fellow- citizen, Edward Everett, whose varied public services and high attainments have been so preeminent as to make his character the common property of the American people. Resolved. That in common with our fellow-countrymen, we share in the general sorrow which now oppresses the heart of this nation, for the irreparable loss of one whose life has adorned the brightest page of its history, and whose death has deprived the country of the wise counsel and influence of one of her noblest sons. Resolved. That, while this Board cannot be unmindful of the eminent services rendered by Mr. Everett as the representative of his country at the Court of St. James, in his i)articipatiou in the adjustment of international ques- tions of great importance to the commercial interests of the United States, we regard it as a special privilege, not less than a solemn and sacred duty, on this sad occasion, to express our appreciation of his patriotism, his exalted and comprehensive statesmanship, and his moral worth, which, with his unsurpassed eloquence, have added lustre to the American name and character throughout the world, and will enshrine his memory in the hearts of a grateful nation. Resolved. That we offer to his afflicted relatives and friends our sympathy in their bereavement, which has suddenly deprived them of the society of one whose affec- PROCEKDINGS OF THE BOARD OF TRADE. 121 tionate intercourse and genial friendship they have been I^ermitted so long to enjoy. The resolutions were seconded by James M. Beebe, Esq., in tlie following remarks : — Mr. President : In rising to second the resolutions sub- mitted, I shall but give utterance to feelings which fill the hearts of all present. It has not been customary for this Association, a body so largely composed of merchants and business men, to publicly recognize the departure of those, however emi- nent or worthy, whose career and pursuits in life have been in a different sphere ; but in the sad event which has called us together to-day, no precedent is needed for our guidance and action. An occasion so fitting and proper for the full and ear- nest expression of the feelings of this Board, has perhaps never before occurred since our organization ; and we but honor ourselves in paying the highest tributes to the ex- alted worth and pre-eminent talents of our fellow-citizen, Avhose sudden de[iarture from us has caused universal sorrow. Mr. Everett will be sadly missed in our own commu- nity, and the place vacated by his death cannot easily be filled. Always accessible, and ever ready on all proper occasions claiming his aid and co-operation, to render cheerful service in the furtherance of every good cause, the inexhaustible resources of his well-stored mind, and his unsurpassed eloquence were constantly sought. His enlightened and comprehensive patriotism, his IG 122 . MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. noble and nntiring efforts in behalf of his conntry and her imperilled institntious, so dear to him, have enshrined his memory in tlie heart of the nation, which will never forget the debt of gratitude it owes. Little more can be expected, in our meeting to day, than a brief recurrence to the excellence of character and efficient services of the departed. A bright example is afforded by his life, to stimuhite and encourage zeal and fidelity in every good work. llobert B. Forbes, Esq., tiion spoke as follows: — Mr. Prksident axd Gentlemen : In offering my cordial support to the resolutions, my first sensation is one of regret that I cannot be endowed with a portion of the eloquence due to the occasion. If the feelings of my heart could be uttered by my lips, I might do justice to the subject. My relations with ^Ir. Everett, though never very inti- mate, have been of the most friendly character and long standing. To no individual in this community have I been accustomed to look up with more reverence, both on account of his public works and his private character. While wc sincerely mourn his departure, we cannot but rejoice that he was spared so long, and that he has gone to meet his reward, unimpaired by lingering illness, and in the fulness of his glorious career. 'Who is there in this community or in the whole coun- try, who has not been inspired to deeds of patriotism or charity by his brilliant example and unsurpassed elo- rpience, — who tliat could withstand his convincing argu- PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF TRADE. 123 merits, or fail to applaud the grace of his unequalled style? None, sir, but those -who have no minds to under- stand or no hearts to feel his power. There are but two things to regret in Mr. Everett's death : first, that we have no one to fill his place, and next, that he could not have been spared long enough to see — what he has done so much to bring about — the restoration of our glorious Union. No man living has done more towards this end than Edward Everett ; and few men, since the immortal Washington, whose lives and writings will do more, in the future, to preserve its integrity when that happy day shall come. Mr. President, I heartily concur in the language and in the spirit of the resolutions, and in all that has been said by the gentleman who has seconded them. Hon. Joseph ]\I. Wightman also addressed tlic Board upon tlie adoption of tlie resolutions, as follows : — Mr. President : I desire to mingle my feelings of deep' sympathy with the Board on this occasion, and to express my hearty concurrence in the resolutions, and the appro- priate remarks which have been made in reference to the death of Mr. Everett. In the various public positions with which I have been honored by my fellow-citizens, I have been brought into frequent intimate relations with Mr. Everett, and my con- nection, both private and official, with him, has always been characterized by a gentle courtesy, a kindly interest, and a cordial co-operation, that has entitled him to my warmest feelings of gratitude while living, and to my 124 MEMORIAL OF KI)WA1?D EVERETT. heartfelt sorrow and regret at his loss. But although tlie eloquent voice is hushed forever, and the trusty counsellor and friend has departed, Ave feel assured that he has only left us to repose in peace and happiness in the Ijosoni of his God. The resolutions were unaniniou.^ly ndoptcd. On motion of Mr. Wiglitnwm, it was voted tliat tlie resolutions and the aetion of the r>oaid in relation thereto be eoniniuniealed to the family of the deceased. I^orcnzo Sahine, Secretary of the Board, ottered a resolution that the rooms of the Board be draped in mourning for thirty days. In moving its adoption, ]\Ir. Sabine said that he, probably, was the oidv person now living who could do ^Ir. Everett full justice in a sinale jiartieular, namely, while the departed statesman was negotiating the Keciprocity Treaty, as Secretary of State ; and that, refraining on the present occasion, he should state the facts within his personal knowledge, at another time and in another way. The resolution was adopted with an amendment reconmiending a similar demonstration in the public room of the Merchants' E.\- change. The meeting then adjourned. PROCEEDINGS MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. PROCEEDINGS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. A Special Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society was held in the Dowse Library on ^Monday evening, Jan. 30, to com- memorate their late illustrious associate, Edward Everett. _ The attendance was very large. The meeting was called to order at 7i o'clock by tlie President, the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, who spoke as follows : — Gentlemen of the Massachusetts Historical Society : The occasion of this meeting is but too well known to you all. None of us were strangers to the grief which pervaded this community on the recent announcement of the death of Edward Everett. Not a few of us have had the privilege of uniting with the public authorities, who hastened to assume the whole charge of his funeral, in paying the last tribute to his honored remains. And more than one of us have already had an opportunity of giving some feeble expression to our sense of the loss which has been sustained by our city, our Common- AA'ealth, and our whole country. But we are here this evening to take up the theme again somewhat more deliberately, as a Society of which 128 MEMOIUAL OF KIJWAKD KVEKKTT. he was so long one of the most valuable, as well as one of the most distinguished members. We are here not merely to unite in lamenting the close of a career which has been crowded with so many good words and good works for tlie community and the country at large, but to give utterance to our own particular sorrow for the breach which has been made in our own clierislied circle. Mr. Everett was elected a member of this Society on the 27th of April, 1t Mr. PROCEEDINGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 137 Everett's motives and character. Not that he did not seek honorable distinction, not that he did not take pleasure in the applause which he had fairly earned ; but stronger even than these propelling impulses was his desire to be of service to his fellowmen, to do good in his day and generation. He loved his country with a fervid love, and he loved his race with a generous and comprehensive philanthrojiy. He was always ready to work cheerfully in any direction when he thought he could do any good, though the labor might not be particularly congenial to his tastes, and would not add anything to his literary reputation. The themes which he handled, during his long life of intellectual action, were very various, they were treated with great atflu- cuce of learning, singular beauty of illustration, and elaborate and exquisite harmony of style, but always in such a way as to bear practical fruit, and contribute to the advancement of society and the elevation of humanity. So, too, Mr. Everett was a sincere and consistent friend of progress. He was, it is true, conservative in his instincts and convictions ; I mean in a large and liberal, and not in a narrow and technical sense. But tliat he was an extreme conservative, or that he valued an institution simply because it was old, is not only not true, but, I think, the reverse of truth. He had a distaste to extreme views of any kind, and, by the constitution of his mind, was disposed to take that middle ground which partisan zeal is prone to identify with timidity or indifference. But he was a man of IS 138 MEMORIAL OF EDWAlil) EVEKKTT. generous impulses and large sympathies. No one was more quick to recognize true progress, and greet it with a more hospitable welcome. Xo man of liis age would have more readily and li<'artily acknowledged tli(; many points in which the world has adxauced since he was young. It would not be seasonable here to dwell upon Mr. Everett's public or political career, but I may be ])i'r- mitted to add that I think lie had genuine faith in the institutions of his country, which did not grow fainter us he grew older, lie l)elieved in man's capacity for self-government, and had confidence in popular instincts. lie was fastidious in his social tast(>s, but nut aristo- cratic ; that is, if he ])referred one man to another it was for essential and not adventitious qualities, for wliat tliey were, and not tor wliat they had. lie was miiformly kind to the young, and always promjjt to recognize and encourage merit in a young person. INIr. Everett, if not the founder of the school of American deliberative eloquence, was its most brilliant representative. In his orations and occasional discourses will be found his best title to remembrance, and l)y them his name will surely be transmitted to future generations. In judging of them, we must bear in mind that the aim of tlie deliberative orator is to treat a subject in such a way as to secure and fix the atten- tion of a ])opular audience, and tliis aim Mr. I',verett never lost sight of. If it be said tliat his discourses are not marked by originality of construction, or i)hilo- so])hical d('i)tli of thouuht. it may be re])lied that liad PROCEEDIXGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 139 they been so, they would have been less attractive to his hearers. They are remarkable for a combination of qualities rarely, if ever before, so happily blended, and especially for the grace, skill, and tact with which the resources of the widest cultivation are so used as to instruct the common mind and touch the common heart. For, whatever were the subject, Mr. Everett always took his audience along with him, from first to last. He never soared or wandered out of their sight. I need not dwell upon the singular beauty and finish of his elocution. Those who have heard him speak Avill need no description of the peculiar charm and grace of his manner, and no description will give any adequate impression of it to those who never heard him. It was a manner easily caricatured but not easily imitated. His power over an audience remained unim- paired to the last. At the age of seventy he spoke with all the animation of youth, and easily filled the largest hall with that rich and flexible voice, the tones of which time had hardly touched. His organization was delicate and refined, his tem- perament was sensitive and sympathetic. The opinion of those whom he loved and esteemed was weighty with him. Praise was ever cordial to him, and more neces- sary than to most men who had achieved such high and assured distinction. Doubtful as the statement may seem to those who knew him but slightly, or only saw him on the platform with his " robes and singing gar- lands" about him, he was to the last a modest and 140 MEMOKIAL OF KDWAliD EVERETT. self-distrustful man. lie never api)carcd in public without a slight iiutter of apprehension lest he should fall short of that standard which he had created for himself. His want of self-confidence, and, in later years, his Avant of animal spirits, sometimes produced a cold- ness of manner, which, by superficial observers, was set down to coldness of heart, but most unjustly. His nature was courteous, gentle, and sweet. Few men were ever more worthy than he to wear " the grand old name of gentlenuxn." His manners were ijraceful, more scholarlv than is usual with men who had been so much iu public life as he, and sometimes covered with a delicate veil of reserve. Conflict and contest were distasteful to him, and it was his disposi- tion to follow tlie things that make for peace. He liad a true respect for the intellectual rights of others, and it was no fault of his if he ever lost a friend through difterence of opinion. Permit me to turn for a moment to Mr. Everett's public life for an illustration of his character. In fo- rensic contests, sarcasm and invective are formidable and frequent weapons. The House of Commons quailed before the younger Pitt's terrible powers of sarcasm. An eminent living statesman and orator of Great Britain is remarkable for both these qualities. But neitlier invective nor sarcasm is to be found in ]Mr. Everett's speeches. I think this absence is to be ascribed not to an intellectual want but to a moral grace. Great men, jjublic men, have also their inner and private life, and sometimes tin's must be thrown by tiie PROCEEDINGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 141 honest painter into shadow. But in j\Ir. Everett's case there was no need of this, for his private life was spotless. In conduct and conversation he always con- formed to the highest standard which public opinion exacts of the members of that profession to which he originally belonged. As a brother, husband, father, and friend, there was no duty that he did not discharge, no call that he did not obey. He was generous in giving, and equally generous in sacrificing. Where he was most known he was best loved. He was wholly free from that exacting temper in small things which men, eminent and otherwise estimable, sometimes fall into. His daily life was made beautiful by a pervading spirit of thoughtful consideration for those who stood nearest to him. His household manners were delightful, and his household discourse was brightened by a lambent play of wit and humor; qualities which he possessed in no common measure, though they were rarely displayed before the public. Could the innermost circle of Mr. Everett's life be revealed to the general eye, it could not fail to deepen the sense of bereavement which his death has awakened, and to increase the reverence with which his memory is and will be cherished. No man ever bore his faculties and his eminence more meekly than he. He never declined the lowly and commonplace duties of life. He was always ap- proachable and accessible. The constant and various interruptions to Avhich he was exposed by the innu- merable calls made upon his time and thoughts were borne by him with singular patience and sweetness. 142 MEMORIAL OF KDWAHD EVERETT. His industry was as methodical as it was uniform. However busy he might be, he couhl always find time for any service which a friend required at . his hands. He was scrupulously faithful and exact in small things. He never broke an appointment or a promise. His splendid powers worked with all tlie regularity and precision of the most nicely adjusted machinery. If he had undertaken to have a discourse, a report, an arti- cle, ready at a certain time, it might be depended upon as surely as the rising of the sun. I feel that I have hardly touched upon the remark- able qualities of Mr. Everett's mind and character, and yet I have occupied as much of your time as is becom- in<^ I have onlv to offer a few resolutions, in which I have endeavored brietiy and simply to give expression to what we all feel. .Mr. Ilillard then presented tlie foUowini"; re.solutions : — Resolvpd, That as members of the ^lassachusetts His- torical Society, we record, with mingled pride and sorrow, our sense of what we have lost in the deatli ot our late illustrious associate, Edward Everett, tlie wise statesman, the ehxiuent orator, the devoted patriot, tlie finished scholar, whose long life of singular and un- broken intellectual activity has shed new lustre upon the name of our country in every part of the civilized world, and whose noble powers and unrivalled accom- plishments were always inspired by an enlarged and enlightened philanthropy, and dedicated to the best in- terests of knowlege, virtue, and truth. PROCEEDINGS OF THE HISTOKICAL SOCIETY. 143 Resolved, That we recall with peculiar sensibility the personal qualities and private virtues of our departed friend, the purity and beauty of his daily life, his strict allegiance to duty, the strength and tenderness of his domestic affections, the uniform conscientiousness which regulated his conduct, his spirit of self-sacrifice, his thoughtful consideration for the rights and happiness of others, and the gentleness with which his great facul- ties and hijrh honors were borne. Resolved, That the President of the Society be re- quested to transmit these resolutions to the family of our lamented associate, with an expression of our deep ■sympathy with them in their loss, and of our trust that they may find consolation not merely in tlie remembrance of his long, useful, and illustrious career, but in the hopes and promises of that religion of which he was a firm believer, and which was ever to him a staff" of support through life. The resolutions were seconded by Rev. Dr. Lothroi>, ^^'"^ then addressed tlie meeting, as follows : — Mr. President : I rise, at your request and at that of the standing committee, to second the resolutions which have just been offered, and to pay my portion of the tribute of profound, grateful, and affectionate respect, which the Society would offer this evening to the memory of our emi- nent deceased associate. And as we gather within these walls and in this room, where we have so often welcomed his presence, I feel brought back upon me afresh that sense of loneliness and of personal bereavement, which, in 144 MEMORIAL OF EDWAIU) KVEKETT. common witli so many. I had when I first heard tliat one who for more than forty years had been the object of my yonthful and my matnre admiration, one whose speech never disappointed me, bnt had often stirred my lieart witli pure and noble emotions, and to whom I and others liad so long been accustomed to tnrn upon all occasions of ])ublic interest and importance, as tlic person who could do and say, in the best way, the best things to be done and said, was really dead, and tliat the utterances of his wis- dom and eloquence would never more be heard by ns on eartli. My sorrow, however, at his departure, the sorrow of all of us, I think, must be greatly softened by the extraordinary felicity of tlie time and manner of his deatli, and by the recollection of tlie grand and noble career of wliicli tluit death was the close. In view of my profession and tlie ])ulpit wliich it has been my honor and liappiness to occupy in this city, it may be permitted me, in glancing at his career, to speak with some particuhirity of that whicli was the beginning of it before the public — his brief but honorable connec- tion with the cU'rical profession, and his sliort but brilliant pastorate at Brattle Street Cliurch. TNIr. Everett has said, I believe, that on leaving college his strongest preferences were for the law ; but the intiuence and advice of friends, combining with the ])romptings of liis own heart, the deep religious instincts of his nature, determined his choice of the Christian ministry. Tliat determination must now be regarded as fortunate for him and for us. He left the pulpit, indeed, shortly after lie had entered it ; but no true man ever forgets that lie has stood in it, and the rKOCEEDINGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 145 studies, the spiritual discipline and culture of his early profession seem to me to have exerted upon Mr. Everett's mind and heart blessed and important influences, which affected his whole subsequent career, and impregnated his life and character with the simple but grand dignity of purity. Graduating in 1811, at the age of seventeen, he spent two years and a few months at Cambridge, pursuing theological studies, and discharging at the same time the onerous duties of a tutorship. On the 10th of December, 1813, a mere youth, who had not yet numbered twenty winters, he first stood in Brattle Street pulpit to preach as a candidate. Fame had preceded him, and told of his talents rich and rare, of his great learning and his great capacity to learn, — marvellous even then in the judgment of his peers and of the University, — of his extraordinary gift of golden speech, his powers of winning, persuasive oratory. The great, though vague and undefined expectations thus awakened, were not disappointed. I have been told by many who distinctly remember the occasion, that when he rose in the pulpit that morning, a youthful modesty, almost timidity, blending with the dignity which a grave and rev- erent sense of the importance of his office inspired, lent a fascinating charm to his manner, and that from the moment he