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Xittle 3ournei?0 
 
 SERIES FOR 1896 
 
 Xittle Sourness to the Ibomes of 
 American Butbors 
 
 The papers below specified, were, with the 
 exception of that contributed by the editor, 
 Mr. Hubbard, originally issued by the late 
 G. P. Putnam, in 1853, in a series entitled 
 Hotnes of American Authoj's. It is now 
 nearly half a century since this series (which 
 won for itself at the time a very noteworthy 
 prestige) was brought before the public ; and 
 the present publishers feel that no apology is 
 needed in presenting to a new generation of 
 American readers papers of such distinctive 
 biographical interest and literary value. 
 
 No. I, Emerson, by Geo. W. Curtis. 
 
 2, Bryant, by Caroline M. Kirkland. 
 
 3, Prescott, by Geo. S. Hillard. 
 
 4, Lowell, by Charles F. Briggs, 
 
 5, Simms, by Wm. CuUen Bryant. 
 
 6, Walt Whitman, by Elbert Hubbard. 
 
 7, Hawthorne, by Geo. Wm. Curtis. 
 
 8, Audubon, by Parke Godwin. 
 
 9, Irving, by H. T. Tuckerman. 
 
 10, Longfellow by Geo. Wm. Curtis. 
 
 11, Everett, by Geo. S. Hillard. 
 
 12, Bancroft, by Geo. W^. Greene. 
 
 The above papers, which will form the 
 series of Little Journeys for the year 1896, 
 will be issued monthly, beginning January, 
 in the same general style as the series of 
 1895, at socts. a year. Single copies, 5 cts., 
 postage paid. 
 
 Entered at the Post Office, New RocheUe, N. Y., 
 as second class matter 
 
 Copyright, 1896, by 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 27 * 29 West 23D Street, New York 
 
 24 Bedford Street, Strand, London 
 
 The Knickerbockek Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 
 
o^b^'^ 
 
 
 PRESCOTT. 
 
 75 
 
with the benevolent mission of Gasca then the 
 historian of the Conquest may be permitted to 
 terminate his labors,— with feelings not unlike 
 those of the traveller, who, having long jour- 
 neyed among the dreary forests and dangerous 
 defiles of the mountains, at length emerges on 
 some pleasant landscape smiling in tranquillity 
 
 and peace. 
 
 Conquest of Peru. 
 
 76 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Mr. George S. Hillard, who wrote this 
 essay in 1852, was a lawyer with a liking 
 for letters. He was a personal friend of 
 Mr. Prescott's, and such an admirer of the 
 historian's work that when he published 
 unsigned articles, people often said 
 "Prescott" — and then was Mr. Hillard 
 greatly pleased. His style is as broadly 
 generous and calmly flowing as the 
 Niagara just below the Falls: only a 
 Lake Erie of words, and a cataract of 
 ideas could supply it. And if he chose 
 to speak of a man's mother as his "im- 
 mediate maternal ancestor," or a boat- 
 ride as "an aquatic excursion " it surely 
 was his legal right 
 
 E. H. 
 
 77 
 
PRESCOTT 
 
 BY GEO. S. HII,I,ARD.* 
 
 THE true idea of a home includes 
 something more than a place to live 
 in. It involves elements which are 
 intangible and imponderable. It means a 
 particular spot in which the mind is de- 
 veloped, the character trained, and the 
 affections fed. It supposes a chain of 
 association, by which mute material forms 
 are linked to certain states of thoughts 
 and moods of feeling, so that our joys and 
 sorrows, our struggles and triumphs, are 
 chronicled on the walls of a house, the 
 trunk of a tree, or the walks of a garden. 
 
 * Written in 1853 for Futusm's Homes oj" Ameri- 
 can Authors . 
 
 79 
 
Iprescott 
 
 Many persons are so unhappy as to pass 
 through life without these sweet influ- 
 ences. Their lives are wandering and 
 nomadic, and their temporary places of 
 shelter are mere tents, though built of 
 brick or wood. The bride is brought 
 home to one house, the child is born in 
 another, and dies in a third. As we walk 
 through the unexpressive squares of one 
 of our cities, and mark their dreary mo- 
 notony of front, and their ever-changing 
 door-plates, how few of these houses are 
 there that present themselves to the eye 
 with any of these symbols and indications 
 of home. These, we say instinctively, 
 are mere parallelograms of air, with sec- 
 tions and divisions at regular intervals, 
 in which men may eat and sleep, but not 
 live, in the large meaning of the term. 
 
 But a country-house, however small 
 and plain, if it be only well placed, as in 
 the shadow of a patriarchal tree, or on 
 the banks of a stream, or in a hollow of a 
 sheltering hill, has more of the look of 
 borne than many a costly city mansion. 
 80 
 
prescott 
 
 In the former, a portion of nature seems 
 to have been subdued and converted to the 
 uses of man, and yet its primitive charac- 
 ter to have remained unchanged ; but, in 
 the latter, nature has been slain and 
 buried, and a huge brick monument 
 erected to her memory. We read that 
 "God setteth the solitary in families." 
 The significance of this beautiful expres- 
 sion dwells in its last word. The solitary 
 are not set in hotels or boarding-houses, 
 nor yet in communities or phalansteries, 
 but in families. The burden of solitude 
 is to be lightened by household affections, 
 and not by mere aggregation. True so- 
 ciety — that which the heart craves and 
 the character needs — is only to be found 
 at home, and what are called the cares 
 of house-keeping, from which so many 
 selfishly and indolently shrink, when 
 lighted by mutual forbearance and un- 
 pretending self-sacrifice, become occasion 
 of endearment and instruction of moral 
 and spiritual growth. 
 