opened his lips, the audience were held spell- bound to the end of the service. When the days of his engagement were numbered, the universal cry was, "Come unto us in the name of the Lord ; break unto us the bread of life, and let all these rich gifts find their usefulness and their glory in the service of the Master here among us." 1!) l-t() MEMORIAL OF EDWAKD EVERETT. He heard the cry as the leadings of Providence, and came. His ordination, on the 9th of February, 181-i, was an occasion of as. deep interest as any event of the kind ever excited. The most eminent and exceUent men of that day took part in it. It brought a perfect satisfaction to the people. It awakened the most brilliant anticipations. It was accompanied not simply with the hope, but with the conviction, that the former glory of that pulpit, wliich the death of Buckminster had veiled for a season, would be revived with increased and increasing splendor. That conviction was verified. As the months rolled on, Brattle -Street Church, then near the residences rather than the business of the people, was crowded Sunday after Sunday witli audiences of the intelligent and the cultivated, wlio went away charmed, instructed, religiously impressed; and the records of the communion show that it was a season of spiritual growth as well as of outward prosperity. But the year had not reached its close before ])ainful rumors began to prevail that this was not to last, and at the end of thirteen months after his ordination, he resigned his charge, to accept the Eliot Professorship of Greek Litera- ture in the University at Cambridge, to which he had been appointed by the corporation, with leave of study and travel for five years in Europe, in further preparation for its duties. He left the clerical profession, and virtually the pulpit, when he thus left Brattle Street Churcli. On his return from Europe, indeed, and for two or three years subse- quent, he preached occasionally, some ten or fifteen, perhaps twenty times in all. I may be permitted a brief PROCEEDINGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 147 allusion to some of these occasions, which I remember. First, of course, he preached in what had been his own pulpit, Brattle Street, in tlie summer of 1819, a few weeks after his return. I was one of the mighty company that thronged the aisles of that church on that day, and, stand- ing on the window-seat nearest the door in the north gallery, heard him for the first time when I was just old enough to receive my first idea of eloquence, to understand and feel something of its power. A month or two later, in December of that year, I think, he preached a famous Christmas sermon at King's Chapel, and on the first Sun- day in December, 1820, the Quarterly Charity Lecture, at the Old South Church, which was crowded to overflowins to hear him. Another memorable and impressive sermon of his, preached several times in different pulpits in this vicinity, and which several gentlemen present must dis- tinctly remember, was on the text, " The time is short." He preached the sermon at the funeral of the Rev. Dr. Bent]^, of Salem, on the 3d of January, 1820, President Kirkland and Dr. Ware of the University officiating in the other parts of the service. This arrangement was probably made in the expectation that Dr. Bently had left his valuable library to Harvard College. But the doc- torate from Cambridge was conferred too late, and it was found that the library had been bequeathed to Alleghany College ; so, to the deep regret of those who heard it, Mr. Everett's sermon on this occasion was never pub- lished. On the 19th of January, 1821, he preached the sermon at the dedication of the First Congregational Church in the city of New York, of which the late Rev. 148 MEMORIAL OF EDWAKD EVERETT. "VA'ni. Ware subsequently became pastor. This sermon was published, and is, I believe, the only sermon he ever pub- lished. It is the only one I have ever seen. In style it is simple and grave, less rhetorical than his orations. It is liberal, but conservative, in its theology, broad and catholic in its charity, fervent in tone and spirit, evidentlv the product of a devout heart. This dedication at New York was the last or among the last occasions on whicli lu; preached. I feel quite confident tliat he did not preach after 1821, because the next year, as some who hear me will remember, in addition to the lectures connected with his professorship, and other duties at Cambridge, he was occupied with a course of lectures, whose prep- aration, judging from their learning and brilliancy, must have cost liiui no little time and study, on Art and Architecture, — more especially, if my memory serves me, on Greek and Egyptian Architecture, — which he delivered at what was then called the Pantlieon Hall, on "Wasli- ington Street, a little south of the Boylston ]\Iarket. Lectures of this kind were then unusual in Boston, and these, having in addition to tiieir novelty, the strong attraction of the nauie and fame of the lecturer, were attended by an audience as cultivated and ap])reciati^e as ever assembled for a similar purpose. From this review it appears that his whole connec- tion with the pvdpit, including his preparatory studies and pastorate before he went to Europe, and tlie period during which he preached occasionally after his return, was only about five years. Ilis exclusive connection witli it as pastor was onlv one \v;\r aiid a montli laclv- PROCEEDINGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 149 ing four days, from the 9th of February, 1814, to the 5th of March 1815. In this brief period he made an impression, as a preacher, which abides distinct and clear to this hour in many hearts. lie left the pulpit with the reputation of being the most eminent and eloquent man in it ; and he left in and with the pro- fession one book — his " Defence of Christianity " — which at the time it was published was justly regarded as one of the most learned and important theological works that had then been written in America, and which, considering its contents, the circumstances under which it was prepared, and the extreme youth of the author, may still be regarded as one of the most ex- traordinary books produced at any time in any profes- sion. It is one of those books, of which the paradox may be uttered, that its success caused its failure. It so perfectly accomplished its work that it almost dropt out of existence. Few of the present generation ever heard of it, fewer still know anything about it. Copies of it can now be found only here and there, on the shelves of Public Libraries, or among the books of aged clergymen. It was prepared, as some gentlemen here will remember, in reply to a work by Mr. George Bethune English, Avho graduated at Cambridge in 1807, the year Mr. Everett entered. This gentleman, not without talents, but erratic in his career, which his death terminated in 1828, remained at Cambridge four or five years after graduating, studied theology, and I believe, preached for a brief period. Being led, appar- ently by the study of the deistical works of Anthony 150 MEMORIAL OF EDWAKD EVERETT. Collins, to adopt opinions nnfavorable to Christianity as a divine revelation, he published a book entitled. " Tlie Grounds of Christianity examined by comparing the New Testament with the Old." This work, plausible in spirit, having the appearance of great candor in state- ment and fairness in argument, attracted attention and was much read. It unsettled the faith of many, and, if left uuanswered, seemed destined to do this for many more. Mr. Everett did. what several older nuui, 1 have heard, attempted without success ; he made a triumphant answer to Mr. English's l)0()k, in a volume of nearly five hundred pages, which to this day must be regarded as replete witli the learning bearing upon its particu- lar point. Cogent in argument, clear and close in its reasoning, eloquent often in the fervor and glow of a devout faith, keen yet kind in its wit and satire, conclu- sive in its ex])osition of tlu' ignorance of his opponent, his plagiarism, and his dishonesty in the use of his ma- terials, this book so comi)letely extinguished Mr. English and his disciples, that it soon ceased to be read itself. It died out, as I have said, and is now known only to a few of the older members of the community and the profession. It is a book of sucli a character, that any man at any period of his life miglit be pardoned the manifestation of some little self-complacency at finding himself the author of it. Many have passed a long life in the profession, and held a high and honorable position in it, without giving any evidence of the PKOCEEDINGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 151 mastery of so much of the learning that belongs to it as is contained in this work. His " Defence of Christianity," written partly before his ordination and published six montlis afterwards, in August, 181-i, was Mr. Everetfs legacy to the clerical profession, bequeathed to it before he was invested with a legal manhood. I am aware that their opinions on the Prophets and the Old Testament, generally, do not permit some eminent theological scholars to put a very high estimate upon Mr. Everett's " Defence of Christianity," but, for myself, without disparagement of the good he has done, and the honors he has attained in other departments, I cannot but think, that if there be any one event, work, or labor of his varied and useful life, of whicli he may, on a just estimate of things, be most proud, it is that in the days of his early youth, on the very threshold of his career, he prepared and published this book, which silenced the voice of infi- delity and gave peace, satisfiiction, and a firm faith to thousands of minds in a young and growmg community. We are not surprised that a career, which began in such industrv, in the exhibition of so much learning and such fidelity in improving opportunity, should have gone on to the close increasing in honor and usefulness. I do not propose to follow this career with such minute- ness all through, nor Avould it be proper in me to do so here ; but as I have spoken of the clergyman, I may be permitted to say something of the Professor at Cambridge, as I am the only member of the Society present, who, as a pupil in the Academic Department of the University, 152 MEMORIAL OF KDWAKl) KVKKETT. had the benefit of his instructions and lectures. Cam- bridge and the family of President Kirkland having been mv home for several years before I entered college in 1821, not long after he entered upon his professorship, I knew something aljout tlie college, and had ample opportunity of knowing also the fresh impulse which he gave to the study of (Jreek, by the general influence of his reputation as a Greek scholar, by his occasional presence at our recitations to the tutors in Greek, by his suggestive directions or advice to such students as wished to give special attention to this department, but chiefly by his lectures on the Greek language and literature, Avhich were delivered to the senior class, in what was then, there beiu"' three, the second or Spring Term of the college year. The class graduating in 182-'), of which I was a member, was the last of the six classes who had tlie benefit of these lectures. From my recollection of them, from notes taken at the time, and from the printed synop- sis which was furnished for our guidance, 1 have a strong impression of the extraordinary chnracter of those lec- tures, as profound, comprehensive, discriminating, and lar"elv exhaustive of all tlie learning connected with their theme. Had he published them when he resigned, he would have left in his Professor chair a legacy as remarkable, in its kind, as his legacy to the pulpit in his " Defence; of Christianity," and secured to himself such a reputation as a Greek scholar, master of all the learning appertaining to the history and criticism of Greek literature, as many a man would have been willing to rest upon for the remainder of his life. . PROCEEDINGS OF TIIK HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 153 But while professor at Cambridge, Mr. Everett was interested not simply in bis immediate duties, but in whatever touched the welfare and improvement of the college. In all departments his influence was felt, and in one direction he was active in a way which had some connection, I suppose, with his resignation of his profes- sorship to enter upon political life. In 1823, some of the eminent gentlemen at Cambridge, then resident professors, took np the thought, not without some quite substantial reasons, that the " Fellows," as they are term- ed in the Charter, " Members of the Corporation," as we commonly designate them, should be chosen from among themselves ; that the authoritative body, controlling the college, having primarily the charge of all its interests, and the conduct of all its affairs, shoiild be composed of the working men on the spot, who best understood its condition and its wants, and were most competent to carry it on successfully, rather than of gentlemen engaged in other occupations, and living in Boston, Salem, or some more distant place. In 1824, they prepared a memorial to this effect, addressed to the Corporation, who referred them to the Board of Overseers, before which body, a hearing, asked for and granted, was subsequently held. The late Andrews Norton, Dexter Professor of Sacred Literature, and Mr. Everett, were selected to represent the memorialists at this hearing. Mr. Norton read a very able paper, marked by the concise accuracy of statement and closeness of reasoning for which he was distinguished. Mr. Everett without manuscript, with only a .few brief memoranda, such as a lawyer 20 lo-t MEMOIilAI, OF KI)\VAI;D EVERETT. would use before a jury, addrcsscnl the Board in a speech occupying more than two hours. He was inter- rupted at times by gentlemen of the Board adverse to the position of the memorialists, the accuracy, a pertinence, or propriety of his statements questioned, and in one instance, if not more, the dec'ision of the ('hair, (Lieut. Gov. jNIorton presiding,) tliat he was " not in order." required him to change his line of argument and remark. Nothing, however, seemed to confuse or discom- pose him. The situation was novel and trying, yet he sustained himself with an admirable degree of self-posses- sion, and conducted his cause with great ability. I have always sui)i)osed tliat it was the exhibition of his ])owers on tliis occasion, the coolness and tact with \\liich lie conducted himself in an argument, and sometimes almost a debate, before a body of eminent men, some of whom were opposed to his jiosition, that first suggested his nomination to represent Middlesex in Congress, and that his splendid and elo([uent oration before the Phi Beta Kap])a Society, in August, 1.S24, only helped to contirm the purpose of his nomination, and secure his electitni. Thus much at least is clear, any distrust tliat may have been felt in any (piarter as to his fitness or competency for congressional service, in view of his scliolastic train- ing and habits, found a conclusive answer in the manner in which he bore himself in tliis hearing before the Board of Overseers. ]5ut whatever suggested the nomination, it was made, and he was elected in the autumn of 18'24, and, delivering his lectures for the last time in the spring of \S'2'^, he PllOCEEUlNGS OF THE IIISTOIUCAL SOCIETr. 155 resigned and took his scat in Congress in December of that year. The deep regret felt and expressed by many at that time, that so much learning, such various abilities, persuasive eloquence, and rare combination of qualities, were lost to the direct service of literature and religion, must be largely diminished, if not entirely extinguished by his eminent and brilliant success, by his wide spread use- fulness in varied departments of public and political life, by the singular nobleness and purity of his whole career, and by his constant fidelity and devotedness to the interests of truth, virtue, and religion. For he seems to me to have been thus faithful and devoted. I feel disposed to main- tain that ]S[r. Everett was true always to the spirit of bis early vows, and though he did not continue in the admin- istration of religion as an institution of society, he continued to cultivate its spirit and power in his heart, and to make it the controlling inspiration and energy of his life. It is not necessary, nor would it be proper for me here, to go into an analysis of his speeches, votes, or conduct at various junctures in our public affairs during the last forty years, but it seems to me, that whatever difference of judgment party predilections may dispose us to entertain about portions of his public career, a broad, generous, just, and fair review of the whole of it, will lead every one to concur in the position, that it was all under- laid and impregnated from the beginning to the end with a simple, honest, conscientious, patriotic purpose. The very admirable and beautiful analysis of his character, which ]Mr. Hillard has just read before us, seemed to me to confirm this position, and to give the true explanation 156 MEJtORIAL OF EDWARD EVEHKTT. of his course. From his entrance upon pubHc ht'e in 1825, to the spring of 18()1, all through those more than thirty years, in which the struggle between the antago- nistic elements of liberty and slavery in our government and institutions came up in various forms, he, in conunon with many of our greatest statesmen and large masses of our people, felt that a certain line of policy was the wisest and the best, most adapted to keep the peace, to preserve the Union from dissolution, and the Government and the country from ruin. Therefore, adhering to this policy, adopted on conviction, he was for patience, for- bearance, compromise, concession, for yielding anything and everything tluit could, not simply in justice, but in generosity and honor, be yielded to satisfy those who were perpetually holding over us the menace of dissolu- tion. Honestly, and in th(- spirit of a broad patriotism, to disarm this nu^nace of all occasion and all justification, was the purpose of his action and jjolicy while in public office, and of his efforts as a private citizen, and es[)ecially of that grand national pilgrimage which he made with the life and character of Washington as the theme of a magni- ficent discourse, which he delivered so many times to such vast assemblies in all the principal cities of the land, in the hope tluit under the shadow of that august name, and by the glory of a memory so sacred to all of us, he might allay sectional prejudice and the strife of parties, and bind all together in a common love and devotion to the Union. But Avhcn this hope failed, and he found that treason had ileveloped its plans, that rebellion, unfurling its standard, had inauiiurated civil war. tlien the jiolicv tliat PROCEEDINGS OF THE IIISTOIUCAL SOCIETY. 157 had hitherto guided his life was instantly abandoned. He felt that there was no longer any room for concession or compromise, and so gave himself, time, talents, wisdom, strength, all that he had, in all the ways tliat he could, to support the legitimate Government of the United States, in all the action and policy by which that Government sought to maintain at all hazards and at any cost the integrity of the Union and country which that Government was instituted to preserve. But in all this he was under the inspiration of a patriotism that always dwelt in his heart, though in these latter years he seems to have been raised to an energy, enthusiasm, and earnest- ness of effort, that indicate a deeper and stronger convic- tion that he was right than he exhibited or perhaps ever experienced before. This is the true interpretation, T conceive, to be put upon Mr. Everett's political course as a public man. In our estimate of him intellectually, it w"ill not be maintained, I presume, that Mr. Everett was one of those grand, original, creative, inventive, productive minds, that strike out new paths in science, philosophy, or the policies of States. Such minds come upon tlie world only in the cycle of centuries. But he had a mind of vast powers, capable of comprehending princi- ples, gathering up details, and making use of both. He had a conscientious, unwearied industry, and conse- quently accumulated vast stores of knowledge in all the departments of art, science, history, and literature. He had a wonderful memory, raised to its highest power by constant culture and exercise. He had a rare combi- 1.3H MEMORIAL OF KDWAKD EVERETT. niitioii of intellectual, moral, and physical faculties, and above all, he had the ijower of using all his faculties and all his acquisitions with grace, beauty, and dignity, so that he touched nothing that he did not illustrate and adorn, and came before us ever, on all occasions, Avith a freshness and force that charmed and instructed. As is well known to his intimate friends, he was sin- gularly kind, tender, faithful, and true in every domestic relation of life, and to all the claims of kindred and friendship, with a warm heart under a reserved manner, and a sympathizing spirit under lips often reticent ; and if, remembering this, we do justice to his private, per- sonal character, and then look at his public career, at the wide circle of varied offices which he successively held, at the labor performed, the ability displayed in eacli ; if we add to these his works as a scholar and a literary man, — his magnificent orations, all of them such masterpieces of elocpience, pure and elevating in their impression; broad, noble, generous in their thoughts; breathing ever the sjjirit of piety and ])atriotism, fitted to instruct our people and unfold our history, while they adorn our literature, — his numerous contributions to the periodical press, especially those to the North Aiiicricaii Review, often profound discussions of grave questions in literature and philosophy ; if we then crown all with the noble and patriotic labors of the last four years, we find enough surely in this survey to win for him alike our ad- miration and our gratitude ; enough, and more than enough, to dispose us to bow before his memory in reverence, and accord to him the luime and the fame of being a great PROCEEDINGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 159 man. Where shall we find one who in snch varied spheres has done so ninch and done it so well ? His Avas a noble life and character, and his career, followed from the beginning to the end, was marvcllons in its early precocity, its growing wisdom, its ever increasing breadth, and its grand conclusion. He was a Franklin Medal scholar in the old North Grammar School at the age of ten, a Franklin Medal scholar at the Public Latin School at thir- teen, chief in his class at Cambridge at seventeen, a tutor in the University at eighteen, an ordained minister of the Gospel before he was twenty, appointed to a professorship of Greek literature before he was twenty-one, elected a member of Congress at thirty ; and thence, after a few years' service in the halls of national legislation, he was called to the Chief Magistracy of this State, all of Avhose affairs he directed with wisdom, dignity, and usefulness, — and thence to represent his country abroad in one of its most important and honorable foreign embassies, — and thence, on his return to his native laud, to preside over the interests of learning at its oldest and most advanced University, — and thence to a seat in the National Cabinet for the Department of State, — and thence to a place in that august body, the Senate of the United States, — and thence, through noble and patriotic labors, to a higher and broader place than he had ever held before, in the hearts of his countrymen ; and when he had attained to this grand preeminence, to be the foremost private citizen in all the land, holding no public office, but wield- ing a power and doing a service which mere office could never do, wearing this great distinction with unaffected 1()0 MEMORIAL OF EDWAKD EVERETT. modesty, Avalking among iis with none of the infirmities bnt all the glory of age upon his jierson, and tlie wisdom of age in his speech, — then the beautiful and fitting end came, and without a lingering sickness, without a shadow u[)on his noble faculties, suddenly he died. Alone in his solitary preeminence, alone, as it were, he died ; and that cold Sunday morning air, that brought a chill to onr bodies, as it swept through our streets and by our doors with its sad announcement, " Edward Everett is dead!" brought a chill to our hearts which the warmth of many summers will not dispel, and left an image and a memory there that will al)ide with all of us, beautifnl anjt: Ai)art from the intimation with whicli 1 have been honored through you and other r(>spected friends. 1 might have been prom])ted by my own feelings to offer a few remarks on this most sol- emn and interesting occasion. One of the few remaining companions of my youth has departed. An uninterrupted friendship of nearly sixty years has been dissolved. ]^ut I am not here to speak of my own loss or my own feelings, but to contribute in doing justice to the memory of the deceased. The theme is a most copious one. It is not mv purpose to analyze the character of our friend, still less to indulge in vague and extravagant eulogy. I pr(-fer to sp(>ak InieHy of those points in his cliaractcr which have stam|)(ul themselves most deeply rROCEEDTNGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 161 on my own memory. We were of the same class in college, and for two years of our college life occupied the same apartment. I have ever looked back on that association as one of the most valuable, as well as one of the most gratifying, of my early days. His ripeness of judgment was not less remarkable than the precocity of his genius. But there is yet higher praise. I can say, and you perceive that I had some means of knowing, that I never knew one who preserved a more unruffled temper. Xot a single instance can I recollect of irritability. Such a temper must of neces- sity be its own reward, and I think we may fairly ascribe to it much of his subsequent greatness. For, sir, among the many weighty truths which fell from his lips, I recollect none more striking than a remark in his lecture to the working-men, while recommending the improvement of their leisure hours. " Generally speaking," he observes, " our business allows us time enough, if our passions Avould but spare us." Never man more faithfully practised as he preached. In the course of his life he had his share of those chastening: dispensations which come in various shapes and degrees to every one. But none of them caused the slightest remission in his unwearied industry. The great sum- mons which awaits us all found him at his work, and so it would have done, come when it might. I shall say little more of his college life. New England edu- cation was not then what it has since become. Mr. Everett improved his literary advantages to the utmost, and bore off the first honors. IGi MEMORIAL OF EDWAKD EVERETT. I pass over his short but brilliant ministry in tho pulpit and his years of assiduous study in foreign countries. Shortly after his return he assumed the post of editor of our leading review. It was at a most inter- esting period. This country and Great Britain had closed their contests by an honorable peace, and there was on our side a general disposition to cultivate a friendly and respectful feeling towards our late adver- saries. This certainly was not fully reciprocated. Tlie leading British reviews seemed to agree in nothing so much as in speaking of our country and its institutions with hatred or contempt. INIr. Everett felt it his duty to stand forth in defence of our good name. It is not a little to his praise that while he did this most ably and earnestly, he always preserved the dignity befitting his cause and himself, and never descended to meet liis antagonists with their oAvn weapons. There is good reason to believe that his candid and manly appeals to tlie good sense of the people of England were not in vain, and that thcv contributed to create among educated Englishmen a feeling better becoming them and more just to us, a feeling which for a long time seemed prev- alent, and which we had hoped would have been general and permanent. Mr. Everett's able and eloquent defences of the good name of his country naturally led to invi- tations to serve her in public trusts. I will not pretend to say that such invitations were unacceptable. Suffice it to remark that, if he desired public life, he never accepted an office wliicli was not properly offered, never purchased one by pledges in I'ROCEEDINGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 163 advance, direct or indirect, and never for a moment used his position for the emolument of himself or his friends. What I have more to say will be devoted to his personal character. A spotless private character has ever been considered in New England, and I trust not in New England alone, as one of the elements of true greatness, and Heaven forbid that it should ever be held in light estimation ! This merit was his beyond impeach- ment, — not his alone, most certainly, but his eminence in other respects rendered his example in this more conspicuous, and thus more widely beneficial. Of this character I shall notice one leading feature, — I mean his wakeful and unremitted disposition to benefit others. If judged by his fruits, we must allow that Edward Everett was a most benevolent man. His exertions and resources of mind, body, or estate were most freely imparted on every reasonable call, — I should say on every reasonable opportunity. Whether the applicant Avas a friend or a stranger, the occasion conspicuous or unconspicuous, it was enough for him that he could serve or oblige in great or small. And now, sir, I will close by a few inquiries. No one will suspect me of disparaging any of our eminent men, departed or surviving, when I ask — Has any one among us ever been more distinguished by a noble use of noble endowment] Has there been any one less obnoxious to the charge of talents wasted and time misspent, any one who could say with more truth in words he once felt compelled to utter, that he knew not how the bread of idleness tasted? Has any 164: MEMORIAL OF EDWAKD EVEKETT. one done more, by his wise and eloquent productions, to elevate, instruct, and reiine the minds of his countrymen ? Eiually, has any one been more distinguished by exem- plary fidelity in public office and by constant kindness and benevolence in private life I Few higher eulogies can be uttered than the reply which must rise to the lips of every one. George Ticknor, Esq. then addressed the ineetiiii;- as follows : — Mr. President : I ask your permission to say a few words concerning the eminent associate and cherished friend whom we have lost, — so sadly, so suddenly lost. It is but little that I can say becoming the occasion, so well was he known of all ; for, in his early youth, he rose to a lu'ight, which has led us to watcli and honor and understand, from the first, his long and brilliant career. On looking back over the two centuries and a half of this our New England history, I recollect not more than three or four persons who, during as many years of a life protracted as his was beyond threescore and ten, have so nuich occupied the attention of the country, — I do not remember a single one, who has presented himself under such various, distinct, and remarkable aspects to classes of our community so separate, thus conunanding a de- gree of interest from each, whether scholars, theolo- gians, or statesmen, which in the aggregate of its popular infiueuce has become so extraordinary. For he has been, to a marvellous degree successful, in whatever he has touched. His whole way of life for above fifty years can now be traced back by the monuments which he TKOCEEDINGS OF THE HISTOlilCAL SOCIETY. 165 erected with liis own hand as he advanced ; each seem- ing, at the time, to be sufhcient for the reputation of one man. Few here are old enough to remember when the lirst of these graceful monuments rose before us ; none of us I apprehend is so young, that he will survive the splendor of their long line. And, now that Ave have come to its end, and that it seems as if the whole air were filled with our sorrowful and proud recollections, as it is with the liglit at noonday, we feel with renewed force that we have known him as we have known very few men of our time. And this is true. How, then, can I say anything that shall be worthy of memory ; still less anything that is fit for record ? When he was ten or eleven years of age and I was about three years older, his family came to live within a few doors of my father's house and subsequently removed to a contiguous estate. But, at this time, Mr. President, when the City of Boston, I suppose, was not one fifth as large as it is now, neighborhood implied kindly acquaint- ance. I soon knew his elder brother, Alexander, then the leader of his class at Cambridge, while I was a student in a class one year later, at Dartmouth Collece. I at once conceived a strong admiration for that remark- able scholar; — an admiration, let me add, which has never been diminished since. The younger brother, of whom I saw little, was then in that' humble school in Short Street which he has made classical by his occasional allusions to it, and to the two Websters who were his teachers there. From the elder of these, who was fre- quently at my father's house, I used to hear much about 166 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. the extraordinary talents and prof^ress of this younger Everett ; praise which my admiration of his brother pre- vented me, I fear, from receiving, for a time, with so ghul a welcome as I ought to have done. During the two or three subsequent years, while the younger brother was at Exeter or beginning his career at Cambridge, I knew little of him, though I was much with the elder and belonged to at least one pleasant club of wliich he was a member. The first occasion on which the younger scholar's de- liglitful character broke upon me, with its true attributes, is still fresh in my recollection. It was in the summer of 1809. Mr. Alexander Evei-ctt was then about to embark for St. Petersburg, as the private secretary of Mr. John Quincy Adams, and a i'cw nights before he left us, he gave a su])p<'r — saddened, indeed, by the ])arting that was so soon to follow, but still a most agreeable supper — to eight or ten of his ])ersonal friends, one of whom [Dr. Bigelow] T now see before me; — the last, except myself, remaining of that well remembered symposium. The younger brother was there, so full of gayety — unassum- ing but irrepressible — so full of whatever is attractive in manner or in conversation, that I was perfectly carried captive by bis light and graceful humor. And this, let me here say, has always been a true element of his char- acter, lie was never at any period of his life a saturnine man. In his youth he overflowed with animal spirits; and, although from the time of his entrance into political life, with the grave cares and duties that were imposed upon him, the lightheartedness of his nature was some- PROCEEDINGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 167 what oppressed or obscured, it was always there. There was never a time I think — excepting in those days of trial and sorrow that come to all — in which, anions the private friends with whom he was most intimate, he was not cheerful, nay charmingly amusing. It was so the very day before his death. He was suffering from an oppression on the kings; and, as I sat with him, he coukl speak only in whispers ; but, even then, his natural playfulness was not wanting. But from the time of that delightful supper in 1809, my regard never failed to be fastened on him. At first, during his under-graduate's life, at Cambridge, I saw him seldom. But in that simpler stage of our society, when the interests of men were so different from what they have become since, all who concerned themselves about letters, were familiar Avith what was done and doinsr in Cambridge. Everett, youthful as he was, was eminently the first scholar there, and we all knew it. We all — or, at least, all of us who were young — read the " Harvard Lyceum," which he edited, and which, I may almost say, he filled with his scholarship and humor. In 1811 he was graduated with the highest honors, and pronounced, with extraordinary grace of manner, a short oration, on — if I rightly remember — "The Diffi- culties attending a Life of Letters," which delighted a crowded audience, attracted more than was usual by the expectations that waited on what is called " The first part." But thus far, what was most known of his life was strictly academic, and was only more widely spread than an academic reputation is wont to be because he 168 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. was himself already so full of recognized promise and power. His time, in fact, was not yet come. But tlie next year it came. He was invited to deliver the customary ])oem at Commencement, before the " Phi Beta Kappa Society." It was not, pcrliaps, a period, when much success could have been anticipated for anybody, on a merely literary occasion. The war with England had been declared only a few weeks earlier and men felt gloomy and disheartened at the prospect before them. Still more recently Buckminster had died, only twenty- eight years old, but loved and admired, as few men ever have been in this community; — mourned, too, as a loss to the beginnings of true scholarship among us, which many a scholar then thought might hardly be repaired. But, as in all cases of a general stir in tlie popular feel- ing, there was an excitement abroad which permitted the minds of men to be turned and wielded in directions widely different from that of the prevailing current. The difficulty was to satisfy tlie demands in such a disturbed condition of things. Mr. Everett was then just in tliat " o])ening manhood" which Homer, with his unerring truth, has called '• the fairest term of life." And how handsome he was, Mr. President ! We all know how remarkable was Milton's early beauty. An engraving of him — a tine one — by Vertue, from a portrait preserved in the Onslow family, and painted when the poet was about twenty, is well known. But, sir, so striking was the resemblance of this engraving to our young friend, that I remember often seeing a copy of it inscribed with his name in cai)ital let- PROCEEDINGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 169 ters, and am unable to say that the inscription was amiss. Radiant, then, with such personal attractions, he rose before an audience already disposed to receive him with extraordinary kindness. His subject Avas, " American Poets," certainly not a very promising one. Of course his treatment of it was essentially didactic ; but there was such a mixture of good-natured satire in it, so much more praise willingly accorded than was really deserved, such humorous and happy allusions to what was local, personal, and familiar to all, and such solemn and tender passages about the condition of our society, and its anxieties and losses, — that it was received with an applause which, in some respects, I have never known equalled. Graver and grander success I have often known to be achieved, on greater occasions, not only by others but by himself. But never did I witness such clear, unmingled delight. Every- thing was forgotten but the speaker and what he chose we should remember. This success, it should be recollected, was gained when Mr. Everett was only a little more than eighteen years old. But, sir, in fact, it had been gained earlier. The poem had been read when he was only about seventeen, before a club of college friends in the latter part of his senior year, and had now been fitted by a few additions, for its final destination. Its publication was immediately demanded and urged. But on the whole it was deter- mined not to give it fully to the world. Four copies, however, were privately struck off on large paper, one of which I received at the time from the author, and thirty- 22 170 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. six more in common octavo, whicli were at once dis- tributed to other eager friends. But this was by no means enough. A little later, therefore, there were printed, with slight alterations, sixty copies more, of which he save me two, in an extra form, marked with his fair autograph. I know not where three others are now to be found ; though I trust, from the great contemporary interest in the poem itself, and from its real value, that many copies of it have been saved. It is written in the versification consecrated by the success of Drydeu and Pope; and if it contains lines marked by the characteristics of the early age at which it was produced, there is yet a power in it, a richness of thought, and a graceful finish, of which probably few men at thirty would have been found capable. At any rate, in the hundred and more years during which verse had then been printed in these Colonies and States, not two hundred pages, I think, can now be found, which can be read with equal interest and pleasure. It was only a few weeks afterwards, as nearly as I recollect, that he began to preach. I heard his first two sermons, delivered to a small congregation in a neiglibor- iug town, and I heard him often afterwards. The effect was always the same. There was not only the attractive manner, whicli we had already witnessed and admired, but there was, besides, a devout tenderness, whicli liad hardly been foreseen. The main result, however, liad been anticipated. He was, in a few months, settled over the church in Brattle Street, with the assent and admira- tion of all. PROCEEDINGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 171 But, iu the midst of his success in tlie pulpit, he was turned aside to become a controversial theologian. Early in the autumn of 1813, Mr. George B. English published a small book, entitled, " The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing the New Testament with the Old." It was, in fact, an attack on the truth of the Chris- tian religion, in the sense of Judaism. Its author, whom I knew personally, was a young man of very pleasant intercourse, and a great lover of books, of which he had read many, but with little order or Avcll-defined purpose. He would, I think, have been a man of letters, if such a path had been open to him. A profession, however, was needful. He studied law, but became dissatisiied with it. He studied divinity, but was never easy in his course. His mind was never well balanced, or well settled upon anything. He was always an adventurer — just as much so in the scholarlike period of his life, as he was after- wards, when he served under Ismail Pasha, in Egypt, and attempted to revive the ancient war-chariots armed with scythes. His ill-constructed book received several answers, direct and indirect, from the pulpit and the press ; but none of them was entirely satisfactory, because their authors had not frequented the strange by-paths of learning in which Mr. English had for some time been wandering with perverse preference. Mr. Everett, however, followed him everywhere with a careful scholarship and exact logic unknown to his presumptuous adversary. His " Defence of Christianity" was published in 1814, and I still possess one, out of half a dozen copies of it that were 172 MEMORIAL OF EDWAUD EVEHETT. printed for the author's friends, on extra paper, and are become curious as showing how ill understood, in those simpler days, were the dainty luxuries of bibliography. But the proper end of the book was quickly attained. Mr. English's imperfect and unsound learning was demol- ished at a blow ; and, as has just been so happily said by Dr. Lothrop, the whole controversy, even Mr. Everett's part of it, is forgotten, because it has been impossible to keep up any considerable interest in a question which he had so absolutely settled. Mr. Everett's " Defence," however, will always remain a remarkable book. Some jears after its publication. Professor Monk, of Cambridge, the biographer of Bentley, and himself afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, told me that he did not think any Episcopal library in England could be accounted complete which did not possess a copy of it. In the winter following the publication of this book — that is, in the winter of 1814-1.5 — he was elected Pro- fessor of Greek Literature. I was then at the South, having made up my mind to pass some time at the Uni- versity of Gottingen, and was endeavoring, chiefly among the Germans in the interior of Pennsylvania, to obtain information concerning the modes of teaching in Ger- many, about which there then prevailed in New England an absolute ignorance now hardly to be conceived. With equal surprise and delight, I received letters from my friend telling me of his appointment, and that, to qualify himself for the place offered him, he should endeavor to go with me upon what we both regarded as a sort of adventure, to Germany. Perlia[)s I should add that this PROCEEDINGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 173 sudden change in his course of life excited no small com- ment at the time, and that, especially by a part of tlie parish whose brilliant anticipations he thus disappointed, it was not accepted in g, kindly spirit. Uiit of its wisdom and rightfulness there was soon no doubt in the mind of anybody. We embarked in April, 1815, and passed a few weeks in London, during the exciting period of Bonapar-te's last campaign, and just at the time of the battle of Waterloo. But we were in a hurry to be at work. We hastened, therefore, through Holland, stopping chiefly to buy books, and early in August were already in the chosen place of our destination. It was our purpose to remain there a year. But the facilities for study were such as we had never heard or dreamt of. My own residence was in consequence protracted to a year and nine months, and Mr. Everett's was protracted yet six months longer — both of us leaving