 The partial deprivation of sight under 
 
prescott 
 
 which Mr. Prescott has long labored, is 
 now a fact in literary history almost as 
 well known as the blindness of Milton 
 or the lameness of Scott. Indeed, 
 many magnify in their thoughts the 
 extent of his loss, and picture to them- 
 selves the author of " Ferdinand and 
 Isabella" as a venerable personage, 
 entirely sightless, whose '*dark steps" 
 require a constant "guiding hand," and 
 are greatly surprised when they see this 
 ideal image transformed into a figure re- 
 taining a more than common share of 
 youthful lightness of movement, and a 
 countenance full of freshness and anima- 
 tion, which betrays to a casual observa- 
 tion no mark of visual imperfection. 
 The weight of this trial, heavy indeed to 
 a man of literary tastes, has been bal- 
 anced in Mr. Prescott' s case by great 
 compensations. He has been happy in the 
 home he has made for himself, and happy 
 in the troops of loving and sympathizing 
 friends whom he has gathered around 
 him. He has been happy in the early 
 82 
 
prescott 
 
 possession of that leisure which has en- 
 abled him to give his whole energies to 
 literary labors, without distraction or 
 interruption, and most of all, happy in 
 his own genial temper, his cheerful spirit, 
 his cordial frankness, and that disposition 
 to look on the bright side of men and 
 things, which is better not only than 
 house and land, but than genius and fame. 
 It is his privilege, by no means universal 
 with successful authors, to be best valued 
 where most known ; and the graceful 
 tribute which his intimate friend, Mr. 
 Ticknor, has paid to him, in the preface 
 to his History of Spanish Literature, that 
 his "honors will always be dearest to 
 those who have best known the discour- 
 agements under which they have been 
 won, and the modesty and gentleness 
 with which they are worn," is but an ex- 
 pression of the common feeling of all 
 those who know him. 
 
 To come down to smaller matters, Mr. 
 Prescott has been fortunate in the merely 
 local influences which have helped to 
 83 
 
Iprescott 
 
 train his mind and character. His lines 
 have fallen to him in pleasant places. 
 His father, who removed from Salem to 
 Boston when he himself was quite young, 
 lived for many years in a house in Bedford 
 Street, now swept away by the march of 
 change, the effect of which, in a place of 
 limited extent like Boston, is to crowd 
 the population into constantly narrowing 
 spaces. It was one of a class of houses 
 of which but few specimens are now left 
 in our densely settled peninsula. 
 
 It was built of brick, painted yellow, 
 was square in form, and had rooms on 
 either side of the front door. It had little 
 architectural merit and no architectural 
 pretension. But it stood by itself, and 
 was not imprisoned in a block, had a few 
 feet of land between the front door and 
 the street, and a reasonable amount of 
 breathing-space and elbow-room at the 
 sides and in the rear, and was shaded by 
 some fine elms and horse-chestnuts. It 
 had a certain individual character and 
 expression of its own. Here Mr. Prescott 
 84 
 
Iprcscott 
 
 the elder, commonly known and addressed 
 in Boston as Judge Prescott, lived from 
 1817 to 1844, the year of his death. 
 
 Mr. Prescott the younger, the historian, 
 upon his marriage, did not leave his 
 father's house to seek a new home, but, 
 complying with a kindly custom more 
 common in Europe, at least upon the 
 Continent, than in America, continued 
 to reside under the paternal roof, the two 
 families forming one united and affection- 
 ate household, which, in the latter years 
 of Judge Prescott's life, presented most 
 engaging forms of age, mature life, and 
 blooming youth. As Mr. Prescott's circle 
 of research grew wider, the house was 
 enlarged by the addition of a study, to 
 accommodate his books and manuscripts, 
 and here fame found him living when she 
 came to seek him after the publication of 
 the History of Ferdinand and Isabella. 
 No one of those who were so fortunate as 
 to enjoy the friendship of both the father 
 and the son ever walks by the spot where 
 this house once stood, without recalling 
 85 
 
Iptescott 
 
 witli a mingling of pleasure and of pain 
 its substantial and respectable appearance, 
 its warm atmosphere of welcome and 
 hospitality, and the dignified form, so ex- 
 pressive of wisdom and of worth, of that 
 admirable person who so long presided 
 over it. This house was pulled down a 
 few years since, soon after the death of 
 Judge Prescott ; his son having previously 
 removed to the house in Beacon Street, 
 in which he now lives during the winter 
 months. 
 
 Few authors have ever been so rich in 
 dwelling-places as Mr. Prescott. '* The 
 truth is," says he in a letter to Mr. George 
 P. Putnam, **I have three places of resi- 
 dence, among which I contrive to distrib- 
 ute my year. Six months I pass in town, 
 where my house is in Beacon Street, 
 looking on the Common, which, as you 
 may recollect, is an uncommonly fine 
 situation, commanding a noble view of 
 land and water." 
 
 There is little in the external aspect of 
 this house in Beacon Street to distinguish 
 86 
 
preecott 
 
 it from others in its immediate vicinity. 
 It is one of a continuous but not uniform 
 block. It is of brick, painted white, four 
 stories high, and with one of those swelled 
 fronts which are characteristic of Boston. 
 It has the usual proportion and distribu- 
 tion of drawing-rooms, dining-room, and 
 chambers, which are furnished with un- 
 pretending elegance and adorned with 
 some portraits, copies of originals in 
 Spain, illustrative of Mr. Prescott's writ- 
 ings. The most striking portion of the 
 interior consists of an ample library, 
 added by Mr. Prescott to the rear of the 
 house, and communicating with the 
 drawing-rooms. It is an apartment of 
 noble size and fine proportions, filled with 
 a choice collection of books, mostly his- 
 torical, which are disposed in cases of 
 richly-veined and highly-polished oak. 
 This room, which is much used in the 
 social arrangements of the household, is 
 not that in which Mr. Prescott does his 
 hard literary work. A much smaller 
 apartment, above the library and com- 
 87 
 
prescott 
 
 municating with it, is the working study 
 — an arrangement similar to that adopted 
 by Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford. 
 