the tempting school at last sorry and unsatisfied. How well he employed his time there the great results shown in his whole subsequent life have enabled the world to judge. I witnessed the process from day to day. We were constantly together. Except for the first few months, when we could not make convenient arrange- ments for it, we lived in contiguous rooms in the same house — the house of Bouterwek, the literary histoi-ian, and a favorite teacher in the university. During the vacations — except one, when he went to the Hague, to see his brother Alexander, then our vSecrctary of Legation in Holland — we travelled together about Germany ; and 174 MEMORIAL OV EDWAKU KVERETT. every day in term time we went more or less to the same private teachers, and the same lecturers. But he struck in his studies much more widely than I did. To say notliing of his constant, iudefatigahle hil)or upon the (J reek with Dissen, he occupied himself a good deal with Arabic under Eichhorn, he attended lectures upon modern history by lleeren, and upon the civil law by Hugo, and he followed besides the courses of other i)rofessors, whose teachings I did not frecpient and whose names I no longer remember. His power of labor was prodigious; unequalled in my experience. One instance of it — the more striking, per- haps, because disconnected from his regular studies — is, I think, worth especial notice. We had been in Gtittin- gen, 1 believe, above a year, and hv was desirous to send home something of what he had learnt about the modes of teacliing, not only there, but in our visits to the univer- sities of Leipzig, llalle, Jena, and lU'rlin, and to the great preparatory schools of Meissen, and Pfrote. He had, as nearly as I can recollect, just begun this task. But how so voluminous a matter was to be sent home was an important question, llegular packets there were none, even between New York and Liverpool. AVc depended, therefore, very nuich on accident — altogether on tran- sient vessels. Opportunities from Hamburg were rare and greatly valued. Just at this time our kind mer- cantile correspondents at that port gave ns sudden notice that a vessel for Boston would sail immediately. There was not a moment to be lost ; Mr. Everett threw every- thing else aside, and worked for thirtv-tive consecutive TROCEEDINGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 175 hours on his letter, despatching it as the mail was closing. But, though sadly exhausted by his labor, he was really uninjured, and in a day or two was fully refreshed and restored. I need not say that a man who did this was in earnest in what he undertook. But let me add, Mr. President, that, by the constant, daily exercise of dispo- sitions and powers like these, he laid during those two or three years in Giittingen, the real foundations on which his great subsequent success, in so many widely different ways, safely rested. I feel as sure of this as I do of any fact of the sort within my knowledge. When I left GiJttingen, he and a young American friend [Stephen H. Perkins] — then under his charge, and who still survives — accompanied me on my first day's journey. At Hesse Cassel we separated, thinking to meet again in the south of Europe, and visit together Greece and Asia Minor, which, from the time of the appearance of " Childe Harold," four or five years earlier, had been much in our young thoughts and imaginations. But " Forth rushed the Levant and the Ponent winds." A few months afterwards, at Paris, I received the api)oint- ment of Professor of French and Spanish Literature, at Cambridge ; and, from that moment, it was as plain that my destination was Madrid, as it was that he was bound to go to Athens and Constantinople. We did not, there- fore, meet again until his return home, in the autumn of 1819, where I had preceded him by a few months. From this time Mr. Everett's life has been almost con- stantly a public one, and all have been able to judge him freely and fully. He began his lectures on Greek litera- 176 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. tine at Caiiil)riclgc the next summer, and 1 went from Boston regularly to hear them, for the pleasure and instruction they gave me. The notes I then took of them, and which I still preserve, will b(-ar witness to the merit just ascribed to them by the fiiend on my left, who heard the same course somewhat later. But Mr. Everett was, in another sense, already a public man. From the natural concern he felt in the fate of a country he had so recently visited, he took a great interest, as early as 1821-23, in the Greek Revolution, and wrote and spoke on it. both as a philanthropic and as a ])olitical question. In 1- to his lips, " If thine enemy hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him drink." Blessed close of a great and good life. Blessed privi- lege to forget for a moment the horrors and glories even of war, the shouts and waving banners of triumph, to sit again at the feet of the Divine Master, to lean upon his bosom, to be kindled by and to radiate his divine love. lion. James Savage iikuIc tlie lollowiii;^ remarks : — Mu. President: I am a little surprised to be called up ; and yet, sir, as the catalogue of the Society shows, Mr. Everett's name stood next to mine, I hope I may be ex- cused if the infirmity of age is more apparent than any- thin SOCIETr. 203 of good and evil which are found in so many of the men whom the workl has called famous. But in the life of Mr. Everett, we seek, in vain, for any such contrasts as these. It was not hecause there were not, in the constitution of his mind and character, prominent and strikiuir qualities, but because there was no occasion to go through the process of balancing these qualities against each other, in order to determine the relative rank of merit in which he is hereafter to be held in the judgment of posterity. His character in this respect was homoge- neous in its elements, and complete, as well in its parts, as in the relations of these to each other. That which must have struck every one who knew Mr. Everett as worthy of special notice, was the filling up, if I may so say, which gave to his life and character that roundness of proportion which renders it difficult, as we now look upon it, to say which of the traits for which he was distinguished, stand out most prominently upon the canvas. The picture is therefore in danger of being indistinct, from the absence of shade by which to bring out its features into bolder relief. He was the scholar at the same time that he was the orator of the pulpit and of the senate. He was the statesman and the diplomatist, the administrative officer, and, for many years of his life, the leading citizen in all the land. He was the Christian gentleman and the patriot; — and he won in them all, the respect and admiration of the covuitry. And yet, who is now ready to say in which of these he transcended his own excellence in any other trait into which his character may be divided ? Had he been either of these alone, 204 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. there would have been, m the graces and accomplish- ments which he Avould have brought to its duties, enough to have given to his life in that sphere, the seeming iinish of completeness. This is ^^llat I mean by that filling up which gave such an r'dmirable fulness and consistency of proportion, in his character and life. I might illustrate this thought further by referring to what is familiar, ])erhaps, to us all. It is more than forty years since 1 first heard him in the pulpit. I need not say with how much delight I listened to the rich and varied thought, the beauty of diction, the inimitable power of description, the affluence of illustration, and the pathos of appeal which gave so much life to his sermons of tliat day. These qualities of high pulpit oratory may not have been peculiar to him. But there was added to these, a beauty of countenance, a grace in action, a sweetness in voice, and an impressive, though almost ' measured modulation in tone and cadence, which left upon the mind of the hearer the conviction that he was unsurpassed as a rhetorician and an orator. I afterwards heard liiin on the floor of Congress, and there he was no less at home than in the pulpit. And the dignity of his bearing, the mastery he showed of his subject, and the eloquence of the language he uttered, commanded the willing attention of that body, while it was yet dignified by men of eloquence and a national fame. We all know how faithfully and conscientiously he performed the duties of the Executive of this Common- wealth. Nothing was left undone which courtesy, or PROCEEDINGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 205 kindness, or etiquette, claimed at his liand, from patiently listening to the broken language of the wife or mother pleading for the pardon of a wayward husband or son, to those dignified state papers which came from his pen perfect in all their parts. The same may be said of the manner in which he bore himself at the court of St. James, and as successor of Mr. Webster, at the head of our American court at Washington. And in this, I do not mean to refer so much to great exhibitions of skill and power as a diplomatist, and a statesman, as to the qualities which belonged to him per- sonally as a man, and which helped to grace and fill up the measure of his oflacial character. But this character for completeness to which I have alluded, may perhaps be better illustrated in the personal qualities which he exhibited in the amenities of private life. We have heard him called cold in his sympathies, and ungenial of manners, in his intercourse with others ; and I confess that, till I knew him, I thought his seeming reserved, if not austere. But I need not say, in this presence, how soon this impression was corrected when one came in direct contact with him, either socially, or in the ordinary intercourse of private life. There was in his organization something of that shrinking delicacy which makes one apparently shy and sensitive. But I will venture to say, that no one ever went to him for kindness, or sympathy, or counsel, and found him either cold or repulsive. He never forgot the courtesies of the gentleman in his intercourse with anv man, however humble or devoid of 206 MKMOIUAL OF EDWAHD EVERETT. influence he m;iy have been. lie never was surpassed in the scrupulous punctuahty with which he repUed to a correspondent, however unimportant the subject addressed to him, nor in the indulgence with which he received and the kindness with which he acknowledged, the well intended but often equivocal favor of printed works and papers, with which authors loaded his table and taxed his time — the thing he was the least able to spare. The kindliness of his nature was manifested in a liundrcd different forms, though rarely so as to attract the observation or ap[)lausc of others. In all the trying situa- tions in which he was placed, at times, censured by party antagonism, misconstrued in his motives and his acts, and smarting under the keen rebuke of public disfavor, 1 do not believe any one ever saw him lose the dignity of his self possession, or heard him indulge in harsh or uncour- teous language towards his bitterest opponent. Nor will the world ever know how often the deserving young man, struggling with adverse circumstances, has found in him, what he needed more than money — a wise counsellor and a kind friend. Hundreds could now tell us how he sought them out, aided and encouraged them, and licli)ed them onward in a career of usefulness and honor. While his body lay waiting for that august solemnity in which a whole city, and, I might add, a State and Nation bore a part, the door bell of his house was rung, and, upon its being ojjened, there stood upon the threshold a young man, a stranger, in the dress of a junior officer in the navy, lie asked permission to come in and look, once more, upon the form and face of Mr. PROCEEDINGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 207 Everett. " I am a stranger to you," said he to the gentle- man in attendance, " but Mr. Everett was the best friend I ever had ; he procured me the phrce I now hold, and from that day has never failed to write me letters of en- couragement and advice, although I had no claim upon his kindness and generosity." Of his affluence, whether of wisdom or learning, of worldly gifts or kindly consideration, he never withheld, when appealed to by objects of merit and desert. I desire also to say a single word upon another en or into which the public mind may have naturally fallen. Whatever he wrote or delivered was, uniformly, so finished and perfect in style and language, as well as in thought, that an impression became general that he had little ready or spontaneous eloquence, and that, in order to meet an occasion, he must have time for careful prepa- ration. In the danger which he had to contend witli, of having himself for a rival, he was, undoubtedly, loth to speak without previous preparation. But his friends knew that he was not only a man of ready and stirring- eloquence, but that, with all the grave, serious, and dig- nified manner which characterized so many of his orations and public addresses, he had a fund of keen and sprightly wit, of playful humor, and apt and gentle repartee, which, at times, electrified the hour, and delighted whoever was fortunate enough to witness them. It might seem that for one who, through a long period of public services, had shown himself worthy to hold a place in the foremost rank, nothing could be needed to 208 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. fill up and round out a life of so much active usefulness and honor. But do we not all feel, now, how nuich it would have wanted, if it had lacked the finish with which the history of the last four years has crowned and completed the work ? Nobody had a right to doubt the honesty and sincerity of his convictions and opinions, however much one may have differed from him in the matters of public policy. P)ut he saw the coming of that dreadful storm which has been sweeping over our country, and, like many other true patriots, he was willing to avert it by a conciliatory policy, though, by so doing, he subjected himself to the imputation of timidity or want of heart. l>ut when he saw that the scheme of the conspirators was not to secure the rights which were theirs, but to usurp those to which they had no claim; when he saw that the purpose at wliich they aimed was not peace, but the overthrow, by war, of the (jlovernment under which our country had grown great and pros])erous and happy, he threw the full weight of his accumulated power of intellect and influ- ence into the struggle, and, in the forgetfulness of old opinions and cherished associations, he gave up to his country the stores of learning, the resources of eloquence, and the gathered energies of an entire life devoted to diligence and duty. Men no longer called him timid, for he showed that be had that highest of all courage, which dar(>s to go against one's own prepossessions and uttered opinions, wIumi in the light of present events, he looks l)ack upon the unintentional mistakes of the past. The nation, the world itself looked on with admiration, as this PROCEEDINGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 209 brave old champion in tlie cause of right, urged on the battle by his trumpet call to duty and to arms. And they felt that his record was complete, his life rounded out into the full proportions of Christian manliness, when he uttered that last noble appeal, to crown the triumphs of a nation's success, by the divine magnanimity that feeds our enemy and carries him comfort in the hour of prostration and distress. While standing upon that lofty eminence of fame, to which a long and arduous life of noble action had raised him, it was a kind Providence that spared him from even the possibility of danger of any coming misap- prehension or mistake. He laid by his armor before the evening shadows had dimmed a single gleam of its bright- ness. But he went not to his rest till his last day's work was fully and nobly accomplished. He put off the garb which he had worn amid the dust and toil of an ever busy life, to waken to a new existence where, while the past is secure, the future can never be clouded by the passions of erring nature, or the frailties of human judgment. The fame which, till then, had been in his own keep- ing, he left in charge of the country he had so long served. And can we doubt that the trust will be sacredly kept ? They will rear to him statues and monuments. And they will do more. They will keep these monu- ments and memorials alive, by cherishing the memory of the man to whom they are reared, in the treasured offerings of a nation's history. It will be but another illustration of the immortality '210 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. which the fume of a truly great man lends to the works of art, by which men seek to perpetuate the memory of the dead. The chisel of the artist may bring out from the marble the form and features of one whom pride or affection may seek to honor. But it is, at last, to history tlmt we must look, to interpret the record whicli sculp- ture may have tried to register. You, sir, beautifully reminded us, on another occasion, of the search of tlic lloman orator amongst tlie rank weeds and gathered rubbish of the cemetery of Syracuse, for the forgotten monument of Archimedes, while you reminded his countrymen that the great American Philos- opher and Statesman, till then, had no memorial of art reared to him, even in tlie city where he was born. But though they answered that appeal with a generous alacrity, the enduring bronze of which his speaking statue is fashioned by the skilful cuiuiing of art, would do little to keep his memory alive for the service of pos- terity, if liis name had not been enrolled among tlie great names tliat slied lustre upon tlie pages of his country's history. ♦ So it will be with the statue which, as we trust, a gratified people will place by the side of liis great com- ])atriot, in the front of our Capitol. It is fitting that it should stand there, a memorial, immortal in the light of history, of the man, and of a ])eople"s gratitude. The name of Everett, repeated to tlie inquirer in after ages, will reanimate that form, and it will speak of the scholar, the statesman, the m-ator, the patriot, and the Christian PROCEEDINGS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIKTV. 211 gentleman, to whom it shall have been reared by a people that knew, and loved, and honored him. The Rev. Mr. AVaterston read the following communication from John G. Whittier, introducing the letter by tlie words of Dr. Channing, wlio said of Mr. Whittier, more tiian a ([iiarter of a century ago : " His poetry bursts from the soul witli the fire and energy of an ancient prophet. And his noble simplicity of char- acter is the deiigiit of all who know him." Amesbury, 27th 1st Month, 18(55. My dear Friend : I acknowledge through thee, the invitation of the standing committee of the Massachusetts Historical Society to be present at a special meeting of the Society for the purpose of paying a tribute to the memory of our late illustrious associate, Edward Everett. It is a matter of deep regret to me that the state of my health will not permit me to be with you on an occasion of so much interest. It is most fitting that the members of the Historical Society of Massachusetts should add their tribute to those which have been already offered by all sects, parties, and associations, to the name and fame of their late asso- ciate. He was himself a maker of history, and part and parcel of all the noble charities and humanizing influ- ences of his State and time. When the grave closed over him who added new lustre to the old and honored name of Quincy, all eyes instinc- tively turned to Edward Everett as the last of that ven- erated class of patriotic civilians who, outliving all dissent and jealousy and party prejudice, held their reputation 2\2 MEMORIAL OF KinVAKD KVEKETT. by the secure tenure of the universal appreciation of its ■worth as a common treasure of the rcpubHc. It is not for me to pronounce his eulogy. Others, better qualiiied by their intimate acquaintance with liim, have clone and will do justice to his learning, eloquence, varied culture, and social virtues. My secluded country life has afforded nic few opportunities of personal intercourse with him, Avhile ray jjronounced radicalism, on the great question which has divided popular feeling, rendered our political ])aths widely divergent. Both of us early saw the danger which threatened the country. In the language of the prophet, we " saw the sword coming upon the land," but while he believed in the possibility of averting it by concession and compromise, I, on the contrary, as tirmly believed that such a course could only strengthen and confirm what I regarded as a gigantic conspiracy against tlie rights and liberties, the union and the life, of the nation. Recent events have certainly not tended to change this belief on my part ; but in looking over the past, while I see little or nothing to retract in tlie matter of oi)inion, I am saddened by the reflection, that through the very intensity of my convictions I may have done injustice to the motives of those with whom I differed. As respects Edward Everett, it seems to me that only within the last four years I have truly known him. In that brief period, crowded as it is with a whole life-work of consecration to the union, freedom, and glory of his country, he not only commanded respect and reverence, but concentrated upon himself in a most rUOCEEDINGS OF THE HISTOKICAL SOCIETY. '213 remarkable degree the love of all loyal and generous hearts. We have seen, in these years of trial, very great sacrifices offered upon the altar of patriotism — wealtli, case, home-love, life itself. But Edward Everett did more than this ; he laid on that altar not only his time, talents, and culture, but his pride of opinion, his long- cherished views of policy, his personal and political predilections and prejudices, his constitutional fastidious- ness of conservatism, and the carefully elaborated sym- metry of his public reputation. With a rare and noble magnanimity, he met, without hesitation, the demand of the great occasion. Breaking away from all the beset- monts of custom and association, he forgot the things that are behind, and, with an eye single to present duty, pressed forward towards the mark of the high calling of Divine Providence in the events of our time. All honor to him ! If we mourn that he is now beyond the reach of our poor human praise, let us reverently trust that he has received that higher plaudit: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant ! " When I last met him, as my colleague in the Electoral College of Massachusetts, his look of health and vigor seemed to promise us many years of his wisdom and usefulness. On greeting him I felt impelled to express my admiration and grateful appreciation of his patriotic labors ; and I shall never forget how readily and grace- fully he turned attention from himself to the great cause in which we had a common interest, and expressed his thankfulness that he had still a country to serve. To keep green the memory of such a man is at once a 214 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVEUETT. ])iivilegc iiud a duty. That stainless life of seventy years is a priceless legacy. His hands were pure. The sliadow of suspicion never fell on him. If he erred in his opinions (and that he did so, he had the Christian grace and courage to own), no selfish interest weighed in the scale of his judgment against truth. As our thoughts follow him to his last resting-place, we are sadly reminded of his own touching lines, written many years ago at Florence. The luxnie he has left hehind is none the less " pure " that instead of being "humble," as he then anticipated, it is on the lips of grateful millions, and written ineffaceably on the record of his country's trial and triumph : — " Vet not tor mc wlicii I shall fall asleep Shall Santa Crocc's lamps their vigils keep; Beyond the main in Auburn'.s ipuct .shade, With those 1 loved and love my eouch be made ; — Spring's pendent hranehcs o'er the hillock wave, And morning's dewdrops glisten on my grave, While Heaven's great arch shall rise above my l)ed. When Santa Croee'.s crumbles on her dead — Unknown to erring or to suffering fame. So 1 may leave a pure though humble name " Congratulating the Society on the prospect of the speedy consummation of the great objects of our associate's labors — the peace and permanent union of our country, — I am very truly thy friend, JOHN G. WHITTIER. KoHERT C. Waterston, Boston. The iiicotiiiL;- tlii'ii adjminiCMl. PROCEEDINGS THURSDAY-EVENING CLUB PROCEEDINGS OF THE THURSDAY-EVENING CLUB. At !i meeting of the Tlnirsday-Evening Cliili, Jtinuaiy 26, 18G5, at the house of Mr. Gardner Brewer, flie following remarks were made on the death of Mr. Everett, by Dr. J. Mason Warren : — Gentlemen : Since the last meeting of this Chtb, death has visited us ; and, in the person of our friend and President, has called away the first citizen of our Commonwealth. Honored alike at home and abroad, his loss will be felt throughout the length and breadth of the civilized world ; and his name will justly stand among the most distinguished of all ages. Again and again, during the last week, has his eulogy been pronounced, in terms far more adequate to his merits than any which I can employ ; yet here, in this circle of friends, we once more contemplate him in the private and social relation which he bore to this Associa- tion. 28 '218 mem(m;ial of edwaud kverett. The peculiar organization of our Club — designed (to use the words of Mr. Everett, as spoken here on a former occasion) to bring together persons of different professions and pursuits, to converse and communicate with each other on the scientific improvements of tlie day, and other topics connected witli social culture and progress ; thus uniting the active and the professional, the scien- tific and business classes of the community in a friendly circle — has been suc(;essful, in no common degree, in combining refined social enjoyment witli mutual improve- ment in knowledge. The objects of such an Association were fully appreci- ated by 'Sir. Everett ; and, from the very commencement of its meetings, his polished clocpience and rare conversa- tional powers have greatly contriljuted to its success. Especially to be remembered are the noble eulogies in which he commemorated the removal by death of several prominent mend)ers of our Club ; and we all rcmendjer, with gratitiuie and admiration, the splendid tribute, which, on the late decease of jNIr. Frederic Tudor, he paid to the memory of the friend at whose house, only two weeks before, we had been so hospitably entertained. His illustrations of literary and historical subjects, with which he constantly favored us, are among the happiest reminiscences of our meetings ; always felicitous in them- selves, and often doubly im])ressive as emanating from one who had himself been an actor in tlic scenes which he described. The first meeting of this season was held at his house, on the anniversary of the landing of our ])i]grim fore- THE THURSDAY-EVENING CLUB. 219 fathers ; and, in a style clear and masterly, even beyond his usual manner, he drew a new and vivid picture of that humble beginning of our national existence. Only a fortnight ago to-day, I received a note from him, regret- ting much that he was unable, owing to what he thought a slight illness, to be present at the meeting of that evcn- Of the punctuality with which, as President of the Club, he opened the meetings, you are all aware ; for he well knew the value of time when measured by such re- sults as he was accustomed to attain. Feeling myself entirely incapable of doing justice to an occasion like this, I have yet been unwilling to let the evening pass without adding my feeble testimony to his entire faithfulness as a member and presiding officer of this Association. I leave to a gifted mem- ber of our Club the grateful task of giving fit expres- sion to our sense of the great loss which we have sus- tained. Mr. Edwin T. Whipple s.iid : — It is certainly fit, gentlemen, that the sense of bereave- ment which this city and the Avhole nation have felt in the death of Mr. Everett, should find emphatic expression in the Club of which he was the honored President. Known to every member as the most exquisitely affable of presiding officers ; a chairman with the gracious and gracefnl manners of a host ; ever ready to listen as to speak ; and masking the eminence, which all were glad to acknowledge, in that bland and benignant courtesy, of '220 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. which all were made to feel the charm, — his presence gave a peculiar dignity to our meetings which it will be impossible to replace, and impressed on all of us tlie con- viction, that, to his other gifts and accomplishments, must be added the distinction of being the most accomplished gentleman of his time. Indeed, it is i)roI)al)l(', that in this quality of high-bred and inbred courtesy, which we all have such good cause to admire and to remember, may be found the explanation and justification of some things in his character and career which have been sub- jected to adverse and acrimonious criticism ; and, in the few remarks I propose to make, allow me to throw into relations to this felicity of his nature, the powers and achievements which have made him so widely famous, and, wliat is better, so widely mourned. Mr. Everett was born with that fineness of mental and of bodily organization, the sensitiveness of Avhicli is hardly yet thoroviglily tolerated by the world which still profits by its superiorities. There was refinement in the Aery substance of his being ; by a necessity of his constitution he disposed everything he perceived into some orderly relations to ideas of dignity and grace ; he instinctively shunned what was coarse, discordant, uncomely, unbecom- ing ; and that internal world of thoughts, sentiments, and dispositions, Avhich each man forms or re-forms for him- self, and in which he really lives, in his case obeyed the law of comeliness, and came out as naturally in his m;iu- ners as in his writings, in the beautiful urbanity of his behavior as in the cadenced periods of his eloquence. The fascination of tliis must have been felt even in liis THE THURSDAY-EVENING CLUB. 221 childhood, — for he was au orator whose infant prattle attracted an audience ; and he may be said to have passed from the cradle into public life. To a swiftness and accuracy of apprehension which made study the most delightful and self-rewarding of tasks, he added a gen- eral brightness, vigor, and poise of faculties, which gave premature promise of the reflection and judgment which were to come. By some sure instinct, the friends who seemed combined in a kindly conspiracy to assist and to spoil him, must have felt that they had to do with a nature whose innate modesty was its protection from conceit, and whose ambition to excel was but one form of its ambition for excellence. The fact to be considered is, that, in childhood and in youth as in manhood and age, there was something in him which irresistibly attracted admiration and esteem, and made men desir- ous of helping him on i?i the path his genius chose, and to the goal from which his destiny beckoned. It will be impossible here to do more than indicate the steps of that comprehensive career, so full of distinction for himself, so full of benefit to the nation, which has been for the past ten days the theme of so many eulogies : — the college student, bearing away the highest honors of his class ; the boy-preacher, whose pulpit eloquence alternately kindled and melted men of maturest years ; the Greek Professor, whose knowledge of the finest and most flexible instrument of human thought extorted the admira- tion of the most accomplished of all the translators of Plato ; the fertile Writer and wide-ranging Critic, whose familiarity with many languages only added to the energy '222 MKMOIUAL OF KDWARD EVEKETT. ;ind elegance with which he wielded the resources of liis own ; the Representative of Middlesex, whose mastery of the minutest details of political husiness was not more evident than his ready grasp of the hroader principles of political science ; the Governor of Massacliusetts, whose wise and able administration gave a new impulse to the cause of education and to some of the most important of the arts of peace ; the Ambassador, who co-operated with his friend, the great Secretary, in converting the provoca- tions to what would have been one of the most calamitous of all wars into tlie occasion for negotiating one of the most beneficent of all treaties ; the President of Harvard, bringing back to his Alma MaUr tlie culture he had received from lier increased an hundred fold, and present- ing to the students the nol)le example of a scholarship which was always teaching, and therefore always learn- ing ; the Secretary of State, whose brief possession of office was yet sufHcient to show with what firmness of ])urposc he could uphold American honor, and with what prodigality of information he could ex[)ound American rights ; the Orator of all " occasions," scattering through many years, and from a hundred platforms, the rich stores (jf his varied knowledge, the ripe results of his large experience, and the animating inspirations of his fervid soul ; the Patriot, who ever made his scholarship, states- manship, and clo(jucncc serviceable and subsidiary to the interest and glory of his country, and who, when would- be parricides lifted their daggers to stab the august mother who had borne them, flung himself, with a grand superi- ority to party prejudices, and a brave disdain of conse- THE TEIURSDAY-EVENING CLUB. 223 quences to himself, into the great current of impassioned purpose which surged up from the nation's heroic heart ; the Christian philanthropist, \Yho, through a long life, had been the object of no insult or wrong which could rouse in him the fierce desire for vengeance, and whose last public eftbrt Avas a magnanimous plea for that " retal- iation" which Christianity both allows and enjoins: — all these claims to honor, all this multiform and multiplied activity, have been the subjects of eager and emulous panegyric ; and little has been overlooked in the loving and grateful survey. Such a career implies the most assiduous self-culture ; but it was a culture free from the fault of intellectual selfishness, for it was not centred in itself, but pursued with a view to the public service ; and the thirst for acquisition was not stronger than the ardor for communi- cation. Such a career also implies a constant state of preparation for public duties ; but only by those whose ambition is to get ofiice, rather than to get qualified for office, will this peculiarity be sneeriugly imputed to a love of display. Still, the vast publicity which such a career rendered inevitable would have developed in him some of the malignant or some of the frivolous vices of public life, had it not been that a fine modesty tempered his constant sense of personal efficiency, — had it not been that a cer- tain shyness at the core of his being made it impossible that his self-reliance should rush rudely out in any of the brazen forms of self-assertion. And this brings me back to that essential gentlemanliness of nature, which pene- trated every faculty, and lent its tone to every expression 224 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. of our departed President. This gave him a most sensi- tive regard for the rights and feelings of others, and this made him instinctively expect the same regard for his own. He guarded with an almost jealous vigilance the reserves of his individuality, and resented all uncouth or unwarranted intrusion into these sanctuaries which his dignity shielded, with a feeling of grieved surprise. In his wide converse with men, even in the contentions of party, his mind ever moved in a certain ideal region of mutual courtesy and respect. It was to be anticipated, that, in the rough game of politics, where blows are com- monly given and received with equal carelessness, and where mutual charges of dishonesty are both expected and unheeded, such a nature as Mr. Everett's should sometimes suffer exquisite pain ; that his nerves should quiver in impatient disgust of such odious ])ublicity ; that he shoidd be tempted at times to feel that tlie inconsiderate assailers of liis character — " IMiulc it seem move sweet to be Tlie little life of bunk and brier, Tlie liird that [lipes bis lone desire. And 0C) Jir.MORTAL OF EDWARD EVKHETT. of his views with a quiclvciiing of their better feelings, and an addition to their self-respect. Monnt A'ernon, the poor of East Tennessee, the poor of Savannah, attest that his greatest triumphs were those of jjersuasiou. And in recalling the tones of that melodious voice, whose words were thus works, one is tempted to think that Force, in eloquence, is the mailed giant of the feudal age, who, assailiu": under a storm of missiles the fortress of his adversary, makes the tough gates shiver under the furiously rapid strokes of his battle-axe, and enters as a victor ; while Persuasion, " with liis garland and singing robes about him," sjieaks the magical word which makes the gates fly open of their own accord, and enters as a guest. It is but just, gentlemen, that our lamented President, the source of so many eulogies, slu)uld now be their theme; that his joy in recognizing eminency in others should be met by a glad and universal recognition of it in himself. And, certainly, that spotless private and dis- tinguished public life could have closed at no period when the heart of the whole loyal nation was more eager to admire the genius of the orator, and sound the praises of the patriot, and laud the virtues of the man, than on the day when his mortal frame, beautiful in life and beautiful in death, was followed l)y that long jjiocession of bereaved citizens, througli those mourning streets, to that consecrated urave ! THE THURSDAY-EVENING CLU13. 227 Bishop Eastburn saiil : — I ask the indulgence of my fellow-members of the Club for a few moments, Avhile I add to the eloquent words that have been spoken, my own humble tribute to the memory of our late illustrious President. Mr. Everett was kind enough once to say to me, that he wished I would sometimes offer something, at these meetings, as a contribution towards the instruction of those who should be present. My reply to him was, that, surrounded as I always found myself here by so much science and wisdom, I felt disposed rather to sit as a silent listener ; and I can- not help a solemn and tender feeling in the reflection, that when now, for the first time, I am complying with his request, it is to utter a few Avords of remembrance over his recently opened grave. I beg to call your attention, gentlemen, in the few words I shall say, to one or two points in Mr. Everett's illustrious career which have not been dwelt upon by the speakers who have just addressed us, — and which seem to me to present him in an aspect eminently worthy of study by the rising youth of this nation. I very often thought, during the life of our distinguished President, and have thought more especially since his death, of the shining example he has set of the assiduous cultivation of classical learning, as the chief ingredient in efficient education, and as the great means of giving superior abilities a commanding influence over men. It was this that gave the charm to Mr. Everett's oratory, and carried home with power his advocacy, as a statesman, of 228 MEMORIAL OF EDWAHD EVERETT. public iiicasurcs, and Lis addresses in behalf of those efforts for the relief of suffering humanity to Avhich he devoted the closing years of his life. lie seemed to enter fully into those views of the advantage of classical pur- suits put forth by the great Sir Robert I'eel, in a discourse delivered by him on being installed as Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, and which I remember reading many years ago, — where he speaks of the benefits of classical, as distinguished from mere mathematical train- ing ; and shows the tendency of the latter to narrow the mind, and to indispose it, in regard to a certain class of subjects, to receive any other than a species of evidence of which these subjects are not susceptible. But, besides this. Sir Robert exhibited, in a striking manner, the in- estimable value of tlie study of the great masters, by a review of the course of Cicero, whose wonderful oratory received its perfection, and its power of swaying men, from his cultivation of tlie great models of (irecian poetry and eloquence. Now Mr. Everett, as I have said, is a great example in this respect, and ought to be held up as such before the young men of this land. And, if he shall be generally followed, we sludl hear less, in the ])ulpit, on the platform, and on deliberative floors, of that rant and bombast which pass with some for eloquence, but which are as offensive to good taste as they are barren of effect. Mr. Bullock, in his address at Faneuil Hall on the day before the funeral of our departed President, dwelt with great force and eloquence upon this way in wliich Mr. I'Acrett trained liimself for influence, — show- ing that his classical finish was not something standing by THE THURSDAY-EVENING CLUB. 229 itself, and apart from his distinction as a statesman, but was the main element in creating that distinction, and in giving him the power which he possessed in his signal public career. And, gentlemen, who has irot felt the control exerted by his brilliant, yet restrained, chastened, and simple diction? His oratory, sparkling with orna- ment as it was, was at the same time a perfect specimen of the simplex munditiis. So that, whenever we heard him, it was like looking at some noble Grecian temple, in the presence of which the eye is not distracted hither and thither by tawdry and vulgar details, but takes in at once the exquisite whole, and is charmed with the beauty of its architectural lines, and the fair symmetry of its pro- portions. But, before I sit down, allow me to detain you for a few moments longer by reminding you of another feature of Mr. Everett's career, which ought to be impressed on the youth of this country. I refer to the fact, that this great man achieved his triumphs, and produced the results which Ave have witnessed, by a life of constant and laborious industry. He eminently taught by his example, that they who would either attain eminence, or, what is infinitely more important, would urge mankind onward to noble purposes, must not rely upon the native genius with which God has gifted them, but must discipline their faculties by unremitted labor. My first sight of ]Mr. Everett was forty-three years ago, when, in 18'2"2, he came to New York to deliver the Sermon at the opening of a place of worship of his denomination. I had not then entered on my own professional course ; and, with the 230 MEMOKIAL OF EDWARD EVEKETT. curiosity and enthusiasm of a youtli desirous of getting a near siglit of so eminent a man, — for even then he was eminent, although hut twenty-eight years of age, — I took a position, after the service was over, in the porch, in order tliat I might study his coimtennnce as he passed out into the street; — and, as he walked hy me with his slen- der form, in gown and hand, Avith his curling auhurn hair, and his fine contour of head and features, I thought him the most attractive specimen of radiant classical heauty I had ever beheld in my life. Now, gentlemen, many of us have been witnesses of his course from that morning of his life down to its recent close. And wliat has this course been'? lias it l)een an indolent resting upon the consciousness of great natural endowments? No. lias it been a course marked by fitful and impulsive resort to study? No. It has been a life of unintermitted labor — of continual storing of the mind — of daily addition to that wealth of resources which was to be the instrument of power. I have touched upon this feature of Mr. ]*iVerett's distinguished life, because, as I have already observed, 1 think it should be placed distinctly before the vouiig men of tliis country ; showing them for their in- struction, that infiuence, and consetpient usefulness, come not from intellect alone, however marvellous, but from intellect disciplined, regulated, and made efiicient, by the toil which ' scorns delights, and lives laborious davs.' I thank you for the permission to present these thoughts to your attention ; for I felt that I could not refrain from adding n\y Inunble tribute to tliis renuu-kable man, here THE THURSDAY-EVENING CLUB. '^31 in one of those assemblies which lie has so often adorned with his presence, and charmed with the contributions of his eloquent lips. Dr. A. A. Gould said : — I am sure that each one of iis here associated must feel thankful to the gentlemen who have so faithfully and gratefully delineated the exalted character of our late President, and especially as they recall to us his interest in our meetings, and the many contributions he himself made for our entertainment and edification. The break- ing out of the rebellion bore so heavily on his health and spirits, that he expressed some misgivings as to his ability to meet with us, and even as to the judiciousness of con- tinuing the meetings of the Club. At the preliminary meeting this year, however, he seemed quite enthusiastic in view of our coming entertainments ; and you will all of you attest to the peculiar geniality with which he opened our winter's gatherings at his own house. I venture to propose, what I have no doubt will find an affirmative response from every one, that the gentlemen who have addressed us be requested to furnish copies of their remarks, to be transmitted to the family of our late President, as a testimonial, from the members of this Club, of their deep sense of indebtedness to him for