 Mr. Prescott's collection of books has 
 been made with special reference to his 
 own departments of inquiry, and in these 
 it is very rich. It contains many works 
 which cannot be found in any other pri- 
 vate library, at least, in this country. 
 Besides these, he has a large number of 
 manuscripts, amounting in the aggregate 
 to not less than twenty thousand folio 
 pages, illustrative of the periods of his- 
 tory treated in his works. These manu- 
 scripts have been drawn from all parts of 
 Burope, as well as from the States of 
 Spanish origin in this country. He has 
 also many curious and valuable auto- 
 graphs. 
 
 Nor is the interest of this apartment 
 confined to its books and manuscripts. 
 Over the window at the northern end, 
 there are two swords suspended, and 
 crossed like a pair of clasped hands. 
 One of these was borne by Colonel Pres- 
 88 
 
prescott 
 
 cott at Bunker Hill, and the other by Cap- 
 tain Linzee, the maternal grandfather of 
 Mrs. Prescott, who commanded the British 
 sloop of war Falcon, which was engaged 
 in firing upon the American troops on 
 that occasion. It is a significant and 
 suggestive sight, from which a thought- 
 ful mind may draw out a long web of 
 reflection. These swords, once waving 
 in hostile hands, but now amicably lying 
 side by side, symbolize not merely the 
 union of families once opposed in deadly 
 struggle, but, as we hope and trust, the 
 mood of peace which is destined to guide 
 the two great nations which, like parted 
 streams, trace back their source to the 
 same parent fountain. 
 
 On entering the library from the draw- 
 ing-room, the visitor sees at first no egress 
 except by the door through which he has 
 just passed ; but, on his attention being 
 called to a particular space in the popu- 
 lous shelves, he is, if a reading man, 
 attracted by some rows of portly quartos 
 and goodly octavos, handsomely bound, 
 
prescott 
 
 bearing inviting names, unknown to 
 Lowndes or Brunet. On reaching forth 
 his hand to take one of them down, he 
 finds that while they keep the word of 
 promise to the eye, they break it to the 
 hope, for the seeming books are nothing 
 but strips of gilded leather pasted upon a 
 flat surface, and stamped with titles, in 
 the selection of which, Mr. Prescott has 
 indulged that playful fancy which, though 
 it can rarely appear in his grave historical 
 works, is constantly animating his corre- 
 spondence and conversation. It is, in 
 short, a secret door, opening at the touch 
 of a spring, and concealed from observa- 
 tion when shut. A small winding stair- 
 case leads to a room of moderate extent 
 above, so arranged as to give all possible 
 advantage of light to the imperfect eyes 
 of the historian. Here Mr. Prescott gath- 
 ers around him the books and manu- 
 scripts in use for the particular work on 
 which he may be engaged, and few per- 
 sons, except himself and his secretary, 
 ever penetrate to this studious retreat, 
 go 
 
pccscott 
 
 In regard to situation, few houses in 
 any city are superior to this. It stands 
 directly upon the Common, a beautiful 
 piece of ground, tastefully laid out, 
 molded into an exhilerating variety of 
 surface, and only open to the objection 
 of being too much cut up by the inter- 
 secting paths which the time-saving habits 
 of the thrifty Bostonians have traced 
 across it. Mr. Prescott's house stands 
 nearly opposite a small sheet of water, 
 to which the tasteless name of Frog Pond 
 is so inveterately fixed by long usage, that 
 it can never be divorced from it. Of late 
 years, since the introduction of the Co- 
 chituate water, a fountain has been made 
 to play here, which throws up an obelisk 
 of sparkling silver, springing from the 
 bosom of the little lake, like a palm-tree 
 from the sands, producing, in its simple 
 beauty, a far finer effect than some of the 
 costly architectural fancies of Europe. 
 
 Here a beautiful spectacle may be seen 
 in the long afternoons of June, before the 
 midsummer heats have browned the grass, 
 91 
 
Iprescott 
 
 when the crystal plumes of the fountain 
 are waving in the breeze, and the rich, 
 yellow light of the slow-sinking sun 
 hangs in the air and throws long shadows 
 on the turf, and the Common is sprinkled, 
 far and wide, with well-dressed and well- 
 mannered crowds — a spectacle in which 
 not only the eye but the heart also may 
 take pleasure, from the evidence which 
 it furnishes of the general diflfusion of 
 material comfort, worth and intelligence. 
 Here in the early days of spring, the 
 timid crocus and snowdrop peep from 
 the soil long before the iron hand of 
 winter has been lifted from the rest of 
 the city. Besides the near attraction of 
 the Common, which is beautiful in all 
 seasons, this part of Boston, from its ele- 
 vated position, commands a fine view of 
 the western horizon, including a range 
 of graceful and thickly-peopled hills in 
 Brookline and Roxbury. Our brilliant 
 winter sunsets are seen here to the great- 
 est advantage. The whole western sky 
 bums with rich metallic lights of orange, 
 92 
 
Iprescott 
 
 yellow, and yellow-green ; the outlines 
 of the hills in the clear, frosty air, are 
 sharply cut against this glowing back- 
 ground ; the wind-harps of the leafless 
 trees send forth a melancholy music, and 
 the faint stars steal out one by one as the 
 shrouding veil of daylight is slowly with- 
 drawn. A walk at this hour along the 
 western side of the Common offers a 
 larger amount of the soothing and eleva- 
 ting influences of nature than most dwell- 
 ers in cities can command. 
 