his countenance, and his numerous instructive and entertain- ing contributions at their meetings, as Avell as of his exalted private worth and public eminence. PROCEEDINGS NEW ENGLAND HISTORIC-GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY. 30 NEW ENGLAND HISTORIC-GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY. A special meeting of the Board of Directors of the New England Historic-Genealogical Society was held on Tuesday afternoon, January 17, 1865, to take notice of the death of the Hon. Edward Everett, a member of the Society from the year of its organization. William B. Towne was called to the ciuiir, and William Kced Deanc was appointed secretary iiro tempore. John II. Shejjpard, tiic librarian, introduced the subject by these remarks : — The sudden death of the Hon. Edward Everett has called us together not merely to testify our deep sorrow for the loss of a most influential and honored member of our Society, but, with other numerous institutions, to offer our humble tribute of respect to the memory of a very eminent man of our common country. A great light has gone down in our political heavens ; a star of the first magnitude, admired nt home and among foreign nations, ■whose brilliant rays of science and eloquence have adorned this Western Hemisphere and made a luminous path, has set forever. Our nation has met with an irreparable loss, and i)articularly in these dark days and troublous times of 236 MEMORIAL OF EDWAKD EVEKETT. an unholy rebellion, when his counsels find voice arc so much needed. His death has cast a gloom over society through the length and breadth of the land. It will be felt in the Cabinet, in the national and legislative halls, on the battle-field, and everywhere ; for his eloquence was everywhere heard, as it were, on the wings of the i)ress, speaking with the voice of one going about to do good ; and in no place Avill his dcatli be more lamented than in a sister city, to relieve whicli th(> very last hours of his exceedingly busy and energetic life were devoted ; yes, the tears of Savannah will gush forth at the sad news. Mr. Everett has left us a striking example that old age does not necessarily imjjair the intellectual powers, when they have been vigorously kept in exercise. In his seventy- first year, his talents were bright and active as ever, and his judgment and imagination retained the full power of his earlier days. He was, indeed, /// .vr ijiso (otiis, tires atque rotiindus ; there was a wholeness, a ])olisli, and a round- ness in his character, wherein all tlie rough edges and sharp angles so often met witli. even among distinguished men, were softened into a pleasing smoothness. On this melancholy occasion we can only i)resent a few resolu- tions, echoing the words of universal sorn)w ; and though they cannot add to the fame of the illustrious dead, yet they may evince our grief and sympathy. ]\h'. Slit'|ii>;ir(l tlieii ollcrcd tlic following resolutions: — Jicsolccd, That, in tlie death of Hon. Edward Everett, this Society, of which he was a resident member for nineteen years, deplores a great loss. NEW ENGLAND UISTORIC-GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY. 237 Resolved, That, in his death, literature and science are called to mourn the departure of a very distinguished scholar and accomplished writer, whose purity and ele- gance of taste, richness of imagination, affluence of lan- guage, and flowing, fascinating style, Avould, without any other mark of distinction or celebrity, have made him an honor and an ornament to ov;r country. Resolved, That, in his death, the voice of a most eloquent man is silent, — a voice which left no superior, if, indeed, it did an equal in this land, and which was ever exerted in the cause of all that is good or excellent, pertaining to a nation's Avelfare. Resolved, That, in the death of this statesman and pa- triot, the whole nation has reason to weep and lament ; for his exalted love of the Union gave to his voice and counsels a peculiar importance in the present great strug-, gle to preserve our nationality from destruction. Resolved, That, in his death, we deplore the loss of a citizen of most exemplary virtues, indefatigable industry, and faithful adherence to those noble principles of justice and honor, from the prevalence only of which a nation can become great and glorious. Resolved, That we respectfully tender our sympathies to the bereaved family. Resolved, That, in testimony of our veneration of the memory of the deceased, we will attend his funeral on Tlmrsday next ; and also, that a copy of these Kesolutious be presented to his family. 238 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. After remarks by Samuel G. Drake, Rev. Elias Nason, .Lilin II. Sheppard, Frederic Kidder, John Ward Dean, William B. Trask, William Reed Deane, and the presiding officer, the Resolu- tions were unanimously adopted. I PROCEEDINGS AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY. PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ANTIQUA- RIAN SOCIETY, AT A SPECIAL MEETING HELD AT WORCESTER, JAN. 17, ISM. The nieiTibers having been notified of tlie deatli of their former President, Hon. Edward Everett, assembled in their Hall at two o'clock, P. M. Hon. Stephen Salisbnry, the President, occupied the chair. On account of the illness of Hon. Levi Lincoln, whose relations widi Mr. Everett had been many and important, the meeting was adjourned to Governor Lincoln's residence. After call- ing the Society to order the President spoke as follows : — Brethren of the American Antiquarian Society : — While the voices of our people express their sorrow and deep concern that one of our most exalted citizens, Avho swayed the opinions and destiny of our country from a sphere above the distractions of political life and the envious assaults with which public office is infested, I have invited you to assemble here, not to forget your duties and interests as citizens, but to remember that this little company of students of history and antiquarian lore have lost their honored Ex-President, Edward Everett, the associate who had the greatest present ability to pro- mote the objects of your association. The eloquence 31 242 MKMOIUAL OF KUWAUD EVEKETT. that honored the obsequies of the Nestor of your Society, the Jlon. Josiah (iuincy, still reechoes in your printed proceedings, meeting a cordial reception wherever learn- ing, virtue, and a laborious, conscientious, and beneficent life are held in honor. He stood among us in the majesty and gathered wisdom of 94 years, and his wise counsels faltered on his lips Avhen he heard the summons for which he waited and hastened away. And now a second time the solemn warning of Providence has addressed this Soci- ety, and from the clear sky in which no threatening cloud was apparent, another distinguished leader of this frater- nity has been struck down. The last act of his life was to plant sweet Christian charity among the sutferings and crimes of wicked and treacherous rebellion, and this effort is a possible cause of his sudden, and, as we in our igno- rance and impatience arc prone to say, his untimely de- parture. Let us rather repeat the fiimiliar words of the old lloman, that " he was not more happy in the glory of his life than in tlie occasion of his death." Ikit I will not detain you with my own unsatisfactory words from the utterance of thoughts more w^orthy of your own feel- ings and of the occasion. In my desire to forward the deliberations of the hour, I will venture to offer the fol- lowing resolutions : — The American Antiquarian Society, being convened to take notice of the sudden death of their honored ]"jX-Presi- dent, Edward Everett, LL. D., who was for nine years Secretary for foreign Correspondence, aud afterwards for twelve years the President, it was thereupon licsolvcd. That we deeply sympathize in tiie universal PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY. 243 grief of our country, that a patriot has been taken away in the fullest strength and glory of his beneficent service, and his mantle is not seen to fall on any successor. Resolved, That with our lamentations for a great public loss, we will gratefully consider the noble works which he has recently performed in the defence of our govern- ment and our national privileges ; in the vindication of the right and the safety of free institutions, and in the thrice repeated lessons of charity and Christian forgive- ness, enforced by his own unequalled and persuasive example. Resolved, That we will embalm with the odor of our exalted praise the memory of an orator who always car- ried his admiring listeners to higher and happier planes of thought ; a scholar of incessant and unwearied labor, who brought up his deep-sought treasures with a fitness and polish that adapted them to the handling and uses of common life, and a man who exercised his great powers for useful ends with a kind and cautious prudence and constant regard for Christian purity. Resolved, That it is our privilege to offer a chaplet of honor and fraternal grief at the tomb of our Ex-President, who gave to this Society the advantage of the highest official relations for twenty-one years, and has since been a fellow-worker by his constant contributions, and espe- cially by his frequent and successful pursuit of the objects for which this association was formed. Resolved, That we offer to the children of our respected associate our sincere condolence, and commend them to the highest Source of consolation. 244 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. licsohcd, That as a Society, we will express our respect by attending the funeral of ^Ir. Everett on Thursday the 19tli instant. Resolved, 'lliat the President of this Society is reriucsted to transmit a copy of the above resolutions to the family of our deceased associate. Tlie resolutions Imving been seconded by Rev. Sedi Sweetser, D.D., tlie cliair wiis nddicssed by Dr. Sweetser, Rev. Dr. Alonzo Ilill, Hon. Isaac Davis, Hon. Ira M. Harton, Hon. Levi Lincoln, and Hon. Henry Cliapin ; alter wliiili the resolutions were unani- mously adopted. Kcv. Dr. Sweetser spoke in substance as follows : — Mr. Presidknt: It seems hardly fitting that 1 should occupv a moment of the time of this meeting, ^fy rela- tions with the distinguished ex-president of this Society were not such as to justify it. It has not been my privi- lege to come within the circle of his friendship, or to be associated with him, as others here present have been, in public services. It woidd be presiuuptuous in me to speak of a personal acquaintance with ^Fr. I'Acrett. .\nd yet, sir, in common with the multitude of his friends, I have felt an admiration for liis character and attainments. Since the intelligence of his sudden death reached and saddened us, my thoughts have been carried back to the period of my iirst knowledge of hitn. At the time of ■my entering college he occupied the chair of (ireek Liter- ature in Harvard I'niversity, and I well remember tlie enthusiasm wliich he kiiidh-d. and tlie admiration with PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY. 245 wliicli he inspired those who listened to him, and how his lecture-room was thronged ; and I remember also what deep regret was felt by the whole college at his Avitli- drawal from the Professorship, which took place soon after. We were young and not fitted to appreciate the capacity of such a mind, or to measure the fulness and richness of his classical culture, or the beauty and art with which he displayed the intellectual and literary treasures of that land of beauty and art which, to this day, has never found a rival. It was the universal feeling that the department and the college itself had lost the service of one who, by his varied attainments and scholarship, was eminently fitted to elevate the tone of classical learning, and inspire an interest in the literature of Greece. The regret was general, and I cannot refrain from saying, that with me it has never ceased. But, sir, though removed to the stir and agitating scenes of public life, his eminent abilities were not lost. I will not speak of his services in the important positions which he has occupied in the State and the Nation. There arc other gentlemen here who are better able to do that than I am. I will speak only of his scholarship. He was always a scholar. He was a student in the fullest sense of the word. He never failed in his allcgi- airce to scholarship. Under all circumstances he exhib- ited the same purity and richness, the same grace and elegance. Everything he did Avas done in the spirit and tone of a true scholarship. Whether he addressed the 24:6 MlCMOrxIAL OF EDWAKD EVEllETT. senate or tlio popular assembly, or spoke in associations of literary and scientific men, or in the courts of law, there was the same comi)leteucss and accuracy. AVhat- evcr was possible to diligence and assiduous culture he attained. Whatever could be accumulated by persistent research he acquired. We have not been in the habit of looking upon ]Mr. Everett as possessing that boldness and force which push out beyond the ordinary range of thought ; we have not classed him with the minds which extend the boundaries of human knowledge, lie Avas not of tliat adventurous wing Avhich shoots up above the flight and sight of other men. But if he had not these qualities he had what is ])erhaps more Avorthy of honor and admiration, lie had the power of ac([uiring and accumulating, the faculty of retaining, arranging, and using, whatever could be gathered up by unwearied and diversified study. He was everything that labor and severe training, and the unfal- tering pursuit of his object could make him. Some years since Mr. Everett was invited, as gentle- men in his position frequently are, to address the Massa- chusetts Bible Society at an anniversary meeting in Boston. I heard him on that occasion. He spoke from the plat- form as other gentlemen did, connecting his remarks with those of previous speakers, giving the usual appearance of extemporaneousness to his address. A friend asked him for his notes, and his manuscript Avas, I apprehend, an index to all his performances. It PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANTIQUAEIAN SOCIETY. 247 was carefully written and elaborated ; words were selected with great skill and discrimination ; some were erased and others inserted in their stead ; and this exactness in the choice of language, in some instances, was carried to the fourth and fifth erasure. This was one of the sources of his success. He never trusted to the uncertainty of hasty unpremeditated utterances. He finished and perfected with accuracy and the most studious art. He spared no toil or pains in preparation. He always knew his subject, his audience, and the occasion. It was in this way that he was so successful as a public speaker. The rich stores of his classical reading and the treasures of literature and science were at his disposal. His wide cultivation, and the perfection of his exercise in speech, enabled him to express in the most persuasive and eloquent form the instructions he imparted. Now that he is no more with us, as we recall his genius, his acquisitions, his diligence, we look back upon him as furnishing to us and coming generations an unsur- passed model in the art of eloquence. This Society, as an association of scholars, the univer- sity which nurtured him, all lovers of good learning, the whole republic of letters, the Commonwealth which gave him birth, and which he so nobly served, and the whole country, owe to him a debt of honor and of gratitude. He has been suddenly taken from us. It is not for us to question the propriety of the time of his departure ; but for this we have occasion to be thankful, that he was not taken until he had rendered a service to his country in its great perils which endears him to the heart of every 248 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. true lover of the Union, and ■which will prove the freshest and most enduring brightness in the chaplet of his future renown. Kev. Dr. Hill said : — Mr. President : Since the death of Mr. Adams in the rotunda of our Capitol, in Washington, seventeen years ago, no event has produced so profound a sensation as the sudden demise of the revered ex-president of this Society. When Mr. Webster died he had lingered ; and his death was not unexpected nor unprepared for. But Mr. Everett ])assed in a moment from the midst of the activities of life, while his mind was teeming with mighty projects of usefulness, while his last noble speech in behalf of forgiveness and charity and the pacification of the country, was still throbbing on the telegraph wires and thrilling the heart of a continent. I did not know him intimately, — perhaps few did. But my memory goes far back in his personal history ; I have followed him with admiration and been held captive by the power of his soft persuasion, with thousands of others, to the last. I have heard him in the pulpit ; and his youtiiful iigure, cut with classical elegance and set forth with the high i)olish of art, as he stood in the desk of the college chapel, is still before me ; and whole pas- sages of his sermons on those occasions, fascinating with their splendid rhetoric and pronounced Avith inimitable grace of utterance, are still fresh in my recollection. I was among the privileged few who heard his brilliant course of lectures on Greek Literature on his return from PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANTIQUARIxlN SOCIETY. 249 Athens, whose delivery marked for us a new era in our mental history. I have listened to most, and have read all of his more elaborate orations, delivered at different periods, on almost every variety of subjects, and have always come away from the hearing or the reading his debtor. I have been present for several years at the meetings of literary and benevolent associations of which he was a member, and have noticed his fidelity, the readiness with which he consecrated his great powers to their welfare, and the intelligence and earnest devotion with which he attended to the little details connected with their prosperity. I wish to say a few words here as a grateful tribute to his memory. Many years ago, when he was a very young man, he was addressing an assembly of Boston merchants whom he had invited to meet him at Faneuil Hall, and whom he was endeavoring to persuade to purchase for the use of Harvard College, a work of art, the Panorama of Athens, I think it was, which had just arrived from Greece. He was showing the value of art in a young community like our own, and in the course of his argument put the question into the mouth of his hearers, " What is it good for I " I shall never forget the force of manner and expres- sion which he threw into his reply, put also into the form of a question, " What is anything good for except as it refines and ennobles and brings out the divine in man I " Here Ave have the key-note which guided, the undertone which sounded through his whole subsequent life. In all his speeches, written and unwritten, in all the works that he did through a period of fifty years, how have they 32 250 MEMORIAL OF EDWAIiP EVERETT. cons])ired for the uplifting and refining of our nature. Point to the word, if jou can, employed to disguise the truth, or suggest the thought which one might not breathe into the ears of saintly purity. Put your finger, you cannot, upon the passage set round with the spears and darts of detraction, serving to arouse a base passion and to make us less humane. How many will you find, all scattered through his living example and published works, which are a noble appeiil to our higher sentiments, and make us love with a deeper sensibility Avhatever is beautiful in nature and refined in life. Early moulded by the models of Grecian art and culture, familiar with the best thoughts and noblest sentiments of all ages, sparing no labor to perfect what he undertook to say and do, he poured forth his honeyed accents, lifted ui), electrified, and melted us by the gorgeous imagery and beautiful dra- pery with which he clothed his thought — but touched us the more deeply because of this undertone of high Chris- tian sentiment which breathed, and this coloring of Chris- tian faith and hope which glowed, through his best productions. How broad, how varied, were his accomplishments. He seems to have studied every subject, and gone to its depths. Read his lectures before the Mechanics', the Mer- cantile, and Library Associations, his addresses before Agricultural Societies, and his debates in Congress. He goes into the details of science, the theory of trade, tlie methods of raising crops, and the ways of public policy, as if each profession had been his especial pursuit and he had devot(>d himself to nothin'0ung Buck- minster, whose successor he was, at the unripe age of nineteen, over the most influential congregation in Boston, lie never forgot his first love, nor wavered in his attach- ment to Christian institutions and the means of Christian culture ; l)ut through a varied experience at home and abroad, under circumstances of great temptation, remained true to his early convictions — showing by the consistency and integrity of his daily Avalk the depth of those convic- tions. Wlicn 1 have preached in the churcli in which lie worshipped, he was always there, forenoon and afternoon — devout, reverential, and bending his active and affluent mind to a part in the services. He did not, 1 thought, oc- cujjy his pew merely for example's sake ; but sat lowly, as needing help like the rest of us — composed in prayer, and when the lesson of the day was read — true also to his scholarly habits, following it in the Greek Testament, Avhicli he kept by his side. This may seem a small mat- ter, but it means much. For wlien I remember how often great scholars, surrounded l)v their rich libraries, attract- PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY. 253 ed bv the fascination of letters, and borne on the tide of popularity and abundant success, sufficient of themselves, have been allured away from the highest objects of inter- est, I can honor the illustrious man, who remained stead- fast to the offices of the Church, and confessed his need of ministrations which have been the guide and solace of those who possessed no book but one ; — minis- trations which have done so much for the good order, moral and spiritual strength of New England, and made her what she is. Mr. Everett was never seduced by his classical studies nor the pliilosophies of the day from the deeper philosophy of .Jesus of Nazareth, but by the greatness of the contrast could all the more appreciate the unrivalled beauty and grandeur of his simplest utter- ances ; and so when the cry of woe came up from the bosom of those who had just now been our enemies, and a plea must be made for forgiveness and charity, he found no fitting language in heathen poet or orator — but repeated Avith a pathos and power which moved the vast assembly who heard, the words in Avhich the great apostle has embodied the very soul of his Master, " If thine enemy hunger feed him. If he thirst give him drink." Eor the last time he spoke in the name and spirit of Christ, and never had he spoken so persuasively. But he has gone. In the silence of the night, before the Sabbath dawned, the great soul, that never tired before, went to its rest. And you have done well, Mr. President, in your admirable remarks, to quote in their English dress the fitting words of Tacitus, Avith whom lie was so familiar — '■^ FcVx non vihc tantum claritate sed 254 MEMOlilAL OF EDWARD EVEIJETT. ctiam opportunitaie inortls." He is gone, the finished schohir, the consnmmate orator, the consistent Christian ; and lie should sleep to-day, as Prescott, dying, cx])ressed a ■wish to do in his, in that magnificent library — which has been the scene of his vigils, his labors, and his successes. To-day, lying in his sacred repose, he should be surround- ed by the noble array of scholars, artists, and poets, who, having inspired him in life, might look down upon him from the alcoves and walls of that library, in the stillness of death. To-morrow, friends will tenderly bear him to Mount Auburn, where his masters and early companions have gone before, and where living scholars and a grate- ful people will go to mourn over and catch inspiration from the foremost man that has been amomr us. o Hon. Js of public service, the event comes with impressive admonition of the limitation of all human powers, and the transitoriness of opportunities for earthly usefulness and distinction. But a few days since, I met him, as an associate in the presidential electoral college of Massa- chusetts, at that time strong at least in his usual health, earnest as ever in patriotic duty, confident in anticipation of triumph and glory to the struggling nation, and buoyant with the hope that he should himself live to rejoice in the restored Union of the states, and the uni- versal freedom, peace, and prosperity of the people. Never was he more genial in himself, or more interest- ing and instructive to others, than after the labors of * Speech at Washington in 1832, on tlie colonization and civilization of Africa. 2fi2 MEMORTAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. the day, at the festive board which liis own generous hospitality had spread. And now, tlie seal of the trans- mitted record of his official action, on that occasion, is not yet broken, at the seat of government, and he who was placed in honor at the head of the electoral body is no more of earth. So pass away the venerated and the loved from the scenes of their loftiest labors. The character of (iov. Everett is not to be portrayed with thoughtless haste, or judged by the superficial views which the mere remembrance of brilliant qualities may present. With the richest intellectual endowment, extraordinary mental cultivation, and great a])titude for communication, he united a persistent labor in acquisi- tion, a clearness of perception, a power of analysis and concentration, a profoundness of thought, and a consider- ate judgment, which constituted in his person, a com- bination of virtues and graces, rarely if ever excelled. Ilis early life was that of a scholar and a thinker, his mature years were. a continued harvest of the treasures of learning and wisdom, which time and study and experi- ence garnered vip. It will be the grateful office of some gifted biographer to present the life of Gov. Everett in all its attractiveness of erudite knowledge, scientific accomplishment, and forensic capability, Avith a power of reasoning most persuasive, and an eloquence captivat- ing and irresistible. But it is of Gov. Everett in the relations to the offices of public employment and trust which he sustained and adorned, tliat it rather becomes ine to speak. It has fallen to tlie lot of few men to fill so manv and such PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY. 263 varied appointments of confidence and high responsibility. His whole life was almost an unbroken public service. The ministry to which he was first ordained, was but a school of moral and Christian instruction and edification to others. In the university, whether as Professor or President, he became the educator of the rising genera- tion in the principles and virtues which are alike the founda- tion and the supports of a republican form of government. In deliberative assemblies and the councils of state, his eminent capacity and peculiar versatility and adaptation of talent commended him to frequent demands for official service, and he filled successively with distinguished ability and conscientious fidelity, alike to his own great honor and the approval of the country, the offices of Ilepresentative in Congress, Governor of Massachusetts, Secretary of State of the United States, and United States Senator. As minister to England, he sustained the dignity and vindicated the rights of the nation, and happily maintained, with signal success, its interest and its honor intact, and unimpaired by the arts and designs of an adverse diplomacy. And yet more recently, in this last great struggle for very existence, into which our once united and prosperous country has been most wickedly and deplorably plunged by plotting treason and flagrant rebellion, who more loyally patriotic ; who more effi- ciently active and influential in support of the Govern- ment and in defence of the Kepublic than Edward Everett? It may not be doubted that his words of wondrous eloquence will do much, where even the mis- siles of war would be unheeded, to disabuse prejudice 2C4 MEMORIAL OF EDWAKD EVERETT. iuid disarm hostility in the rebel states. The ]\Iouut Vernon fund, and the contributions to the rehef of the Tennessee refugees, emphatically ivnd almost exclusively/ collections of liis unsurpassed sympathy and generosity and the persistent influence of a noble heart, with his last stirring utterances in aid of the beneficence of his fellow-citizens to the famishing people of repentant Sa- vannah, proclaim him foremost among the benefactors of his country and the age. I will not even attempt, Mr. President, to fill in the altosether too imi)crfect and hastv outline which I have slietched of the public services of this illustrious Ameri- can citizen. His long life has been a blessing to man- kind. The civilized world will de})lore his death. His name and fame will be immortal. Hon. Hciu y Clnipin made the followinj^ reinarkf* : — Mr. President: It is eminently appropriate that the members of this Society should pay their tribute of respect to their late distinguished associate, and former president. 13y his i)ure life, his ripe scholarship, his varied acquire- ments, and his peculiar oratorical power, he reflected honor upon every association with which he was connected. In all these relations may be most appropriately applied to him the compliment once given to another, " Nullum quod tetigit non ornarit." In certain respects Edward Everett was a very remark- able man. His classic head and face, his elegant form, his singularly musical voice, his purity and strength of PROCKEDINGS OF THE ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY. 265 diction and his unsurpassed eloquence of speech will not be soon forgotten by any who have had the privilege to observe them. I never enjoyed the pleasure of his per- sonal acquaintance. Indeed the idea of seeking it never occurred to me, but I looked upon his grace of action, and drank in his eloquent utterances, with unabated inter- est and constant admiration. On all occasions he was a gentleman, and at all times he bore himself with a quiet dignity, which was always fit and appropriate. A scholar, an orator, a patriot, and a Christian, he has filled a place in the country which no man now living can fill, and he will long be remembered by those who have listened to his words as one of the best models of scholarly eloquence and beautiful thoughts. An instance of the eff"ect of one of his masterly appeals will never be forgotten by me. It was on the occasion of the reception of the representatives of tlie Sacs and Foxes at Faneuil Hall. The Hall was filled to its utmost capacity, and many of course were excluded from entering it. Upon the arrival of the red men, the audience seemed moved as by some invisible demon of tumult and confu- sion. It swayed frightfully in every direction. The offi- cers of the law seemed to exert themselves in vain, and every one who was in a position to observe the surging mass looked upon it with feelings of anxiety, if not of dismay. In the midst of the tumult. Gov. Everett arose upon the platform, and his clear sweet voice sovmded through the Hall with a magical and resistless power. Said he, " Gentlemen, suff"er me to make an appeal to you." The rest of his language I am luiablc to recall, "266 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. but in words firm, tender, and persuasive, he spoke of these luitutored cliildren of the forest, coming to the hind of civiHzation and refinement, and he besought his fel- low citizens so to demean themselves, that those who had never enjoyed the blessings and privileges which we enjoy, should carry home with them an exalted idea of their beneficent and purifying intiuence. Before he had half completed his remarks, the tumult had subsided, and at the close of his appeal that mass of human beings stood as quiet and still as the marble statues by his side. I never before nor since beheld a more wonderful exhi- bition of the power of the human voice, and I remember no speech of his which to me was more eloquent or eft'ective. At times the speeches and writings of INIr. Everett, beauti- ful, eloquent, and polished though they are, often failed to reach the hearts of his hearers. The fault, perhaps, was either in his temperament, or in his cautious views upon the topics of the day, which at times almost gave the impres- sion that he lacked depth of conviction. He was naturally timid and distrustful of change. He was the eloquent outgrowth of an age of compromise and expediency, and he ])resented all there was of that age to respect, in its most beautiful and attractive ftnm. He revered the past, but distrusted the future. He believed in facts, but lacked faith in the power of ideas. He honored precedents, but doubted theories. He seemed at times almost to rever- ence expediency at the expense of absolute right. He was the eloquent expositor of the past, the beautiful delin- eator of tlie present, but lie was not the bold prophet of PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY. 267 the future. Hence during the vigor of his Ufe, impressed with an honest fear of evils to come, he seemed to throw his transcendent talents in the way of progress and reform, until he was almost crushed beneath their advancing tread, and the lovers of liberty and right had almost come to look upon him as an enemy to freedom and humanity. Blessed be God, the veil lifted at last from his vision. The first sun which was fired at Fort Sumter drove the warm blood to his heart ; with true manliness and mag- nanimity he declared that he had been mistaken, and he girded himself for the conflict. No service during these years of war has been shunned, no duty has been neglect- ed by him. Throwing both head and heart into the great struggle for free institutions, he has redeemed him- self in the minds and hearts of his contemporaries, he has demonstrated to the world his integrity and patriot- ism, and he has placed his name high on the scroll of the friends of the country, and the defenders of the rights of man. He died at the zenith of his true fame, his last days were his best, and the tears of a grateful people do justice to his memory and to his great and patriotic services. MEMORIAL SERVICES EVERETT SCHOOL I MEMORIAL SERVICES AT THE EVERETT SCHOOL. On the morning of Saturday, January 21, 1865, at nine o'clock, the scliolars of the Everett School were assembled in tiie spacious liall of the Schoolhouse, on Northampton Street. Tlie Committee of the School were present, and a large number of the parents of the children. The Master of the School, Mr. George B. Hyde, commenced tlie exercises by reading appropriate selections from the Scriptures. Prayer was offered by Rev. Robert C. Waterston, after whicli a hymn was sung by tlie members of the first class. Alden Speare, Esq. Chairman of the Sub-Committee, tlicn stated the purposes of the present gathermg, setting fortii the loss this school had sustained in the death of Mr. Everett, and tiie mul- titude of reasons which impelled us to pay respect to his memory. He closed by introducing Frederic F. Thayer, Esq. who, as Chairman of tlic Sub-Committee of the School for tl)c year 18C0, was fomiliar with all the circumstances connected witli the naming and the dedication of tiie Schoolhouse. Mr. Thayer spoke as follows : — Mr. Chairman : When, yesterday, I received your kind invitation to be present here this tnorning. and to 272 MEMORIAL OF" EDWARD EVERETT. say a few words, I confess to mingled emotions of grati- tude for the compliment of the invitation ; and of con- scious inability to say anything worthy of the occasion. But inasmuch as licre I am not a stranger, and lest my silence might be construed to indicate a diminution of' interest in this School, or an indifference to the occasion, I shall venture to occupy a few moments of the hour, set a])art for this sad memorial service. We have reached the last day of a week of mourning. On its first morning, when all the Christian world was preparing for the quiet of another Sabbath, the foremost man among us was called from the turmoils and excite- ments of earth to his everlasting rest. From the crowd who were accustomed to go to the house of God in com- pany, one was missing; our hope and our faith jjrompt the suggestion, that another had joined the society of " the spirits of just men made perfect." A mortal, though loved, honored as few men ever have been, yet a mortal, by one of the kindliest agencies, through which the angel of death visits human habitations to execute his terrible mission, had laid aside the burden of the flesh, with its anxieties, its struggles, and its sorrows, and put on the immortal vestments, with the emblematic palm- wreath and crown. And as the voice of the CUiristian minister was liftcMl to lead the devotions of his people in praver to God, for the forgiveness of tlieir sins, in thank- fulness for innumerable blessings, it did not fail to offer also the petition of a whole people, stricken by sudden and overwhelming grief. From tliat day to this, has the SERVICES AT THE EVERETT SCHOOL. 273 prayer been repeated aloud in the busy marts of com- merce, and iu the privacy of a thousand homes, indicat- ing so sincerely, an expression of bereavement so general, as almost never to have been equalled in the event of the death of any citizen. The eloquence of the most gifted, the learning of the schools, and the heartfelt utterances of friend to friend, have indicated a realizing sense of the loss our city, our state, our country, the enlightened world, have sustained in his death, whose virtues, whose patriotism, whose learning, all vie with each other most fittingly to exalt and to commemorate. Impelled by the same motives which have induced the numerous societies and associations, of which he was a member, to assemble that they might properly call to mind his pleasant connection with them, — to be experi- enced no more on earth, — and to make a respectful record to his memory, are we now assembled, — the teachers, the pupils, the Committee, and a portion of the friends of the Everett School ; to repeat in great measure, it may be, what others have said before us ; but on this spot, amid these scenes, wherein he was wont to join us with pleasure, — in this building, which is to bear his name, — probably when all of us, like him. have passed from earth, is to bear his name to the generations that shall be, until brick and stone, and mortar shall have crumbled, and the action of the elements shall have worn away from the tablet all traces of the letters which compose the illustri- ous name, — in this building, within these walls, resonant with his praise, and tributary of the esteem, with which 35 274 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. the men of this generation regarded him, wc do gratify our feelings of reverence and of affection, as we gather here in sympathy with a whole community ; and among ourselves, in our own way, to mourn for tlie lamented dead, where we have met to rejoice with the honored living. I am aware, Mr. Chairman, that I am indehted for the compliment of an invitation to he present on this occasion to the fact, that a few years since, it was my privilege to hear an humble part in connecting Mr. Everett's name permanently with this schooL To a gentleman, now a member of the Committee, and myself, were entrusted the arrangements for the dedica- tion, and we entered upon our duties, by waiting upon Mr, Everett, to inform him of the action of the Board, and to request his presence at the dedication, which was to take place on the following Monday, the 17th of September, the 2;3()th birthday of our city. He cheer- fully complied with our request, and most of us remem- ber witli pleasure, his participation in the exercises of that day, when with his friends, the lion. Robert C. Winthrop, President Felton, of blessed memory, Rev. Ur. George Putnam, of our neighboring city, and Rev. Dr. Eliot, of Washington University, he joined the city authorities, and teachers and i)upils of the school, in consecrating this building to the lofty purposes of education, — under his revered name, to hold no unworthy place among the excellent schools of our metropolis. That Mr. Everett appreciated what had been accom- plished, in this appropriation of his name, we may learn, if SERVICES AT THE EVERETT SCHOOL. 275 we recall the words used by him, on that occasion, where he says, " Devoted, for a pretty long life, to the public sei'vicc, in a variety of pursuits and occupations, laboring, I know, I may say diligently, and I hope I may add, though sometimes with erring judgment, yet always with honest purpose, for the public good at home and abroad; I frankly own, sir, that no public honor, compliment, or reward which has fallen to my lot, has given me greater pleasure than the association of my name with one of these noble public schools of Boston." In full accord- ance with this expression, are other indications which have come under my personal observation. Botli by letter, and from his own lips, have I had repeated assur- ance that he was deeply interested in the prosperity of this school ; that he felt a just pride in its reputation and in its usefulness ; and as he more than once said, he only waited the time, when his country could be relieved from threatening perils, to manifest his interest more by his frequent presence. Alas, for the school, that day will not come ! Alas ! for us and for the school, the demands of a bleeding country upon his patriotic services pre- vented his frequent and valuable participation in cultivat- ing here the arts of peace. But thanks to the Providence Avhich ordained it, he was found equal to the emergency, and in the hour of our country's greatest need, when the hearts of men were failing them from fear, he stood forth, loftiest among the mighty, the safe counsellor, the champion of republican institutions in their purity, the intelligent and eloquent prophet of the ultimate triumph of liberty. You, my young friends of the school, were 276 MEMOIUAL OF EDWARD EVEKETT. deprived of his bcnedictive presence and his vahi;il)lc counsels; but his strengtli of body and mind, and tlie earnest prayers of liis trusting, Christian heart were given to his country, wliich needed them more than you. And, to-day, wlien we are met to mourn his sudden departure, we can rejoice, that by tlie sublime efforts of his genius, as developed so recently in untried channels, and the con- secration of his matchless powers to sustain all that is good in the institutions under wliich we live ; in the out- pourings of liis lips that the liungry miglit be fed, the naked clothed, and the famisliing restored ; and all tliis, while not entirely neglecting the multitude of obligations wliich had claimed a share in his regards and his services, und(>r a happier condition of national aflairs, he showed to us and to tlie whole world that his last days were his best days, and every day as it came, sliortening his career upon the earth, found him better fitted for heaven. "We can then, and we will mingle gratitude with our lamentations over his grave, — gratitude to God, that to our times he gave such a complete development of the highest manhood. "NVc will be grateful for his services to the world. — grateful that his unsurpassed talents Avere never used but for the public good, — grateful that before our bodily eyes has been presented, in attractive form and feature, such an excellent example. In the refined scholar, in the accomplished orator, in the consummate statesman, in the jierfect gentleman, in the unostentatious Christian, we find an embodiment of what our free insti- tutions, in their highest culture, directed and controlled l>y a living Christianity, will imtducc ^Ve will be grate- SERVICES AT THE EVERETT SCHOOL. 277 ful also for our humble connection with him, triflinf^ though it be ; for so much as it is, it has been another bond to whatever is good, and noble, and true. When- ever he has been with us, he did not leave us without his blessing. And now that he has ascended, I Avould that all which is worthy of remembrance and imitation, — and how much was there in such a life as his, — I would that it should be transfigured before us. As we shall see his living face no more, I rejoice that the devotion of the master of this school, and his reverence for him who was worthiest among the living, now sainted among the dead, prompted his generous heart to secure this splendid marble bust, calm, graceful, majestic, like him whose lineaments it so accurately portrays, but to-day deco- rated with the emblems of sadness, in sympathy with all around. I rejoice it is here. I rejoice it is to remain here, to be more precious than before ; to remind all who enter within these walls that the presiding genius here is excellence, — excellence in conversation, excel- lence in deportment, excellence in intellectual accom- plishments, excellence in Christian graces. Under such a tutelage, with the throng of cooperating advantages here enjojed, we might trust in the most flattering prom- ise of a generation of well educated, well balanced, firm principled, devoted. Christian women, to bear their honorable part in the great future of our country. But, Mr. Cliairman and friends, I have consumed the portion of time which it becomes me to occupy ; and I must close, although I have just reached that part of my themo whirJi most attracts me. T must leave to others to •278 MEMORIAL OF KDWAHD EVERETT. dwell upon the value of such an example before the vouth of our land. What a wealth of beneficent influence is treasured up in the story of his life ! Though " being dead, he yet speakcth." To all alike, young and old, he speaks, telling of the possibilities wrapped up in this nature of ours, of the responsibilities which accompany exalted talents, and how religiously they may be fulfilled; — of the present reward, which waits upon fidelity to duty, and a compliance with the providential directions of ])assing life,— telling, how it is possible to be great and good; to be kind, and virtuous, and true; to be learned in all worldly lore, to hold tlie loftiest positions among men, and yet be studious of the precc[)ts of the Master, humbly following Him who " went about doing good," — how it is possible to move uncontaminated amid the world's glitter- ing fascinations and its fleeting shadows, — to turn aside from the broad higliway and its sure destruction, to enter in at the straight gate, — to attain, as he attained, and to share with him ^' the peace and the progress of the skies. l\ev. E. C. Watcrston, a incuibcr of the Sub-Cumiiiittcc, said: — It is natural that we sliould strive to recall, as far as possible, each incident in the life of the illustrious bene- factor who has been so recently taken from us. Every look and word, all the expressions of counsel and en- couragement which we have heard him utter. It was one of his great i)leasures to visit this school. SERVICES AT THE EVERETT SCHOOL. 