 In this house in Beacon Street, Mr. 
 Prescott lives for about half the year, en- 
 gaged in literary research, and finding re- 
 lief from his studies in the society of a 
 numerous circle of friends, a precious 
 possession, in which no man is more rich. 
 Few persons in our country are so exclu- 
 sively men of letters. His time and 
 energies are not at all given to the excit- 
 ing and ephemeral claims of the passing 
 hour, but devoted to those calm researches 
 the results of which have appeared in his 
 published works. He is strongly social 
 93 
 
prescott 
 
 in his tastes and habits, and his manners 
 and conversation in society are uncom- 
 monly free from that stiffness and cold- 
 ness which are apt to creep over students. 
 He retains more of youthful ease and un- 
 reserve than most men, whatever be their 
 way of life, carry into middle age. He is 
 methodical in his habits of exercise as 
 well as of study, and is much given to 
 long walks, as in former years to long 
 rides. These periods of exercise, how- 
 ever, are not wholly idle. From his de- 
 fective sight he has acquired the habit 
 (not a very common one) of thinking 
 without the pen, and many a smooth 
 period has been wrought and polished in 
 the forge of the brain while in the saddle 
 or on foot. 
 
 The occupants of most of the houses in 
 that part of Boston where Mr. Prescott 
 lives, are birds of passage. As soon as 
 the sun of our short-lived summer puts 
 off the countenance of a friend, and puts 
 on that of a foe, one by one they take 
 their flight. House after house shuts up 
 94 
 
IPrescott 
 
 its green lids, and resigns itself to a three 
 or four months' sleep. The owners dis- 
 tribute themselves among various places 
 of retreat, rural, suburban or marine, 
 more or less remote. Mr. Prescott also 
 quits the noise, dust and heat of Boston 
 at this season, and takes refuge for some 
 weeks in a cottage at Nahant. "This 
 place," he writes to the publisher, "is a 
 cottage— what Lady Emeline Stuart Wort- 
 ley calles in her Travels *a charming 
 country villa ' at Nahant, where for more 
 than twenty years I have passed the sum- 
 mer months, as it is the coolest spot in 
 New England. The house stands on a 
 bald cliff, overlooking the ocean, so near 
 that in a storm the I'spray is thrown over 
 the piazza, and as it is located on the ex- 
 treme point of the ipeninsula, is many 
 miles out at sea. There is more than one 
 printed account of Nahant, which is a re- 
 markable watering-place, from the bold 
 formation of the coast and its exposure 
 to the ocean. It is not a bad place— this 
 sea-girt citadel— for reverie and writing, 
 95 
 
Iprc0cott 
 
 with the music of the winds and waters 
 incessantly beating on the rocks and broad 
 beaches below. This place is called * Fitful 
 Head,' and Noma's was not wilder." 
 
 The peninsula of Nahant, which Mr. 
 Prescott has thus briefly described, is a 
 rocky promontory running out to sea 
 from the mainland of Ivynn, to which it 
 is connected by a straight beach, some 
 two or three miles in length, divided into 
 two unequal portions by a bold headland 
 called Ivittle Nahant. It j uts out abruptly, 
 in an adventurous and defying way, and 
 laid down on a map of a large scale, it 
 looks like an outstretched arm with a 
 clenched fist at the end of it. Thus going 
 out to sea to battle with the waves on our 
 stormy New England coast, it is built of 
 the strongest materials which the labora- 
 tory of Nature can furnish. It is a solid 
 mass of the hardest porphyritic rock, 
 over which a thin drapery of soil is 
 thrown. At the southern extremity this 
 wall of rock is broken into grand, irregu- 
 lar forms, and seamed and scarred with 
 96 
 
Iprescott 
 
 the marks of innumerable conflicts. A 
 lover of Nature in her sterner moods 
 can find few spots of more attraction 
 than this presents after a south-easterly 
 storm. The dark ridges of the rapid 
 waves leap upon the broken cliffs with an 
 expression so like that of animal rage, 
 that it is difficult to believe that they are 
 not conscious of what they are about. But 
 in an instant the gray mass is broken into 
 splinters of snowy spray, which glide and 
 hiss over the rocky points and hang their 
 dripping and fleecy locks along the sheer 
 wall, the dazzling white contrasting as 
 vividly with the reddish brown of the 
 rock, as does the passionate movement 
 with the monumental calm. One is never 
 weary of watching so glorious a spectacle, 
 for though the elements remain the same, 
 yet, from their combination, there results 
 a constant variety of form and movement. 
 Nature never repeats herself. As no two 
 pebbles on a beach are identical, so no 
 two waves ever break upon a rock in pre- 
 cisely the same way. 
 97 
 
IPcescott 
 
 The beach which connects the head- 
 land of little Nahant with the mainland 
 of Lynn, is about a mile and a half long, 
 and curved into the finest line of beauty. 
 At low tide there is a space of some twenty 
 or thirty rods wide, left bare by the re- 
 ceding waters. This has a very gentle 
 inclination, and having been hammered 
 upon so long by the action of the waves, 
 it is as hard and smooth as a marble floor, 
 presenting an inviting field for exercise, 
 whether on foot, in carriages, or on horse^ 
 back. The wheels roll over it in silence 
 and leave no indentation behind, and even 
 the hoofs of a galloping steed make but 
 a momentary impression. On a fine 
 breezy afternoon, in the season, when the 
 tide is favorable, this beach presents a 
 most exhilarating spectacle, for the whole 
 gay world of the place is attracted here : 
 some in carriages, some on horseback, 
 and some on foot. Every kind of car- 
 riage that American ingenuity has ever 
 devised is here represented, from the old- 
 fashioned family coach, with its air of 
 98 
 
prescott 
 
 solid, churcli and state respectability, to 
 the sporting man's wagon, which looks 
 like a vehicular tarantula, all wheels and 
 no body. The inspiriting influence of 
 the scene extends itself to both bipeds 
 and quadrupeds. Little boys and girls 
 race about on the fascinating wet sand, 
 so that their nurses, what with the waves 
 and what with the horses' hoofs, are kept 
 in a perpetual frenzy of apprehension. 
 Sober pedestrians, taking their ** consti- 
 tutional " involuntarily quicken their 
 pace, as if they were really walking for 
 pleasure in the coolness and moisture un- 
 der them. Fair equestrians dash across 
 the beach at full gallop, their veils and 
 dresses streaming on the breeze, attended 
 by their own flying shadows in the smooth 
 watery mirror of the yellow sands. Let 
 the waves curl and break in long lines of 
 dazzling foam and spring upon the beach 
 as if they enjoyed their own restless 
 play ; sprinkle the bay with snowy sails 
 for the setting sun to linger and play 
 upon, and cover the whole with a bright 
 99 
 
prescott 
 
 blue sky dappled with drifting clouds, 
 and all these elements make up so ani- 
 mating a scene, that a man must be very- 
 moody or very apathetic not to feel his 
 heart grow lighter as he gazes upon it. 
 
 The position of Nahant, and its con- 
 venient distance from Boston, makes it a 
 place of much resort in the hot months 
 of Summer. There are many hotels and 
 boarding-houses ; and also a large num- 
 ber of cottages, occupied for the most 
 part by families, the heads of which come 
 up to town every day and return in the 
 evening. The climate and scenery are so 
 marked, that they give rise to very de- 
 cided opinions. Many pronounce Nahant 
 delightful, but some do not hesitate to 
 call it detestable. No place can be more 
 marine and less rural. There are no 
 woods and very few trees. There are 
 none but ocean sights and ocean sounds. 
 It is like being out at sea in a great ship 
 that does not rock. As every wind blows 
 off the bay, the temperature of the air is 
 very low, and the clear green water looks 
 
 100 
 
Iprescott 
 
 cold enough in a hot August noon to 
 make one's teeth chatter, so that it re- 
 quires some resolution to venture upon a 
 bath, and still more to repeat the experi- 
 ment. The characteristic climate of Na- 
 hant may be observed in one of those 
 days not uncommon on the coast of New 
 England, when a sharp east wind sets in 
 after a hot morning. The sea turns up a 
 chill steel-blue surface, and the air is so 
 cold that it is not comfortable to sit still 
 in the shade, while the sky, the parched 
 grass, the dusty roads, and the sunshine 
 bright and cold, like moonbeams, give to 
 the eye a strangely deceptive promise of 
 heat. Under the calm light of a broad, 
 full moon, Nahant puts on a strange and 
 unearthly beauty. The sea sparkles in 
 silver gleams, and its phosphoric foam is 
 in vivid contrast with the inky shadows 
 of the cliffs. The ships dart away into 
 the luminous distance, like spectral forms. 
 In the deep stillness, the sullen plunge 
 of the long, breaking waves becomes op- 
 pressive to the spirits. The roofs of the 
 
 lOI 
 
Iprescott 
 
 cottages glitter with spiritual light, and 
 the white line of the dusty road is turned 
 into a path of pearl. 
 
 The cottage which Mr. Prescott occu- 
 pies at Nahant is built of wood, two 
 stories in height and has a spacious piazza 
 running round it, which in fine weather 
 is much used as a supplementary draw- 
 ing-room. There is nothing remarkable 
 whatever in its external appearance. Its 
 plain and unassuming aspect provokes 
 neither criticism nor admiration. Its situ- 
 ation is one of the finest in the whole 
 peninsula. It stands upon the extremity 
 of a bold, bluflf-like promontory, and its 
 elevated position gives it the command 
 of a very wide horizon. The sea makes 
 up a large proportion of the prospect, and 
 as every vessel that sails into or out of 
 the harbor of Boston passes within range 
 of the eye, there is never a moment in 
 which the view is not animated by ships 
 and canvas. The pier, where the steamer 
 which plies between Boston and Nahant, 
 lands and receives her passengers, and 
 
 102 
 
Iprescott 
 
 the Swallow's Cave, one of the sights of 
 the place, are both within a stone's-throw 
 of the cottage. 
 
 Mr, Prescott resides at Nahant from 
 eight to ten weeks, and finds a refreshing 
 and restorative influence in its keenly- 
 bracing sea-air. This, though a season 
 of retirement, is by no means one of in- 
 dolence, for he works as many hours 
 every day and accomplishes as much, 
 here, as in Boston, his time of study be- 
 ing comparatively free from those inter- 
 ruptions which in a busj' city will so often 
 break into a scholar's seclusion. As his 
 life at Nahant falls within the travelling 
 season, he receives here many of the 
 strangers who are attracted to his pres- 
 ence by his literary reputation and the 
 report of his amiable manners. And 
 this tribute to celebrity, exacted in the 
 form of golden hours from every dis- 
 tinguished man in our enterprising and 
 inquisitive age, is paid with a cheer- 
 ful good-humor, which leaves no alloy 
 in the recollections of those who have 
 103 
 
prcscott 
 
 thus enjoyed the privilege of his soci- 
 ety. 
 
 Mr. Prescott's second remove — for if 
 poor Richard's saying be strictly true, he 
 is burnt out every year — is from Nahant 
 to Pepperell, and usually happens early 
 in September. His home in Pepperell 
 is thus described by him in a letter to Mr. 
 Putnam : 
 
 "The place at Pepperell has been in 
 the family for more than a century and a 
 half, an uncommon event among our 
 locomotive people. The house is about 
 a century old, the original building hav- 
 ing been greatly enlarged by my father 
 first, and since by me. It is here that 
 my grandfather. Col. Wm. Prescott, who 
 commanded at Bunker Hill, was born and 
 died, and in the village church-yard he 
 lies buried under a simple slab, contain- 
 ing only the record of his name and age. 
 My father, Wm. Prescott, the best and 
 wisest of his name, was also born and 
 passed his earlier days here, and, from my 
 own infancy, not a year has passed that 
 104 
 
prc6C0tt 
 
 I have not spent more or less of in these 
 shades, now hallowed to me by the recol- 
 lection of happy hours and friends that 
 are gone. 
 
 "The place, which is called 'The 
 Highlands,' consists of some two hundred 
 and fifty acres, about forty-two miles from 
 Boston, on the border-line of Massachu- 
 setts and New Hampshire. It is a fine, 
 rolling country ; and the house stands on 
 a rising ground that descends with a 
 gentle sweep to the Nissitisset, a clear 
 and very pretty little river, affording 
 picturesque views in its winding course. 
 A bold mountain chain on the north- 
 west, among which is the Grand Monad- 
 noc, in New Hampshire, makes a dark 
 frame to the picture. The land is well 
 studded with trees — oak, walnut, chest- 
 nut, and maple — distributed in clumps 
 and avenues, so as to produce an excel- 
 lent effect. The maple, in particular, in 
 its autumn season, when the family are 
 there, makes a brave show with its gay 
 livery when touched by the frost." 
 105 
 
prescott 
 
 To possess an estate like that at Pep- 
 perell, which has come down by lineal 
 descent through several successions of 
 owners, all of whom were useful and 
 honorable men in their day and genera- 
 tion, is a privilege not common any 
 where, and very rare in a country like 
 ours, young in years and not fruitful in 
 local attachments. Family pride may be 
 a weakness, but family reverence is a 
 just and generous sentiment. No man 
 can look round upon fields of his own 
 like those at Pepperell, where, to a sug- 
 gestive eye, the very forms of the land- 
 scape seem to have caught an expression 
 from the patriotism, the public spirit, the 
 integrity, and the intelligence which now 
 for more than a hundred years have been 
 associated with them, without being con- 
 scious of a rush of emotions, all of which 
 set in the direction of honor and virtue. 
 
 The name of Prescott has now, for 
 
 more than two hundred years, been 
 
 known and honored in Massachusetts. 
 
 The first of the name, of whom mention 
 
 1 06 
 
prescott 
 
 is made, was Joiin Prescott, who came 
 to this country in 1640, and settled in 
 lyancaster. He was a blacksmith and 
 millwright by trade — a man of athletic 
 frame and dauntless resolution ; and his 
 strength and courage were more than 
 once put to the proof in those encounters 
 which so often took place between the 
 Indians and the early settlers of New 
 England. He brought with him from 
 England a helmet and suit of armor- 
 perhaps an heirloom descended from 
 some ancestor who had fought at Poi- 
 tiers, or Flodden-field — and whenever the 
 Indians attacked his house he clothed 
 himself in full mail and sallied out 
 against them ; and the advantages he 
 is reported to have gained were proba- 
 bly quite as much owing to the terror 
 inspired by his appearance as to the 
 prowess of his arm. 
 
 His grandson, Benjamin Prescott, who 
 lived in Groton, was a man of influence 
 and consideration in the colony of Mass- 
 achusetts. He represented Groton for 
 107 
 
IPreecott 
 
 many years in the colonial legislature, 
 was a magistrate, and an officer in the 
 militia. In 1735 he was chosen agent of 
 the province to maintain their rights in 
 a controversy with New Hampshire re- 
 specting boundary lines, but declined the 
 trust on account of not having had the 
 small-pox, which was prevalent at the 
 time in London. Mr. Edmund Quincy, 
 who was appointed in his place, took the 
 disease and died of it. But, in the same 
 year, the messenger of fate found Mr. 
 Prescott upon his own farm, engaged in 
 the peaceful labors of agriculture. He 
 died in August, 1735, of a sudden inflam- 
 matory attack, brought on by over-exer- 
 tion, in a hot day, to save a crop of grain 
 from an impending shower. He was but 
 forty years old at the time of his death, 
 and the influence he had long enjoyed 
 among a community slow to give their 
 confidence to the young, is an expressive 
 tribute to his character and understand- 
 ing. He had the further advantage of 
 a dignified and commanding personal ap- 
 108 
 
prescott 
 
 pearance. In 1735, the year of his death, 
 he received a donation of about eight hun- 
 dred acres of land from the town of Gro- 
 ton for his servies in procuring a large 
 territory for them from the General Court, 
 and the present family estate in Pepperell 
 forms probably a part of this grant. 
 
 His second son was Col. Wm. Prescott, 
 the commander of the American forces 
 at the Battle of Bunker Hill, who, after 
 his father's death, and while he was yet 
 in his minority, settled upon the estate 
 in Pepperell, and built the house which 
 is still standing. Up to the age of forty- 
 nine, his life, with the exception of a 
 few months' service in the old French 
 war, was passed in agricultural labors, 
 and the discharge of those modest civic 
 trusts which the influence of his family, 
 and the confidence inspired by his own 
 character, devolved upon him. Joining 
 the army at Cambridge immediately after 
 the news of the Concord fight, it was his 
 good fortune to secure a permanent place 
 in history, by commanding the troops of 
 109 
 
pcescott 
 
 his country in a battle, to which subse- 
 quent events gave a significance greatly 
 disproportioned both to the numbers 
 engaged in it and to its immediate results. 
 At the end of the campaign of 1776, he 
 returned home and resumed his usual 
 course of life, which continued uninter- 
 rupted, except that he was present as a 
 volunteer with General Gates at the sur- 
 render of Burgoyne, until his death, 1795, 
 when he was in his seventieth year. He 
 was a man of vigorous mind, not much 
 indebted to the advantages of education 
 in early life, though he preserved to the 
 last a taste for reading. His judgment 
 and good sense were much esteemed by 
 the community in which he lived, and 
 were always at their service both in 
 public and private affairs. He was of a 
 generous temper, and somewhat impaired 
 his estate by his liberal spirit and hearty 
 hospitality. In the career of Colonel 
 Prescott we see how well the training 
 given by the institutions of New England 
 fits a man for discharging worthily the 
 
prescott 
 
 duties of war or peace. We see a man 
 summoned from the plough, and by the 
 accident of war called upon to perform 
 an important military service, and in the 
 exercise of his duty we find him display- 
 ing that calm courage and sagacious 
 judgment which a life in the camp is 
 supposed to be necessary to bestow. Nor 
 was his a rare case, for as the needs 
 of our revolutionary struggle required 
 such men, they were always forthcoming. 
 Nor is there any reason to suppose that 
 Colonel Prescott, himself, ever looked 
 upon his conduct on the seventeenth of 
 June as anything to be especially com- 
 mended, but only as the performance of a 
 simple piece of duty, which could not have 
 been put by without shame and disgrace. 
 Judge Prescott, who died in Boston in 
 the month of December, 1844, at the age 
 of eighty-two, was the only child of Col- 
 onel Prescott, and born upon the family 
 estate at Pepperell. His son, in one of 
 his quoted letters, speaks of him as " the 
 best and wisest of his name." It does 
 III 
 
prcBCOtt 
 
 not become a stranger to their blood to 
 confirm or deny a comparative estimate 
 like this, but all who knew Judge Pres- 
 cott will agree that he must have gone 
 very far who would have found a wiser 
 or a better man. His active life was 
 mainly passed in the unambitious labors 
 of the bar ; a profession which often 
 secures to its members a fair share of sub- 
 stantial returns and much local influence, 
 but rarely gives extended or posthumous 
 fame. He had no taste for political life, 
 and the few public trusts which he dis- 
 charged was rather from a sense of duty 
 than from inclination. 
 
 The town of Pepperell lies in the north- 
 ern part of the county of Middlesex, 
 bordering upon the State of New Hamp- 
 shire. Its inhabitants are mostly farmers, 
 cultivating their own lands with their own 
 hands — a class of men which forms the 
 best wealth of a country, the value of 
 whom we never properly estimate till 
 we have been in regions where they have 
 ceased to exist. The soil is of that rea- 
 
 112 
 
prcscott 
 
 sonable and moderate fertility, common 
 in New England, which gives constant 
 motive to intelligent labor, and rewards 
 it with fair returns— a kind of soil very 
 favorable to the growth of the plant, man. 
 The character of the scenery is pleasing, 
 without any claim to be called striking or 
 picturesque. The land rises and falls in 
 a manner that contents the eye, and the 
 distant horizon is dignified by some of 
 those high hills to which, in our magnilo- 
 quent way, we give the name of mountains. 
 The town has the advantage of being 
 watered by two streams, the Nashua and 
 the Nissitisset. The former is a thrifty 
 New England river that turns mills, fur- 
 nishes water-power, and works for its 
 living in a respectable way ; the latter is 
 a giddy little stream that does little else 
 than look pretty ; gliding through quiet 
 meadows fringed with alder and willow, 
 tripping and singing over pebbly shal- 
 lows, and expanding into tranquil pools, 
 gemmed with white water-lilies, the purest 
 and most spiritual of flowers. 
 113 
 
prcscott 
 
 Mr. Prescott's farm is about two miles 
 from the centre of the town, in a region 
 which has more than the average amount 
 of that quiet beauty characteristic of New 
 England scenery. The house stands upon 
 rather high ground, and commands an 
 extensive view of a gently-undulating 
 region, most of which is grass land, which 
 when clothed in the " glad, light green " 
 of our early summer, and animated with 
 flying cloud-shadows, presents a fine and 
 exhilerating prospect. As the farm has 
 been so long under cultivation, and as 
 for many years past the claims of taste 
 and the harvests of the eye have not been 
 overlooked in its management, the land- 
 scape in the immediate neighborhood of 
 the house has a riper and a mellower look 
 than is usual in the rural parts of New 
 England. At a short distance in front, 
 on the opposite side of the road, sloping 
 gently down to the meadows of the Nis- 
 sitisset, is a smooth symmetrical knoll, on 
 which are some happily-disposed clumps 
 of trees, so that the whole has the air of 
 114 
 
Iprcscott 
 
 a scene in an English park. The mead- 
 ows and fields beyond are also well 
 supplied with trees, and the morning and 
 evening shadows which fall from these, 
 as well as from the rounded heights, give 
 character and expression to the landscape. 
 The house itself has little to distinguish 
 it from the better class of New Eng- 
 land farm-houses. It wears our common 
 uniform of white, with green blinds ; is 
 long in proportion to its height, and the 
 older portions bear marks of age. There 
 is a piazza, occupying one side and a part 
 of the front. Since it was first built there 
 have been several additions made to it — 
 some recently, by Mr. Prescott himself— 
 so that the interior is rambling, irregular 
 and old-fashioned, but thoroughly com- 
 fortable, and hospitably arranged, so as 
 to accommodate a large number of guests. 
 These are sometimes more numerous than 
 the family itself. There is a small fruit 
 and kitchen garden on the east side of 
 the house, and on the west, as also in 
 front, is a grassy lawn, over which many 
 "5 
 
prescott 
 
 young feet have sported and frolicked, 
 and some that were not young. 
 
 The great charm of the house consists 
 in the number of fine trees by which it is 
 surrounded and overshadowed. These 
 are chiefly elms, oaks, maples and butter- 
 nuts. Of these last there are some re- 
 markably large specimens. From these 
 trees the house derives an air of dignity 
 and grace which is the more conspicuous 
 from the fact that these noble ornaments 
 to a habitation are not so common in New 
 England as is to be desired. Our agricul- 
 tural population have not yet shaken 
 off those transmitted impressions derived 
 from a period when a tree was regarded 
 as an enemy to be overcome. Would 
 that the farmers of fifty years ago had 
 been mindful of the injunction given by 
 the dying Scotch laird to his son, " Be aye 
 sticking in a tree, Jock ; it will be grow- 
 ing while you are sleeping." What a 
 different aspect the face of the country 
 might have been made to wear. A bald 
 and staring farm-house, shivering in the 
 ii6 
 
IPrescott 
 
 winter wind, or fainting in the summer 
 sun, without a rag of a tree to cover its 
 nakedness with, is a forlorn and unsightly- 
 object, rather a blot upon the landscape 
 than an embellishment to it. 
 
 Behind the house, which faces the 
 south, the ground rises into a consider- 
 ble elevation, upon which there are also 
 several fine trees. A small oval pond 
 is nearly surrounded by a company of 
 graceful elms, which, with their slender 
 branches and pensile foliage, suggest to 
 a fanciful eye a group of wood-nymphs 
 smoothing their locks in the mirror of a 
 fountain. At a short distance, a clump 
 of oaks and chestnuts, which look as if 
 they had been sown by the hand of art, 
 have formed a kind of natural arbor, the 
 shade of which is inviting to meditative 
 feet. Under these trees Mr. Prescott has 
 passed many studious hours, and his steps, 
 as he has paced to and fro, have worn a 
 perceptible path in the turf. A few rods 
 from the house, towards the east, is an- 
 other and larger pond, near which is a 
 117 
 
Iprescott 
 
 grove of vigorous oaks ; and, in the same 
 direction, about half a mile farther, is an 
 extensive piece of natural woodland, 
 through which winding paths are traced, 
 in which a lover of nature may soon bury 
 himself in primeval shades, under broad- 
 armed trees which have witnessed the 
 stealthy steps of the Indian hunter, and 
 shutting out the sights and sounds of 
 artificial life, hear only the rustling of 
 leaves, the tap of a wood-pecker, the 
 dropping of nuts, the whir of a partridge, 
 or the call of a sentinel crow. 
 
 The house is not occupied by the fam- 
 ily during the heats of summer ; but they 
 remove to it as soon as the cool mornings 
 and evenings proclaim that summer is 
 over. The region is one which appears 
 to peculiar advantage under an autumnal 
 sky. The slopes and uplands are gay 
 with the orange and crimson of the ma- 
 ples, the sober scarlet and brown of the 
 oaks, and the warm yellow of the hicko- 
 ries. A delicate gold-dust vapor hangs in 
 the air, wraps the valleys in dreamy folds, 
 ii8 
 
prescott 
 
 and softens all the distant outlines. The 
 bracing air and elastic turf invite to long 
 walks or rides ; the warm noons are de- 
 lightful for driving ; and the country in 
 the neighborhood, veined with roads and 
 lanes that wind and turn and make no 
 haste to come to an end, is well suited for 
 all these forms of exercise. There is a 
 boat on the Nissitisset for those who are 
 fond of aquatic excursions, and a closet 
 full of books for a rainy day. Among 
 these are two works which seem in per- 
 fect unison with the older portion of the 
 house and its ancient furniture — Theo- 
 bald's Shakespeare and an early edition 
 of the Spectator— ho'Oa. bound in snuflf- 
 colored calf, and printed on paper yellow 
 with age ; and the latter adorned with 
 those delicious copperplate engravings 
 which perpetuate a costume so ludicrously 
 absurd, that the wonder is that the wear- 
 ers could ever have left off laughing at 
 each other long enough to attend to any 
 of the business of life. When the cool 
 evenings begin to set in with something 
 119 
 
Iprcscott 
 
 of a wintry chill in the air, wood-fires are 
 kindled in the spacious chimneys, which 
 animate the low ceilings with their rest- 
 less gleams, and when they have burned 
 down, the dying embers diffuse a ruddy 
 glow, which is just the light to tell a 
 ghost-story by, such as may befit the nar- 
 row rambling passages of the old farm- 
 house, and send a rosy cheek to bed a 
 little paler than usual. 
 
 While Mr. Prescott is at Pepperell, a 
 portion of every day is given to study ; 
 and the remainder is spent in long walks 
 or drives, in listening to reading, or in the 
 social circle of his family and guests. 
 Under his roof there is always house- 
 room and heart-room for his own friends 
 and those of his children. Indeed, he 
 has followed the advice of some wise man 
 — Dr. Johnson, perhaps, upon whom all 
 vagrant scraps of wisdom are fathered — 
 and kept his friendships in repair, mak- 
 ing the friends of his children his own 
 friends. There are many persons, not 
 members of the family, who have become 
 
Iprcscott 
 
 extremely attached to the place, from the 
 happy hom-s they have spent there. 
 There may be seen upon the window-sill 
 of one of the rooms a few lines in pencil, 
 by a young lady whose beauty and sweet- 
 ness make her a great favorite among her 
 friends, expressing her sense of a delight- 
 ful visit made there, some two or three 
 years since. Had similar records been 
 left by all, of the happy days passed un- 
 der this roof, the walls of the house would 
 be hardly enough to hold them. 
 
 And this sketch may be fitly concluded 
 with the expression of an earnest wish 
 that thus it may long be. May the fu- 
 ture be like the past. May the hours 
 which pass over a house honored by so 
 much worth and endeared by so much 
 kindness, bring with them no other sor- 
 rows than such us the providence of God 
 has inseparably linked to our mortal state 
 — such as soften and elevate the heart, 
 and, by gently weaning it from earth, 
 help to dress the soul for its new home. 
 
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