219 bearing as it did his name ; and you, I am quite sure, always felt it a privilege to welcome him. In that volume from which we liave just heard sucli appropriate passages read, — we are told that when Peter was in a certain city of Judea, one who had been actively useful, had been suddenly taken away. When the Apos- tle met the sorrowing company, they gathered around, showing the garments they had received, while the friend now departed was yet living. What a graphic touch of nature is that ! The instructive prompting of their hearts led them to recall those grateful reminiscences. It was the finest tribute which could be paid, surpassing in its simplicity all human eloquence. Thus Shakespeare, with his transcendent knowledge of human nature, makes Mark Antony exclaim over the body of Julius Ctnesar : — " You all do know this mantle, I remember The first time over Csesar put it on." So in the presence of the Apostle, the people gather about him holding up for his notice the treasured memo- rials of their departed friend, recounting each act of kindness. True to the same natural impulse, at the present moment, societies, associations, and individuals are meeting together, that they may express those feelings of respect and affection which gush up with fresh in- tensity in the heart. Fondly do they dwell upon each 280 MEMOm.AL OF EDWARD EVERETT. pleasant reinembrauce. What he has said and done in their behalf. Tlic University, the City, the State, the Nation, pauses to recount every word and deed. Ay, even Avhile we speak, tlie steamer that so lately left this port, may be entering- the harbor of Savannah, while those who receive the aid wliicli has been thus gen- erously sent, having heard already by the swift telegraph, of this sad event, may exclaim — "That eloquent voice (to be heard no more) gave forth its closing accents in our behalf. That which we receive, in this hour of need, comes as from his hand ! " So also with us, my young friends, we shall do well to recall in this impressive hour, whatever we may have known of that life and character. If we have seen that face, if we have heard that voice, if we have had any special opjjortunity at any time or in any way of becom- ing acquainted witli a mind which exerted so wide and so powerful an intluence, let us dwell upon it in thouglit, let us speak of it frankly one with another. Thus if you remember Mr. Everett's visits to this School, if you can recall any of his remarks, you will do well to retain that recollection as vividly as possible ; to strengthen the impression, and to add to its value by speaking of it to others. I know that he gave a book to each of the older scholars, the name written out in connection with his own; with what constantly increasing interest, will others look upon that autograph ! My personal acquaintance with Mr. Everett commenced in 1834. — thirty-one years ago. 1 had written an article SERVICES AT THE EVERETT SCHOOL. 281 for the North American Re^'iew, of which he was, at that time, the editor. He resided at Charlestown, and sent an invitation for me to come and see him. Never can I for- get his kindness npon that occasion, a kindness which knew no shadow throngh thirty years. Within three days of his death, I received two notes from him, in one of which he says " I rise from my bed (to which I have been mostly confined since Monday) to write you." The day following he says — " I was too ill to write at any length yesterday, and I am not much better to-day." Then, having added a few lines, he closes with the words " My head is too cloudy." A startling expression from him, and, I confess, awakening the first feeling of ap- prehension. This I received on Friday. On Sunday morning he was no more here. On that Monday, to which he refers, he had made his thrilling, and (as we then little knew) his last speech at Faneuil Hall. That mind which seemed never cloudy before, had this slight foreshadowing, this gentle intimation of the swift-approaching event. Now, even that momentary veil has been withdrawn, and that mind, with its wonderful powers, has risen into celestial glory. How mysterious ! and yet is it not blended with grand- eur 1 With every faculty in unsurpassed vigor, active and useful, never more so, to the whole community and the entire Nation, suddenly he is uplifted above the things of time. Sorrowful as w^e may feel, is there not reason on his account for exultation ] As long as the oldest of us here can remember, he has 3a 282 MEMORIAL OF EDWAKI) EVEKETT. been one of the most marked men of the country, and never has he been more honored or beloved than within the hxst four years of our country's strife and struggle. Through these days of calamity and cloud, he has been firm and fearless. I need not dwell upon that patriotic devotion which we have all witnessed, and to which we shall ever recur with gratitude and delight. My purpose at this time will be, not to dwell upon his public career, but briefly to consider two or three of those characteristics, which it may be of advantage for the pupils of this school, and for the young generally, to keep in mind. The first characteristic to which I will refer is, his Courtesy. This, I believe, he extended at all times, to all persons, old and young, learned and ignorant, rich and poor. I doubt if he was ever guilty of a discourteous act to the least influential person, or even to an opponent. It is my conviction that this was in him no empty for- mality ; but that it was based upon a thoughtfulness of the feelings and tlie rights of others. This respectfulness of manner, this grace of deportment, so marked, and so attractive in our distinguished friend, was a trait which the young may well keep before them as an incentive. Some things are beyond our reach, but this, to a consider- able degree, is within the attainment of all. At times, unawares, perhaps, the young acquire a brusk manner. They become, it may be, abrupt, hasty, pert, overbearing. They are not properly respectful to the aged. There is a lack of gentleness in their daily inter- course with their companions. SERVICES AT THE EVEKETT SCHOOL. 283 In what striking contrast to this was the manner and the spirit of Edward Everett. Let the young, when they recall the splendor of those gifts which made him illustrious, and some of which are far beyond common acquirement, remember this winning and admirable trait, by which he imparted pleasure to many, through all the daily routine of life. Another remarkable characteristic of ^Ir. Everett was his Memory. This was no doubt in him a rare natural endowment. Still it was strengthened by care and culture. Probably no man in this country has possessed this faculty and per- fected it to such a degree, unless it was John Quincy Adams ; but this gift in him, though as extraordinary in some respects, was less marvellous in others. John Quincy Adams appeared to remember the name of every person he had ever known, the ideas of every book he had ever read, and each fact which had ever presented itself to his knowledge. And, moreover, he was never at a loss. The instant that any subject was suggested, at that instant all his recollections and acquisitions were be- fore him, in perfect order and ready for use. But with him, as far as I know, it was principally names, facts, data, the rich ore which he could work abundantly, and turn evermore to his purpose. All history and literature seemed familiar to his mind, his eye penetrating through everything at a glance, and resting upon the very fact he needed. But INIr. Everett, while he remembered facts, names, and data, could also recall with unerring exactness the precise language of an author. 284 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. We all know how he could with ease repeat, word for word, orations of one and two hours in length, without the slijihtest reference to notes, and this in a natural tone, without apparent effort, as if every expression was the spontaneous utterance of the moment. I will mention a little incident illustrative of his memory, which happened to come within my knowledge. A friend of mine in London stated to me that an English gentleman, having printed a history of one of the inte- rior counties of England, he sent u copy of the work to our city Library. In writing to Mr. Everett, as one of the Trustees of the Library, my friend suggested that, as the book was privately printed, it would doubtless be a sratification to the author if he should receive some special acknowledgment. By the next steamer a letter was received from Mr. Everett — not only expressuig thanks for the volume, but I\Ir. Everett stated in addition that he was at Oxford when that gentleman received his degree. That he listened with great pleasure to a Poem which that gentleman recited at that time, and that he was particularly impressed by the following lines. Here he quoted a passage from a Poem which had never been published, and which Mr. Everett heard incidentally from a young man at that time quite unknown, and in connection Avith the various public exercises of a Literary Festival, and yet years after he could recall those lines, and send them across the Atlantic to the author, who was as much astonished as if he had heard a voice coming down to him from the heavens. It is doubtful if there is another man in the country SERVICES AT THE EVERETT SCHOOL. 285 who could have exercised such a singular power of memory, or have made such a felicitous use of it. Mr. Everett's natural gift he used and directed with consummate care. It would be curious to know more fully his rules and practices. While at College he com- mitted the whole of Locke on the Human Understanding, so that he could repeat it word for word, from the intro- duction to the close. And in an address delivered at the request of the Massachusetts Historical Society, I heard him repeat more than one hundred and eighty names of authors and artists of different nations, Greek, Latin, Ger- man, Italian, Spanish, French, in exact order, with as much apparent ease as he would have spoken his own name. This power varies in different persons, but there is no faculty more perceptibly affected by culture. You may be sure, my young friends, that by every lesson you learn, by every paragraph you commit, you are strengthening this important faculty of mind, which may prove an in- calculable advantage to you in after life. No one can fully estimate the value of this faculty to such a man as Mr. Everett. How different he would have been with that one power wanting ! And how greatly is the world indebted to him for the diligence and wisdom with which he employed it. The next and closing characteristic of which I will speak is that fidelity which was manifested by Mr. Everett, not only in great but in minor duties. It was said of Oberlin that he was conscientious even to the rounding of an O. Mr. Everett was faithful to the same degree. 286 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. Notbinp- was too minute for his observation or his care. You see it in every note he penned, in every word he uttered. It mattered not whether he was to give an ehiborate oration before some learned University, or a brief address before some small Society, or simply a remark to an individual, the words to be spoken were well considered. There was an appropriateness and a com- pleteness whicli made it memorable. Every pamphlet he received he acknowledged with his own hand, and whatever he did was done promptly. His industry and punctuality were something extraordinary. The notes from whicli I have quoted, received within three days of his dcatli, are a proof that not even illness could prevent him from fulfilling, even to within a few hours of his departure, whatever it Avas within his power to do. I confess that even more than for his most splen- did achievements do I honor him for his life-long fidelity to the minutest of duties. These were the steps by whicli he climbed to surprising elevations. The rounds in that ladder, which, planted on the earth, reached upward and upward. Every young person may learn a lesson of wis- dom from Mr. Everett here. Wordsworth tells us that — " The primal duties sliine aloft — like stars ; The charities that soothe, aud heal, and bless, Arc scattered at the feet of man — like flowers." So there were gifts in Mr. Everett which we may ne\er aspire to possess. They shine aloft like stars, to cheer and guide us in our pathway ; but there are qualities which are scattered bountifully within our reach. Ect us SERVICES AT THE EVERETT SCHOOL. 287 then gain whatever advantage is possible from any portion of his Hfe, and any characteristics of his mind, which may offer for us a lesson. There are those Avho will remember Mr. Everett chiefly as the Orator ; some will dwell upon him as the States- man ; some as the man of Letters ; some will recall his patriotism in these latter days of his country's trial. But Avhile you think of him as the Scholar, the Patriot, the Statesman, the Orator, — you will think of him, perhaps, most fondly as the friend of the Everett School. You will dwell upon him in thought, as he appeared to you while here. May his example inspire you to constant diligence, and may the memory of what he accomplished lead you to perpetual progress. j\Ir. Charles W. Slack said : — Mr. Chairma>- and Friends: Mr. Everett's character was so many-sided that there are few who cannot speak of some one particular quality that makes his memory and name respected. For me, two or three will suffice on this occasion. 1. His deep interest in public education. Himself a graduate at the age of 10 of the North (now Eliot) School of this city, his children severally educated, in part, at the public schools, and his every influence exerted for the success of the common-school system of our State, he was particularly near to us who meet on this occasion. As Governor of Massachusetts, he was largely influential in giving permanence to the beneficial system of Normal 288 MEMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. Schools, which arc alike our pride and strength. True, Horace Mann was a potential coadjutor in this good work of a systematic and progressive scheme of School educa- tion, but Mr. Everett gave the large weight of his official and personal aid to the work. Then, also, he was largely the promoter of the lyceum or lecture system, now so common and so popular. Before his day, the lecture- course for the instruction of the people was wholly unknown. How much we are indebted to him for this great service, we can readily appreciate should we be deprived of our Mercantile Library, our Parker-Frater- nity, our Young ]\Ien's Christian Association's Lectures, or, more recently, those charming lectures of Mr. Emerson, all of which are the direct result of Mr. Everett's desire to instruct and benefit the community. Surely, we can all thank him for these educational advantages to the common people. 2. His wonderful and systematic industry, joined with a courteous readiness to aid in any proper work for the benefit of his fellow-citizens. Think of his long and varied life ! the tasks imposed upon him in each sphere, and with what rave fidelity he discharged his several trusts ! What files of addresses, reports, messages, letters, orations, attest his knowledge, scholarship, cooperation, as well as elo(iuence ! He was ever a cheerful worker. I think no one ever appealed to him for assistance in a laudable enterprise that did not, if he were not pre- occupied, receive it cordially and punctually. And this trait of his punctuality was a marked one. It was as much a charm of his life as his eloquence. He never de- SEKVICES AT THE EVEUliTT SCHOOL. 289 layed, even in the minntest, and, seemingly, most unim- portant particulars. I remember, last September, being interested in a meeting in Faneuil Hall, to have realized the value of this excellence. It was just after the brilliant success of the indomitable and persistent Sherman, who, amid the mountains of Georgia, had just planted his colors in triumph over the city of Atlanta. It was while the news was coming to us that the brave old Farragut had defiantly made the passage of the forts in Mobile Bay, and conquered the second city of the South without even placing his foot upon the land. Some of us wanted to celebrate these victories in Faneuil Hall. As one ot the Committee of Arrangements, I called on Mr. Everett, to aid in its success. He received me cordially, thanked me lieartily for the honor, told me his whole heart and soul was in response to the glad tidings and the objects of the meeting, but he had for a few days been very feeble in health, was busily engaged in the preparation of twelve lectures upon law for Harvard University, there was scarce time for him to elaborate a first-class oration for tlie occasion, as he should desire, and, very reluctantly, he must decline the invitation. To assent cheerfully to the disappointment, for such reasons, Avas only a duty. " But you can send a letter, Mr. Everett, to the meeting, can you not?" I asked. " With great pleasure," was the cor- dial response, " if that will be acceptable. Call to- morrow at four o'clock, and it shall be ready for you." I need not say that at the hour named, almost to a minute, that letter was in my hands, in his well-known, faultless chirography, no interlineations, every t crossed, every i 37 290 MKMORIAL OF EDWARD EVERETT. dotted, — a model for teacher or pupil in any school ; and this from a man pressed with initold cares, and in the seventy-first year of his age ! That letter I have now with me, just as it was prejiared for that rejoicing Fancuil Hall assembly by Mr. Everett himself. I have been solicited by committees of national fairs, lovers of choice autographs, and others, to part with it. What committees and friends could not by entreaty and long persuasion induce me to surrender, I now cheerfully give to the Everett School, through its Principal, to be added to such other soui^enirs as may be possessed, as my tribute, as a past chairman and a past secretary of the Everett School District Committee, to the memory of a man deserving to have the School named in his honor. 3. His Nationality. This was deep-seated, far-reach- ing, wholly American. He believed in the American name, American literature, science, commerce, manufac- tures, and the craft of the artisan. Never was this quality so brilliantly illustrated as during the last four years. American law, order, nationality, the sovereignty of a great people, the i)erpetuity of the great republic, were the themes which found expression in a hundred ways of poi)ular address. He sustained the war, he sus- tained the government, he sustained the administration , it was all unselfish, disinterested, cordial, patriotic. No man can measure the value of this support — scarce one throughout the continent ecpialled it in influence. This memory of the departed will to many be the sweetest and longest enduring. [ fear, Mr. C'hairmau, I do not join with many in the SERVICES AT THE EVERETT SCHOOL. 291 feeling of profound sorrow which has attended this depart- ure. I cannot divorce my mind from the thought that it is a wise consummation of a full-measured and rounded - out existence here. To me it is in accord with the benefi- cent laws of nature. I know that the wilting and falling leaves of the flower only indicate that its keenest fragrance and intensest coloring have been given to its admirers ; I see the golden fruit, streaked with its ribands of emerald and ruby, hanging in the autumn sun, and at the favoring moment it drops, fully ripe, into the lap of mother earth ; the dying swan, we are told, throws forth its sweetest notes of song with its expiring breath ; and may we not believe that, with the same all-wise provision for His children, the good Father called our departed friend when his work was fully done, his life wholly completed, and his memory should be the sweetest to all who remain? Let us be thankful we have that memory, that life, that work, and from them each shall radiate influences which shall evermore bless and benefit the world. The master of the School, in a few appropriate remarks, accepted the gift, and the exercises were closed by singing. PROCEEDINGS AND RESOLUTIONS YARIOUS ORGANIZATIONS OVERSEERS OF IIAUVAED COLLEGE. Boston, January 26, ISIi.'i. Tlie following Preamble and Resolutions were prefaced with remarks by the Reverend James Walker, D. D., and presented to the Board : — Whereas it has pleased God to take from this life the Hon. Edward Everett, a distinguished member of this Board ; therefore Resolved, That we avail ourselves of the earliest oppor- tunity to record our sense of the great loss which Harvard College has sustained in the death of one of the most illustrious of her sons. Resolved, That, as one branch of the government of the college, we would especially acknowledge his early servi- ces to the University as Professor of Greek Literature, which were welcomed with so much enthusiasm by the scholars of that day, and did so much to give an impulse to classical learning in this country ; and also the unsur- passed dignity with which, in later life, he filled the office of President, his administration being marked by all his accustomed care and thoroughness, and only prevented by ■J>"' ■?. ^o N^^-V £^^^ i^< o ;>t.> ^- '-P 0' ^■"/^ "^, -^v-c^ .-"-J 1 -J \' .0' ^^-''^^ o ^ ■;- ■h' ^^ %, -"■ A^ \. •" \«^ . °.z, "-'■ f'^ *> '■' ,,^^^ .-,\ a"- ... '/. o •^. .<^ ■Mil ..*" '■'*. o .0^ .-N-" '^ ,0' O SrtJ I- 0" ,•''"• O . ,N '-r, ^"//■•^ a"^ •■^" -;?. ^ ^0^ : ;-< -'■ '^ ■ ■■:". '• o V o ^^' •'■^ • :?'?'^ ...' ::s. -^, o X ^^v. ^^ > \^^. N^' •^•^^ .0- ■>*, \-^ N MANCHESTER . '~^"' INDIANA \,': '■•''.' :t,!„ J •^■■:i.r, :.:';'/' :•:•',/ K^>,>':-f. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS