LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS * * * This is an authorized facsimile of the original book, and was produced in 1967 by microfilm-xerography by University Microfilms, A Xerox Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A. * * * HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS; OOlfPBIAINQ SUtrtotital, personal, uui) Jtetriptibc BV VARIOUS WIUTEU8 - vj ILLUSTllATEtt WITH VIEW t) OF T1IKIB 11KSIDKNOK8 FUOM OltlGlSAL PliAWlNGd, - AND A FAO-ttlMILK OF TUB MAM'bGlCUT OF KAOU AUTHOU. . - f - NEW-YORK: G. P. PUTNAM AND CO., 10 PAHK PLACE. LONDON : SAMPSON LOW, SON *.<. M.UCCC.LI1I. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS o (\ \n r\ (( O tVf !4 ^HAWTHORNE'S HOUSE AT CONCORD. . W. K, MILLIE. . J. Dl-TUIE. . 8*)6 -WEBSTER'S HOUSE, MARSHFIELD. . DAGCEEUEUTVFE, H. B. HALL. . . 836 KENNEDY'S RESIDENCE. D II STEOTIIEK. W. L. OEIUBT. 841 LOWELL'S HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE. . . H. BILLING*. W. L. OEVUJII. . 849 AUDUBON'S RESIDENCE . . . PAULDING'S RESIDENCE. . . IRVING b RESIDENCE, OESOALVaw. ffltaA, . W. K. MILLIE, fitCBABOAOx, * Cox. . Viii ILLUSTRATIONS. SLEEPY HOLLOW W. K. MXUJUU RICUAKUSOM, * Cox. . 49 RUSTIC GATE, AT BUNNYSIDE. . . - 61 BRYANTS HOUSE, KOSLYN, ... " M PRE.SCOTTS HOUSE AT NA1IANT. . . K'3 - - BOSTON.. , * 128 COOPER'S HOUSE, WESTCHESTER co. . BICBABDC '.'* w BIRTH-PLACE OF EVERETT. ... 21T AL(XTTS 8UMMEK HOUSE. ... * 233 BIUTIM'LACK OF PllOF. LONGFELLOW. a 265 THE "OLD MANSE," CONCOUD. . . u .201 nillTII-PLACE OF DANIEL WEBSTER. C. LANMUI. 817 ARMS OF THE LOWELL FAMILY. * * 866 /w-limilw nf ^I AUDUBON JUUKNAL IN CANADA. . . . . 16 IRVING 60 1JRYANT. . ... . . . TUB "PAby. 11 . . . SO HisioBY or UNITED STATM. VoL Y. . 100 DANA. . . . . > . . . , 120 PKESCOTT. ito 8KDGW1CK. ...... Ni u -I'.si.i AMJ TALK. .... 176 COOIMCR. AURECMKNT FOB - 8pT. n ... 214 EVERETT. .. ., ORATION AT NIBLO**. .... 230 EMERSON 254 MMMS , Tut: SWOED AND DISTAFF. . . , 202 2S(i HAWTHORNE. BOABLBT LETTKB. . . , . . Jli WKHSTER. OKATJO.S AT TUB CAPIYOI* ... 88* KENNEDY, . . ... . . HOBBB-SIIOB ROBINBOH. . . , . 84i LOWELL. FABUE ron Cumos. 866 |obn $;mus Juiubon. - ^f ; . , ' < /' ,j , II , ill AUDUBON. ONE Sunday, as bright aud brilliant a day as ever glad dened the. eyesight, or sent thrilling pulses of health through the- outworn body, I wandered, as it was then my habit, beyond the outskirts of New- York. My road led me jmst several suburban houses, pleasantly rising amid tlu-ir green groves, and along the banks of the Hudson. A sacred ilenee was brooding every where, as if Nature, sympathizing \\itli the solemn oiiiccs of the day, had consecrated au hour to meditation. Behind me lay the town with its masses of 4 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTIIOUS. perpetual unquiet life; before iue the sloops with their white wings were floating lazily on the surface of the stream; while all around were the green fields and the cheering Hunshiuc. Those squads of boisterous strollers who usually select that day for the invasion of the sylvan solitudes, were not yet abroad, and only the insects with their small hum, or the birds with their sweet morning hymns, seemed to be alive in the midst of the infinite repose. After wandering for some hours, I turned into a rustic road which led directly down towards the river. A nobh; forest was planted on the one side of it, and on the other vast grain- fields lay laughing in the sun, or listening to the complacent murmur of a brook that stole along in the midst of clumps of bushes and wild briers. About the half-worn path group.-. ng solitary career? \\ r e fancy that we who live amid the incessant whirl of our straining civilization, who are caught up and borne onward by i!s manifold warring streams of trade, politics, amusement, and frivolity, that we know something of life ; but that wan dering naturalist, I take it, had excitements in his lonely life to which our strongest anxieties would be tame. The spirit in solitude is brought face to face with realities more awful and stern than death, and therefore it is that the sea, the de sert, the still endless wood, when wo are alone with them, move our profoundest and saddest emotions. Jt was curious to observe the influence which this life had .exerted upon the mind and character of Audubon. With drawing him from the conventionalities and cares of a more social condition, he always retained the fresh, spontaneous, clastic manner of a child, yet his constant and deep con versa- 10 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. tion with the thoughtful mysteries of nature, hud imparted to him also the reflective wisdom of the sage. Whatever came into his mind lie uttered with delightful unreserve and nai vete*; hut those utterances at the same time bore marks of keen original height, and of the deepest knowledge. Thus, he knew nothing of the theology of the schools, and eared as little for it, because the untaught theology of the woods had filled his mind with a nobler sense of Clod than the school men had ever dreamed ; he knew, too, nothing of our politics, and cared nothing for them, because to his simple integrity they Kcctncil only frivolous and vain debates about rights that none disputed, and duties that all fulfilled: and his reading, confined, I suspect, mainly to the necc^ary literature of his profession, was neither extensive nor choice, because ho found in his own activity, earnestness and invention, a fountain-head' of literature, abundantly able to supply all his intellectual and spiritual wants. The heroism and poetry of his own life gave him no occasion to learn the heroism and poetry of others; yet his apparent neglect of the '"humanities" had wrought no hardening or vulgarizing 'effect upon his nature, -for his sympathies wens always the most delicate, and hi* manners soft, gentle and rclincd. After years of labor some of his -drawings were shown by him tg Lawson, who engraved designs for the works of Lucieu Bonaparte, Prince of Mu.signano, but they wore rejected by Lawson as ut stronger than these to him were the seductions of the field-, and that nameless restless impulse which ever forces men of genius along their peculiar paths. Jle was soon again immersed in preparations for his perilous journeys, and set out upon them with as much hopefulness and joy as had ever marked his earlier days. Those who have turned uver the leaves of Audubon's large books, or better still, who remember to have MTU the collected exhibition he once made in the Lyceum of this city, will recall with grateful feeling tlie advantages of his method. They will remember how that vast and brilliant collection made it appear to the spectator as if he had been admitted at once to all sylvan secrets, or at -h-a^t that the gorgeous infinity of the bird-world had been reveal ed to him in some happy moment of nature's confidence. A11 the gay denizens of the air were there, some alone on sway ing twigs of the birch or maple, or on bending ferns and .spires' of grass ; others in pairs tenderly feeding their young with gaudy or green insects, or in groups pursuing their prey or defending themselves fnuu attack; while others again clove the thin air of the hills or llitted darkly through secluded brakes. All were alive, all graceful, all joyous. It was impossible not to feel among them that there was something in birds which brought them nearer to our affection than the rest of the animal tribes ; for while these are either indifferent H HOMES OF AMERICAN AUT1IOK3. to us, or inimical, or mere u servile ministers," birds are ever objects of admiration ami solicitude.- No body loves or even so much as likes insects, or reptiles, or worms ; fishes have an unutterably stupid and unsentimental look, and deserve to be caught ; wild beasts, though sometimes savagely grand and majestic, are always dreadful, and tame beasts we nub- jugate and therefore despise; but birds win their way to our hearts and imaginations by a thousand ties. They are lovely in their forms and fascinating in their habits. They have canny knowing eyes, they have wonderfully pretty and brilliant hues, their motions are the perfection of beauty, and they lead free, happy, melodious lives. Their swift and graceful evolutions, now rising like an arrow to the very gate of heaven, and anon outspeeding the wind . as it curls the white cups of the ocean, and above all, their far oil' mysterious, ilights in. the drear autumn, awaken aspiration and thought, ami breed a vague mysterious human interest in tlicir destinies, while their songs, profuse, varied, sparkling, sympathetic, glorious, iilling the world with melody, are the richest and tcnderest of nature's voices. Among the recollections of childhood, those of the birds we have fed and cherished are often the sweetest, and in maturer years the country-homo we love, the nooks where we have meditated, or the field in which we have worshipped, are the greener and the dearer for the memory of the birds. Thus they are associated with the most charming features of the external world, and breathe a t-pell over the interior world of thought. They are the po etry of nature, and at the name time a pervading presence of poetry. Shakfipeare, Keats, Shelley, 'JlimiK, Uryant and Wordsworth are their laureates, and while language lasts we A U D U B O N. 15 shall hear an echo of their strains in the cadences of " im mortal verse."- In this view of the matter, Andubon needs no apology for his Hie-long devotion to .birds, or for the affectionate interest he every where manifests in his writings about them. It must not be understood that he was exclusive in his attachments, for besides the nomenclature and scien tific descriptions of his volumes, there lire delightful epi sodes on natural scenery, local character and amusements, anecdotes of adventure, and sketches of the grander pheno mena of winds and floods. In one place lie tells us of an earthquake he experienced, in another of a fearful tempest, next of the hospitality of old friends suddenly and strangely found in a secluded corner of Canada, then of a ball in Newfoundland or of a Barbaeue in Kentucky, and anon we are initiated into the mysteries of the maple-sugar camp, or stand appalled at the inhuman feats of the wreckers of the Florida reefs. His style, sometimes a little too ambi tious and diffuse, is always vivacious and clear. The slight vein of egotism that runs through his interludes, gives an added charm to them, while, whatever his theme or your own mood, there- is a-u impetuous bounding enthusiasm in all that he says, a strain of exuberant and exulting ani mal spirits, that carries you whither he wills. A Fedate, restrained, dyspeptic manner would have been impossible iu one writing as he did in all the freshness of inspiration, and in the immediate presence of his objects. When Audubon had completed 'his various ornithologies, he projected, with the aid of the Rev. Dr. Bach man, his linn, friend, the well-known geologist, a similar work in respect t< k . _ . . AUDIT BON. 17 .but it was to be supposed .that our scientific societies and out artist associations would at least propose a monument to one who was so rare an ornament to both. Yet if they wen* neg lectful, there are those who will not be, and who will long cherish his name: and, in the failure of all human memo- rials, as it has been elsewhere said, the little wren will whis per it about our homes, the robin and the reed-bird pipe it from 'the meadows, the ring-dove will coo it from the dewy depths of the woods, and the mountain eagle scream it to the stars. lames $. {bulling. g. MM . ,1^ I'AULDING. those critics, at homo and abroad, who deny that thoiv is any essential nationality in our literature, wo mm- the works of Paulding. The oldest of our living authors, and alter Brockden Brown, the iirat to make a creditable i.nark in our literary history, every thin^ he lias written is not only .American in subject and material, but as thoroughly imbued with the national spirit as any niieh body of works that ever proceeded from the brain and heart of a patriot. It is half a century ainee he made his lirst 22 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. appearance in print, and at seventy-five ho continues to write with the vivacity, good sense, and earnest We of country, lor which he has been distinguished from the beginning. Before proceeding with a description of the residence of the veteran novelist, let us briefly sketch the life which is drawing to its close in a place HO congenial and beau tiful. Mr. PaUiding is of the old Dutch stock, and of a family ennobled by sacrifices when eaeriilces were the seals of devotion to liberty. It has been stated that he was born in Pawling, on the Hudson, so named in honor of one of his ancestors, who spelt his name in this way; but his. real birth-place was Pleasant Valley, a town in the same vicin ity, where he came into the world on the twenty-second of August, 177S. His father was a member of the 1irst New- York Committee of Safety, and Commissary General of the State troops ; and a eoi^in the son of his father's elder brother was John Paulding, who assisted in the capture of Andre. "\Yhile the army was suffering from cold and hunger in the Highlands, from the inability of Congress to afford ade quate supplies, Commissary Paulding on his own responsi bility furnished the necessary means for their subsistence. When the war was over he presented his account for adjust ment at the ofh'ce of the Auditor General ; it was refused^ and he returned to his family ruined in fortune, to bo thrown into prison by u public creditor. His coutinement was at length ended by the burning of the prison, after which he was permitted to walk unmolested to his home, PAULDINO. 28 where the remainder of his lite was passed in poverty and sucli depression as might well bo induced by a recollection of his wrongs and Bufferings. This brief notice of the father furnishes an index to lin early life of our author, lie was the youngest son, and his elder brothers being compelled to go from home in order to make their way in the world, he was left without associates to wile away his boyhood in the reading of such books as wen* in the family library, or could be borrowed in the neighborhood. Country houses, in those days, were not tilled with the vagabond literature which cloys, weakens and depraves the mind of the now rising generation. The works apt to be found in them were standard travels, biogra phies, histories, essays, and treatises in practical religion, and they were rarely too numerous to be well digested during a studious minority, to the great advantage of oneV intellectual health and character. Thus, in the society of his mother, and without further instruction than could be obtained at a little log school-house about two miles away, iu listless and dreamy solitude passed the early years of the author of "The Dutchman's Fireside," till with the assist ance of one of his brothers he obtained a place in a public oftice in New-York. His sister had married Mr. Peter Irving, a merchant of high character, afterward 'well known as a representative of the city in Congress, and through him he became acquainted with his younger brother, Washington Irving, with whom ho contracted at once an intimate and lasting friendship. They had written some trifles for the. gazettes Paulding a few hits at the follies of society, and Irving his " Oliver Old- 24 HOMES OF AM Kill CAN AUTHORS. stylo " essays, and, meeting ono evening at a. party, it was proposed in a gay conversation to establish a periodical in which to lash and amuse tho town. AVhcn. they next met each had prepared an introductory paper, and as both had some points too good to be sacrificed, they were blended into one, Paulding's serving as the basis.- They adopted the title of *' Salmagundi," and noon after published a small edition of their first number, little thinking of the extraor dinary success which awaited it. The work hud a great deal of freshness; its humor, though unequal, was nearly. always lively and piquant, and as its satire was general, every body was pleased. Jts reception perhaps determined the subsequent devotion of the authors to literature. The publisher found it profitable, as he paid nothing for the copy right, and on his refusal to make any remuneration for it, with the completion- of the second volume it was suspended. In the following half dozen years Mr. 1'aulding attended to business and cultivated the increasing and brilliant hocicty of wits and men of genius then growing up in the city ; and in 1813, having in the. mean while written occasionally for the magazines, he printed his next book, " The Lay of a Scotch Fiddle," a satirical poem, and "Jokeby," a burlesque of u Kokeby," in six cantos ; and in the succeeding spring "The United States and England," in reply to an attack on C. J. IngersolTs u Inchiquin Letters," in the Quarterly lie- view. "The Diverting History of .John .Bull and Brother Jonathan," the most successful of bis satires, appeared in 1S1G. The allegory is well sustained, and the style has a homely simplicity and vigor that remind us of Swift. A part of this year was passed in Virginia, where he wrote his PAULDINO. 25 "Letters from the South," published in 1817. The humor in them is not in his happiest vein, and the soundness of some views hero displayed respecting education, paper currency, and other subjects, may be questioned ; but the volumes contain many interesting sketches of scenery, manners, and personal character, and, with his previous writings, they commended him to the notice of President Madison, who became- his warm friend, and secured for him, on the close of the war with England, the secretaryship of the Board of Navy Commissioners, which he held as may be statvd here- until he was made Navy Agent in New- York, which oilicc he resigned, _ after twelve years, to enter the cabinet of President Van Buren. In 1818 he published "The Backwoodsman," a descrip tive poem, and in the next year the second series of " Sal magundi," of which he was the sole author. " Konings- nuirke, or Old Times in the New World," u novel founded on incidents in the early history of Swedish settlements on the- Delaware, appeared in I8*i3 ; "John Bull in America" ill 1824; and "Merry Tales of the Three Wise Men of Gotham" in 18^0. The idea that the progress of man kind is more apparent than actual, is u favorite one with him, and modern improvements, and discoveries in politi cal economy and productive labor, and new theories of philosophy, are here ingeniously ridiculed. "The Book of St. Nicholas," a collection of stories purporting to be trans lated from the Dutch, "The New Pilgrim's Progress," con taining some of the best specimens of his satire, and "Tales of a Good Woman, by a Doubtful Gentleman," came out in the three following years. '20 HOMES OF AMKKICAN AUTHORS. Tho best of Mr. Pauldmg's novels, " The . Dutchman's Fireside," was published in IS.'H, and it was immediately uiid decidedly successful. It is it domestic story of tho time of tho "old French war;" the scenes are among the sources I 1 tho Hudson, on tlie borders of .Like Champlain, and *in other parts of the province of Now- York ; the characters are natural and distinctly drawn, and from the outset tho reader feels that each one of them is a personal acquaintance. Olio of tho most cleverly executed id a meddling little old Dutchman, Ariel Van (Jour, who with the best intentions is continually working mischief an everyday sort of person, nowhere else so palpably embodied. Tho hero, Sybraut Vaii (Jour, is educated in almost total seclusion, and finds himself on the verge of manhood, a scholar, ignorant of the world, proud, sensitive and suspicious, unhappy, and a cause of unhappinesa to all about him. His transforma tion is effected by the famous Sir William Johnson, whom he accompanies on a campaign, and in the end, a sclf-conii- dent and self-complacent gentleman, he marries a woman whom he had loved all the while, but whom his infirmities had previously rendered as wretched as himself. The work is marked throughout with the author's quaint and peculiar humor, and it is a delightful picture of primitive colonial life, varied witn glimpses of the mimic court of the gover nor, where ladies figure in hoops and brocades, and of the camp in the wilderness, and the strategy of Indian warfare. In the following year he published ''Westward Ho!" the moral of which story is, that we are to disregard the presentiments of evil, withstand the approaches of fanati cism, and feel confident that the surest means of inducing . PAULDING. 27 a gracious interposition of Providence in our i'uvor, is to persevere ourselves in all the kindly offices of humanity toward the unfortunate. The characters are .boldly and skilfully drawn : the Virginia planter who squanders hi* estate in a prodigal hospitality and with the remnant A of ;i liberal fortune seeks n new home in untried forests, Zeno and Judith Paddock, a pair of village inquisitors, and Hush- tirld,- an untamed western limner, are all actual and indi- .. .geiuuis beings. lie had already sketched tho Kentuckian, with a freer but less skilful hand, in hU comedy of Nimrod Wildiire. Whoever wanders in the footsteps of Daniel Intone will still meet with IJushlields, though until he approaches nearer the Koeky Mountains the rough edges of the character may be somewhat softened down ; and Dangerfields are not yet strangers in Virginia. His next work was on "Slavery in the United Statvs," an unhesitating defence of the institution again>t every sort of religious, moral and economical attacks ; and this was followed in 1835 by his admirable " Life- of Washington,' addressed to the youth of the country, and constituting the most just ami attractive personal history of the great chiel ever written. Retiring from public life in 1841, after having served four years as Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Paulding at tho age of sixty-three resumed his pen, and some of his inaga zine papers produced since that time are equal to any of the compositions of his most vigorous days. In 184<> he pub- lished a new novel, "The Old Continental," which is dis tinguished for all his peculiarities of manner and spirit, and in 18v>0 his last novel "The PuritanV Daughter." 28 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUT.IIOK8. Tho work* hero enumerated iill twenty-seven volumes, and half a dozen more might be made of his miscellane ous tales, essays, ballads, and other contributions to the periodicals, constituting perhaps the most popular as well as characteristic portion of his writings. As we have Baid, Ire is a national author': ho has little respect lor authority unsupported by reason, but on all sub jects has thought and judged for himself} he has defended our government and institutions and embodied what is peculiar in our manners and opinions, aiul there is scarcely a person in all his dramas who would not in any country be instantly recognized us an American, lie is unequalled in a s- ruptly, sometimes in rocky precipices, crowned by a rich slope of cultivated land sprinkled with country-seats and farm-house.-, and reaching the base of a range of wood- crowned mountains, which ends, nearly opposite the house, in a high blulf, resembling in outline and magnitude An thony's Nose, in the Highlands below. Beyond this, and between another range of hills, opens a vista of Borne twenty miles, terminated by the Shawangunk mountains. Towards the north, looking, from the piazza over a rich undulating country, occasionally rising into considerable hills, the prospect is closed by the Catskill Mountains, which are seen, from the base to the summits, in all their Alpine features and graceful outlines, at a distance of some twenty or thirty miles. A little rocky island, covered with evergreens, and about half a mile in length, lies 30 HOMES OP AMERICAN AUTHORS. in the centre of the river, and adds to the beauty of the .scenery. Here, surrounded \)y a growing family of grandchildren, Mr. Paulding lias resided the last ten years, during which time ho has visited the city hut once, to attend the marriage f a relation. Ho lias retired from the world, not in disgust ir disappointment, for it has always treated him better than he deserved, lie Bays, but because ho is of opinion that at seventy-five men are generally more iit lor contemplation than for action, and better qualified to benefit the world by their precepts than their example, that at this age; a man should consider the balancing of old accounts rather, than the opening of new ones, and that the traveller so near his journey's end should prepare- for putting up for the night. S'till in conversing with him we observe that he feels a profound interest in the general welfare, that he has not outlived that ardent love of country which glows in all his writings, and what perhaps is more remarkable, that he con tinues to cherish an almost youthful feeling for the beauties of. nature by which he is surrounded. In pleasant weather he occupies himself every day an hour >r t\vo in working on his farm of cc **se not in very laborious duties -but the greater portion of his time is spent -in reading and writing, as ho says, not so much with a view to become wiser or to enlighten others as to relieve himself from two of the heaviest burdens of life old age and unoccupied time. The Veteran Htt<.rtcur we find, like most persons win- have long passed the meridian of life, is rt staunch conserv ativc, even less indulgent of all the pretences of progress PAUL DING. 81 than when he wrote the history of the " Seven \Vise Men of Gotham." The world lie thinks is quite as apt to move backward* as forwards; he says it is becoming conceited, which is a good sign ; and in a recent letter, which we ven ture to quote, he reminds us, referring to the headlong fpee- ulation of the new generation, that "the ardor of genius is very diifetvnt from the presumption of ignorance, and the mre we learn the btrongcr becomes our conviction that whatever may be our progress in removing doubts, it is only to be involved in others still more inextricable only groping in the dark for Captain KydV buried money/ 1 Ik- is fully persuaded that the ancients were as wine as the modems, that in the lapse of ages the world forgets full as much as it learns, and that most if not all of the theories of our philosophers were hiiggc.-ted in the old schools, wh>e ma>ters ili tiered from the reck!e>> teachers of our time only in an unwillingness to endanger the existence of society by practical applications of vague speculations unsupported by Mund reason. On the whole, he concludes that, however it may be with the present, our intellectual eccentricities, under the direction of a wise Providence, will hereafter tend to the general benefit of the human race, or at -least leave it but more strongly convinced of the immutability of ancient truths ; that the wisdom of Omnipotence is the best cor rective of the presumption of its creatures, and often eaves tln i ship when the crew is intoxicated, the captain desperate, and the pilot asleep at the helm. Such are some of the "whim-whams and opinions" thrown out in various conversations by u Launcclot J^ang- Mat!"' in his old ago ; and in his pleasant home by the 32 II O M E 8 O F A M E It 1 C A N A U T 11 K 8. Hudson he 1ms such enjoyment of his philosophy AS should be derived from a conviction of its truth, and .the conscious ness of a life well spent in its vindication and in agreement with its precepts. SSfasjiington Ming. '1 ,. t^/< y 7 ^ V 4,St - '''". ' >- *>r- ^ <<> f-csSfi JL I "-'iff * . * '\ -'A il .'*- ..... JS^* ~ . . ^^^^ta&^ IRVING. E similarity of the landscape in different portions of the country, is often mentioned as a detect in our seen* cry ; but it lias the advantage of constantly affording an epitome of imturo and an identity of euirgi^tiun favorable to national associations. "Without the wild beauty of the Uhio or the luxuriant vegetation of the Mississippi, the Hudson thus pre>ervi-s a ci-rtain vcri-BJmilituJo in the form <>f its banks, the windings of its channel, and the hills and trees along its shores, essentially American, The reflective 3t] HOMES OF AM Kit 1C AN A I- T 110 It 8. observer can easily find in these characteristic featured, and in the details of the panorama that meets his eye, even during a rapid transit, tokens of all that is peculiar and fiideured in the condition and history of his native land ; and it is therefore not less gratifying to his sense of the appropriate than his feeling for the beautiful, that the home of our favorite author should consecrate the scene. To realize how the Hudson thus identities itself with national associations, while scanning the details wo must bear in mind the general relations of the noble river, the great metropolis toward which it speeds; the isle-gemmed bay and adjacent ocean; and then reverting to the chain of inland eeas with which it is linked, and the junction of its grandest elevations with the vast range of the Alleghanies that intersect the boundless West, recall the intricate net work of iron whereby the most distant village that nestles at their feet is connected with its picturesque shores ; thus Regarded as a vital part of a sublime whole, the Hudson tills the imagination with grandeur while it fascinates the eye with loveliness. A few mi.les from the shores, and in many instances on the highest ranges of hills, gleam isolated lakes, fringed with woods and dotted with small islands, whence axalia bios- nuns and feathery shrubs overhang the water, which is pellucid as crystal, in summer decked' with lilies, in winter allording inexhaustible quarries of ice, and, at all seasons, the most romantic haunts for the lover of nature. Nor is this com jirehensive aspect confined to the river's natural adjuncts.. The immediate localities are equally significant. On the Jersey shore, which meets the gaxe at the very commence ment of the upward voyage, are visible the grove where IRVING. 37 Hamilton foil the most affecting incident in our political annals ; and the heights of Weehawkon, celebrated by the. muse of Ilalleek ; soon, on the opposite shore, we descry the evergreen foliage of Trinity Church Cemetery, be neath which lie the remains of that brave explorer of the forest ami lover of the winged tribes of the land Audubon ; now rise the Palisades ---nearest landmarks of the bold stand first taken by the colonists against British oppression, where Fort Washington was captured by the Hessians in 1770; and whence the enemy's vessels of war were so adroitly frightened away by Talbot's lire-ship, and the most persecuted martyrs of the Revolution were borne to the infamous prison-ship at Long Island. This wonderful range of columnar rock, varying in height from fifty to five hundred feet, and extending along the river to the distance of twenty miles, rises perpendicular from the water, and the channel often runs immediately at its base. The gray, indented sides of this natural rampart, its summit tufted with thickets, and a few fishers' huts nestled at its foot, resembles the ancient walls of an impregnable fortress; here and there the traces of a wood-slide mark its weather- stained face ; and in the stillness of a winter day, when the fro/en water collected in its apertures expands in the sunshine, from the other side of the river may be distinctly heard the clang of the falling trap-rock dissevered from the mass. Opposite are seen the variegated hills and dales of Westchester county. There let us pause, in the neighbor hood of our author's residence, to view the familiar scene amid which he lives. (Jaze from beneath any of the numer ous porticos that hospitably oiler shelter on the hillsides and 38 1IOKES OF AMEHICAN A U T II O U S. at the river's marge, breathe the pure air, and contemplate the fresh tints of a June morning. In this vicinity the river expands to the width of two or three miles, form ing what is called Tappan Bay which, seen from the surrounding eminences, appears like an immense lake ; pic turesque undulations limit the view, meadows covered with luxuriant grain that waves gracefully in the breeze, emerald with turf, dark with copses, or alive with tas sel led maize, alternate with clumps of forest-trees or cheer ful orchards; over this scene of rural prosperity ilit gor geous clouds through a firmament of pale azure, and around it wind roads that seem to lure the spectator into the beautiful glens of the neighbouring valleys. Nearer to his eye are patches of woodland overhanging ravines, where rock, foliage and stream combine to form a romantic and sequestered retreat, invaded by no sound but that of rust ling leaf, chirping bird, humming insect, or snapping chest nut-burr ; parallel with the.se delicious nooks that usually overhang the river, arc fields in the highest state of culti vation surrounding elegant mansions; but farther inland t retch pastures where the mullein grows undisturbed, stone walls and vagrant fences divide fallow acres, the sweet- briar clambering over their rugged surface, clumps of elder- bushes or a few willows clustered about a pond, ami the red cones of. the sumac, dead leaves, brown mushroom* and downy thistles, mark one of those neglected yet wildly rural spots which Crabbe loved to describe. Even here at the sunset hour, we have but to .turn towards the river, at some elevated point, and a scene of indescribable beauty is ex hibited. The placid water is tinted with amber, hues of IttVING. 39 transcendent brightness glow along the western horizon, fleecy masses of vapor are illumined with exquisite shades of color; deep scintillations of rose or purple kindle the edges of the clouds ; the zenith wears u crystalline tone ; tli.e vesper star twinkles with a bright though softened ray ; and the peace of heaven seems to descend upon the trans parent wave and the balmy air. And if we observe the immediate scene around one of the humble red-roofed homesteads or superior dwellings, which are scattered over the hillsides and valleys of this region, and call back the vision from its widest to the most narrow range, the eye is, not less gratified, nor the heart less moved, by images of rustic comfort and beauty. Perhaps a large tulip-tree, with its broad expanse of -verdure and waving chalices, or a superb chestnut, plumed with feathery blossoms, lends its grateful shade, while we follow the darting swallow, watch the contented kino, or curiously note the humming-bird poised, like a fragment of the rainbow, over a woodbine wreathed about the porch, and mark the downy bee cling ing to the mealy stamen of the holy hock, or murmuring on the pink globe of the clover. The odor of the hay-field, the glancing of countless white sails far below, the flitting of shadows and the refreshing breeze all unite to form a picture of tranquil delight. Resuming our course, after such an interlude, we pass the scene of the gallant ami unfortunate Andre's capture -and execution. Stoney Point, where another fierce struggle for our liberties occurred, the Hte of the fortification being marked by a lighthouse, the towering Dunderberg mountain, and that lofty promontory called Anthony's nose, where a sudden turn of the river in 40 HOMES OF AME1UCAX A U Til O 118. a western direction all at once ushers us into the glorious Highlands. The house once occupied by the traitor Arnold is soon forgotten in the thought of Kosciusko, whose imuui- uicnt rises on the precipitous bank at West Point ; and here the wild umbrage that covers Oo'nest recalls Drake V nuiciful poem ; and old Fort Putnam, crowning the highest of the majestic hills, seems waiting for the moonbeams to clothe its ruins with enchantment; IJuttermilk fall glimmers on. one. side, while the proud summit of the Grand Sachem towers on the other. Then opens the bay of Ncwbnrgh, a town memorable as the spot where the mutinous letters of (he Involution were dated, and where the headquarters and parting scene of .Washington and his officers are con secrated to endeared remembrance, lleyond appear the most beautiful domains in the land, where broad ranges of meadow and groups of noble trees, in the highest state of order and fertility, transport us in fancy to the rural life of England. The last great feature of this matchless panorama is the Kaatskill Mountains rising in their misty shrouds, or, in a clear atmosphere, stretching away in mag-- niii cent proportions, whence the eye may wander for sixty miles over a country mapped by prolific acres, with every shade of verdure sublimated, as it were, by interminable ranges of mountain, and animated by the silvery windings, of the Hudson, whose gleaming tide lends brilliancy to the more dense hues of tree, field and umbrageous head land. The navigable extent of the river, and the fresh tints of its water, banks and sky, arc in remarkable contrast with those celebrated transatlantic streams endeared to r . 1 11 V I N G. 41 our imaginations. To an American the first view of the Tiber and the Seine,. their turbid waters and flat shores, occasions peculiar disappointment ; and it is the associa tions of the lihine and Lake Conio, and those features they derived from art, which chiefly give them superi ority. The mellow light of the past and the charm of an historical name, invest the ruined castles and famed locali ties of their shores with an enduring interest. In the spirit of hearty enthusiasm not loss than local attachment, does Irving thank Clod he was born on the banks of the Hudson; for it possesses all the elements requisite to inspire the fancy and attach the heart. The blue waving line of its distant hills in the twilight of the early dawn ; the splendid hues of its surrounding foliage in autumn ; the glassy expanse of its broad surface, and the ermine drapery of its majestic promontories in wiirter; the scene of verdant luxury it presents in summer; its sheltered nooks, pebbly coves and rocky bluffs; the echoes of the lofty Highlands and the balmy hush of evening, when the saffron-tinted water reflects each passing sail, and the cry of the whip-poor-will or monotone of the Katy-did, are the only sounds of life all utter a mysteri ous appeal to the senses and imagination. Washington Irving, although so obviously adapted by natural endowments for the career in which he has acquir ed such eminence, was educated, like many other men of letters, for the legal profession ; he, however, early aban doned the idea of practice at the bar for the more lucra tive vocation of a merchant. His brothers were estab lished in business in the city of New- York, and invited 42 IIOMES OF AM URIC AN AUTHORS. him to take oil interest iu their house, with the under* standing that his literary tastes should he gratified by abundant leisure. The unfortunate crisis in mercantile affairs that followed the peace of 1815, involved his family, and threw him upon his own resources for subsistence. To this apparent disaster is owing his subsequent devotion to literature. The strong bias of his own nature, how ever, had already indicated this destiny ; his inaptitude for affair*, his sensibility to the beautiful, his native humor and the love he early exhibited for wandering, observing, and indulging in day-dreams, would infallibly have led him to record his fancies and feelings. Indeed, ho had already done so with cifect in a series of letters which appeared in a newspaper of which his brother was editor. His tendency to a free, meditative and adventurous life, was continued by a visit to Europe in his early youth. Born in the city- of New- York on the IU1 of April, 17t>3,* ho pursued his studies, his rambles, tind his occasional pen craft there until 1804, when ill-health made it expedient for him to go abroad. He sailed for Bordeaux, and thenco roamed over the most beautiful portions of Southern Europe, visited Switzerland and Holland, sojourned in Paris, and returned home in ISUG. During his absence he seriously entertained the idea of becoming a painter; but subsequently resumed his law studies, and was admitted to the bar. Soon after, however, the first number of Sal magundi appeared, an era in our literary annals; and in December, 1801), was published "Knickerbocker's History The Louse in which Mr. Irving wu* U>rn toml at No. llil WUltuiu*atiwt. It wua rejlttce4 iu 1840 ly one of the "Washington Store*." IRVING. 43 of New-York." lie afterwards edited the Analcctic Maga- O fcine. la the autumn of 1814 he joined the military stall' of the Governor of New-York, as aid-decamp and secre- > tary, with the title of colonel. At the close of the war he embarked for Liverpool, with a view of making a second tour in Europe ; but the financial troubles intervening, and the remarkable success which had attended his literarv enterprises being an encouragement to pursue a vocation which necessity, not less than taste, now urged him to fol low, lie embarked in the career of authorship. The papers which were published under the title of "The Sketch-Hook,'' at once gained him the sympathy and admiration of his contemporaries. They originally appeared in New- York, but attracted immediate attention in England, and were republishcd there in 1S20. After residing there five years. Mr. Irving again visited Paris, and returned to bring out " Hracebridge Hall" in London in. May, 1S>. The next winter he passed in Dresden, and in the following spring put "Tales of a Traveller" to press. lie soon after went to Madrid and wrote the Life of Columbus, which appeared in IS^S, In the spring of that year he visited the South nf Spain, and the result was the Chronicles of the-Con- que.st of Granada, which was published in !SL>!>. The same year he revi.Mtcd that region, and collected the mate rials for his "Alhambra." He was soon after appointed Secretary of Legation to the American Embassy in London, which utlice he held until the return of Mr. Me Lane in 1S:J1. While in England he received one of the iifty- ' guinea gold medals provided by George IV. for eminence in historical composition, and the degree of LL. 1). from 44 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. tho University of Oxford. Ilia return to New-York in 1833 was greeted by a festival, at which were gathered his surviving friends and all the illustrious men ot his native metropolis. The following summer he accompanied one of the Commissioners for rcnioving the Indian tribes west of the Mississippi. Tho fruit of this exclusion was Ins graphic "Tour on the "Prairies." Soon after appeared u Abbotsfortl and Xewstead Abbey," and "Legends of the Conquests of Spain." In 1SIUJ he published " Astoria," and in IS37 "The Adventures of Capt. JJonneville." In iSW ho contributed several papers to the * Knickerbocker Maga zine." Karly in 184:2 he was appointed Minister to Spain. On his return to this country in 18 HI, he began the publi cation 'of a revised edition of his works, to the list of which he has since added a Life of Goldsmith and * Mahomet and his Successors';" and ho is now engaged upon a Life of Washington. This outline should be tilled by tin; reader 1 * imagination with the accessories and the coloring incident to so varied, honorable and congenial a life. In all his wanderings, his eye was busied with tho scenes of nature, and cognizant of their every feature, his nu-mory brooded' over the traditions of the past, and his heart caught and retlected every phase of humanity. With the feelings of a poet and the habitudes of an artist, he thus wandered over the rural .districts of merry England, the melancholy hills of romantic Spain, and the exuberant wilderness of his native land, gathering up their most picturesque ar^uvts and their most atlecting legends, and transferring them, with the pure and vivid colors of his genial expression, into per manent memorials. Every quaint outline, every mellowed lilVING. 45 tint, the aerial perspective that leads the sight into the mazes of antiquity, the amusing still-lilb or characteristic human' attributes, all that excites wonder, sympathy ami merriment, lie thus recognized and preserved, and shed over all the sunny atmosphere of a kindly heart and the freshness of a natural zest, and the attraction of a modest character, a combination which has been happily charac terized by Lowell in the Fable ibr Critics : "What! Irving I thrice welcome warm heart and fine bruin, You Ining Imok the liappicst spirit from Spain, . Anl the gravest sweet humor, that ever were there Since Cervantes met tleath in hU gentle despair; N'uy, don't bo coibaimated, nor look BO beseeching, I chun'l run directly against my own preaching, And having ju~t laughed at their Raphaels and Dantes, (Jo to betting you up beside matchless Cervantes; Hut allow mo to hpeak what I honestly feel, To a true poet-heart add the fun of Dick Steele, '1'limw in all of Addi*on, minus the chill, With the whole of that partnership's stock and good-will, Mix well, and while stirring, hum o'er, as a rj *.!!, The 'line old Kngliah (icntleman,' ijimmcr it well, Sweeten jiiat to your own private liking, then etrain, That only the finest and clearest remain. 1 . t it stand out of doors till u .-.ml it receiver From the warm lazy sun loitering down through given leave*, And you'll find a choice, nature not wholly deserving A name either English or Yankee just Irving." The eminent success which has attended the late repul*- lication of Irving's works, teaches a lesson that we hope will not bo lost on the cultivators of literature. It proves a truth which all men of enlightened taste intuitively feel, but which 43 HOMES OF AMKKIOAN AUTHORS. is constantly forgotten by perverse aspirants for liternry fame , and that is the permanent value of a direct, simple and nat ural style. It is not only the genial philosophy , the huniano spirit, the humor and pathos of Irving, which endear his writings and secure for them an hahitmd interest, but it is the refreshment afforded by a recurrence to the unalloyed, unaffected, clear and flowing style in which he invariably expresses himself. The place which our author holds in national affection can never be superseded. His name is indissolubly asso ciated with the dawn of our recognized literary culture. Wo have always regarded his popularity in England as one of the most charming traits of his reputation, and that, too, for the very reasons which narrow critics once .assigned as derogatory to his national spirit. His treat ment of English subjects ; the felicitous manner in. which he revealed the life of our ancestral land to .us her pros perous offspring, mingled as it was with vivid pictures of our own scenery, touched a chord in the heart which responds to. all that is generous in. sympathy and noldo .in association. If we- regard Irving with national pride' and affection, it is partly on account of his cosmopolitan tone of mind a Duality, among others, in which he greatly resembles Goldsmith. It is, indeed, worthy of a true American writer that, with his own country and a particular region thereof as a nucleus of his sentiment, ho can see and feel the characteristic and the beautiful, not only .in old England, but in romantic Spain ; that the phlegmatic Dutchman and the mercurial southern Euro pean find an equal place in his comprehensive glance. .; IUVING. 47 To range from tho local wit of Salmagundi to the grand and serious historical enterprise which achieved a elastic Life of Columbus, and from tin* simple grief embalmed in the "Widow's Boa" to the observant humor of the 44 Stout Gentleman," bespeaks . not only an artist of exqui site and versatile skill, but a man of the most liberal heart and catholic taste. Reputations, in their degree and kind, are as legitimate subjects of taste as less abstract things, ami in that of Washington Irving there is a completeness and unity sel dom realised. It accords, in its unchallenged purity, with the harmonious character of the author and the serene attractions of his home. By temperament and cast of mind he was ordained to be a gentle minister at the altar of literature, an interpreter of the latent music of nature and the redeeming affections of humanity ; and, with a consistency not less dictated by good sense than true feel ing, he has instinctively adhered to the sphere ho was specially gifted to adorn. Since his advent as a writer, an . intense style has come into vogue, glowing rhetoric, bold wrbal tactics, and a more powerful exercise of thought characterize many of the popular authors of the day ; but in literature as in life, there are various provinces both of utility and taste ; arid in this country and age, a conser vative tone, a reliance on the kindly emotions and the refin ed .perceptions, are qualities eminently desirable. There fore as we look forth upon the calm and picturesque landscape that environs him, we are content that no fierce polemic, visionary philanthropist, or morbid sentimentalist has thus linked his name with the tranquil beauties of 48 HOME8 OF AM Kit 1C AN AUTHORS. tho scene; but that it is the homo of an author who, with graceful diction ami an aft'octionatu In-art, celebrated the scenic charms of the outward world and the* harmless eccentricities and natural sentiment of his race. The true bias of Irving's genius is artistic. The lights and shadows of English life, the legendary romance of Spain, the novel ties of a tour on the Prairies of the AVcst, and of adventures in the Iloeky Mountains, the poetic beauty of the .Alham- bra, the memories of Abbotsford and Xcwstead Abbey, the (piaint and comfortable philosophy of the Dutch coKmUta, and the scenery of the Hudson, are themes upon which he expatiates with the grace and /est of a muster. His ailinity of style with the classic British essayists served not only as an invaluable precedent in view of the crude * mode of expression prevalent half a century ago among us, but also proved a bond in letters between our own coun try and England, by recalling the identity of language and domestic life, at a time when great asperity of feeling divided the two countries. The circumstances of our daily life and the impulse of our national destiny, amply insure the circulation of progressive and practical ideas ; but there is little in either to sustain a wholesome attachment to the past, or inspire disinterested feeling and. imaginative recreation. Accordingly, we rejoice that our literary pioneer is not only an artist of the beautiful, but one whose pencil is dipped in the mellow tints of legend ary lore, who infuses the element of repose and the sportive- ness of fancy into his creations, and thus yields genuine re freshment and a needed lesson to the fevered minds of his countrymen. Of all his immortal pictures, however, tho I H V I X . 40 most precious to hit) countrymen is that which contains tho hoiiso of old HaltuH Van Ta^sell, especially ninee it has been relitted and ornamented by (teoil'rey Crayon ; and pleasant as it is to their imagination as Wolfort'd Roost, it in far more dear to their hearts as Sunny side. And the legends which he has KO gracefully woven around every htriking point in the scene, readily a->imilate with its character, whether they breathe grotesque humor, harmless, superstition, or pensive sentiment. AVe smile habitually, anil with tho same zest, at the idea of the Trumpeter's rubicund proboscis, the valiant defence of Beam Island, and the figure which the pedagogue cuts on the dorsal ridge of old < Junpow-* der; and, inhaling the magnetic atmosphere of Sleepy Hol low, we easily give credit to the apparition of the Headless . t$f -rjfw;v v,- Vf/ /V KcV';^?;*- > "i/ffk m M? v\'\ r '' -JSXr*- i*''*^ IKJ 'v^;''/- ' ' - >v-" : 'V^V-^fla ft ./fS m^^^^^mM ' 1 . % -fe. ^/^^r^X^-T^-'-^^'^*-*--^^ "-' "'-,-.. : ;"1^ 50 lluMKS OF AMK 11 1C AN A U T II O Jt S. Horseman, and luivo no desire to repudiate the frisking imps of the Duy vel'ii Dans Kainer. The buxom charms of Katrina Van Tassel, and the substantial comforts of her paternal farm house, are as tempting to us as they once were to the unfor tunate Ichabod .and the successful Hrom Bones. The mansion of this prosperous and valiant family, so often celebrated in his writings, is the residence of Washington Irving. It is approached by a sequestered road, which en hances the effect of its natural beauty. A more trampiil and protected abode, nestled in the lap of nature, never captivated a poet's eye. Itising from the bank of the river, which a strip of woodland alone intercepts, it unites every rural charm to Hie most complete seclusion. From this interesting domain is visible the broad surface of the Tappan Zee ; the grounds slope to the water's edge, and arc bordered by wooded ravines ; a clear brook ripples near, and several neat paths lead tofhad- owy walks or fine points of river scenery. The house itself is a graceful combination of the Knglish cottage and the .Dutch farm-house. The crow-stepped gables, the tiles in the hall, and the weathercocks, partake of the latter character; while the white walls gleaming through the trees, the smooth and verdant turf, and the mantling vines of ivy and clambering roses, suggest the former. Indeed, in this delightful home stead are tokens of all that is most characteristic of its owner. The simplicity and rustic grace of the abode indi cate an unpervertcd taste, its secluded position a love of retirement ; the cottage ornaments remind us of his unri valled pictures of English country-life; the weathercock that used to veer about on the Stadt-house of Amsterdam, is a symbol of the fatherland; while the one that adorned . > . . 4 . fc\v'- 'j&V > &>'*& " 'VK t ""d^^Tiv* 11 ' A'^vET^'^ ; ' 1 ' - - ^' :;: *'";*? *'/'>;"'' ' '" ' '"V *'-^ ?!T^4 ^f-?. -.' : - %'. ' ^ -%;, ; "^C, ' ; '- r % r - ( . I ' * l! '' v jfc'.W '! 1 > ""' , l 'A\ ?1 v ^ '\ i ~{ I .-.'>-. '.^7 iU* - > !A > \ t^5"^3 - , A 4||; ^"%I^^S- i i Mii^ I R V 1 X G. 51 the grand dwellings in Albany before the revolution, is a significant memorial of the old Dutch colonists; and they arc thus both associated with the fragrant memory of that famous and unique historian Diedrich Knickerbocker. The quaint and the beautiful are thus blended, and the effect of the whole is singularly harmonious. From the quietude of this retreat are obtainable the most extensive prospects ; jind while its sheltered position breathes the very air of domestic repose, the scenery it commands is eloquent of broad and generous sympathies. Not less rare than beautiful is the lot of the author, to whom it is permitted to gather up the memorials of his fame and witness their permanent recognition; the lirst partial favor of his cotemporaries renewed by the mature apprecia turn of another generation; and equally gratifying is the co- incidence of nuch a noble satisfaction with a return to the cherished and picturesque haunts of childhood and youth. It is a pluiM) of life scarcely h.-s delightful to contemplate than to enjoy; ami we agree with a native artist who de clared that in his many trips up' and down the Hudson, he never parsed Sunnyside without a thrill of pleasure, Nor, if thus interesting even as an object in. the landscape, is it dilli- cult to imagine what moral attractions it possesses to the kin dred and friends who there habitually enjoy such genial com- paninnship and frank hospitality. To this favored spot, around which his fondest reminiscences hovered during a long ab sence, Mr. Irving returned, a few years since, crowned with the purest literary renown, and as much attached to his na tive scenery as when he wandered there in the holiday rever- ied of boyhood.' And here, in the midst of a landscape hie 52 HOMES OF AMKltlCAN. AUTHOUS. IH-II has made attractive in both hemispheres, and of friends whose love surpasses the highest meed of fame, he lives in daily view of scenes thrice endeared by taste, association, and habit; the old locust that blossoms on the green bank in spring, the brook that sparkles along the grass, the peaked turret and vine-covered wall of that modest yet traditional dwelling, the favorite valley watered by the romantic Pocan toro, and, above all, .the glorious river of his heart. AVe are strongly tempted to record some of the charming anecdotes which fall from his lips in the hour of genial com panionship; to revert to the details of his personal career; the remarkable coincidences by which he became a spec tator of some of the most noted occurrences of the last, hall century; his personal intercourse with the gifted and renowned of both hemispheres; the fond admiration mani fested by his countrymen in making his name familiar as a household word, on their ships and steamers, their schools, hotels and townships; the beautiful features of his domestic life ; the affectionate reverence with which he is regarded by his relatives and his immediate friends and neighbors; the refined yet. joyous tone of his truly "Sunnyside" hospi talities, KO charmingly enlivened, by his humorous and his torical reminiscences. 'Hut two considerations warn us from these seductive topics the one a cherished hope that the reminiscences thus briefly alluded to may yet bo gathered up by his own hand ; the other our knowledge of his delicacy of feeling and sensitive habit in regard to personalities. In a letter to the editor of the "Knickerbocker Magazine," !Mr. Irving, uiiiler the character of 'Geoffrey Crayon, gives an account of his purchase; of the Van Tassel estate, now called 1 11 V I N G. 53 " Suimyside," and a characteristic description of the neigh borhood, which abounds in sonic of the happiest touches of his style. This letter was the commencement of a series of Articles published in the Knickerbocker, which, excepting his u Life of Goldsmith," are the last of his published writ ings. It appeared in the Knickerbocker for March, 1830, from which we extract it. " To the Editor of the Ktiickcrbixker. u Siu: I have observed that as a man advances in life, lie is subject to a kind of plethora of the mind, doubtless occa sioned by the vast accumulation of wisdom and experience upon the brain. Hence he is apt to become narrative and admonitory, that is to say, fond of telling long stories, and of doling out advice, to the small profit and great annoyance of his friends. As I have a great horror of becoming the oracle, or, more technically speaking, the *boiv* of the do mestic circle, and would much rather bestow my wi.-dom and tediousness upon the world at large, I have always sought to ease otf this surcharge of the intellect by mean.- of my pen, and hence have inflicted divers gossipping vol umes upon the patience of the public. I am tired, ho\\v\vr, of writing volumes ; they do not afford exactly the relief 1 require ; there is too much preparation, arrangement, and parade, in this set form of coming before the public. I am growing too indolent and unambitious for any thing .that requires labor or display. I have thought, therefore, of .He-curing to myself a snug corner in Home periodical work, where I might, as it were, loll at my ease in my elbow chair, . 54 HOMES OF AMERICAN A U T II It 3. and chat sociably with the public, as with an old friend, on any chance subject that might pop into my brain. "In looking around, for this purpose, upon the various excellent periodicals with which our country abounds, my eye was struck by the title of your work 'Tin: KNICKUU- BOCKttu,' My heart leaped at the sight. " DiKmtiru KNICKKUUOCKKK, Sir, was one of my earliest and most valued friends, and the recollection of him is asso ciated with some of the plcasantcst scenes of my youthful days. To explain this, and to show how I came into posses sion of sundry of his posthumous works, which I have from time to time given to the world, permit me to relate a few particulars of our early intercourse. I give them with the more confidence, as I know the interest you take in that departed worthy, whose name and elligy are stamped upon your title-page, and as they will be found important to the better understanding and relishing divers communications I may have to make to you. ".My first acquaintance with that great and good man, for such I may venture to call him, now that the lapse of some thirty years has shrouded his name with venerable antiquity, and the popular voice has elevated him to the rank of flu* classical historians of yore, my iirst acquaintance with him was formed on the banks of the Hudson, not far from the wizard region of Sleepy Hollow. lie had come there in the course of his researches among the Dutch neighborhoods for materials for his immortal history. For this purpose, he was ransacking the archives of one of the most ancient and historical mansions in the country. It was a lowly edifice, built in the 'time of tlic Dutch dynasty, and stood on a green IRVING. 55 bank, overshadowed by trees, from which it peeped forth , upon the Great Tappau Zee, so famous among early Butch navigators. A bright pure spring welled up at the foot of the green bank ; a wild brook came babbling down a neigh boring ravine, and threw itself into a little woody cove, in front of the mansion. It was indeed as quiet and sheltered a nook as the heart of man could require, in which to take .refuge from the cares and troubles of the world; and as such, it had been chosen in old times, by AV r olfcrt Acker, one of the privy councillors of the renowned Peter Stuyvesant. "This worthy but ill-starred man had lead a weary and worried life, throughout the stormy reign of the chivalric Peter, being one of those unlucky wights with whom the ' world is ever at variance, and who are kept in a continual fume and fret, by the wickedness of mankind. At the time of the subjugation of the province by the English, he retired hither in high dudgeon; with the bitter determination to bury himself from the world, and live here in peace and quietness for the remainder of his days. In token of this lixed resolution, he inscribed over his door the favnrito Dutch motto, 'Lust in Kust' (pleasure in repose). The mansion was thence called * Wolfe rt's Kust'- - Wolfcrt's Rest ; but in process of time, the name was vitiated into i Woltcrt'a Uoost, probably from its quaint cock-loll look, or from its having a weather-cock perched on every gable. This name it continued to bear, long after the unlucky Wol- fort was driven forth once more upon a wrangling world, by the tongue of a termagant wife; for it passed into a proverb through the neighborhood, and has been handed down by 56 HOMES OF AMERIOAN tradition, that the cock of the Iloost waa tho most hen pecked bird in the country. "This primitive and historical mansion has long since passed through many changes. At the time of the sojourn of Diedrich Knickerbocker, it was in possession of the gal lant family of the Van Tassels, who have figured so con spicuously in his writings. What appears to have given it peculiar value, in his eyes, was the rich treasury of historical facts here secretly hoarded up, like buried gold; for it is said that Wolfcrt Acker, when he retreated from New Am sterdam, carried oil* with him many of the records and journals of the province, pertaining to the Dutch dynasty; swearing that they should never fall into the hands of the English. These, like the lost books of Livy, had baflled the research. of former historians; but these did I iind the inde fatigable Diedrich diligently deciphering. He was already a sage in years and experience, I but an idle stripling; yet he did not despise my youth and ignorance, but took me kindly by the hand, and led me gently into those paths ot local and traditional lore which he was so fond of exploring. I sat with him in his little chamber at the Iloost, and watched the antiquarian patience and perseverance with which he deciphered those venerable Dutch documents," worse than llcrculaneum manuscripts. 1 sat with him by the spring, at the foot of the green bank, and listened to hi* heroic tales about the worthies of tho olden time, tho pahi.- dins of New Amsterdam. I accompanied him in his legend ary researches about Tarrytown and Sing-Sing, ami explored with him the spell-bound recesses of Sleepy Hollow. 1 wa$ present ut many of his conferences with the good old Dutch IRVING. 57 burghers and their wives, from whom ho derivtnl many of Uiose marvellous facts not laid down iu hooks or records, and which give such superior /alue and authenticity to his his tory, over all others that have been written concerning the New Netherlands. " But let me check my proneness to dilate upon this fa vorite theme ; I may recur to it hereafter. Sutlice it to say, the intimacy thus formed, continued for a considerable time; and in company with the worthy Died rich, I visited many of the places celebrated by his pen. The currents of our lives at length diverged. lie remained at home to complete his mighty work, while a vagrant fancy led me to wander about the world. Many, many years elapsed, before L returned to the parent soil. In the interim, the venerable historian of the New Netherlands had been gathered to his fathers, but his name has risen to renown. 11 is native city, that city in which he so much delighted, had decreed all manner of o*tly honors to his memory. I found his ettigy imprinted upon new-year cakes, and devoured with eager relish by holiday urchins; a great oyster-house bore the name of l ' Knickerbocker Hall ;" and I narrowly escaped the pleas ure of beintr run over by a Knickerbocker omnibus! . * Proud of bavin" associated with a man who had achiev- c5 ed such greatness, I now recalled our early intimacy with tenfold pleasure, and sought to revisit the scenes we had trodden together. The most important of these was the man sion of the Van Tassels, the Itoost of the unfortunate Wolfert, Time, which changes all things, is but slow in its operation-, upon a Dutchman's dwelling. I found the venerable and quaint little cdiiice much as J had seen it during the sojourn 58 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. of Diedrich. There btood his elbow-chair iu the corner of the room he had occupied ; the old-fashioned Dutch writing-do.sk at which lie hud pored over the chronicles of the Manhattoes ; there was the old wooden client, with the archives left by Wolfert Acker, many of which, however, had been iired off us wadding from the long duck gun of the Van Tassels, The scene around the mansion was still the name; the green "bank ; the Hpring beside which 1 had listened to the legendary narratives of the historian ; the wild brook babbling down to the woody cove, and the overshadowing locust trees, half shutting out the prospect of the Great Tappaii Zee. " As I looked round upon the scene, my heart yearned at the recollection of my departed friend, and 1 wistfully eyed the mansion which he had inhabited, and which was fast mouldering to decay. The thought struck me to arrest the desolating hand of Time ; to rescue the historic pile from utter ruin, and to make it the closing scene of my wanderings ; a quiet home, where I might enjoy 4 lust in rust' for the re mainder of my days. It is true, the fate of the unlucky Wol- fert passed across my mind ; but I consoled myself with the reflection that I was a bachelor, and that I had no termagant wife to dispute the sovereignty of the Uoost with me. * 4 [have become possessor of the Koost! I have repaired and renovated it with religious care, in the genuine Dutch style, and have adorned and illustrated it with sundry re lumes of the glorious days of the New Netherlands. A venerable weather-cock, of portly Dutch dimensions, which once battled with the wind on the top of the Stadt-IIouse of New Amsterdam, in the time of lYterStuyvesant, now erects its crest on the g&ble end of my edifice ; a gilded horse, in i n v i x o. 59 full gallop, once the weather-cock of the great Yandcr lley- flou Palace of Albany, now glitters in tho sunshine, and veers with every breeze, on the peaked turret over my portal: my sanctum sanctorum is the chamber ok^o honored by the illustrious Diedrich, and it is from his elboxfchair, and his identical old Dutch writing-desk, that I pen this rambling epistle. ." If ore, then, have I set up my rest, surrounded by tin- , recollection of early days, and the mementos of the historian of the Munhattocs, with that glorious river before me, which llo'ws with such majesty through his works, and -which has ever been to me a river of delight. i4 I thank God I was born on the banks, of the Hudson ! I think it an invaluable advantage to be born and brought up in the neighborhood of some grand and noble object in nature; a river, a lake, or a mountain. Wo make a friend ship with it, we in a manner ally ourselves to it for life. It remains an object of our pride and affections, a rallying point, to call us home again a ft or all our wanderings. 'The things which we have learned in our childhood,' says an old writer, 'grow up with our souls, and unite themselves to it." So it is with the scenes among which we have passed our early days'; they influence the whole course 'of our thoughts and feelings; and 1 fancy I can trace much of what is good and pleasjint in my own heterogeneous compound, to my early companionship with this glorious river. Jn the warmth of my yquthful enthusiasm, I used to clothe it with mural attributes, and almost to give it a soul. I admired its frank, bold,, honest character; its noble sincerity and perfect truth. Here was no Bpecious, smiling surface, covering the danger- fll) lluMKS OF AM 1(1.0 AN A IT T 11 O K . oim sand-bar or perfidious rock ; but a -t ream deep us it was broad, and bearing with honorable faith the bark that trusted to its waves. I gloried in its simple, quiet, majestic, epic How; ever straight forward. Once indeed, it turns aside for a moment, forced from its course by opposing mountains, but it struggles bravely through them, and immediately resume^ its straightforward march. Behold, thought I, an emblem of ?i good man's course through life; ever simple, open, and direct; or if, overpowered by adverse circumstances, he de viate into error, it is but momentary ; lie soon recovers his onward and honorable career, and continues it to the end of Ms pilgrimage. " Kxcuse this rhapsody, into which I have been betrayed by a revival of early feelings. The Hudson is, in a manner, .my iirst and last love; and after all my wanderings, and teeming infidelities, I return to it with a heart-felt preference over all the other rivers in the world. 1 seem to catch new ife, as I bathe in its ample billows, and inhale the pure breezes of its hills. It is true the romance of youth is pa>t, that once spread illusions over every scene. I can no longer picture an Arcadia in every green valley; nor a fairy land among the distant mountains; nor a peerless beauty in every villa gleaming among the trees; but though the illusions of youth have faded from the landscape, the recollections of de parted years and departed pleasures shed over it the mellow charm of evening sunshine. "Permit me then, Mr, Editor, through the medium of your work, to hold occasional discourse from my retreat, with the busy world I have abandoned. I have much to say about what I have seen, heard, felt, and thought, through the v i n VINO. 61 cmrso of a varied and rambling life, and Borne lucubrations, that have, long boon encumbering my port-folio; together with divers reminiscences of tlio venerable historian of the Now Netherlands, that may not bo unacceptable to those who have taken an interest in his writings, and are drsiroud of anything' that may cast a light : baek upon our early his- t TV. Let your readers rest assured of ono thing, that, though retired from, the world, I am not disgusted with it; and that if, in my communing* with it, I do not prove very wise, I trust I shall at least prove very good-natured. Which is all at present, from Yourri, etc., GKOFFKEY CRAYON.'. Jc'lillum (Lulltu * K!^b-^?Sr5*?^^*!? ' ....-- ; *%wfe $fe^ fia:^*- ".sYilVv .^' BRYANT. TF ever there were poet of whom it is not necessary to ask *- whether ho lives in town or country, it is Mr. Bryant. Nt even Burns gives mure unmistakable signs of the inspi ration of rural nights and sounds. "Winds breathe soft or loud; suiiidiino or shadow Hits over the landscape; leaves rn-tle and birds niug, .whorover his verses are read. over our heads becomes a forest, with green boughs waving ; the carpet turns to fivsh grans, and the air we breathe is moist and fragrant with mosses and hidden ' 5 60 HOMES OF AMElilCAN AUTHOK8. streams. No need of currying the book out of doors to aid the illusion ; its own magic is irresistible, and brings out-of-doors wherever it goes. Here is a mind whose Ku|>turo!t in- not conjured up To IMTVG iK'fUftioa (f |>o(4ic jioiii|, Hut and such as could not be excited or satisfied with pictures of what it loves. All is consistent, therefore, when we iind the poet's home a great, old-time mansion, so embosomed in, trees and vines that we can hardly catch satisfactory glimpses of the bay on which it 'lies, through the leafy windows, of which an overhanging roof prolongs the shade. No greener, quieter or more purely simple retreat can be found; none with which the owner and his tastes and oecu- 1 pations are more in keeping. It would be absurd to saV that all appearance of show or style is carefully avoided ; for it requires very little observation to perceive that these are absent from the place simply because they never entered its master's mind. 1 suppose if any thing could completely disgnst Mr. Bryant with this beloved home, it would be the addition of any outward costliness, or even elegance, calcu lated to attract the attention of the passing stranger. Friend Hi chard Kirk a Quaker. 'of the Quakers, if he may be judged by his works little thought, when he built this great, ample, square dwelling-place, in the lap of the hills, in 17S7, that he was fashioning the house of a poet one worthy to.be u spared when temple and tower went to the ground," because it is the sanctuary of a priest of Nature. Whether any B K Y A N T. 67 ('u|iUiin, or colonel, or knight in arms (lid spare it from a prophetic insight into iU destination, we cannot tell ; but thero was wild work in its vicinity, and stories of outrages perpetrated by "cow-boys" and other desperadoes are still fresh in old families. The wide region still called Ilcmpstead was then inhabited for tho mo>t part by loyalists, devoutly attached to the parent govern ment, and solicitous, by means of town meetings passing loyal resolutions, and conventions denouncing tho spirit of rebellion against " his most gracious majesty King George the Third," to put down the dangerous agitation that began to* threaten "our civil and religious liberties, which can only lie secured by our present constitution ;" and this north ern part of the township, in particular, held many worthy eiti/.ens who felt it their duty to resist to the last the unhal lowed desire of the people to govern themselves. In Sep tember, 1775, an oilicial reports that "without the a^i>tance of Col. hasher's battalion" he "shall not lie able, in Jamaica and llempstead, to carry the resolutions of Congress into execution," as "the people conceal all their arms that are of any value." The disaffection of the district was considered important enough to justify a special commission from Con gress, then sitting at Philadelphia, requiring the resistant* to deliver their arms and ammunition on oath, as persons ."incapable of resolving to live and die freemen, and more disposed to quit their liberties than part with the small por tion of their property that may be necessary to defend them.' 1 This seems to have had the desired effect, for the people not only brought in their arms, but were "much irritated with s #6 UOMES 0V AMKKICAN AUTIIOUS. those who had led -them to iiiukc opposition, 11 says a con temporary letter. The lovers of pence and plenty, rather than commotion and scanty harvests, were, however, still so numerous in Queen's county, that on the 21st of October. I77o*, ahout thirteen hundred freeholders presented a most liuiuhle petition to Lord I To we, entreating that he would "declare the county in the peace of His Majesty," and de nouncing "the infatuated conduct of the Congress," as hav ing "blasted their hopes of returning peace and Hccurify." Among the names appended to this petition we find that of Richard Kirk a lover of comfort, doubtless, like his breth ren in general, and who, when once the drum had ceased to outrage the mild echoes of that Quaker region, returned to his farming or his merchandise, and in due season, being prospered, founded the substantial dwelling now known as Spring Dank, destined to last far into the timo of freedom and safety, and to prove, in these latter days, fit harbor for a poet whose sympathies are any where but with the signers *t glance; and 1 in defect of all express guidance in the history of the spot, and desiring, too, a juune at once musical in itself and agree able in its associations, Mr. Uryant proposed Roslyn, the town annals declaring that when the British evacuated the inland in 17*1, "The Sixtieth, or Royal American IJcgiiuent, marched out of llempstead to the tune of Ru.-lvn Castle.'* The name is not too romantic for the place, for a inore irreg ular, picturesque cluster of houses can hardly be found perched here and there on the hillsides, embowered in foli age, and looking down upon a chain of pretty little lake-, on the outlet of which, overhanging the upper point of the harbor, is an old-fashioned mill, with its pretty rural acces sories. One can hardly believe this a bit of Long Island, which is by no means famed lor romantic scenery. After Richard Kirk's time, other Quakers in sucet i..n became proprietors of the great farmhouse and the little [taper-mill, but at length were purchased by Joseph AV. . 70 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. Moulton, Esq., author of a history of New- York, who, not relishing the plainness of (lie original style, surrounded the house with square columns and a heavy cornice. These help to shade a wide and ample piazza, shut in still more cloM'lv hy tall trees and clustering vines, so that from within the house is one bower of greenery, and the hottest sun of July eaves the ample hall and large rooms cool and comfortable at all times. The library occupies the northwest corner that which in our artist's sketch appears at the left and we need hardly say that of all the house this is the most attractive spot not only because, besides ample store of books, it is supplied with all that can minister to quiet and 'refined pleasure but because it is, JHH* r.ivv/A'mv the haunt of the poet and his friends. Here, by the great table covered with periodicals and literary novelties, with the soft, cease less music of rustling leaves, and the singing of birds mak ing the silence sweeter, the summer visitor may fancy him self in the very woods, only with a deeper and more grateful .shade; and "when wintry blasts are piping loud" and the whispering leaves have changed to whirling ones, a bright wood-tire lights the home-scene, enhanced in comfort by the inhospitable sky without ; and the domestic lamp calls about it a smiling or musing circle, for whose conversation or silence the shelves around atford excellent material. The collection of books is not large, but widely various ; Mr. Bryant's tastes and pursuits leading him through the entire range of litera ture, from the Fathers to Shelley, and from Courier to .lean- Paul. In (Jerman, French and Spanish, he is a proficient, and Italian he reads with ease ; so all these languages are DRY ANT. 71 well represented in the library, lie turns naturally from the driest treatise on politics or political economy, to the wildest romance or the most tender poem happy in a power of enjoying all that genius has created or industry achieved in literature. The library has not, however, power to keep Mr. JJryant from the fields, in which he seeks health and pleasure a large part of every day that his editorial duties allow him to pass at home. To explore his farm, entering into the minutest details of its cultivation ; to thread the beautiful woodland . hill back of the house, making winding path.- and shady scuts to overlook the water or command the dUtuut prospect ; to labor in the garden with the perse- - verance of an enthusiast these ought perhaps to be called 1 his favorite occupations ; for as literature has been the busi ness of his life, these out-door pleasures have all the charm of contract together with that of relaxation. It is under the open *ky, and engaged in rural matters, that Mr. IJryant is seen to advantage, that is, in his true character. It is here that the amenity and natural sweetness of disposition, some times clouded by the cares of life and the untoward circum stances of business intercourse, shine gently forth under the influences of Nature, so dear to the heart and tranquillizing to the spirits of her child. Here the eye puts on its deeper and softer lustre, and the voice modulates itself to the tone of affection, sympathy, enjoyment. Little children clu.-ter about the grave man's steps, or climb his shoulders in tri umph; and u serenest eyes" meet his in fullest confidence, finding there none of the sternness of which euMial observer* sometimes complain. It seems almost a pity that other walk* 72 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTJIOKS. should over draw him hence ; but perhaps the contrast be tween garden walks and city pavements is required for the < perfection, and durability of rural pleasures. There can hardly be found a man who lias tried active life for titty years, yet preserved HO entire and resolute a simplicity of character and habits as Mr. Bryant. No one can be less a man of the world so far as that term ex presses a worldly man in spite of a largo share of foreign travel, and extensive intercourse with society. A disposition somewhat exclusive, and a power of living self-inclosed at will, may account in part for the total failure of politic*, society or ambition, to introduce any thing artificial upon a character enabled by natural courage to face opposition, and . by inherent self-respect to adhere to individual tastes in spite of fashion or convention. And the simplicity which is the result of high cultivation is so much more potent than that which arises only from ignorance, that it may be doubted whether, if Mr. Bryant had never left his native village of Cummington, in the heart of Massachusetts, he would have been as free from all sophistication of taste and manners as at present. It is with no sentimental aim that we call him the child of Nature, but because he is one of the few who, by their docility and devotion, show that they are not asham ed of the great mother, or .desirous to exchange her rule for something more fashionable or popular. Thi) father of Mr. Bryant was a man of taste and learn ing a physician and an habitual student; and his mother- not to discredit the general law which gives able mothers to eminent men was a woman of excellent understanding and high character, remarkable tor judgment and decision as for ; BRYANT. 73 faithfulness to her domestic duties. And here, in this little Hampshire village of Cummiugton,- where William Cullen 1 fry ant was born in 1701, he began at ten years of age to write verses, which were printed in the Northampton news paper of that day the Hampshire Gazette. A year earlier h<; had written rhymes, which his father criticised and taught him to correct. Precocity like this too often disappoints its admirers, but Bryant went on without faltering, and at fourteen wrote a satirical poem called the Embargo, which is, perhaps, one of the most wonderful performances of the kind on record. We know of nothing to compare with it except the achieve ments of Chatterton. Here are a few of the lines : ' K'on while I sing, ee Faction urge her claim, Mi-led with fal.-ehood, ami with zeal intlame ; Lift her Mack banner, spread her empire wide, Ami .-t.ilk triumphant with a Fury's stride. Site blows her braze 1 1 trump, and, at the sound, A motley throng, obedient, floek around ; A mi.st of changing hue o'er all ehe tlin^, And darkness perches on her dragon win^iti " < ', might bonio patriot ri^e! the gloom dirtjM:), Clia.-(> I'-in-r'a mist, and break her magic tpell ! l>i.t vain the \\i-h, for, hark! the murmuring meed Of ht'iUM- aj'jiliiUM- from yonder .-h-d proceed ; Knter, and view the thronging concourse ther<, Intent, with gaping mouth and stupid stare ; While., in lli" n.i.l-i, their aupple leader -t.ih.l-, Harangue* aloud, and (UturUlu'fl hi.i hands; To adulation tuneful, for eaeh blockhead'* Vote." 74 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTUOHS. This poem was published, in company with a few shorter ones, at Boston, in 1808. Two years afterwards the author entered Williams College, a sophomore, and greatly '(list in* guished himself during two years, at the end of which time he obtained an honorable discharge, intending to complete his education at Yale a design which was, however, never carried into effect, lie htndied law, first with Judge Jlowe, of Washington, afterwards with Mr. William Baylies, of Bridgc'watcr, and in ltflf> was admitted to the bar at Ply mouth, lie practised law a single year at Plainfield, near his native place, and then removed to (ireat Barrington, in Berkshire, where, in 1S:M, he married Miss Frances Fuir- child whose portrait is exquisitely shadowed forth to those who know her in that tenderest, most domestic, and most personal poem that Bryant ever wrote u The Future Life." In the whole range 'of Kugli.^h literature there can hardly be found so delicate and touching a tribute to feminine excellence a husband's testimony alter twenty years of married life, not exempt from tuils and trials. The poem of Thanatopsis was written in 1812, when the writer was eighteen 4> and we have heard a family friend say that when Dr. Bryant showed a copy to a lady well qualified to judge of such things, saying simply " Here are some lines that .our William has been writing," the lady read the poem raised her eyes to the father's face, and burst into tears in which that father, a somewhat stern and bilcnt man was not ashamed to join. And no wonder! It must have seemed a mystery, as well' as a joy, that in a quiet country life, in the bosom of eighteen, had grown up thoughts that even in boyhood shaped themselves into sol- BRYANT. . 75 enin harmonies, majestic as the diapason of ocean, fit for a temple-service beneath the vault of heaven. The jiociu of the Water Fowl was written two yean* after, while Mr. Bryant was reading law at Bridgewater. These verses, which are in tone only loss solemn than the Thanatopsis, while they show a graphic power truly remark- aide, were suggested by the actual n'ght of a solitary water- ' fowl, btcadily living towards the northwest at sunset, in .a brightly illumined sky. They were published, with Thana- t ops. is and the Inscription lor the Entrance to a Wood, in the North American Ueview of the year 1MJ. In ISi'l Mr. Bryant delivered the poem called "The Ages," before the 1'hi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge. At the Migge.-tion of his friends, it was published the same year, at Cambridge, together with the three poems just men tioned, and a very few others, among which was that called Green liiver, which he had a short time before contributed to the Idle Mali, then in course of publication by his friend Dana, la 1>^4 M\ Bryant wrote a considerable number of papers for the Literary Gazette, published in Boston ; and in lM'5, by the advice, of his excellent and lamented friend, ^ Henry 1). Sedgwick, he removed to New-York, ami became lie of the editors of the New-York' Review, in conjunction with Henry James Anderson. At the end of six months this gentleman, between whom and Mr. Bryant there has ever nincc subsisted a strong friendship, was appointed l*r>- fe.-sor of Mathematics in Columbia College, and liohert C. Sands tmik his place a.- as>ociate editor of the lievicw. This I ie view, however, wai not destined to a.- long a life as it 70 HOMES OF AMEIUCAN AUTHORS. deserved the lite of Keviews a* well as of men depending u I HI; A multitude of contingencies and ut the end of the year Mr. IJryant was engaged av> an as.*itant editor of the Evening Post. The next year he became one of the propri etors of that paper, and lias so continued ever since. In IrtJT, ami the two years next (succeeding, he found time to contribute a considerable share of the matter of an annual of superior character, called the Tali.-man, the whole of which was written by three persons Sands, Verplanck. and liryant. He also furnished several stories fora publi- cation called ** Talcs of the Cilaiiber Spa," published by the Harpers. The other writers were Mi.-s Sedgwick, Panlding, Sands, Verplanck and Leggett. Mr. Uryant's contributing were "The Skeleton's Cave" and Medlield." The first general collection of his works Mas in Ivi:.', when he gave to the world in one volume all the poems he was willing to acknowledge. His publisher was Mr. Khun lUis-, now no more, a man of whose sterling goodness Mr. Bryant loves to speak, as eminent for exemplary liberality in dealings, and for a mo?t kind and generous disjo$ition. It was for him that the Talisman was written. In ls;U Mr. Bryant sailed with his family for Kiiroju-, leaving the Evening Post in the charge of his friend Leg gett. His residence abroad was mostly in Italy and (Jer- manv, both if which countries he found tt> interesting for a mere glance. Here the pleasure and improvement of himself and his family would have detained him full three vi-ars the allotted period of his sojourn abroad buf news of Mr. Lcggetfs illness and of gome disadvantage ari>iug from it in the atfairs of the paper, compelled him to return BRYANT. 77 homo suddenly in 183U, leaving his family to follow at more leisure under the care of Air. Longfellow, who hud been uhroud at the eainu time. The business aspect of the IVt was unpromising enough at this juncture, but sound judg ment and patient labor succeeded, in time, in restoring it to the prosperous condition which it has enjoyed for half a century , In 184*3 appeared ''The Fountain and other Poems," gravely sweet, like their predecessors, and breathing of Na ture and green fields, in spite of editorial and pecuniary cares. In 1843 Mr. Bryant refreshed himself by a visit to the South ern States, and pa>scd a fe\y weeks in East Florida. The ' White Footed Deer," with several other poems, was pub- lifhed a year after. In 1S4,"> Air. Bryant visited England, Scotland, and the Shetland Isles, fr the first time; and dur- . ing the next year u new collection was made of his poems, with the outward garnish of mechanical elegance, and also numerous illustrations by Leutze. This edition, published at Philadelphia, is enriched with a beautiful portrait by Che ney the best, in our opinion, ever yet published. This graceful and delicate head, with its tine, classic outline, in' which taste and sensitiveness are legible at a glance, has a singular resemblance to the engraved portraits of Rubens taken in a half Spanish hat of wavy outline, such as Mr. Bryant is fond of wearing in his wood-raj nbles. Add the hat to this exquisite miniature of Cheney's, and we have Jvubens complete an odd enough resemblance, when we contrast the productions of the painter and the 'poet. Only one still more characteristic and perfect likeness oi' Bryant exists the full-length in Durand's picture of the V 78 UOMK8 OF AMKUICAN AUTHOltrf. poet standing with hU friend Colo tlio eminent land scape-painter among tho Cut nk ill woods and waterfalls. This i>icture is particularly to be prized, not only tor tho sweetness and truth of its general execution, but because, it gives us the poet and the painter where they loved best to be, and just as they were when under tho genial influence and in the complete ease of such Keener. Such pictures are halt' biographies. In 1848 Cole died, and Mr. Bryant, from a full heart, pronounced his funeral oration. Friendship is truly the wine of the poet's life, and Colo was a beloved friend. If Mr. Bryant ever appears stern or indiilercnt, it is not when speaking or thinking of the loved and lost. Xo man ehooses 'his friends more carefully none prizes them dearer or values their hociety more none does them more generous and del icate justice*. Such attachment cannot atford to be indis criminate. March, 1849, saw Mr. Bryant in Cuba, and in the sum mer of the same year he visited Europe for the third time. The letters written during his various journeys and voyages were collected and published in the year 1850, by Mr. Put nam, a volume embodying a vast amount of practical and poetic thought, expressed with the united modesty and good sense that so eminently characterize every production of Mr. Bryant; not a superfluous word,- not an empty or a showy remark. .As a writer of pure, manly, straightforward English, Mr. Bryant has few equals and no superiors among us. In the beginning of 1852, on the occasion of the public commemoration held in honor of the genius and worth of lames Fenimoni Cooper, and in view of a monument to be B U Y A N T. 70 erected in New-York to that great American novelist, Mr. Bryant pronounced a Discourse on his Life and Writing, marked by the warmest appreciation of his claims to the remembrance and -gratitude of his country. Some even of Air. Cooper's admirers ohjet-Jed that tho poet had assigned a higher niche to his old friend than the next century will be willing to award him ; if it be so, perhaps the peculiarly manly and bold character of Cooper's mind gave him an unsuspected advantage in Mr. liryarit's estimation, lie looked upon him, it may be, as a rock of truth and cour age- in the midst of a fluctuating sea of " dillctautism " and time-serving, and valued him with unconscious reference to this particular quality, so rare and precious. l>ut the dis course was an elegant production, and a new proof of the generosity with which Mr. ISryant, who never courts praise, is disposed to accord it. Mr, Uryant's habits of life have a smack of asceticism, although he is the disciple of none of the popular schools which, under various forms, claim to rule the present world in that direction. Milk is more familiar to his lips than wine, yet he does not disdain the % " cheerful hour" over which moderation presides. lie eats sparingly of animal food, but he is by no means afraid to enjoy roast goose lest he should outrage the manes of his ancestors, like some modern enthusiasts. * He " hears no music" if it be fantas tical, yet his ear is iinely attuned to the varied harmonies of wood and wave. His health is delicate, yet he is almost never ill ; his life laborious, yet carefully guarded against excessive and exhausting fatigue. He is a man of rule, but none the less tolerant of want of method in others ; strictly 80 HOMES OF AM Kit 1C AN AUTHO11S. Bel (-governed, but not prone to censure the unwary or the weak-willed. In religion he is at once catholic and devout, and to' moral excellence no noul bows lower. Placable we can perhaps hardly call him, for impressions on his mind are almost indelible ; but it may with the strictest truth be said, that it requires a great oifenec, or a great unworthiness, to make an enemy of him, ;o strong is his sense of justice. Not amid the bustle and dust of the political arena, cased in armor offensive and defensive, is a champion's more inti mate self to be estimated, but in the pavilion or the bower, where, in robes of ease, and with all professional ferocity laid aside, we see his natural form and complexion; and hear in placid domestic tones the voice so lately thundering above the light. So we willingly follow .Mr. Jlryant to Jtos- lyn ; see him musing on the pivtty rural bridge that spans the fish-pond ; or taking the oar in his daughter's fairy boat; or pruning Lid trees ; or talking over farming matters with his neighbors; or to return to the spot whence we set out some time ago sitting calm ami happy in that pleasant library, surrounded by the friends he loves to draw about him, or listening to the prattle of infant voices, quite as much at home tliere as under their own more especial roof his daughter's, within the same inclosure. In person Mr. Itryant. is tall and Blender, Symmetrical and well-poised ; in carriage eminently 1irm and self-pos sessed. Ho is fond of long rural walks and of gymnastic exercises on all which his health depends. Poetical com position tries luin severely so. severely that his efforts f that kind are necessarily rare. His are no holiday-verses ; and those who urge his producing a long poem are, perhaps, BUY ANT. 61 that he should, in gratifying their admiration, luiiUl for himself a monument in which lie would he sclt'- 'nvcloped. Let us rather content ourselves with asking " a few more of the same," esj)ecially of the later poems, in which, certainly, the poet trusts his fellows with a nearer and more intimate view of his inner and peculiar self than was his wont in earlier times. Let him more and more give a human voice to woods and waters ; and, in acting as the accepted interpreter of Nature, speak fearlessly to the heart as well as to the eye. His countrymen were never more dis posed to hear him with delight; lor since the public demand lor his poems has placed a copy in every house in the land, the taste for them has steadily increased, and the national pride in the writer's genius become a generous enthusia>m, which is ready to grant him an apotheosis while he lives. BANCttOFT, Indians culled the finest of New Knglund rivers, Connecticut, lliver of Pines. The {summer tourist to the White Mountain*, ascending or descending its valley, ilnds little reason t'm: the name remaining, until he reaches it> upper nhores, where occasional groves of j>ines remind him of the name and its bigmiieanee, A hroad, tranquil stream, it lliws through much of the most characteristic si-t'iKTv of tlu^ Northern States, from out the "crystal" hills," from the shadow of Agioeochook, "throne of tho ( i resit Spirit," as the Indians called Mount Washington, dividing New Hampshire from Vermont, the granite from the #recn, beneath graceful Ascutney Mountain at Wind sor, through wide-waving grain-fields, foaming over the rocks in its bole important cascade at JJellnws Falls, then into a broader and more open landscape as it crosses Massachusetts, making at Northampton its famous bend .the (Jreat Ox-bow. At Springfield the railways from every quarter meet upon its banks, and its calm breadth here, - 80 HOMES OF AM KH I CAN AUTHORS. with the low clustering foliage of its shores, and the bold cliff of Mount Tom glimmering in the hazy noon, which is the hour of arrival at Springfield, gives the tone to tho day's impression, The traveller southward follow* the stream toward Hartford and New Haven;. the north ern traveller clings^to its shore until he reaches North ampton. Lying in the heart of Massachusetts, Northampton is one of the most beautiful of country towns. Looking over a quiet and richly cultivated landscape, the view from Mount Holyokc is of the same quality as that from Kieh- HI-MI. 1 Hill, in Knghiwl, (ientle green hills, fair and fer tile meadows, watered by the Kiver of Pines. That river id not classic Thames, and no grotesque Strawberry Hill nor historic Ilampden Court, no Pope's Villa at Twicken ham nor btately Hushy Park, tell tales to the musing eye of the singularly artificial and amusing lite which is so strangely and intimately associated with the graceful Kug- lish scene. The Kiver of Pines laves its peaceful Chores with Indian lore. Terrible traditions of the lights of the early settlers of New England haunt the stream. Historic life in its neighborhood is not old enough to be artificial, Like much of our pastoral scenery, which seems the natural theatre of tranquil life and a long Arcadian antiquity, the landscape of the Connecticut, so far as- it is suggestive, reminds the observer only of the dull monotony of savage existence; but, irresistibly as the stream flows to the seaj bears imagination forward to the history that shall be. Alone of all scenery in the world, the Americoji landscape points to the future. The best charm of the B A X H O F T. 8T European niul Asian lies much in its reference t> the past Human interest invests it all. "Th mountain* look oil Marathon, . An. I Marathon Imtka uu tho a, N I Jut that sea is not only a sublime waste of waters, with the ii herent character of every grand natural feature, but it teems and sparkles all over with another spell. Ami this charm is undeniable. The pass of Leouidas is more interest ing than the Notch of the White Mountains, because man Is the muster of nature, and wherever human character ha** entwined itself with natural beauty, it becomes an insepar able element of enjoyment in the scene, and an element \Chich enhances the dignity of the landscape. Thus in Con cord, the spot upon the river's bank where the battle was fought, is lovely and tranquil, but how much lovelier not as water and foliage, but as feeling and inspiration, which' is the immortal beauty of landscape fur the remembrance of the human valor which consecrates it, and its significance and results. No man, of course, grieves that American scenery is not generally invested with this character. Horn upon this superb continent, heaped at intervals with the inarticulate mounds of extinct races, yet races which have left no his toric! trace, and can never be more than romantically inter esting, we are fed upon tho literature and history of the world. The grandeur of Egypt, the grace of Greece, the herui>m of Rome, are all ours, and the lands illustrated by that various character do not fail to fascinate us. ]>ut at present, our landscape is not unlike the Indian himself. It 88 HOMES OF AMKUICAN AUTHOHB. ' in grand but feilont ; or eloquent only with speechless iinpli - caii!' foreign Bconory, and do not know our own wraith. Cut our admiration for the old world is only our homage to that human genius which hhall make our own story as - plendid. Siring what it ha* ulriowliuru done, wo perceive more truly what, in a sphere HO stately and spacious, it will yet accom plish. A (trceco more (Jrcek and a more Kuiuau Komc, is the jumtdlili) future of Auicriea, Why aro they so jealous of uur delight in the Parthenon- in tin- Alj^ in the pictures^ Shall we not honor the llowering <>!' tlu^ that ornamented the nld lands and time-, when we look to its future hlos^oming for our own glory t We pro.speetively honor ourselves in respecting the old world. And if, some- time-, the youth of a sensitive and delicate temperament, fully eapahlu of enjoying to the utmost the resources, of European -life, and retjuiring the suc<-esses of art and the eonvi'iiienee* of an old civilization for the happiest play of his powers, longs tor the galleries, the Hocicticn, the historic shores, it may well he pardoned to him, in consideration that he U an indication of our capacity tor that condition. lie shows what we shall Iny he hhowd that not only the genius (f creation, hut of appreciation, is part of our consti tution. When, however, this peculiarity takes the form of a o^uer- ulous fastidiousness, and, in Broadway, bighti for the l>oule vards, and, remembering St. Peter's, sneers at the Capitol, it is foolish and offensive. Uut, on the other bund, wo shall not necessarily improve our nationality by perpetually visit ing Niagara or reading Mr. Schooleraft'a Legends, or refus BAKCKOFT, 80 injjf ABHcnt to the positive uujwHoritiofl of other countries and times. Essentially eclectic in our origin, we ttltall ho HO in our development, Foreign critic* treat us a* it' wo had n't a eommmi ancestry with them, hut. were descended from the IndianH, They nay to IIH,~- How are yon over to have a tm tionality, it' yon (h^crt all yonr traditioiiH aiul oVvott? your* sclvt'8 to loving and imitating KnrojKf I Tlu qilO^Hou I'M tair, hnt tho iinpl'u'ation in unjnKt. They tor^-t, t>|Kvially tin- l ; n"'IMi t'i'iltcs, that "in 1 ^ and mm, and onr literatnro, whieh they HO ohstreporotitdy in-i-t nuint ho na tional, necessarily has a family likened to their own, Mai A; of our hookn imitate Mmdi-li hookri just an they imitate each other. The roanon in in tho ronunon lan^ua^o and tho *tmi- larity of Iwihil of thought, Hut no ;\merican need trcmhlo lest tlu- grandeur of hU country should fail t> ho oxprvHscd in Art and Literaturo v Somo llomor, or I'oet ahn^ whose linen .-hall llush and roar our houndlesH sea; Home . l'lat>, or Catholic Philosopher, in \\liM-t- calm wisdom the hreadth of a continent shall repose; homo arii-t, who shall passionately dash upon Immortal can- van the fervor of our tropics, and realize, in new and unim- a^inod grace tho hints of forest and prairio those must all he, or tho conditions of human and national development a they appear in history, will not bo fulfilled. (;crtainly> looking from llolyoke, no man grieved that tho Connecticut is not tho classic Thames, nor that the (ireiit Ox-how is unadorned by Strawberry Hill. Nor do I ,>up- 00 HOMES OF A M K It 1 C A N A U T II O K 3. pose that he regrets upon the lull the absence of the dandiefe ' who composed the court of "the first gentleman in Europe," nor that of the Dutch royalty of his three predecessors. Fortunately fur us, this law of association works both way A. Horace Walpolo in the country, tormenting it with his fan tastic fancies, is almost as incongruous a spectacle as Ueau \ash by the seaside. Iwt it is the glowing line of history in which these figures are insignificant, that imparts* the charm. The elegance of extreme refinement marks the . pleasant view from Richmond Hill. It is akin in impres sion to that of the " lovely L<"ulou ladies." It is in land scape what they are in society, imt pastoral peace broods over the valley of the 1 liver of Pines. Golden plenty waves in its meadows, the flowing tresses of a peasant, Gentle mountains undulate around, covered with green woods. A fresh sweetness and virginal purity every where breathe a benediction. If no historic heroism inspires the mind of the spectator, there is also no taint of sheer artificiality, none of the nameless sadness which haunts the gallery of King Charles's Beauties. This is Nell Uwyn, the ruddy orange-girl, her youth and heart sweeter than the fruit she bore; not the painted and brocaded lady, not the frail but faithful St. Albans. Looking from the piaxxa of this house at Round Hill, the eye grasps grim Monadnoc at the north, ami the Yankee hills of Connecticut, made poetic by distance. A tranquil and friendly landscape, somewhat lurid in our early history with Indian fires and desolations, a broad, fair river, alto gether a tiiio and suggestive emblem of our condition and resources, it is pleasant to associate with Northampton the BANCROFT. 01 commencement ot* the work that records our history in . manner which secures its final permanence. It is fortunate that it was written now, while the outlines are not lost in the mist of antiquity, and by one who, to an original, clear ami profound perception of the great principles which appear in the development of the race, has added the ripeness of rich scholarship, long foreign residence, and that invaluable prac tical acquaintance with men and atlairs, which has made hi.*, own life part of contemporary history. I'est of all for the purpose, the ineradicable Americanism of the historian im parts his native air to the page. It is not only a History of America, it is an American History. There is a wild vigor and luxuriant richness in its style of treatment, a pnnid buoyancy of flow, as if it shared the energetic career of the country it describes. The intellectual* habit evident throughout is precisely that required of a historian, not so romantic as to limit the story to a sweet and captivating legend, nor so academic as to marshal in colorless inures the hosts of historic facts. It has no withered, schola-tic air. The historian has not curiously culled flowers, and illered them to us pressed, -but with generous hands lie gathers all the bounties of the Held and heaps them before us, wet with morning dew. Our present duty is not with the work, but with the cir cumstances which the work has made interesting. Horn rt near Worcester, ^jtffsachusetts, Mr. Bancroft was the sJu of the Hev. Aaron Bancroft, one of the most distinguished Unitarian divines of the last half century. In his house the religion learned from his lips by his children was of that grave and humane catholicity which, once permeating the U2 HOMEH OF A ME It 1C AX A I? T HO US. young iniiul, hwecteiis the man's life fur- ever after. Free dom of inquiry, the Biipremest liberty of moral iuvestiga- tiou, was the golden rule of the old man's lite. " Prove all things," was the earnest exhortation of his preaching, sure that otherwise there would he little good to hold fast. When, in the declining years of his life, an intellectual, and moral excitement, known as Transcendentalism, pre- v ailed in New England, and many good men of his own . persuasion fancied that the Inundations of things were at last succumbing, the old clergyman went his way quite unperplcxed, sympathized with the spirit, although not with the result of the investigation, and assured hi* alarmed friends that the errors, if such they were, would necessarily pass, and that all grain of truth grew in husks. At seventeen years of age our historian went to Ger- many and studied at Gottingen. Like all ardent and seri ous New Kngland youths, his interest in theological specu lations was great, and he often preached to the quiet Ger man country congregations around Gottingen, in their native tongue. This interest was the puritanical inheritance of his native land. The small towns were parishes, and the minis ter the high priest. It had been so from the earliest times, and the feeling in the matter, which survived until a quarr ter of a century since, clearly manifested the fact that tint emigration of the pilgrims and the .settlement of New Kng land was a religious movement.- Possibly, seen from Gottin- gen, the theological traditions of New Kngland might loso some of their awful proportions. In the pleasant pulpits of Boston the observer miirht not alwavs see the Cotton B A N C 11 O F T. 9u Mathers, and other clerical JWnerges of the older day, nor trace iu their limpid discourse the liery torrent ot' Puritan preaching, But the spirit* of inquiry inculcated hy the father, the pastor of the quiet country town, was sure to preserve the inquirer -by neither exaggerating nor threaten ing. The young man pursued his studies with ardor, in i- very direction.' His peuotrant mind, contracting the Euro pean habit of education with our wwn, perceived where ours tailed, and what it. was ilcce^ary to do to elevate our stand ard in the matter. Of singular intellectual ivstlessne*!*, his mind bounded and darted through the fields of scholastic culture, hiving the sweets, quite ignorant yet of their proba ble or iinal use. During his residence in Germany, the young American htudcnt, bringing to the Savans of that country the homage of a fame they did not know to exist, was doubly welcome. In .Berlin he knew Schleirmucher, Wolflb and JSavigny. It was in Jena that he lir*t saw (Joethe. The old man was walking in his garden in the morning, clad with (ierman carelessness, in heavy loose coat and trowser*, without a waistcoat, He had the imperial presence which is prc- .-.erved in all the statues ami pictures, ami talked pleas antly of many things as they strolled. Lord By run was then at the height of his fame, (joethe a>ked of him with interest, and said, although without 'passion or ill-feeling. that the English poet had modelled his Manfred upon Faust. In this remark, however, Goethe i-howcd more the pride' of the author than the perception of the critic. For the theme attempted in both poems is precisely the. one sure to fascinate all genius of a certain power, and the !>4 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTH-ORS. treatment in these especial instances reveals all the (lifter* ences of the men. Afterward, in Italy, our student saw Lord Byron. He tirst met him on hoard of one of our national vessels lying at Leghorn, and to which the poet had heen invited. Afi he mounted the side of the bhip, Byron's eye fell upon a group of ladies, and he wavered a moment, saying afterward that he feared they were English, toward whom, at that time, he was not friendly. lie advanced down the deck, how; ever, glat.l to learn that the dreadful cloud of muslin en veloped nothing hut Americans, and fell into animated con versation. ** Ah ! Lord Byron," said one of the fairest of the group, ''when I return to America no one -will believe that I have actually seen you. I must carry them some tangible proof of my good fortune. "Will you give me the rose in your hut ton-hole?" The u free and independent " address did not displease the poet, and he gave the rose. I T pou leaving the vessel, Lord Byron asked Mr. Bancroft to visit him at his villa, Montcnero, near the city, to which, ; a day or two after, he went. They talked of many things,' Lord Byron naturally asking endless questions of America, lie denied the charge of tJoethe about Manfred, and said that he had never read Faust. He had just written the letter upon Pope, and, in conversation, greatly extolled his. poetry. Without Miy ing brilliant or memorable things, By- . ron was a fluent and agreeable talker. It was in the year l^iil, and he was writing ])on Juan. " People call it im moral," said he, " and put Roderick Kandom in their libra- ' BANCROFT. Uc rics." So of Shelley ; " They call him an intidel," said Lord Hyron, "but he is more Christian than. the whole of them." When his visitor rose to leave, the poet took down a volume containing the last cantos he had then written of the poem, and wrote his name in them, as a remembrance "from Noel Hyron." But Ambrosia was that day allotted to the young American, for as they passed slowly through the saloon, the host "bade him tarry a moment, and leaving the room imme diately returned^ with the Countess (riiiceioli. She, too, smiled, and gliding into the mazy mu>ic of Italian speech, led the listener on, delighted. Again he rose to -go, but a servant threw open a door and discovered a collation spread in the adjoining room. Perhaps the poet pleaded him>elf with the fancy of graciously and profusely entertaining his foreign subjects in the ambassadorial per.-ou of his guot. "That is fame," he said, upon reading in some tourist's vol ume that a copy of the Knglish 'Hards and Scotch Keviewcix had been found by him at Niagara. The modesty of hU American visitor might recognize in the cordiality of In* reception and treatment Lord Byron's acknowledgment of his American fame. In ISJ Mr. Bancroft returned home, and served for a year as (J reek tntor in Harvard College. During his long residence in Kurope he had matured his projects to raise the standard of education in America, and in the following year he, with Mr. Cogswell, now Librarian of the A>tor Library, commenced the famous Uound Hill School at Northampton. Three brothers Shepard, descendants of the old New Kng- land divine, had built three- neighboring houses upon this hpot. Gradually they had all passed into the hands of one 00 HOMES OF AMEHICAN A U T 11 O U S. of them, who was willing to sell them, and they became tho scat of the school. Tliij estate comprised ahout fifty acres. The school was immediately filled by young men from every part of the country, and took rank directly among the finest institutions. Mr. Bancroft devoted himself with unremitting ardor to the enterprise. The system of study pursued at the best schools in the world was introduced, and the scheme was, in itself, completely successful. Unhappily, however, there was no Oxford and no Cambridge for this Kton. The course of Btudy was so high and entire that the graduates of liound Hill were well fitted to enter the advanced Classes of any College. l>ut, by a singular provision of College Laws those who entered an advanced class were held to pay for the preceding years. Nor did the studies in any College' carry the student forward to a proportioned result. Shrewd men did not want to pay twice for their sons' education. Uoides, it was a solitary effort, possibly some wild whim thought the shrewd men, of this deeply-dyed (jerman Mil dent. Thus, although in itself successful, it did not promise to achieve the desired result, like a very perfect blossom, which will yet not ripen into a fruit. Mr. .Bancroft's inter- cst in it, therefore, gradually declined. Meanwhile he had served other aims by translating his friend lleeren's History of (j recce, and had been lonir meditating and preparing the material for a History of the Tnited States. In 1S27 he was married at Springfield, and icturning to Northampton resumed his connection with the School simply as a teacher, ami presently withdrew from i altogether. In the house represented in the engraving the tirst volume of the History was written, and published in f i ^ ' -*- >'! *. J \ ' M; ff, M 111 piil *.- I: / ft ^' ~^i , r - ;;.'.-' '.: -.- n| J ' ' l' v : - x " . //I '.^./4 I ^": r ^ if&|*. V^ :i -v^ " ' w ll i? -. : N' . j||fe^;|^*<^M^7x- ^->'' : ^ ^Vj r /.r*i - ;: ->' % : " "'-- : ^4?.H' S BANCROFT. !>7 the year 1834. The historian then removed to Springfield, where he resided two years, completing and publishing another volume there. It was a favorite maxim of Ariosto, and of Lord Byron, that every man of letters mitat mix in affairs, if he would secure a profound influence upon men. Only by contact, they felt, does man learn to know man. The wandering .Homer, the actor Shakspeare, the statesman Milton, Kurd Haeon, the privy councillor Cioethe, Michael Angelo plan- ning fort ilieat ions for Florence, Leonardo da Vinci designing drains for the Lomhardy plains, are names upon their Mde. It is easy to bee how invaluable to a hi^orian must be this practical intereourse with men and affairs, of whose devclop- ment history is the record. Mr. Bancroft's political career, therefore, is not only a remarkable illustration of the sue- ee.v-es opened in a republic to ability and energy, but it has necessarily been of the profoitndcst influence upon his work. A man who makes part of the history of his own time can *' better write that of another. "While f-till resident at North ampton, he was, quite unwittingly upon his part, elected a . representative to the General Court, but his engagements prevented his taking his seat. Other positions were offered him, which he declined. Appointed Collector of J'ostou in iMJSj by President Van limvn, Mr. Bancroft brought to his new duties an intelligence and zeal which secured the ac knowledgment of great ability from very determined oppo nents. He was again married at this time; and, during the engrossing engagements of his oilice he labored diligently upon the third volume of the history, which was published in 184^. In the year 1844 he was nominated for Governor 7 9$ 1IOMKS OF AM KIM CAN AUTHORS. l>y the democratic party. He was not elected, although receiving a larger vote than had ever before been polled upon the purely democratic issue. Party spirit did not spare any prominent man, and plenty of hard things wore said during the contest. JJut in the excited moments t.f political difference, although givat talent is often conceded to opponents, integrity and kindliness of heart are as often denied. Throughout a canvass of great acerbity of feeling, the democratic nominee was in New-York, engaged in ex amining, often for more than the twelve hours of day, the documents illustrative of our early history, which Mr. Hrod- head had then just brought from Holland for the Histori cal Society of his State. In 1S44 Mr. Polk was elected President, and summoned Mr. Bancroft to Washington as Secretary of the Navy, and in the autumn 'of 1S4(J, he crossed the ocean as Minister to Kngland. AVhen Rubens, the painter, resided in England' as Dutch Ambassador, a company of diplomats one day called upon -him and found him, pallcttc in hand, at work- before his easel. "Ah!" said they, "Monsieur the Ambassador is playing painter." "No, gentlemen," responded the artist, "the painter is playing Ambassador." So our historian played Ambassador, and played it well. Upon leaving Washington he said to the President that he should devote his energies to the modification of the Nav igation Act, and his success in the effort is one of the, chief triumphs of Mr. Bancroft's political career. lie, did not arrive as a stranger in London, but the t-cholarw BANCROFT. 99 there, awl the learned representatives of other countries, were already correspondents of the American scholar and loyal to the lame of the American historian. AVe have had no foreign representative more genuinely American. Still devoted to the aim of his lite, by personal inter course with eminent men and close examination of all mutt-rial accessible in England, by constant correspondence with other parts of Europe, especially France, and frequent visits to Paris to explore its libraries and search its archives, the Jlistory of the United States went on. In 1S41) Mr. Uancrot't returned to the United States, and took up his residence in ^New-York. The fourth volume of tho history, comprising the Erench war and the beginnings of our revo lution, was immediately prepared for the press and pub lished by his old publishers, in Imston, in the spring of l.Sfni. Its success, after so long and highly-wrought expec tation, was entire, and confirmed the satisfaction that the history of our country was to IK* recorded by a mind so hUgaeious, so cognizant of the national ideas, so receptive of the national spirit, .so allluent in historic lore, so moulded by intercourse and attrition with great times and their great est men, so capable of expression at once rich, vigorous, and Characteristic. Mr. HancrotVs time is now divided between the city and the seaside. Early in the hummer he repairs to Newjort, and were the date of our book somewhat later, we might enrich our pages with an engraving of the house he is now building there. It, will be a simple, summer retreat, lying upon the seaward slope of the clitF. From his windows he will look down upon the ocean, and as he breathes its air, 100 ilQIIKS OF AU.KUIt'AN At'THOUS. impart its freshness anil vigor to his pages. The iil'th vol ume of the history is now printing. It will comprise the lir>t events of the greatest epoch of modern times. Nor i* it possible to say to how late a date the work will he eon- tinued. The great result of independence once achieved, the consequent organization of details can hardly be prop- criy or copiously treated, until the mind can clearly trace the characteristic operation of principles through a what longer course of years. '\$ It' N ^^ i-4 j-.-^-j t "x i ^^ s v> .1 ^ iiraDie ih* < i f 4 u -3 J \i * "-i ^ V j i *4i; ti $ * > i ml ^ 4 ^ pbatb |i. S h , I ' ^ ;' : *', |f *? / x -" :'.i.v.i.& f l\ t i * tv II '. >' . i 1^ bi : DANA. CAPE ANN would almost appear to have been dcMgned by Nature to afford a home to a poet ; and especially to a poet like DANA, who has always 'been a lover of the eoa>t scenery of his native Now England, and whose genius has contributed so much to invt>t it with ideal beauty. For here, within the easy limits of morning drives, may he seen all the varieties of land ami sea that give a peculiar pictu-. resqueness to these shores, from Portland round to Newport. Added to this, the country inland is broken into hills, rocks, dells, meadows, woodlands, farms, and fields, in the most charmingly contused manner imaginable ; the landscapes change every moment, and there are never wanting -new ones enough to last till it becomes pleasant to rcvi.iit tho>e with which the eye is familjjir. The old roads wind in and out and up and down with a most alluring sinuosity ; I know of one where for nearly live miles the forest -trees almost join hands overhead, and the curves are calculated upon such e-x- ceedingly short radii (to borrow a phrase of the railway en- HOMES OF AMKUICAN AUTHORS. gineeris) that one can never bee more than a hundred rods in advance; for the next five miles the way goes over high granite rolling hills, with magnificent ocean views from their hare summits, and deep green vales between, lined with orchards, cornfields, and meadows, and thickly sown with ancient farmhouses. This is near Squam Ferry, as the ivnid goes towards Ksscx. If he chooses, the explorer may turn aside through a gateway, and a mile or two over loose sand and Band-elilFs, that look like huge snow-drifts, will living him to a desolate peninsular beach, that stretches away, 1 know not how fai', to the northward. This heach is one. of the finest, and hy iishennen one of the most dread ed on the coast; it i very wide, and as smooth and almost as hard as a marble floor; the wind in the distance appears ulinont perfectly white. Somewhere oii it is a buried farm, but the peninsula is now uninhabited, and accessible only at one extremity. To ride or walk on this apparently inter minable waste, with no companion but the marching waves, that loom up so threateningly, and seem so loudly impatient for another victim that one-becomes almost afraid of them, is not 'the least of Capo Ann's poetical attractions to "the man of fine feeling, and deep and delicate and creative thought:" such an one as the IIU.K MAN has identified himself with by the very substance and eloquence of his description, in the essay he has entitled * A Musings." In another direction, the road which leads' to the beauti fully situated old town of Gloucester, and thence goes quite round the shore of the Cape, offers vi'ews no less various and interesting. Uoek, beach, headland and island alter nate with each other for the whole distance; and the gen- DANA. 105 'oral sterility of the scenery, with the sense of loneliness and desolation it inspires, reach a climax at the extremity or " pitch of the Cape," where Thatcher's Island with its cold lighthouses stands out into the Atlantic surges. Further round, towards Kockport, are some high hills, from which the ocean appears almost encircling the horizon ; broad 'and blue, of that deep ultramarine hue peculiar to our northern . waters, it rises upward half-way to the sky, and the distant sails which dot it over literally "hang in the clouds." I .shall always remember one early morning here, when the breeze blew fresh and the white-caps gleamed in the lattei dawning; the horizon line was as clear as in a picture, and . the surf was- foaming joyfully upon the ledges. Some of the precipices here and elsewhere on the Cape are not ex celled for grandeur by those of Xahant. Kockport is in itself a curiosity a little thriving village stretched along a narrow shore, and just able to preserve itself from being wa>hcd into the deep. A strong sea-wall scarcely protects a little basin of a harbor, in which .-um- lift y tMiing schooners aro usually lying. Many of the im mense blocks of granite composing this wall were moved from their places in the great gale of 1S51, and tho whle would have probably gone hail the gain continued another tide. Beyond, ami forming a part of Itockport, is Pigeon Cove, wliere are extensive granite quarries, hewn into the pine-covered elitls. The scenery hero will bear Othell/s description :- " Kougli iji,.irrit -, rock*, aii'l hill* v> h>- hotuta touch heaven." Or if the whole of Capo Ann were to be described in 106 IIOMK8 OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. brief, it couM hardly be more aptly done than in the Ian guago of one who has profited by an observation of Ameri can scenery which the perplexed Othello could hardly have t*; i joyed .: "Tlu- hill* Rock-ribbM, *ul ancient u the BUII thu vaU-* Stretching in jtfiiaivc quictix*** bctWH'ii ; Tin: veiirrublt) \vii>ln rivers that imvu In uuiji'ftty, uiul thu couijilttiiting brook* Tliut nmk tin- mciuiowa gn-cn ; aini |KurM rouixl all Old ocvan'd J.THV nnd nu'lauclittly wiMti-/ 1 Such is the vicinity in which DANA has found a home congenial with his spirit. Hut I know not how to describe itj or how to speak of him in connection with it, except by drawing from the actual. Let me then, as necessary to the purpose, beg the reader's indulgence in asking him to trans port himself to the .place where 1 am at this moment writ ing. It is an old farmhouse v about tour miles by the road from Dana's residence, though but tor the projecting lodges and deeply indented coves it would bo much nearer. From my window, looking westward over the meadows near tlie shore, 1 can almost see there. It is a bright August morn ing; so calm that the swell is scarce audible on the beauti ful willow-lined beach just below me. Looking seaward are the rocky islets visible from "Mr. Dana's house, and' the high point on which stands a solitary oak, long a watcher over the waters, but blasted the early part of this summer bv lightning; inland nrc meadows and far-oil* farmhouses with deep green-wooded hills in the distance. Around me all is DANA. 107 still ami ringing in the hot sun ; except only the threshers, who are making a rural bound in yonder barn. Let each ot' my readers "play with his fancy" and think ho hears with, me the noise of a carriage jolting along d\vn the long. lane that leads here, where carriage seldom comes.. It approaches nearer and now it cease* on the given- sward under the window. We look out and perceive a plain country double-seated wagon, in which are a gentle man and two little girls. He is preparing to defend, and J, recognizing him, go down to meet him. We tiud an elderly gentleman of sixty or thereabout, with a counte nance bearing the marks of care and thought, but having u mo>t pleasant half sad expression ; a voice of peculiar sympathetic quality, and a manner very frank and simple.- yet conveying an impression of singular retinement. le- yond this there is little to notice, except that he is sume- what under the middle height, unusually Bquare-iihoulclored, and wears a loose brown linen frock and a palm-leaf hat evidently designed to keep the sun oil*. This is the author of the " Buccaneer," " Paul 1'Vlton," and numerous other poems ami prose writings, which have enriched his country's literature, by tending to make nature and art more beautiful, truth and pimty of heart more lovely, and faith in Christianity stronger. We will now, at his invitation, step in and ride ovtjr with him to dine promising, however, that the reader shall expect no set conversation, poetical, critical, or other, beyond what might naturally suggest itself to thinking ant) educated persons, long acquainted, and experienced in life, driving along an o!d country road, with children in charge, 108 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTUORS. US full of questions and sage observations AS. any this hemi sphere ami age can probably produce The last half mile of the road is in a wood, where we come to a gate which lets us into the poet's ground*, the wood still continuing along the base of a hill. At length we emerge upon an open lawn and see the house, "We soon reach it, and leaving our horse (a quiet, contemplative ani mal, by the way,) to the care of an Exile of Erin, we enter the hall. The doors are open, and we perceive directly he- tore and beneath us the ocean. Passing through, we see at a glance that the lawn on which the house stands shelves oil' u few rods in front of it, in an almost perpendicular gravelly dill', about sixty feet above a smooth sandy beach. The edge t' this cliff is fringed by the remains of an old wall covered with a growth of bushes and low trees, which reaches also to tlie "beach down the cliff's face. The beach is almost a perfect semicircle, of about a third of a mile in extent, and is perfectly isolated; on the right by u Eagle 1 1 cud," a projecting ledge that makes out beyond it into the >ea, and on the left by "Shark'*? Mouth," the precipitous base of the hill round which we lately passed. The house stands on a line with the beach, that is, nearly south, and the hill, cov ered with a thick growth of wood, encircles the lawn round the north, an effectual barrier to the cold winds, which come, chictly from that quarter. A still further protection is afford ed by a high wooded island of considerable extent, which be longs to the estate, and lies perhaps ft* hundred rods from just within the base of the hill, and seems placed there as a shelter to the beach. Ihit it is still early in the day, and the family not having DANA. 109 yet assembled, our host, after hearing us exhaust the various expressions of "How beautiful!" ami the like, which the first view of the place draws from every visitor, leaves us in enjoy it for a while by ourselves. It will He a convenient opportunity to luentiou what I have learnt of the history and topography of the estate. It originally belonged to a man named (Jraves, and tin- island and beach are still called by his name on the map?, lie had been a shipmaster, and long after him there was n. tradition to the ell'ect that he had here buried doubloons. The money-diggers tried to iind them, but their HUCCCSS or failure still remains a question fur antiquaries. The estate contains a little over one hundred acres of woods-, beach, rocks, island, and land capable of cultivation. AVe observe how the beach is shut in by the rocks and island. This beach is the only one in the vicinity that is private prop erty. lu Massachusetts the townships were originally granted to their proprietors, /// <oswi:ix. u l can believe it of Mozart, when I hear that Kyrio to the Twelfth Mass. But /was never meant for an arti.-t, then. I am not strong; 1 cannot fuller and he, DANA. (Smiling) "You are big enough. "Well, there'* nothing like keeping at work ami doing the best we can. You see it is easy to give advice, at all events." Presently this very formal sort of conversation is inter rupted by a discovery some, one has made, that there i.s an interloper with a gun upon the beach. Poet, knights, and ladies instantly act upon the advice of King Henry at Agin- court ; and there is no rest till the Kxile of Erin is sent to RMpie.^t and then warn the intruder to depart. Hut the incident breaks the current of chat, and looking 'westward, we perceive it is near sundown. AVe must depart also, and 1 hhall be glad of your company at least a part of my way home. Leave taking between thoso who expect soon to meet again is a short ceremony ; we merely bid good evening, reserving for another occasion the sight of some /favorite trees in the woods, and some recently discovered paths. We are soon out upon the old road by the gate we came. How cool and grateful the forest smells in the falling dew ! Yet it and all things do but sadden me ; and were it 120 HOMES OF A M K 1U C A N A U T II O II S. not for Mich friend* as wo have seen to clay, the shadows would deepen over my soul, as they do even now, while we emerge from the wood, over the valley. Jlut bee how glo riously the sunset touches the hill ! What a mist of gold and purple ! And away yonder, directly in the eye of the sunset, s the window of my chamber, all on tire. Hut the ocean is cold, and those far eastern sails that were so bright, look like spectres wandering on the verge of nothingness. As night conies on they would come to land, only that the watchful moon is already preparing to set her mild eye upon them while we sleep. Here we have reached "a by-path which will conduct me by a shorter way across the pastures and beaches to my home. And here, Header, with many thanks for youi courtesy, and hoping you have not been wearied, I will bid you farewell. May we* meet again ! ib'fvmu^v William . * *" *4^ ' "';**':? ' ajfc:- -ijM' ,.-"~' %niS I .^*^ t *->-^ '^ : 'V/-' ; vW>- | - '- ---;- ...-_,i'u :.. -'""ii'jr *^iW' '''""-',-< i A jfif PRESCOTT, true idea of a homo includes something more than a place to live in. It involves oleinentA which are intangible and imponderable, It means a particular spot in which the mind is developed, the character trained, and the affections fed. It supposes a chain of association, by which mute material forms are linked to certain states of thought and moods of feeling, so that our joys and sorrows, our struggles and triumphs, aro chronicled on the. walls of a house, the trunk of a tree, or the alleys of- a garden. Many 124 HOMES OFAMEBICAN AUTHORS. persons arc so unhappy as to pass through life without theso street influences. 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 lionise, the child is boru in another, and dies in a third. As we Walk through the unexpressivo squares of one of our cities, and mark their dreary monotony of front, and their ever-changing door-plates, how few of thcso houses are there that present themselves to the eye with any of the symbols ajid indications of home. These, we say instinctively, are i mire parallelograms of air, with sections and divisions at regular intervals, in which men may eat and Bleep, but not 1V, in the largo meaning of the term. But a country- house, however small and plain, if it bo only well placed, IH in the shadow of a patriarchal tree, or on the banks of a stream, or in tho hollow of a sheltering hill, has more of thfc look of homo than many a costly city mansion. In tho former, a portion of nature seems to have been Hubdued and converted to 'tho uses of man, and yet its primitive character to have remained unchanged ; but, in tho latter, nature has bevn hlain and buried, and a huge brick monument erected to her memory. We read that "God eetteth the solitary in families." The significance of this beautiful expression dwells in its last word. The solitary arc not set in hotels or boarding-houses, nor yet in communities or phalansteries, but in families. Tho burden of solitude is to be lightened by household affections, and not by mere aggregation. True society that which tho heart craves and the character needs is only to be found at home, and what are called tho carea of housekeeping, from which so many selfishly PRESCOTT. 12. r and indolently shrink, when lightened by mutual forbear ance and unpretending Belf-sacrifice, become occasions, of . endearment and instruments of moral and spiritual growth. Tho partial deprivation of night under which Mr. Piv-- 'rutt 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'themselves the author of " Ferdinand and Isabella" as a venerable personage, entirely sightless, whose " dark steps ", require a constant u guiding hand," and are greatly surprised when they nee 'this ideal image transformed into a figure retaining a more than common >hare of youthful lightness of movement, and a countenance full of freshness and animation, which betrays ' to a casual observation no mark of visual imperfection, The weight of this trial, heavy indeed to a man of literary la-te>, has been* balanced in Mr. 1 Vest-oil's case by great compen sations, llf has been happy in the lioine into which he was born, happy 'in the home he has made for himself, and happy in the troops of loving and sympathi/.ing friends whom he has gathered around him. lie has been happy in the early possession of that leisure which has enabled 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 franknos, and that disposition to look on the bright fcidc of men and things, which is better not only than house ami land, but than genius and fame. It is his privilege, by no nienn.s universal with successful authors, to bo best valued when- most known; and the graceful tribute which his intimate J1UMKS OF AM EK 1C AN A U T II O K S. friend, Mr. Ticknor, has paid to him, in tin- preface to his History of Spanish Literature, that hit* "honors will always be/ dearest to those who have best known the discourage ments under whieh they hayo been won, and tlie modesty and gentleness with which they are worn," is but an expres- Mon of the common feeling of all those w ho know him. To come down to smaller^ matters, Mr. 1'reseott has beer, ibriunate in the merely local influences which have helped to train his mind and character. His lines have fallen to him in pleasant places. His father, who removed from Srtk-m to Boston when he himself was quite -young, lived fur many years in a house in Bedford-street, now swept away by the march of change, the effect of 'which, in a phi*-e of limited extent like Boston, is to crowd the popu lation into constantly narrowing spaces. It was one of a rla.-s of houses of which but few specimens are now left in 'ur densely-settled peninsula. It was built of brick, painted yellow, was square in form, and hud rooms on either hide of the front door. It had little architectural merit and no architectural pretension, But it sh>od by itself and was Hot 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 hltadcd by some tino-elms and horse-ehe*t- fi-.its. It had a certain individual character and expiv.-siun of its own. Hero Mr. I'reseott the elder, commonly known and addressed in Boston as Judge 1'ivseott, lived from 1S17 to 1844, the year of his death. Mr. Prescott the younger, the historian, upon his marriage, did not leave his father's so to seek a new home, but, complying with a kindly PRE^COTT. 127 custom more common in Europe, at least upon the Conti nent, than in America, continued to reside under the pater nal roof, .the two families forming one united and atfection- 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. Preseott's circle of research grew moro and more wide, the house was enlarged by the addi tion of a study, to accommodate his hooks and manuscripts, ;md here lame, found him living when she came to seek him alter the publication of the "History of Ferdinand and Isa bella." Xo one of those who were HO 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, with a mingling of pleasure and of pain, its substantial and respectable appearance, its warm atmo>phere of welcome mid hospitality, and the dignified form, so expressive of wisdom and of worth, of that admirable person who BO l.ong presided over it. This house was pulled down a few years since, soon after the death of Judge 1'reseott : his son having previously removed to the house in Ueaeon-lreet, iu which he now lives during the winter months. Few authors have ever been BO rich in dwelling-places as. Mr. IVescott. "The truth is," nays ho in a letter to the publisher, * I have three places of resilience, among which I contrive to distribute my year. Six months t pass in town, where my house is in Beacon-street, looking on the common, which, as you may recollect, is an uncommonly tine situa tion, commanding a noble view of land and water." There is little in the external aspect of this house in Beacon-street to distinguish it from others in its immediate HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. vicinity. It is one of a continuous but not uniform block. It is of brick, painted white, tour stories high, and with one of those* swelled fronts which are characteristic of Boston. It lias the usual proportion and distribution of drawing- rooms, dining-room and chambers, which are furnished with unpretending elegance and adorned with some por- f '''''' : * X *''' ^A.:^-.^. ____ ;^. .j-,. ' , -i traits, copies of originals in Spain, illustrative of Mr. Pres- eott's writings. 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 t\io drawing- rooms. It is an apartment of noble size and lino propor tions, filletl with a choice collection of books, mostly histori cal, which hro disposed in cases of richly-veined and highly- PKESCOTT. 120 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 Tmuch smaller apartment, above the library and communicating with it, is the working study an arrangement similar to that adopted- by Sir Walter Scott at Abbotstbrd. Mr. 1'rescott's collection of books has been made with apecial 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 private library, at least, in the 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 history treated in his works. These manuscripts have been drawn from all parts of Europe, as well as from the States of Spanish origin in this country. IFc has also many curi ous and valuable autographs of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 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 Col. I'rcscott at Bunker Hill, and tho other by Capt. Lizccn,- the maternal grandfather of Mrs. Trescott, who commanded the .British sloop of war Falcon, which was engaged in firing upon the American troops on that occasion. It is a signifi cant and suggestive sight, from which a thoughtful mind may draw out a long web of reflection. These swords, once waving in hostile hands, but now amicably lying side by hide, symbolize not merely the union of families once op- 130 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. in deadly struggle, but, as wo hope tind trust, the mood of peace which is destined to guide the two great nations which, like parted streams, trace hack their source to' the same parent fountain. On .entering the lihrary from .the drawing-room, the vis itor sees at first no egress except hy the door through which lui had just passed ; hut, on- his attention being called to a particular space in the populous shelves, he is, if a. read ing man, attracted by some rows of portly quartos and goodly octavos, handsomely bound, bearing inviting names, un known to Lowndes or Unmet. On reaching forth his bund to take one of them down, he linds that while they la-op the word of promise to the eye, they break it to the hope, for the et'oming books are nothing but strips of gilded leather pasted upon a Hat 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 histo rical works, is constantly animating his correspondence and i'OiiA'ersation. It is, in short, a secret door, opening at the touch of a spring, and concealed from observation when shut. A small winding staircase leads to a room of mode rate extent above, so. arranged as to give all possible advan tage of light to the imperfect eyes of the historian. Here .Mr. Prescott gathers around him the books and manuscripts in use for the particular work on which he may be engaged, and few persons, except himself and- his secretary, ever pen etrate to this studious retreat. In regard to situation, few houses in any city are supe rior to thi>. It stands directly upon the common, a beau tiful piece of ground, tastefully laid out, moulded into an PRESCOTT. 131 exhilarating variety of surface, and only open to the objec tion of being too much cut up by the intersecting paths- which the time-saving habits of the thrifty Bostonians have traced across it. Mr. Prescott's house stands nearly opposite a niitall 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 intro duction of the Coehituate water, a fountain haa 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 fur finer eifect than the costly architectural fancies of Europe, in which the water spurts and h'/xles amid a tasteless crowd of sprawling Tritons and flopping dolphins. Here a beautiful spectacle may be seen in the long afternoons of June, before the midsummer heats have browned the grass, when the crystal plumes of the fountain are waving in the Ime/e, 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 diffusion of material com fort, worth and intelligence. The situation of the house admirably adapts it also for a winter residence. The sun, during nearly his. whole cofirse, plays on the walls of the houses which occupy the wc>hrn part of Beacon-street, and the broad pavement in front is, in the coldest weather, clear of ice and snow, and offers an inviting promenade eve.ii to the long dresses and thin shoes HOMES OF AMKKltJAN AUTUOliS. which so many of our perverse wives and daughters will persist in bringing into the streets. Here, in the early day* 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, front ils elevated position, commands a line view of the western "horizon, including a range of graceful and thickly-peopled hills in Brookline and Koxbury. Our brilliant winter sun- -Hs are been here to the greatest advantage. The whole western sky burns with rich metallic lights of orange, yel low, 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 shroud- nig veil of daylight is slowly withdrawn. A walk at this hour along the western hide of the Common oilers a larger amount of the soothing and elevating influences of nature than most dwellers in. cities can command.* Jn this house in Beacon-street, Mr. Prescott lives for * The bounty of our winter aun^ta is, so fur us I uiu aware, peculiar to our ivmntry. It il-j>-iuls upon u combination of elomeutd found nowhere el*e; u low t< ui| rutuiv with a brilliant sunlight uinl u transparent atmosphere : the fiinmtti of Swi.l.-u with tho sky of Italy, lit jinrtli.ru Kuropo, the tone of eolorin^ U too gray and *ulnhiel, anl tho ahort dny-s uro li.'lit of otto if our winter PUH-< l.<, in which tho t't.-t kccpa down all tho d m.1- and vapor* t-f t-arth, ami tho wostt-rn hky looks liko a vault of cryMal, through which the '"!> of botno uthrr world U PKESOOTT. 133 about half the year, engaged in literary research, and find ing relief from his studies in the society of a numerous circle of friends, a precious possession, in which no mini 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 exciting and ephemeral claims of the pa- ing hour, but devoted to those- calm researches the results of which have appeared in his published works. He is strongly social in his tastes and habits, and his manners and conversation in society are uncommonly free from that Stiffness and coldness which are apt to creep over students,, and retain more of youthful ease and unreserve than moat men, whatever be their way of life, carry into middle age. Jle 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, however, are not wholly idle. From his detective 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 Host on where Mr. PrescQtt lives, are birds of passage. As soon as the sun of our short-lived summer puts oil* the coun tenance of a friend, and puts on that of a foe, one by one * Mr. I'ruacutt inherit* from his father a tmte for riding and walking alone. For many years, during the life of the latter, they were both in the habit ot riding before breakfast. Their lion*-* would be brought t> tho dinr ut the. panic time, and they wonld start together, but one would take the, right hand ' titid one the h ft. TliM |eeuliarity, -,, \\([\ t in uij,.-iii with lii" OtUerwUo lui!e*, M oft, it the smbjeet of playful banter among hn friends HOMES OF AMEUICAN AUTHOltS. ihey take their flight. House utter .house shuts up its green liils, ami resigns itself to u three or four month* 1 sleep. The owners distribute themselves among various places of retreat, rural, suburban or marine, more or less remote. Mr.. Prescott alrfo quits the noise, dust ami heat of Boston at this season, awl takes refuge fur Home weeks in a cottage at Nahant. u This place," he writes to the publisher, "is a cottage what Lady Kineline Stuart "Wort ley calls in her 4 Travels' a charming country villa' at Nahant, where for more than twenty years I have passed the summer months, as it is the coolest spot in New England. The house stands on a huld rlitl', overlooking the ocean, so near that in a storm the spray is thrown over the piaxza, and as it stands on the extreme point of the peninsula, is many miles out at sea. There is more than one printed account of Nahant, which is a remark' aide watering-place, from the hold formation of the coast and its exposure to the ocean. It is not a bad place this sea girt citadel for reverie and writing, with the music of the winds and waters incessantly beating on the rocks and Jmad beaches below. This place is called i Fitful Head,' and Norna's was not wilder." The peninsula of Nahant, which Mr. IVescott has thus briefly described, is a rocky promontory running out to nea from the mainland of Lynn, 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 Little Jsahant. It juts out abruptly, in an adventurous and defy ing, way, and, laid down on a map of a large scale, it looks like an outstretched arm with a clenched h'st at the end of U. Thus going out to sea to battle with the waves on our PllESCOTT. stormy New-England coast, it is built of the strongest mate rials which tho laboratory of Nature can furnish. It is a solid mass of the hardest porphyritie rock, over which a thin drapery of soil is thrown. At tho southern extremity this wall of rock is broken into grand, irregular forms, and teamed and scarred with the marks of innumerable con flicts 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 flitl's with an expression so like that of animal rage, that it is difficult to believe that they are nut conscious of what they are about. lut in an instant the gray ma^s is broken into splinters of snowy spray, which glide and hiss over the rocky points and hang their dripping and ileeey locks along the sheer wall, the dazzling white con tra.- ting as vividly with tho reddish brown of the rock, as docs 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 com bination, there results a constant variety of form and move ment. Nature never repeats herself. As no two pebbles on a beach are identical, so no two waves ever break upon a rock in precisely the same way. The beach which connects the headland of Little Nahant with the mainland of Lynn, is about a mile and a half l>ng, Mind curved into the finest line of beauty. At low tide there is a space tf some twenty or thirty rods wide, left bare by the receding 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 inarble floor, presenting. 186 HOMES OP AMKUICAN AUTHOUS, an inviting field for exercise, whether tn\ foot, in carriages, ^r on horseback. The wheels roll over it in silence and leave no indentation behind, and even the hoofs of a gal loping steed make hut a momentary impression. On a line bree/y afternoon, in the season, when the tide is favorable, (his 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. Kvery kind of carriage that American ingenuity has ever devised is here represented, from the old-fashioned family coach, with its air of solid, ehurch-and-state respectability, to the sporting-man's wagon, which looks like a vehicular taran tula, all wheels and no body. The inspiriting influence of the scene extends itself to both bipeds and quadrupeds. f/Utle 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 " constitu tional," involuntarily quicken their pace, as if they were really walking for pleasure and not for exercise. The well- fed family horse pricks up his ears and lifts his feet lightly, as if he felt a sense of pleasure in the coolness and moisture under 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 h>ng lines of dazxling foam and spring upon the beach as f they enjoyed their own restless play ; sprinkle the bay with snowy 8a,ils for the setting sun to linger and play upon,, and cover the whole with a bright blue sky dappled with P UK SCOTT. 187 drifting clouds, and all these elements make up so animating a scene, that a man must bo very moody or very apathetic not to fuel his heart grow lighter as ho gazes upon it. The position of Nahant, and its convenient distance fronr Boston, make it a placu of much resort in the hot month-* of hummer. There- are many hotels and hoarding-houses ; nnd also a large number of cottages, occupied for the mo*t part by families, the heads (tt* 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 decided opinions. Many pronounce Xahant delightful, but some do not hoi- tat u to call it detestable. No place can be more marine and los rural. There are no woods and very few trees. There a/e none but ocean sights and ocean sounds. It is like being out at sea in .a great ship that does not rock. AJ every wind blows oil* the bay, the temperature of the air is very low, and the clear green water looks cold enough in a hot August noon to make one's teeth chatter, so that it requires some resolution to venture upon a bath, and still more to repeat the experiment. The characteristic climate of Xahant may be observed in one of those days, not uncom mon on the coast of New England, when a sharp east wind nets in after a hot morning. The sea turns up a chill steel blue surface, ami the air is so cold that it is not comfortable to sit still in the shade, while the sky, the parched grass, thu clnsty roads, .and the sunshine bright and cold, like moon beams, give to the eye a strangely deceptive promi&e oJ heat. Under the calm light of a broad full moon, Nahant puts on a strange and unearthly beauty. The nea spark hs in silver gleams, and its phosphoric foam is in vivid con- laS II O M E 8 OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. ' trust with thu inky shadows of the dills. Tho ships dart away into the luminous distance, like spectral forms, In iho deep stillness, the sullen plunge of tlio long, breaking \vavca becomes oppressive to the Kpirits. The roofs of the rottagcs glitter with Bpirituul light, and the white line of the dusty road is turned into a path of pearl. The eottage which Air. Proscott occupies at Xahant is built of wood, two stories in height, and lias a spacious pia/./.a running round it, which in lino weather is much used as a supplementary drawing-room. There is nothing remarkable whatever in its external appearance. Its plain and unassuming aspect provokes neither criticism nor admi- riition. Its situation is one of the iines't in the whole penin- aida. It stands upon the extremity of a bold, bluff-like pro montory, 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 Xahant, lands and receives her passen gers, and the Swallow's Cave, one of the lions of the place, lire both within a stone's throw of the cottage. Mr. Prescott resides at Xahant from eight to ten weeks, und iinds a 'refreshing and restorative intluence in its keenly bracing sea-air. This, though a treason of retirement, is by no means one of indolence, for he works as many hours every day and accomplishes as much, here, as in Boston, his time of study being comparatively free from those- interruptions which in a busy city will so often break into a scholar's FBKSOOTT. ISO seclusion. As hia lifo at Ntthant tall-, within the travelling season, ho receives here many of the strangers who are attracted to his presence by his lift rnry reputation and tin* ivjn.rt r his amiable manners; and this tribute to celebrity, exacted in the form of golden hours from him as from evu/v 'distinguished man in our enterprising and inquisitive age t * is paid with a cheerful good-humor, which ICUVCH no alloy in the recollections of those who have thus enjoyed the privi lege of hi* society. ..Mr. 'Pjvscotfs second remove for if Poor Richard's saying IK* strictly true he is burnt out every year is from Xahant to lYppiTcll, and usually happen** early in Scptein- )u-r. Ills homo in Peppercll is thus described by him in a letter to the publisher. u The place at Peppercll 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 having been greatly enlarged by my father tirst, and since by me. It is here that my grandfather, Col. Win. Prescott, who commanded at Bunker Hill, was -born and died, and in the village church-yard ho lies buried under a simple slab, containing only the record of his name and agi 1 . My father, AVm. Prescott, the best ami wisest of his name, was also born and passed his earlier days here, and, from my own infancy, not a year has passed that I have not spent more or less of in these shades, now hal lowed to me by the recollection of happy hours and friends that are gom-. "The place, which is called 'The Highlands,' consists of ' some two hundred and fifty acres, about forty-two aniles from 140 HOMES OF A UK It 1C AN AUTUOUH. . Boston, on the bonier-lino of Massachusetts and New shire. It is tv line rolling country ; and the IUUM- stands on a rising ground that descends with a gentle- sweep to the Nissitissct; a clear anil very pretty river, affording pictu resque views in its winding course. A bold mountain chain on the northwest, among which is the Grand Monadnoc, in New Hampshire, makes a dark frame to the picture. The laud is well studded with trees oak, walnut, chestnut, and 'maple distributed in clumps and avenues, so as to produce an excellent 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." To possess an estate like that at IVppeivll, which has come down by lineal descent through .several successions *if owners, all of whom were useful and honorable men in their day and generation, is a privilege nof. common any where, and very rare in a country like ours, young in year* nnd not fruitful in local attachments. Family pride may ho 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 suggestive eye, the very forms of the landscape 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 Wen associated with them, without being conscious 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 hun dred years, been known and honored .in Massachusetts. The lirst of the name, of whom mention is made, ",vtu PHESCOTT. 141 John Prescott, who came to this country in 1040, and set tled in Lancaster. He was a blacksmith anil millwright by trade a man of athletic frame and dauntless resolution.: ami his strength and courage were more than once. pn* to. tho 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 heir-loom descended from some anee&- tor who had fought at Poitiers or Flodden-tield and when ever the Indians attacked his house he clothed himself in full mail and sallied out against them ; and the advantages Jie is reported to have gained were probably 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 iiroton, was a man of influence and consideration in the colony of Massachusetts. He represented (iroton for many years in the colonial legislature, was a magistrate, and an otlieer in the militia. In 17o,~> he was chosen agent of the province to . maintain their rights in a controversy with New Hampshire respecting 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 ap pointed in his place, took the disease and died of it. Imt, in the same year, the messenger of fate found Mr. Piv-ei.tt upon his own farm, engaged in the peaceful labors of agri culture. He died in August, 1735, of a sudden inilamma- _ Tory attack, brought on by over-exertion, in a hot day, t. Bave a crop of grain from an impending shower. He was but forty years old at the time of his death, and the infln- H2 Jl o M K S O F A M K H 1 C A N A U T II.O U 8. enee ho had lung enjoyed among a community slow to givo their confidence to the young, id an expressive tribute to his character and understanding. Ho had the further advan tage of a dignitied and commanding personal appearance. In 17'J5, the year of hid death, he received a donation of uhout eight hundred acres of land from the town of (irotoit tor his services in procuring a large territory for them* from the General Court, and the present family estate in IVp- pcrell forms probably a part of this grant. His second son was Col. Win. 1'rescott, the commander ot' the American forces at the J tattle of Hunker Hill, who, after his fathers death, and while he was yet in his minor ity, settled upon the estate in IVppejvll, and built the house which is still standing. Up to the age of forty-nine, his life, with the exception of a few months 9 service in the old French war, was passed in agricultural labors, and the disc-barge 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 uews of the Concord iight, it was his good fortune to secure a permanent place in history, by commanding the troops f his country in a battle, to which subsequent events gave a significance greatly disproprotioned both to the num bers engaged in it and to its immediate results. At the end of the. campaign of 1770, he returned home and resumed his usual course of life, which continued uninterrupted, except that he >vas present as a volunteer with (Jen. (Jates at the surrender of JJurgoyne, Until his death, in 1705, when he was in .his seventieth year. He was a man of vigorous , not much indebted to the advantages of education PKESCOT'T. 143 in early life, 'though ho preserved to the hint a taste for reading. His judgment ami good sense were much esteem ed by the community in which ho lived, and were alwavs at their service hotli in jnihlie and private affairs. IK' \vji-* of a generous temper, and somewhat impaired his estate by his liberal spirit and hearty hospitality. In the career of Col. Prescott wo see how well the training given bv the institutions of New England tits a man for discharging wor thily the 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 displaying that calm courage and sagacious jjudgmcnt which a life in the camp is supposed to be necessary to bestow. Xor was his a rare ease, for as the needs of our revolutionary struggle required such men, they were always forthcoming, Xor is there any reason to sup pose that (Vl. Pre'acott himself ever looked upon his eon- . duct on the seventeenth of June as any thing to be specially commended, but only as the performance; of a simple piece of duty, which could not have been put by without shame and disgrace.* * Tin- revolutionary annuls of New Kn^land uhound in curious ami . Lu., toiintio uiiecdotei*, illuMiating the resolute hpirit of the people, immt of whi<-l <;i- |r4'.-t'fVi'J only in tl.-<- town kUtortti whi<*li contain tiie rc-ulls of niim,t ih\. -!i_ r aii.'ii, ii|'j'li.l ton liinit'.l t iritofy, ami ^uultnl hy a fpiiit of lorul pridt* anil allVrttmi. The in \v> of the inaivh 'f tin- liritinh troopH out of Button c\\ the niornin^ of April 1ft, 177S, whirh flow liko u tu-ry crow through New Knjj. laii-1, ivaeUed IVpperell at aliout ten o'clock in the forenoon. ('.!. I'rtgcott iuuuetliatily euniinotieil hin eoinpany, aiul put himself at their head and j i-- c-evd-d towards Coneord, having la-en joined ly u reinforcement /join Cri>ti>i<. A meiub<-r of the company Abel PiU'ker was ploughing in a distant fie|.' 144 HOMES OF AMKKICAN A U Til US. Judge Prescott, who died in Boston in the month of December, 1844, at the age of eighty-two, was the only child of Col. Prescott, and horn upon tho family estate at Peppcrcll, Ilis son, in one of his previously quoted letters, *peaks of him as u tho best and wisest of his name." It does not become a stranger to their blood to confirm or deny a comparative estimate like this, but all who knew Judge I'rescott will agree that he must have gone very far who would have found a wiser or a better man. Ills active life was mainly passed in the unambitious labors of the bar; a profession which often secures to its members a fair share of substantial returns and much local influence, but rarely gives extended or jiosthumous fame. He had no taste for politi cal life, and the few public trusts which he discharged were und dill not receive the alarm in boa/on to atari with hi.- fellow-ooldicrb ; hut a *.,u as he heard it, he left hit* oxen in the field unyoked, ran In. me, .-< i/.-.riii.i gun in one hand ami hU hi-.-t coat in tho other, ami M t out U|Mn a run to join hi- companions, whom he overtook in < iroton.. After the departure of the IVp- jRTell und firoton troops, these town* wore left nearly defencelo.vi, but in a *tato of i'i< .it unoa&iiuad 1'ioin a ruinorvd approach of the Uriti.-h regular*, In thi.-> 'timr^eney, several of the \\-oinen of the iieighbor)uM>d nu-t toother, tln-hM-d *h m--l\ * in the clotlu-d of their al.-'iit hualmmi^ and brother*, urm.d them- m-lv-.s \vith nuihketd, piti-hfork^, and biieh weapon* as tlu-y could tiiul. and hav ing eleeted Mix l>avid Wright of IN'ppoiell their commander, took po.-s*-^iun of a bridge between 1'epperell and (iroton, vvhiuh they resolvtnl to maintain ttt^ain^t foreign fbrc or domestic treason. A jx-rnon 'HOIII appeared on horse back, M!IO wad known to bo a y.ealou* Tory. Ho watt immediately >ei/.ed by tin -r resolute her- tines, unhored and narehed, and Mime tieaxmuhlu corre- -.j.niideni-e found in hi.s boots. Ho wad detained pi^oiier, and his dispatelu^ tent to the Committed of Safety. F>r thew anecdotes, as well a for sonic of the btatementa in the text, I am indebted to IJutler'a History of (iroton, an un- pretending and meritorioua work. PUESCOTT. 145 u-v-umed rather from a sense of duty than lVm inclination He was never a member of Congre&s, nor in any way con nected with the general government, hut was always con tent to move within the narrower sphere of his own State. A> a practicing lawyer, no person ever enjoyed in a greater degree, the confidence of the community or the reject of the courts, and for many years his only difficulty was how to ilispottt! of the great amount of rosjHJUoiblc bu.-ine>s in truded to him, without injury to his health. This rank iit the, bar he had fairly earned both by a large measure and a hajfy combination of moral and intellectual qualities; by a good sen>c and sagacity which instinctively led him t-> the right, by invincible industry, by large stores of legal leuruing, by natural dignity of manner and a perfect tairnc- of mind \\hieh never allowed him to overstate the testimony of a witnev, or the force of an authority. To >ay that Judge 1'iv-cott was a man of >ense and sagacity is nut enough, for in him these qualities ripened into wisdom. As he wa- never called upon to manage public atfairs ujM.n a large M-ale, or to draw conclusions from a Vi-ry wide range of ob-ervatioi^ we can only rea>on from what we know to what we do not know, and infer that in the prime of his facultie- he would have proved himself competent to the highest tru.-t which his country could have imposed upon him; hut, within his >phere of action and I'.xperieiice, hi> judgment command ed the greatest. re>pecl, wa> sought in the mo^t ditlieult 4jue?- tions^ and reposed upon with the utnio>t confidence. For the la>t thirty years of his'life there was no one in llo^ton wli?e compel was more solicited or moiv valued in important mat ters, whether public or private. lie was not called 10 146 HOMES OF AMERICAN 'AUTHORS. like his fat her, to servo hit* country in wnr, but the walk* of civic and peaceful life allow a man to show of what stuff ho t made, and the friends of Judge IVcscott knew that ho had tJie hereditary eon rage of his race, and that had duty required him to tan? a bristling line of muskets, ho would have dour it with as much composure a- In- e\vr ntood u]> before a jury to argue in behalf of a client against whom an uujn-t current of popular prejudice was setting. Tin 1 resources nf his mind and tin- \vcli-halanccd syiiinn tfv f his character, were strikingly si en in his declining years, after his retirement from the bar, which took jilaee in 1S2S, in cuii>e(jiieiiec of failing health. The interval be- tvvedi active life and the grave is apt to be a trying period with lawyers. It is one of tin- burden* of our profes.-ion that we arc (/Migcd to spend half our time in learning what we wi>h to forget the moment it has ,-i-rved .-ime particular end. The brain i" like an inn that is constantly receiving new guests and lismis^ing the old. Thus the; mind of an old lawyer is apt to be like a warehouse, which is in part empty, ami in part tilled with goods of which the fashion lias pa-M-d away. lut such was not the ca-e with Judge Procott. His social ta>tes, his domestic ailectioiis, his love if general knowledge, and the interest he had taken in fvcry thing which had interested the community in which he lived, had prevented his mind from lieeoming warped or narrowed by professional purMiits ; and when 'these were no longer permitted to him, he passed naturally and cheer fully into more trantjuil employments. His books, his friends, his family, tilled up his hours and gave healthy occupation to his mind. His interest in life was not im- PKK80OTT, 147 paired, nor the vigor of his underatanding relaxed, by the change. The writer of this sketch had the privilege of a personal acquaintaiice with Judge l/rcscott during tho hist years of his lite. His appearance at that time was dignified and prepossessing. lliH figure was tall, thin, and ulightly In-lit ; his imivriiiciit-i active, and his frame untouched by inlirm- ity. His features wore regular in outline and proportion resembling the portraits of a kindred spirit, the late illus-- triou> John Jay- and their expression, benevolent and in- tellcctual, His manners were simple, but marked by an air of liigh breeding, flowing from dignity and refinement of character, lie was a perfect gentleman, whether judged by a natural or a conventional standard. A stranger, ad mitted to his society, would at iirst have been inclined to describe him by negatives. His manner was not overbear ing, his tone was not dogmatical, his voice was not loud, lie was free from our bad national habit of making strong assertions and positive statements. He was not a great talker; nor was his conversation brilliant or pointed. Hut he who had spent any considerable time in Judge PrescottV society, especially if he had had occasion to consult him or a>k his advice, would have brought away other than merely negative impressions, lie would have recalled the mild and tolerant good sense of his discourse, his penetrating insight, his freedom from prejudice, his knowledge of men .so unalloyed by the bitterness, the hardness, the misan thropy with which that knowledge is HO often bought, and the natural ease with which the stores of a capacious mem ory were brought out, as the occasion required, lie would 148 UOMES OF AME1UCAN AUTIIOUS. have felt that ho had been admitted to the presence of a person of eminent wisdom ami worth, whose miml moved in higher regions than wit or eloquence alone can soar to. Who can estimate too highly the privilege) of having had >uch a fatlier so fitted for the paternal ollicc, that if his .>n could have had the impossible boon bestowed upon him, of selecting the parent of whom he would have been born, ho could never have found a better guide, a wiser counsellor, a truer friend, than he upon whom, in the provi dence of God, that trust was actually devolved. The life of Judge 1'rescott was as happy in its close as it had been during its continuance. On tin- morning of Sunday, December 8th, 1814, being then in his eighty-third year, ho died suddenly and without pain, surrounded by his family and in the perfect possession of all his faculties. His death, though so natural an event at his advanced age', was widely and sincerely mourned, and the expressions of feeling which it called forth, were proportioned to the respect and venera tion which had followed him while living.-" The town of Peppeivll lies in the northern part of the county of Middlesex, bordering upon, the State of Xexv * Tlio widow of Judge 1'rcrtcott, tin- niotlirr of the historian, died in March, IS52, at t!i<' _'< of eighty-four. She was u woman of grcatT benovolenee, an coitatautly b''ii. in the -iitci of l^wtun, i.- >he wviit about on foot upon her cinuuU of charily. She u ill 1><> |.>nu p reHR'inbore*! autl hihcotvly inuiini. ,1 by the \vimc happily-disposed clumps of trees, so that the whole lias the air of a scene in an Knglif>h park. The meadows and lields beyond JUT 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 bet ter class of New England farmhouses. It wears our com mon uniform of white, with green blinds; is long .in propor tion to its height, and the older portions bear marks of age. Thcre'is.u p'nuxa, occupying one side and a part of the front. ut thoroughly comfortable, and hospitably arranged, so as to accommodate a large number of guests. These are some- t-imcs more numerous than the family itself. Then' 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 young feet have sported and frolicked, and some that were not young. \ . i-v . gg : F -;- Jr M -- -M' - . - . / PHE8COTT. 151 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 butternuts. Of these last there are some remarkably largo, specimens, From these trees the house derives an air of dignity and grace which is the more conspicuous from the fact that those noble ornaments to a habitation are not so c2 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. Mf. Prcscott has passed many studious hours, and his a* lie has paced to and fro, have worn a perceptible path in the turf. A few rod* from the house, towards the east, is another and larger pond, near which is a 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, HI which a lover of nature may HOII bury himself in primeval shades, under broad-armed trees which have witnessed the stealthy step of the Indian Juintcr, 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 iron call of a sentinel crow. The house is not occupied by the family during the heats of summer; but they remove to it as soon as the cool morn ings, 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 maples, the sober scarlet and brown of the oaks, and the warm yellow of the hickories. A delicate gold-dust vapor hangs in the air, wraps the val leys in dreamy folds, and soOens all the distant outlines. The bracing uir and elastic turf invite to long walks or rides, the warm noons are delightful 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 aqua tic excursions, and a closet-full of books for a rainy day. Among these are two works which seem in perfect unison PRE8COTT. 153 with tlio older portion of the house and its ancient furni ture Theobald's Shalcspeare and an early edition of the Spectator both bound in snuff-colored calf, and printed on paper yellow with ago ; and the latter adorned with those delicious copperplate engravings which perpetuate u costume so ludicrously absurd, that the wonder is that the .wearers could ever have left olf laughing at each other long enough to attend to any of the business of life. AVhen the cool evenings begin to set in with something of a wintry chill in the air, wood-fires are kindled in the, spacious chimneys, which animate the low ceilings with their re it- less gleams, and when they have burned down, the dying embers ditfuse a ruddy glow, which is just the light to tell a ghost-story, by, such as may befit the narrow rambling passages of the old farmhouse, and send a rosy cheek t<> bed a little paler than usual. AVhile Mr. 1'reseott is at IVppercll, 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 cir cle _. ' MY in-: AU Siu : "As you desire, 1 send you a specimen of my autograph. It is the concluding page of one of the chapters of the Conquest of Peru" Hook 111., Cap. 'J. The writing is -not, as you may imagine, made by a pencil, but is indelible, being made with an apparatus used by the blind, This is a very simple atfair, consisting of a frame of the ai/.e of a common sheet of letter-paper, with brass wires inserted ri PRESCOTT, ' 155 * it to correspond with the number of lines wanted. On one side of this frame is pasted a leaf of thin carbonated paper, such as is used to obtain duplicates. Instead of a pen, the writer makes use of a stylus, of ivory or agate, the last bct- ter or harder. The great difficulties in the way of a blind man's writing in the usual manner, arise from his not knowing when the ink is exhausted in his pen, and when his 'lines run into one another. Both difficulties are obvi- v nted by this simple writing-case, which enables one to do his work as well in the dark as in the light. Though my trouble is not blindness, but a disorder of the nerve of the eye, the effect, as far as this is concerned, is the Fame, and 1 am wholly incapacitated for writing in the ordinary way. In this manner I have written every word of my /s. I suppose it is habit. "One thing I may add. My manuscript is usually too illegible (I have scut you a favorable specimen) for the press, a lid it is always fairly copied by an amanuensis 1 Before it is consigned to the printer. I have accompanied ihe autograph with these explanations, which are at your service, if you think they will have interest for your read ers. My modus operand* has the merit of novelty, at least I have never heard of any history monger who has adopted it besides myself. " I remain, dear Sir, " Very truly yours, 44 WM. II. FKKSCUTT." - ? f ! M 3 rx. }' r f r $ S I I V \ v x. 5 mi i - ^ c ^ ' V. r r 4 r . V 3 tf sJ } ' t i. .. s 'i .1 \' f I 3 - L -4 1 i 2 \ ' . . . v 1 < 1 r 1 f a ' V v xj ( 5 =L 3 i ^ j :/ ! piss . Ip. Srtghmh, C. M. SEDGWICK, I)KU1[APS it is not to be wondered at that Home should be the prominent idea oil Miss Sedgwiek'rj mind, through out a literary career which lias made her name dear to !u-i country. Kvery novel, and essay, and touching story that lias ever fallen from her pen we choose our words advis edly, to express the graceful ease which characterizes Ju-r writings has the thought of Home, like a sweet under- 1 song, beneath all the rich foliage of fancy and gleams >f heroic feeling. Her heroines arc rich in home qualities; her plots all revolve round the home centre"; her Lints touch gently or strongly on the sacrifices and errors that make home happy or miserable. In those admirable stories that seem like letters from an observing friend- those, we mean, that have, an .avowed moral purpose, like ".Live and let Live," the u Uieh poor Man and poor IJich Man" imagination and memory are evidently talked tor i- very phase of common social experience that can by exam ple or contrast throw light upon the great problem * liow to tOO UOMKS OF AM Kit 1C AN AlTiloKS. make a happy houw under disadvantages both of fortune utiil character. She might be well painted us u priestess tending the domestic altar shedding light upon it set ting its holy symbols in order due, and hanging it with votive wreaths, that may both render it proper honor, and attract the careless or the unwilling. It* all lady-writcis who could boast masculine understanding had possessed also the truly feminine spirit which breathes throughout Miss Scdgwick's writings, even where they are strongest and boldest" lor truth and virtue, bonic of the satire which lias pursued the gentler sex when they have ventured to practise the " gentle craft," might have been spared. \Ve are ready to gay, when we read Miss Sedgwick "True woman, true teacher," since no true teaching is accompli>h- d without Love. Besides this home charm, Miss JSedgwick's writings have no little value jis natural pictures ; and pictures, too, of a transition state, of which it will be, at ho distant day, ditli- eult to catch the features, except through the delineations :if contemporary novelists. That great photograph, the newspaper, gives back the features of the time with severer accuracy; but as the portrait is to the daguerreotype, so is the novel to the newspaper. Miss Sedgwick and Mr. i'ooper may Ije considered pioneers in this excellent work the delineation of American life and character, with proper accompaniments of American scenery. The homely rural lite of our country appears in the New England Tale umler a touch as delicate as skilful, while the manes of our forefathers are shadowed forth in "-Hope Leslie," wiilt a loving truthfulness for which old chronicles vouch amply. MISS 3 EDO WICK. Itil National feeling U strong in Miss Sedgwick, aiul she is neither meanly athamed of it nor weakly inclined to parade it. It comes out because it is there, aril, not because it is called for. Foreign travel has not stilled it, nor much in tercourse with the high civilization of older countries tinged it with sadness or made it morose. Ever kind and hopeful, it still disdains flattery, and while it loves and praises gener ously, it is not afraid to condemn with equal justice. Our western world is so sensible of this kindness and this itrm- ne-ss, that although it id prone to resent even clearer truths, especially when they grate on national vanity, it hears Mi.--. Sedgwick always with something more than patience and respect. In delineating individual character, it is possible to let an amiable disposition lower the contrasts which are essen tial to vigorous impressions. This occasions the only fault wo are disposed to tiud w.ith Miss Scdgwiek's novels. They lack strongly-marked character ; they smooth rough points too much ; they hesitate at horrors, moral ones at least. If the world were really made up of so large a proportion of pretty good people, with a sprinkling of angel?-, ami only now and then a compunctiously half-bad man or woman, novels would never have been written, or if they had, would hardly have become one of the elixirs to so great a portion of the weary children of earth. The imagination is not satis- tied with truth, it asks the stimulus of high-wrought truth* unusual distinct startling. It will not do for a writer to be too restrictedly conscientious in this matter. If it he true that *"]<: i^rai n\*t JMX to itjvtt >* lc rraixcinlhillc" it ia also true that the " CMtstmlhM'c" does not include the entire - 11 1G2 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. l"." With this single complaint of unnecessary "toning down," lot us dismiss the ungracious tusk of fault-finding. To make virtue lovely, is one of the achievements of the good. To draw such pictures of excellence as shall incite to imitation, is far less easy, if more pleasant, than to ddsli off vice and crime hy wholesale with the intent of warning. Hugbeara have little power after the hread and butter age, while Helf-sacritice, tenderness and heroism possess Ifeaveu be praised for it undying interest, and always find some sensitive chords even in the mind most sadly unstrung. Here we indicate Miss Sedgwick's forte it is to touch the heart by examples of domestic goodness, not' so exalted as to preclude emulation, but so exquisitely human and natural as to call up all that is best and sweetest in the heart's im pulses, and throw us back upon ourselves with salutary com parisons and forward with pure resolutions. We have heard the remark from those well qualified to judge, that Miss Sedg- wick's writings had done much towards prompting aspiration and high resolve in young men ; how much wider must have been her influence over her own sex over the daughters and the mothers of her country ! Here is wherewithal not to boast, but to be thankful ; occasion not for pride, but for sell-con secration ; and as such we doubt not Miss Sedgwick looks. upon her great success. Even on the wide field of our com mon schools, the influence of that excellent manual, "Means and Ends," is daily felt ; and we can desire nothing better than that every American girl, whatever her position in life, may be prompted by it to " self-training," on the best plan and the best principles. If it could be conceded that the character of 'every writer MISS SEDGWICK. 103 is legibly impressed on his works, we need say nothing of that of Miss Sedgwiek. But, though it may be true that a- inan always "writes himself down" to some extent, unhappy instances are not wanting to prove that we may sometime* grossly mistake the true character of a professor of tender r-ensibilities, or heedlessly ascribe the rough or self-depreei- ating expressions of a humorist to harshness or want of feel ing. Jt would be invidious to point out examples of this at any time near our own, and Sterne has been too often cited, lint we may remark that a tender, humane and generous character, at once gentle and courageous, modest and inde pendent is impressed on the whole series of Miss Scd^ wick's works, we might almost say on every page of them-. She makes few professions, or none; she -speaks in her own person only with reluctance ; her sketches of exalted good ness are free from all taint of parade ; yet against her will we see her own heart and habits through whatever veil of fictitious form; we need never ask what manner of woman is this ; we can feel the very beaming of her eye when she utters high thoughts, and we never for a moment doubt that when our hearts are stirred, hers is stirred also. At least it is so with us who know her. Perhaps we are poor judges of what strangers may think on this point. To her friends, the very lines of "Miss Sedgwick's harmonious face accord sweetly with the spirit of all she has written.- A\ r e read there such a sympathy with suffering, such ardor in the causo of struggling virtue, as will allow lier no sell- complacent ease when action is called for. Outlines which might well by the careless observer be called aristocratic, her friends more justly denominate noble, since to them 1IOMK.S OF AMEItlOAN AUTJIOltS. they express feelings to . which nothing that belongs to humanity can bo indifferent. It is beautiful to BOO elegant tastes and habits of the greatest refinement no hindrance to a truly democratic respect for the lowest and care for the worst. Hers is not the goodness which the French aptly t^rni mttxyttct', which requires that its objects be fashionable or picturesque, The high-toned sympathy which lent itself so gracefully and naturally, as well as with such excellent ivsults, to the exalted aims of Kossuth, becomes lowly pity and a kindness that nothing can shock when its object is a wretched woman, released from prison only to undergo the heavier penance of universal contempt and avoidance. If MissSedgwick had never become celebrated as 41 writer, it is of her humanity that those who know her would have spoken as her leading trait ; and in her humanity the care of her own sex occupies the leading place, as is meet. Sympathy with the unhappy disputes the empire of her heart with that attachment to family and friends which accords so well with her efforts to glorify the private home in the public estima tion. We can regret this overflowing aiiectionateness only on one account because the demands of generosity, pity and friendship, upon Miss Sedgwick's time and powers, 1-eave her little leisure for the production of new works which would both delight and improve society at large. May long life and health be granted her, to do all that her vig orous intellect can devise and her kind heart desire! To the above appreciative and genial bketch by a kin dred spirit, the editor has merely to add these personal facts from Mr, Griswold's u Prose Writers": MISS SEDGW1CK. 165 " Miss SKIXJWICK wa.s one of tlio first American* of her sex who were distinguished in the republic oi' letters, ami iu the generous rivalry of women of genius which mark* the, present ago, she continues to occupy a conspicuous and most honorable position. Slie is of a family which has con tributed some of its brightest names to Massachusetts. Her father, -who was descended from one of the major-generals in the service of Cromwell, enjoyed a high reputation as a statesman and a jurist, and was successively an oilicer in the revolutionary army, a representative and senator in Congress, and a judge of the supremo court of his state. Jler brother Henry, who died in 1S81, was an able lawyer and political writer, and another brother, the late Theodore Stdgwick. was al>o distinguished as a statesman and an .author.* " Miss Sedgwiek was born, in the beautiful rural village of Stockbridge, on the river Ilousatonic, to which her father had removed in 17*7. Judge Sedgwick died in 1SIH, before bis daughter had given any indication* of literary ability, but her brother Henry, who had been among the first to appreciate the genius of Bryant,f soon discovered and en couraged the development of her dormant powers: The earliest of her published works was the New England Tale, originally intended to appear as a religious tract, but which * The most fonH<]-rahle work of Mr. Si-ilgwit-k M hi* 1'uMk ainl Private IV'Mjomy, iu throe Mini.t that Mr. Uryaut" wtu> imluci-.l to rciimvc to N-\v-York, fr*i tho neighboriug viHagi f rircut Uiiriiugfoii, wliom he wa.s ou^a^t-J ia tho uncongenial jaiiauits of a I'irtinlry lawyer; anl it was through Mr. Scdgwick*! inoaasj that lie first b riuit-i'ti-s Sedgwiek's delineations of Xew Kngland manners are decidedly the best that have appeared, and show both a careful study and a just appreci-* ation." Miss Sedgwick has passed much of her time at Stock- bridge, where >he was born, and where the family of her 168 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. late brother Theodore continues to reside. Uut of late year* her home has been divided between the residence of her friends in New- York and that of her brother Charles, at Lenox, Herk-hire county, Ma. A description of her pa rental home has been kindly eounnunicated by the onc r if all others, who could do it bc*t : " A comfortable rural man-ion, home till y f ft Mjuare, built, without architectural adornment:-, lor the modest wanN of a country gentleman of ' nixty yc-ars since, 1 is here prc-eiitcd, faithfully, fnm a sketch made by one of his defendants, who lives .-till at the old homestead, en riching by her daily life its -acred a ociation^. "The view is taken from the meadow below the south entrance of the hou-c, and admits a few only of the tret-* that on every other side shelter ami oh.-ctirc it, ami under whose .shadows the fourth generation from him who planted them now plays. A small curve of the semicircular K!O|H? from * Stork- bril^- jilain/ on which the hou-e stands, a jn'rce of the rieli alluvial meadow lH k l>w it, and a ^liiiij-e of the Ilou.-atoiiic river, the living ^irit f the valleys to which it give* it- name, are the only object* that could be included within the narrow limits of this sketch. Would that the jen could tujii>ly the U-anties excluded by the narrow space allotted to the jencil ! and present to the mind's eye the deep-set valley in the very heart of which the old man-ion stands,* <>n * St.x-kbridge plain.' Tims the "TTtM is no fi^ur* u( j*-rtL. The lot meal f llw b.>tue, kooo to the CuniHr a* the 'KlizaUth lot,' (a MUM JrrivrJ frutii lL^ uM In lian wmuao n it w*j>, ao-1 wb<**e witpram tuMl oa it.) wj . - : - ^W'w" . . X MISS 8EDGWICK. perfectly level strip of land hemmed iu between the upland and the meadows was designated by the iirst Yengees (Kng- .libh) who cuiiio over the mountains from Connecticut river, and, preferring lioine memorials to designations that to Hum seemed barbarous and unmeaning, baptized the valleys f the llousatonic with old-world names. u How far the judgment -may be biassed and the senses bewitched by early love, by long association, und by the illu- biousof fond memories, I cannot pretend to say; but toonewh< has been young and grown old in familiarity with it, 4 Stock- bridge plain' realizes the beau-ideal of a village just such a village as a poet dreams of when he gives a local habita tion to rural beauty and 4 country contentments.' It is en closed, like the happy valley of Ka&selas, by a circuit of hills, wooded to their, tops, which we, somewhat ambitiously, call mountains, since the very highest of them does not HM more than eight hundred feet above the meadows. Midway nilled Manwootania, middle of the town the town was six mile* .-juai. . Those who ure curious in imeh matters may like to .-. i; tho Indian names ot localities r-lati'il to this oKl homestead. /ftHistttunic is a corraption < f .[<> tonook('Qver the inmintain') the nuine in tho Iiulian lay wu4 bonu: ly thr valley as well as the rivor. J\,,,,.(.^,,,t id .-till the name of a little Ki",,k that - lazily win.ls tlirou^h the mcatlows that it seems ulmo.st to .sleep in ita rich \>ct\ tli.-K-. Kachpeehuck ('-nation'd tugai'-jdaco ') is the bountiful little meadow \- twt'on Stock bfiilgd nnl I^-e, a gem an emerald gem, Jeep Bt-t in the hill".' h'-i< f<]>'( ttit'fttiliiio is the preeipitoua grevn mountain- wall honth of it. Tahnc . niu-k ('the heart') a long hill running east uiul west, which hidtsthe valley of Stoekl>rilge from I^-no.v. The name was given us an affectionate riu-inoriat of some kindness Vx-tween the Indians and white people. Is there treuehery implied in it a. present designation, ItattleMiake Mountain} Ma*wantethnrfi ('a nest') Monument Mountain. M,t),t-,m> , the name of the tribe fnna whii-h the Sttiekbridire Indians euine, eorrnpted to Mohican." 170 HOMES OK AM Ell I CAN. AUT1IO11S. .of tlu' plain in a long wide btrect, gently rising at tho eastern extremity, and by a slight curve vanishing within tho shadow jf trees in their * summer pride,' impenetrable to the eye. The view at tho western end, where stands the church, and the bury ing-ground thick-set with monumental btones, is dosed by the bite of the old missionary-house and the mountain .beyond it. Tho wide htivet is embowered, and . its monotony broken by line sugar-maples and elms that seem lovingly to clasp it in their tar-stretching arms. *' On each bide the street, with well trimmed adjoining gardens and deeply-shaded court-yards in Iront, are neat dwellings, indicative of cultivated and rolinod proprietors, an aspect rather idiosyncratic in our land. There is not a single 4 Italian villa,' no, 'Grecian front,' not one wooden Corinthian column without a capital, nor a capital without a column ! no architectural absurdity indicating ignorant imitation or fatuous aspiration. Hut there is a filial constT- vatism, a reverence for the past, demonstrated in a careful repair and scrupulous preservation of ancestral homes. This diffuses a sort of sentiment over the village plain, which ho who runs may read. ^Several of the best houses are tenanted by women. The prosperity and beauty about them is a formidable argument in favor of the capacity of tho Bex to be tho managers of their own property! These are the kind of arguments which can be most potently and most gracefully used by those who contend for the * rights of women,' and against which, even those that are confuted by them may be willing not to * argue still.' Between the eastern extremity of tho plain and tho MISS 8EDGWICK. 171 river is a circular hill, rising, it may bo, 150 feet above the valley, covered with trees and a thick undergrowth of cal- mias. From them it takes its name, * Laurel-hill.' ' 'Hie luiu-fl, imvil of mighty conqueror* Alld |...,-t., Sage.' Not in our humble lite! where it nmrely serves to deck its mother earth. \ ** Well-trodden paths wind around Laurel-hill from iti ba^c tu its summit. The old man may go to tho-very top without toil or weariness, stopping at the turns and rustic seats, to look through the frame- work of trees at such lovely. pic tures as may be made by a village, meadows, harvest-field.-^ . circling hills, and the Hoiisatouic, which winds half around it. On one bide Laurel-hill is roeky and precipitous. Its crown is called 'sacrifice-rock, 1 a name given to it by an in- digcnous romance writer, who naturally enough transferred to her pages the impressions her childhood received then 1 . Laurel-hill was at omttime in danger of being denuded by home of Pluto's demons to fill a coal-pit. It was rescued by the Sedgwiek family, and given to the village in perpetuity. u May.it remain for ages the resort of the thoughtful, the refreshment of the aged, and the favorite play-ground of happy children, who .shall make it echo, as it now does, to the healthy music of their glad voices ! " Hey ond the plain, above, below and around, stretch meadows, uplands ami lowlands, in every variety of beauti ful form and gradation of cultivation. Small lakes, or, in our homely dialect, 'ponds,' open their blue eyes among the hills in various parts of the town. The largest is some three 172 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. iiiiled from the village. The name by which it was known to its original and rightful proprietors was Quecheeochook (Anglice ' the howl'). Quite latterly, it has heen called by a little girl, who seems merely to have given voice to a self- impressed name, * the mountain mirror.' And though the name is somewhat fantastical, it seems from its descriptive* ness to have been acceptable. The border of this lake has already^ been selected by a gentleman of taste for his country hoine. Others will soon follow this pioneer, for many who are now doomed to 'Scrawl btnuige words with a luulwruus pen,' or to fret and stifle in those haunts where ' merchants most do congregate, 1 are looking to the vallies of Berkshire as their land of promise. u Hawthorne', the wizard writer of our land, perched for a year just on the rim of * the bowl/ and in his * wonder book ' lias cast his spells around it. To us we confess it derives its dearest association from being the fishing-ground of a great dramatic genius our most deal* friend her favorite resort, where ehe saw visions, and dreamed of laying the foundations of a future home. "In turning back the volume of life for half a century, how different from the present do we find the then modes of do mestic life. Civilization has advanced the social arts have developed. lias virtue made an equal progress I Is house hold life enriched ? u Rail-roads are of recent date. But in my childhood not wen a 4 turnpike'' connected our village with the great marts {little marts then!) of New York and Boston, equidistant MISS SEDGWICK. 173 from us. A ricketty mail-coach came once a week from New York. But with what eager expectation wo watched it as it slowly crawled along the lino of road visible from the piazza of the south entrance !* AVith what blissful emotions we hailed the mail that was sure to bring to each child a letter from the beloved parent in Congress at Philadelphia! Now, twice a day, the rail-cars come shrieking through the meadows of Awastouook, and twice a week they bring us Kuropean news and scarcely a sensation is produced! "Then how often the gate of the avenue to the old house was- thrown wide open to receive political friends, or aristo cratic guests, who had come in their own carriages a weary journey from their city homes guests, servants, and horses, were all received with unostentatious but abounding hospi tality. The doors opened as readily to troops of cousins, and humble friends, for those who dwelt there were much ' given to hospitality/ and though still retaining the prestiges of colonial life, they showed certain humane tendencies to slide down to the platform of their democratic descendants! Now your friend is a mere passenger in a rail-car, perchance driven past you as if the Fates were at his heels. u Those were the days of the wide open lire-place, which, with its brilliant, crackling, bountiful lire, has made the good Saxon terms of 4 fireside ' and 'hearth-stone,' key-notes to household loves, and domestic charities. ".A winter's evening lire in the kitchen of the old house, stocked as it was in the days of its Founder with the African * "The }itu/u, or ttoojt, (the word was borrowed from our Dutch neighbor* on the New York border) had given |>lnce to the bay-window* ttccu in the fig* uette." 174 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. race, (frco people all gratias Deo !) would supply a month's fuel for one of the cruel, dark, cheerless stoves of the present day. I well remember how, as the night approached, a chain was fastened round a hickory log, and attached to a horsv who drew it to the door-step. Then it was rolled to the hum* ?""> H re-pi aco hy the men, shaking the house to its foundations I Then was brought the ''fore-stick' larger than any 'Yule-log' since the Norman conquest ; then arm-full after arm-full was piled on till the structure would have served for the holocaust of an army. lint its uses were of a gentler kind. Their easy day's work done, the genial children of a tropical sun sat joc und around, roasting and mellowing! These were their , *good old times,' before the Celts came in, the first days of their Independence in Massachusetts, and while they yet re tained the habits of trained servants, and much of the affec tionate loyalty of feudal service. The (so-called) slaves of New England were few, and were never degraded below tlu*- condition of serfs. They made a part of the domestic establish ment. They were incorporated with the family, sometimes assuming the patronymic, and always claiming a participa tion in its honors, as a portion of their personal property. in the Farmer's household they sat, like (Jurth and Wain- ba, * below the salt ' at their Master's table, 44 The genius loci of the old Homestead kitchen was a no ble creature, whose first free service was devoted to the fami ly, and who watched over it with vigorous intelligence and unswerving fidelity till she died, loved and honored, in a good old age.* * " While t hi.t woman wiw yet youn^r, ami u blnve, lior natural acaau of riijht uiul justice was confirmed by hearing the 'Declaration of Indepondoaco ' rt-ml.. Sho M i a a s E D G w I o K . 175 " There were other of tho faithful servants of that day whose 'memories are embalmed at tho old- Homestead. One, named Agrippa, came to my father from Kosciusko, whom he had served during all his campaigns in this country, lie did not entertain our childhood with tho 4 battles, hieges, for tunes/ of his hero, but with his practical jokes in camp, and his boyish love of fun. Agrippa lived to be a village Migo, with something of the humorous pithiness of Saneho l*anza, and mneh, as we thought, 'of the wisdom of Solomon.' " Violin players maintain that, the quality of their itintru- meiit is improved by age; that it is mystcrioufly enriched by the music it bus produced in the hands of superior artists. If this be HO, what secret records may have sunken, into the walls of an old family .home, consecrated by the domestic life of three happy generations ! " 'The only l.ii that I ma MM \i\r-l tin Fall.' (Vrtaiu it is these walls of our old home give out to tho attentive ear of memory the harmonies of family love tho soil glad whi>pcr of the birth-day the merry music of the marriage-bell the shout of joyous meetings the sighs of partings the noisy, idle, and yet most wise joys of child-- fumo to my father respecting the clause which u.-wrt.-* that 'nil men are b>rn fre uii'l fijiml ; ' fh! buid ' 1 am not a dumb critter, Sir, au.i I have a right to my free dom.' My fat In r uixlcrtouk thu j.n^.-i-utimi of her It-gal claim, mid tho r -nil \vas tho munumiK-iou of all tho .-la\ > in .Mu-.-arlni.-.'its. " IVmii the hour of her omnncipntion the M-ru-d in my father'^ hou.^, and ui.uijlit into the lif.nt.-t of hid children a love for the ruce that hud given to them a life-long friend, liiuurpaased in |*ractical intelligence, and rarely equalled in the Divine quulitieHof ju?tiee, truth and fidelity." 176 HUMES OP AMERICAN AUTHORS. hood the ringing gayeties of youth the free, fearless dit ciiHsions of manhood' the loving admonition of age the funeral wail and lament ! There we hold (.'011111111111011 with 'spirits unseen,' " 'Both when we wake uitl when we bleep. 1 " if nip $m ll^lX^ %M. N * . J. ^enimore ' 1 v / * ; i-'iSS Wl ' l *fc ^*& i : ' X/i.'f- , 4 - COOPER. - ;-- - ..%,-- E VERY reader of the " Pioneera*' is familiar with Coop .J crstuwu and the rich loivnt Hcenery of Ot.-^.i Luke. One thing in Banting, however, to eninplote the i.ieturu f iiHy yearri ngo, u gray-eyed, dark-haired, ruddy hoy, niinhlo art a deer and gay as a bird. You would have N*M him on the lake, plying hit) oar lustily, or trimming Iiir r-ail <<> tlio mountain breexe; and whenever he i'ound a wave high enough to lilt hi* little boat, hi* veins would thrill -with a Strange delight, and ho would ank himself whether this 180 HOMES OP AME'RICAN AUTHORS. like those ocean waves of which lie had heard such wonders. Then perhaps he would pause to ga/e on (ho green canopy of the woods, with sensations that made his heart beat fast . and loud, or even called a tear to his eye, though why he could not tell, those first revelations of the keener and purer joys which nature reserves for those who love and study her aright. When the bree/e died away and the HUH came out in its strength, he would turn his bow towards the shore. The forest leaves looked fresh and cool, ami the light fell so softly and soothingly under the broad branches of (hose old trees. The deer would start and bound away as they heard his nimble tread, but the birds would let him pass unheeded, and sing to one another and hop in mi bough to bough, as if they knew that they were made for sunlight mid song. And when they stopped for a moment, such a silence would fall on those deep woods, that even the drop ping of a leaf would have something mysterious tuul thrill ing about it. There would be something, too, of strangeness and mystery in the sky as he caught glimpses of its deep blue through the tremulous trcetops, and a deeper mystery still in those long vistas under the pines where the siglrt would wander and wander on till it lost itself, at la.st, in mingling leaves and shade. And when in the evening cir cle he told the story of his roaming, they would w.arn him against straying too far, tell stories of lost children, of In dians that Htill lurked in the forests, and bears and eitta mounts and all the wild scenes of pioneer life. Little did they dream what needs they were dropping into that young mind, and the delight which thousands would one day receive from the impressions of this boyhood ani'ong the woods. COOPEB. 181 Cooper was but an infant when be was first carried tc Cooperstown, lie was born at Burlington, Xew Jersey, on the 15tb "of September, 1780, and the little village, which was to be the home of his boyhood and his final resting' place, had been built by his father only three years before. J ml go Templeton has always been supposed to be an outline sketch of that gentleman, and the "Pioneers" tells us what kind of a life was led in this homo which he had made lor himself in the wilderness. Perhaps the love of the water which KM! Cooper to the navy was first imbibed on the OUego, and the associations with which he has invested old ocean for so many minds, would thus be owing to a quiet little lake antong the hills. Never was the "child" inure truly "father of the man" than in Cooper. At thirteen he entered Yale, too young, if that favorite institution had been what it is now, but yet old enough to prove himself an apt and ready scholar. The poet Ilillhouse was in the same class, and younger than he. Dr. Dwight was then President, with a well-won reputation as a teacher, and which has already outlived his claims as a poet. It would be interesting- to know how the stripling who was to become one of the, real founders of American literatim, looked and felt in the presence of one of its earliest, vota ries. The young poet was something of a rogue, the old "iic not a little proud of his position; and it is difficult to withstand the temptation of indulging the fancy in --miv amusing scenes between them. The culprit looking btraigltt- forward with a funny mixture of drollery and indefinite dread of consequences in his clear, gray eye, and the old doctor bolt upright in his chair, with a thunder-cloud on 182 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. his brow, and measuring out his oppressive sentences with Johnsonian dignity. The only recorded expression, as fur as we know, of Cooper's opinion of the poetical merits of his old muster, is his answer to (Jodwin's reference to the 4 ' Con quest of Canaan" and "Vision of Columbus" as the only American poems that he had ever heard of, "Oh, we can do better than that now." College then as now, and perhaps even more than now, was the path to one of the learned professions ' r and Cooper, whose tastes led him to seek for a more adventurous career, left it in his fourth year for the navy. There were no schools in our navy then, ami it was common for the joung candi date for nautical honors to. make a voyage before the mast in a merchantman, by way of initiation ; a custom which Cooper, in looking back upon his own course from an inter val of forty years, is far from approving. In his case, how ever, few will regret it. It was his iirst intercourse with sailors, his iirst initiation into the hardships and enjoyments, the pains and the pleasures of sea-life, which he surely could never have painted so truthfully but for that year and a half in the forecastle. An old shipmate has recorded his first appearance, when he came down to the Sterling under the care of a merchant, to look about him and sign the articles. The next day ho made his appearance in full Bailor rig: the- ship was taken into the stream; and his new companions came tumbling on board, a medley of nations, agreeing only in what was then the almost universal characteristic of a sailor on shore, the being or having been drunk. Night, however, put them in Sufficient working trim, and when all hands were ca'led to COOPER. 183 get the ship under way, Cooper was sent aloft with another l>oy to loose the ibrctopsail. lie set himself to his task with characteristic earnestness, and was tugging stoutly at " the rubins," when the second mate came up just in time to pre vent him from dropping his half of the Bail into the top. Fortunately the mate was too good-natured to he hard upn a raw hand, and the men too busy with their own work to see what was going on aloft. But. lie soon found an '"old salt " who taught him to knot and splice, very much as u Long Tom " taught Bamstable, and when they got on shore Cooper repaid the debt by historical anecdotes of the places they visited together. Captain Johnston was a kind man, part owner as well as commander, and doubly interested in making a good voyage. The passage, however, was long and stormy, nearly forty days from land to land, and Cooper's first view of England was through its native veil of tog. The whole country was in .arms, for it was in the time of the threatened invasion by .Napoleon. As they passed the straits of Dover at daybreak, they counted forty odd sail of vessels of war, returning from their night-watch in those narrow seas ; and every one who remembers his own first impressions of striking scenes, will readily conceive how deeply the mind of a young poet mint have- been impressed by so striking a scene as this. It was a practical illustration of the watchfulness ami naval power of the English which he never forgot. It was in a round-jacket ami tarpaulin that the future gue hundreds who never looked upon the ocean as to those who were born upon its shores. In the Bay of Biscay they were brought to by a. pirate, and only escaped by the timely appearance of an English cruiser. They ran into the straits in thick westerly weather. "Lord Collingwood's fleet was oif (-ape Trafalgar, and the captain, well aware of the danger of being run down in the night, had como on deck, in the middle watch, to see that there was a sharp look-out on the forecastle. lie had scarce ly given his orders, when 'the alarm of sail ho! was heard, and a two-decker was tjescried through the dark and mist bearing directly down upon them. The captain ordered tho helm hard up, and called to Cooper to bring a light. AVith one leap he was in the cabin, seized the light, and in half a minute was swinging it from the inizzcn rigging. His COOPER. 185 promptness saved the ship. The two vessels were so near that the voice of the officer of the deck was distinctly heard calling to his own quartermaster to ''port his helm," and as the enormous mass swept by them, it seemed as if she was about to crush their railing with the muzzle of her guns. While lying oil' the old Moorish town of Almaria, Cooper was sent on shore in the jolly-boat to boil pitch. As tliev were coming oft 1 they saw that things looked squally, and that they would find it no easy work to get through the Kiirf. But their orders Were peremptory, and delay would only have made matters worse. So off they started, and tor a minute or two got on pretty well, when all of a sudden a breaker u took the bow of the boat, and lifting her almost on end, turned her keel uppermost." All hands got safe on shore, though none could tell how, and launching their boat again, made a second attempt with a similar result. It was not till a third trial that they were able to force their way through the surf. There was another kind of experience, too, which Cooper added to his stock during this memorable voyage. The Ster ling li,ad hardly dropped her anchor in English waters before she was hoarded by a man-of-war's boat, and one .of her hot men taken from her to be forced into the British navy, an other of them only escaping by having a ecrliticate which the otficcr could not refuse to acknowledge, though he had refused to acknowledge his "protection." At London an other was lost, and the captain himself was seized by a press-gang. On their return passage, just as they wciv running out, they were boarded by a gun-boat officer, \vln attempted to press a Swede. Cooper could not stand this 186 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. insult to his flag, and was in high words with the English* mun, when tho captain compelled him to restrain himself and be silent. Such were some of his first lessons in this r>ugh but manly school. He now entered the navy, and continued the study of his profession in its higher walks. How succcffiful these studies were he has already proved by his writings; mid years ago we heard him described by a brother officer, who knew him well, as active, prompt, and efficient, a pleasant shipmate, always ready to do his duty, and rigorous, too, in exacting it from others. Many of his old messmates aro btill alive. Why will not some of them give us their recollections of this portion of his life I As it is, we can only judge it by its results; and the " Pilot," with its followers the ki ]S T a\al History," and u Naval Commanders," are the noblest tribute ever paid to a noble profession. And here, if wo were writing a full life, the iirst and most important chapter would end. The lessons of the for est are blended with the lessons of the sea ; the rough tales of the forecastle have mingled with the wild traditions of tho frontiers ; and the day-dreams of the woods and gentle waters of Otsego have been expanded into the broader vis ions of the ocean, and chastened by the stern realities of real life. The elements of his future career were already com bined, and awaited only tho completion of that sure, though Mlent process, by which nature prepares tho mysterious de velopment of genius. Few men have been more favorably situated during this decisive period of life. He had resigned his commission in , and married Miss Deluneey, whose gentle character COOPER. 187 ami domestic tastes were admirably fitted to call out the deep affect ions of his own nature, and favor that grateful intermingling of action and repose which are BO essential to vigor and freshness of mind. He had established himself in a quiet little house, which is still standing, at Mamero- neek, in Westchester county, not go near to the city as ii. these days .of railroads and steamers, but near enough to make nil excursion easy, and enable him to see his friends whenever ho chose, lie loved his books, he loved the quiet life of the country, he loved the calm sunshine of his home, and the days glided smoothly away, scarcely revealing to . him or to those around him, the powers which' were rapidly maturing in this voluntary obscurity. It was this seeming jnonotony that furnished the occasion which first revealed his real calling. He was reading a new-novel to his wife: k IMiaw," said he, "I can write a better one myself:" and to prove that he was in earnest, he set himself directly to the task, and wrote the lirst chapter of "Precaution." "Go on," was Mrs. Cooper's advice, when she had li.-.tened to it as a young wife may be supposed to listen to the first, pages from her husband's pen. The work was completed: a friend in whose literary judgment he placed great confi dence, the* late Charles "Wilkes, confirmed the decision of his wife, and * 4 Precaution" was printed. It can hardly be said to have been a successful book. The scene was laid in Kngland. He was drawing upon hie recollections of books, rather than his own observations of life> and the society which he had undertaken to paint was altogether nnsuited to that frohness of thought and .^cenery in which his strength peculiarly lay. Yet the work for him 188 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. was a very important one. Ho hail overcome the first diiH- culties of authorship ; hud framed a plot and developed it ; invented characters, and wade them act and speak ; and learnt how to make his pen obey his will through two con secutive volumes. In authorship, as in many other things, it is the iirst step that is the hard one. His vocation was now decided. His active mind hail found its natural outlet. The mechanical labor of author ship was overcome, and yielding to the impulse of his ge nius, he took his station boldly on his native soil, amid the scenes of American history, and wrote the "Spy." The time will come when we shall feel far more deeply thau we now do, how great an event this was in the history of American literature. Jt is easy to he an author now. Literature has become a recognized profession, and bring* its rewards as well as its trials. We have it, therefore, in all its iV>rms, and abundantly. We have its butterlljes and its moths, its vampyres and its jackals, ajid we have, too, earnest minds, and men who think hohHy and labor manfully in their high calling. And we have them, because at the very moment when we needed it most, there were a few minds among us which had the energy and the independence to mark out for themselves a course of their own, and perse vere in it resolutely. But the task, was a harder one than wo can fully realize, Cooper's strong American feelings were so well known to his friends, that they had not JICM- tated to tell him how much they were surprised at his choice uf a subject lor his Iirst work. He accepted the censure, and resolved to atone for his error. Hut the pnxpect of suc cess Wits so small, that it was not till several months utter the COOPER. first volume hud been printed that ho could summon up res olution enough to begin' the second. Then, too, us this was dowly making its way through the press, the scarcely dried manuscript pacing directly from the author's desk to tho compositor, the publisher became alarmed at the prospect "1 a large volume J and to calm his apprehensions, the last chapter was written, paged and printed, before halt' of its immediate predecessors had even been thought of. The HUCCCSS of the * Spy 'was complete, and almost im mediate. It was not merely a triumph, but a revelation, for it showed that our own society and history, young as they were, could furnish characters and incidents for the mo.>t inviting form of romance. There was a truthfulness about it which everybody could feel, and which, in some of the countries where it has been translated, have given it the rank of a real history. And yet there was a skilful group ing of characters, a happy contrast of bituations and inter- r-ts, un intermingling of grave and gay, of individual ec centricities and natural feeling, a life in the narrative, and a graphic power in the descriptions, which in spite of some commonplace, and some defects in the artistic arrangement of the plot, raised it, at once, to the -lirnt class among works of the imagination. Jmt its peculiar characteristic, and to which it owed, above all others, its rank as a work of inven tion, w;is the character of Harvey Kirch. Wordsworth had already rdiown how freely the cleiuenU of poetry are scattered through the walks of lowly life. The Wanderer" was a beautiful illustration of the wisdom that lies hidden in the brooks and trees, ami the pure sunshine of a mind that has chastened all inordinate devices, and 100 HOMES OF A1IKHICAN AUT1IOK8. learnt to look upon nature and bo happy. But temptation luul never presented itself to him in its most dangerous form. His greatest peril luul been a lonely walk over roads that were never wholly deserted, ami his greatest belt-denial, to throw off hid pack when he felt that he had earned enough. A {"> Cooper was the first to take the humble son of toil, who.-o daily earnings were to be won at the daily hazard of lite, and by planting the holy principle of faith and Kicritiee in Ins bosom, raise him to the dignity of a patriot, without de priving him of the characteristics of a pedler. It is in this that he bhowd his genhis. Many a happy conception has been destroyed for want of this nice discrimination, or rather this intuitive perception of the homogeneous elements of character; of what cannot be taken from it, and what can not be engrafted upon it, without destroying it. Harvey is a pedler, with a pedler's habits and language, and in all that was essential to the preservation of his identity, a ped- ler's feelings. His pack is well filled with goods that he has chosen skilfully to meet the wants and excite the de sires of his customers. AVhen he opens it, he knows how to bring them out with effect, and get the most he can for them. You can see his eye twinkle with the kev-u delight of a shrewd bargain ; and 'though he will not cheat you, and can be generous upon occasions, you feel that whatever may have driven him to trade in the beginning, more than half his soul is in it now. There is but one touch of poetry in him, .and that is rather the effect of his position than of any inward sense of the poetical; objective rather than subjective. I mean the exquisite description of his feeling> when led out into the sunshine to die. lint for this, and yoif COOPER, 1!H would almost fancy that ho had walked liko Peter He'll through the loveliest scenes without any percept ion 'of their loveliness. Thus shrewdness, resolution, and plain common sense, are the apparent traits of his character, and those, probabU, by which he had been known among his customers and friends. Strange elements, it would set-in, for the hero of a romance, but essential, for all that, to the keeping and har mony of the author's conception. Did you ever, in your journeying*, meet a brook, a calm, quiet, silent little Mream, with just water enough to keep its banks green, or to turn a small gri>t-mill, and make itself useful ? And did you ever follow that brook up to its birth-place, among the mountains, where it tirst came gushing forth from some Minless cavern, and lav In-fore you like a mysterious creation, with the dark shadows of dills and crag*, and giant old trees on its bosom { It is the same brook still, the Fame pure current, the game- cool and limpid waters; but if you 'had never seen them except as they flowed through the meadow,' you would never have known how sweetly they could mingle with the solemn grandeur of the mountains. Set the pedler and Jlritish general face to face, ami let him watch the eye and the lips of the man who controls the fate of thousands, as he would the changing features of a customer that is haggling for a sixpence. Place him alone in the midst of enemies who are thirsting for his blood, and give him the same coolness and resolution with which he had facel robbers who asked him for nothing but his pack. Let the same common fienso which had been his guide in trade, guide him still amid the crooks and tangles of policy, HOMES OF A Mi-; HI CAN AUTHOIiS. (lie dark passions of civil war ; lot human life, and at times even the fate of a nation depend upon his truth, anil (flitting him off from every hope of honor, leave him no stimulant but the love of country, and no reward hut the consciousness of duty well performed, and the pedler, though a pedler still, becomes a hero. The same originality of invention and admirable dis crimination are found in Jus next great character, Leather Stocking. In all that relates to his calling, Leather Stock ing, like Harvey Uireh, is a simple mid natural character. They have the same judgment and common sense. 1'ut the .shrewdness which was so well placed in .the tradesman, would have dwindled into littleness and cunning in the man of the woods. Simple-heartedness, and clear, quick percep tion, would be his natural characteristics. IJesolntion would become fortitude and daring; and those days ami nights under the canopy of the green woods, or amid the falling leaves, or with the blasts of winter whistling around him., the sunlight falling through the opening tree-tops as it Jails on the vaulted aisles of a cathedral, and the stars looking meekly out from their blue dwellings, still, and bilcnt, and yet with something in their silence which thrilled and swelled the heart like choral symphonies, in the vast soli tudes around him ; these appeals of nature to the nobler and purer elements of our being, would awaken feelings that were unknown to those who sleepmnder close roots, and tread the dusty thoroughfares of life; and u Leather Stocking," to be true to his nature, could not but be a poet. The baiua maybe said, in a certain degree, of " Long Tom," who looked upon the ocean as "Leather Stocking" COOPEU. 193 looked upon the forest, never feeling his heart at ease till the 'waved were bounding under him. God had spoken to him in the tempest, and lie has bowed reverently to the awful voice. The elements with which he has contended from his childhood have a language for him. His eye reads it in the clouds, and the winds breathe it in his ear. He has looked upon the manifestations of their power till he has come to feel towards them as if there were Mime-thing in them not wholly unlike to human passions and feelings; and without eea>ing to rceogni/e them as the instrument of a jiower still higher, he unconsciously cKtcnds to them some what of the reverence which he feels for that power himself. lint the life of a ship is not the life of the woods. Lone ly as it may seem, it is the loneliness of a narrow circle not the utter severing of social ties which suggest the un conscious soliloquies of the old woodsman. Tom is always in the mid>t of his shipmates, separated from them by many traits of character, but hound to them by others, and with the example of hujmm weakness con stantly before him. Simple, upright, and single-hearted, tenacious of his opinion, firm in his conviction, and con stant in his attachments, reminds you of u Leather Stock ing' 1 by these common traits of pure and earnest minds, but 'differs from him in every thing that should distinguish the child of the ocean from the child of the woods. We have, then, three characters from the common walk^; of life, each admirably fitted for his humble calling, and all equally raised above it by traits perfectly consistent with all that it required or imposed. Love of country, pure and disinterested, make the pedlcr a hero; the intrepid, loyal, 18 104: HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. upright, ami devout character of the scout gives a charm and an authority to his judgments and his words, which mere rank and wealth can never command; and the simple-, hearted coxswain, who draws you to him in life by his ear-- ucstiress and purity, the defects* as well us the beauties of his character, rises almost to the grandeur of martyrdom in his death. This power of elevating the lowly by the force of -i high moral principle, was one of the mt striking char acteristics of Cooper's genius ; and it is the more deserv ing of remark, inasmuch as it is a power which he drew from the peculiar elevation of his own moral nature. . There has been but one man to whom it was given to look down upon human nature, as from home height tliat raised him far ^abovo its contaminations, and .painting it in all its forms, its lights and its shades, its beauties and its deformities, leave you no other clue to his own character but the conviction that tho mind which biiw all things so truly, could not but love tho good. In all writings but Shakspcarc's, we judge the man by tho book; and there are few who would come out from such a trial so honorably as Cooper. The "Spy" was published in 1821; the "Pioneers" in 1823; then came the "Pilot," Arc.'; in hS2tJ he had covered the whole ground of his invention by the publication of the -Mohicans." It was not without some misgivings that ho had ventured upon the " Pilot," for he well knew that the effect of a. description depends upon the skilful use of de tails, and here the details, if .strictly professional, might be unintelligible. Tho friends to whom he hpokc of his plan tried to dissuade him from- it. They had been so accus tomed to look upon the ocean as a monotonous waste, that COOl'KK. 195 they could not understand how it could bo made interesting. More than onco he was upon the point of throwing his man uscript into tho fire. But the first thought of it had coiuo ti> him by one of those sudden impuUes to which wo often cling more tenaciously than to deigns that have been caiv- *ully matured. Scott had just published, the u Pirate,'' which Cooper admired as a romance, but was unwilling tf accept as an accurate picture of sea-life. The authorship of the. " Waverley Novels" was still a secret, ami one day, in discussing this point with a friend, it was argued that Scntt could not have written them, because they displayed' too minute and accurate an acquaintance with too wide a range of .subjects. AVhere could he have made himself familiar enough with the sea, to write the "Pirate if" Cooper was by no means disposed to call the literary mer its of the ''Pirate" in question, but felt himself fully justi fied in. disputing its seamanship. The only way of doing this was by writing a real tale of the sea, and the result was the "Pilot." The iir>t favorable opinion that ho received was from an Englishman, a man of taste, and an intimate friend, but a skeptic in all that related to American genius, lie read the sheets of the first volume, and to Cooper's great surprise pronounced it good. A* a still fuller test, he chose an old messmate fur hid critic, and read to him the greater part of tho first volume, as Scott had read the hunting scene of the " Lady of the Lake" to an old sportsman. The fn-ht half hour was sufii- cient. As he came to the heating out of the ' Devil's <.irip," his auditor became restless, rose from his seat, ami paced the 100 1IOHES OF AMKH1CAN AUTHORS. floor with feverish strides. Tliero was no mistaking the im pression, for not a detail escaped him. " It is all very well, my lino fellow, but you have let your jib stand too long." It was tlio counterpart of" lie will spoil his dogs," of ScottV: hunting critic. Hut Cooper, fully satisfied with the experi- incut, accepted the critieihiu, ami blew his jib out of the bolt-ropes. This was the period, too, in which lie mingled most in the society of his own countrymen. Without absolutely re moving to the city, he passed a good portion of the year' there, taking an active part in many things which have, left pleasant recollections, if not deep impressions, behind them, |le was the founder of the "bread and cheese club" of which -.Bryant and Dr. Francis have given such agreeable sketches, and of which much more might be told that the world would be glad to know, lie took a deep interest in the reception of Lafayette one of the few incidents in our relations with the men who nerved us when service brought no reward, to which we can look back with pride. It was on this occasion that he gave that remarkable proof of his ready power of composition which Dr. Francis has recorded. The "Castle Garden Ball," was one of the great manifesta tions of the day ; and Cooper, after excr.ting himself in get ting it up, laboring hard all day in the preparations, and all night in carrying them out, repaired towards daylight to the oilice of his friend, Mr. Charles King, and wrote out a full and accurate report of the whole scene, which appeared next day in Mr. King's paper. lie had already formed, as early as 18:*;*, the design of illustrating American scenery by a series of tales, and spoke coopKit. 197 freely of it to his inoro intimate friends. Some of his excur sions were studies of locality. For "Lionel Lincoln," he had visited Uoston ; aiul it may not bo uninteresting to Ithodu Islanders to know that part of that work was written in Providence, in a house yet standing just on the verge of the old elm trees of College street. It was then, too, prohu- 1)1 v, that lie stiulied the scene of the Opening chapters of the Ital Itover." Many a pleasant page -might he tilled with the records of these, lay: his studies of Shak.-pearu in ihe wonderful interpretations of Kean ; his. conversations with Mathew; his rumbles with Dekay ; his daily chit-chats and discus sions with old messmates at the City Hotel, and a thousand other things, trifles often in themselves, bnt which, acting upon a mind hy which so many other minds have hccn moved, would have a deep and permanent interest. It would be pleasant, too, to meet him once more on his favorite element ; follow him across the Atlantic ; watch the cilects of the scenery and society of the old world upon a mind so familiar with those of the new, and fee how far the preference- which he had BO boldly avowed for the insti tutions of his own country, would be able to resist those temptation* by which Romany convictions have been fell a- ken. JLis, however, were of surer growth. When he sailed for Europe, in 182ti, his American repu tation was at its height. The department which he had cho sen was so -different from that of Mr. Irving, that no fair- minded reader ever thought of comparing them. Bryant and llalleek had published nothing in prose : und the grace ful productions of Miss Sodgwick, although they belonged ,. IDS HOMES OF AMKKICAN AUTHOUS. to the same class, seemed to suggest a comparison with Miss bklgeworth's, rather than with his. His countrymen were proud of him. His friends expressed their sentiment a by a public dinner tlie first tribute of the kind, we believe, ever r':iiut you met him afterwards, my dear," said Airs. Cooper. " Yes, at Uogers's, and was very much pleased with him ; but it was because J COOPER, 190 met him in a place where ho fult at homo, and let himself out freely." Cooper has told the history of the greater part of the ikcxt seven years in the tea volumes of his " Switzerland," and 'Uileanings in Europe," one of his most characteristic works, fresh, iinn and manly, full of beautiful descriptions, important remarks, and lively anecdotes,' written^* exactly a* he talked, and giving an accurate picture of his own mind. The part of his residence abroad to which he used to look hack with most pleasure, was his visit to Italy, of which his two bunny little volumes are a true and delightful record, lie had a singular tact in choosing his houses. In 'Florence he lived in a delightful little villa just a stoiiu's. throw from the city, where he could look out upon green leaves, and write to the music of- birds. At Naples, afkr going the usual rounds, he (settled himself for the hummer in Tamo's villa, at Sorcnto, with that glorious view of sea, and bay, and city, and mountain under his eye, and the surf dashing almost directly under his windows, Two or three years after his return, we met him one day in Broadway, just as we were upon the point of sailing for Europe again, lie was walking leisurely along, with his coat open, and a great string of onions in his hand. We had nearly passed by without recognizing him, when seeing several peo ple turn to look at him, and then npeak to one another as if there was something worth observing, we turned too, and behold, it was Cooper. "I have turned farmer," said he, atW the iirst greetings, and raising his bunch of onions, i% but am obliged to come to town now and then, as you see." We asked him if ho had any commands for Italy. " Ke- 200 HOMES OF AMEKICAN A17T1I011S. incinbcr mo khully to Grconough, I ought to write him, but I never can iimko up my mind to write a letter, when I can find any kind of a pretext for not writing it. He must trust to the regard which he knows I really do feel lor him." "Do you not almost feel tempted to take a run back )\ir- fielf?" "Yes, indeed. If there is any country out of my o\vn in which I would wish to live, it is It.Jy. There is no place where mere living is such a luxury/' One thing, however, was very annoying to htm, and that was the ignorance and prejudices of the Knglish in all that related to America. It seemed to him, at times, as if they AVould have been much more cordial to him if he had been any thing but an American, lie never let an opportunity slip him of standing up boldly and iirmly tor the institu tions of his native country. It was with this feeling that, he wrote the "Notions of a Travelling Bachelor," a work which should have made his countrymen pause a while, at least, before they accepted the calumnies which were heaped upon him for the patriotic though unwelcome (ruths of some of his subsequent volumes. "While he was living in Paris a severe attack was made upon the economical system of the American government. Cooper came forward and refuted the ungrounded assertions of the royalists in a pam phlet, as remarkable for accuracy of information as -for its energy and "literary power. Government, which was then making war upon Lafayette, by calumniating the United States, was exceedingly irritated. The government papers continued their- attacks, and enlisted an American in their service, who was afterwards rewarded by a Chargeship -from our own government. Cooper stood his ground manfully, COO FEB. 201 mooting every assertion by unquestionable statistics and an array of facts and cogency of argument that set the question lor ever nt rest, for every candid inquirer. He was equally earnest in bringing forward the claims of our poets. "We have already alluded to his conversation with Godwin upon American literature. lie had been ex ceedingly annoyed on that occasion, on finding that his memory, ever treacherous in quotations, would/ scarcely fur nish him with a line- of Bryant or Halleek to bear him out in his assertions. A few days afterward he was to meet a party at .UogcrsV, and resolving not to let his friends Buffer by his want of memory, took a volume with him. In Paris his stylo of living was an admirable illustration of his conceptions of the duties and position of an American gentleman, lie occupied part of a handsome Hotel in the " rue St. Manr," keeping his carriage, and the service re quired by a genteel and modest establishment. His doors weri always open to every American who had claims to his society; and you were sure to meet there the men of both countries whom you would most wish to know. One of his most intimate friends at this time was Morse, the inventor of the Telegraph : and the contrast of the two in their fre- quvnt rambles has furnished a lively and characteristic par* agraph in Willis's ".Pencilling* by the AVay." Ho was par ticularly fond of the society of artists, visiting them in their studios, welcoming them to his house, and wherever lie felt that it was needed, giving or procuring them commissions, There is scarcely one, if there is even one, who visited Eu rope during those seven years, but what has brought back pleasant recollections of his intercourse with Cooper. 202 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTI1011S. Meanwhile nothing was allowed to break in upon his Jkerury duties. A portion of every day was *et aside for 'composition ; and by this systematic application, every twelve months told a talo of labor accomplished which seemed a mystery to those who were ignorant of the secret of his industry. The, "Prairie" and " lied Rover" appeared when he had been abroad but little over a year ; and live others wen* added to the list of his works before he returned in ISM, without counting the "Travelling 1 Bachelor," the letters which formed the basis of his ten volumes upon Europe, gud the controversy to which wo have already alluded. His time, after his return to the United States, was chiefly divided between New York, Philadelphia, and Cooperstown, where he had repaired the tine old mansion which his lather had erected when the first hearthstone was laid on the hhores vof the Otsogo. Originally it stood alone, with the hike be fore its doors, and the forest, which he has described so beautifully in the Pioneers, in full view on the right. .Hut now the hamlet had grown to a village, and the village to a town, till the once almost solitary representative of civilization was surrounded by all the signs of a thriving and industri ous population. Still, early a>sociations and its own natural beauty, bound him to the spnt ; and to a mind like his, which looked upon the grave without fear, there must have been a deep pleasure, though a melancholy one, iu the thought that his would lie amid the scenes which had sug gested Borne of his most beautiful creations. A. glance at the engraving will give a better idea uf the external appearance of 'rOtsego Hall'," than any description which we could pen. There is something in the air of it m:: IN ' ' T! . pj v> i 'i'-iW \M c o o p K it . 20:1 which curries you back to u very different period, a quiet dignity, well united ti> the " lord.sliip of a Patent," and the culm grandeur of the primeval fuvst. The proportions tiro good, suggesting at tir.>t glattco flu* idea of Ainplo-spacctj ami convenient .arrangement within, Tlu* nfcliiicctural embel- l-i>hnicnts are rirh, aiui xvouhl |>rolial>ly l>o thought tooiiuirli --, if tlwy wi'H' Jiut ill NU4-li jH'ilrrt krr|iii^ uinl if llu-rt' \\trr not something in the rich folia tio aiul (!irulbory ununul thoin, \\Ijirh wiiuhl MI in t> Iruvo no inetliitiu hot\\i--ii a -ii.ij.li- % otta % ir' r ornanu'ntal arehik'fturn. "I'lu* fiiUowing dc*scrij> tin iVoin a much U'linirnl JH-JI convoyh ^o full aii'd Nih-tu<'- t.ry an ith-a of this .^}Mt that \vt are mnvillin^ to llNli^n' it ly any ^arblin^ and rewriting of tnr o\vn : M)tsi'i;o Hail was Ituilt at the !'- of the la-t ct-ntury by Jiuljre ('M.jK-r. It 5,-i a brick buihlin^ tla^ bricks having bei'ii iiuuh- fr the, jiirjto>o at the outlet f tlu I^ik<. The tttiors wen- of original foiv-t oak. It contains a lar^e hall, according to the favorite inoile of building at that, day ; the roniu is nearly fitly fn't in length by twenty-four in width, and wav occupied as the rating and sUting room -oJ the family during the laM generation. Airs. Cooper, Judge Cooju-r^ wife, \va^ very partial to llo\vcrs,~- a ta^te much le*.s eoininoa fifty years ago than to-day; and nearly a third, of the hall was lilh-d \\ith gretMV-hon-.i plants at the time of her death, in IN! 7. The hoiii-e received its name from Judge Cooper; but for a lung time was more frequently called lite * 4 Mansion Houso" in the village. A double a\enu- of jp-. laps reached formerly from the gate to the hou-e, the trees having been given to Judge Cooper by Mr. liingharn, of Philadelphia, who tir>t introdueod them into America.. HOMES OF A Mh Kir AN A U Til Oil 8, " On Mr. Cooper's return from Kurope, the hour,e passed into his possession, aiul he immediately began repairing it. For some years previous it luul been uninhabited. The poplars, little suited to tho climate) were all iu a condition that iv- juired they should bo cut down; and the whole'character ot' I he grounds was changed by winding walks and new planta tions, Mr. Cooper .setting out many of the trees with hi* nun hands. The house was thoroughly repaired and improved, although the lower story remained much as it was built. Mr. Cooper was very partial to its doors and window shutters of the native oak of the country; entrances were also put tip to protect tho principal doors, which Mr. Cooper considered as necessary in our climate. The architectural deigns of the changes were all drawn by I'rofcs.-or Mumc, an intimate friend of Mr. Cooper, who was in Coopcrstown at the time the work was going on. An old block-hou>e, the only building btand- ing on the spot when Judge Cooper came there, was found in the grounds now occupied by the Hall : a few of the older apple trees about the place are also older than the village. The graves of two deserters fhot during Clinton's expedition, were found within the grounds of. the Mall; and an old iron swivel was also dug up in digging the cellars of a house since burnt within the banie bounds." Iu this quiet retreat Cooper wrote hcventecn new works of fiction, partly in completion of his original design, and some suggested by important questions of the day, in which he always took a lively interest, unbiassed by local or party pas; ions. Hero too, or rather while dividing his time be tween what -he again called home and his two favorite cities, he wrote his " Naval History of the Tinted Stales," COOFK'R. -<'' the " Lives of Xaval Commander*,* 1 two or throe volume* government, and several pamphlets and reviews, upon connected, for the most part, with naval history. His contest with- the, daily press Mihjcctod him to many jiefty annoyances, which would have worn sadly upon a mind less resolute or indcpcndont. Hut he came out of it ' triumphant, with new claim** to the rc>peet of tho>e vln-M good opinion he coveted. In 1^H> he made arrangement* with Mr. Viitiunn for the ropuhlieation of the, M Leaiher-tock- in^ Tales" and part of his sea noveN, with new introduction* and such corrections as he ini^ht wi>h to inake, he fore ^ r ivin; tliem t> the world in their last and permanent form. Soon after, he he^an to feel- some indications of disease. His feet became tender, and he was iinahle to UM- them a^ freely as he had Keen accustomed to do. Ho tt|Mlogited to us ono morning at I'utnam'ti for not ri>in^ to fhake 'hands.- * My feet are HO tender," naid he, that I do not like !' stand any longer than I can help." Yet when we walked out toother into Itroadway, we could not help turning cvi-ry now and then to admire his commanding figure and firm hearing. Sixty years seemed to sit as lightly on hiiti as fifty on the shoulders of most men, and when we ivmem- hered. the astonishing proofs which he had given of fertility and vigor, we could not hut hclieve that he had many a new creation in store for us yet. Hut the end was drawing nigh. His hi>t visit to New- York was in April of la^t year, and the change in his appearance wasr already Mich a- to excite serious apprehensions, among his friends. During the first few weeks after his return he seemed to he growing hotter, ami wrote favorable accounts of him-elf to hi* friend , 206 HOMES OF AMK1UCAN AUTHORS. and medical adviser, Dr. Francis. Hut soon the disease returned in full force, rapidly gaining upon the vital organs, and terminating, at last, in dropsy. Ilia death is yet too ivecnt to make his la.st hours a lit subject for description. l)r. Francis has told all that can yet ho told without tres passing too far on the sanctity of private feelings, and borne ample testimony to the beautiful example which he gave of resignation and faith, lie died on the J4th of September, 1851, at half-past one in the afternoon. One day mure, and he would have completed his sixty-second year. Ilryunt IUH truly said that Cooper's failings wcro of that kind which are obvious to all the world. They were the failings of a strong, original, active mind, Conscious of it* powers, patient of observation and research, but accustom- fd, from early habit as well as natural tendencies, to self- reliance and independent judgment. His convictions were earnest, for they partook of the earnestness and sincerity of his nature, and he could no more conceal them from others than he could disguise them to himself, lie was not an ex tensive reader, but lie read thoughtfully, and his memory, though defective in quotations, was singularly tenacious of fiic'ts. His powers of observation were remarkable, and he naturally learned to place confidence in them. AVe have always fancied that ]>o\vcr of observation was more or Irs* modified by power of sight, and surely that keen, gray eye of his KIW things with wonderful distinctness. Thus obser vation possessed a double charm for him. lie loved it us the pleasant exertion of a power which nature had bestowed upon him in its highest perfection, and he loved it too, be cause, for every thing which lay within its scope, he could rely upon it. COOPER. 207 In such minds the* power df original observation is gen erally accompanied l>y the power of original thought. What they see for tlieiufielveB, they jiulgc tbr themselves* aiul with a promptness and vigor that arc in exact proportion to the cleanups and accuracy tf their observations. In their inter course with other men, they will cxprc>s hohlly what they have thought independently, and their earnest advocacy f tlu-ir own opinion* will often he interpreted into a haughty contempt lVr the upinions of other*. Thus (.'oopcr'g original ity was often called pride, and his independence overhearing, He was accused of conceit, became he claimed an accuracy' for his own observations which he knew that they po- -Md f and taxed with ob&tinacy because he would not give up an opinion without a reason. Hut no man ever knew him Weil, who did not come to feel somewhat of the Mime kind of con- fideiiee in his observations which he placed in them him ftelf, or conversed with him often without being convinced that every thing which could claim to be a reason would be listened to and examined with respectful consideration. Jf his convictions had been less earnest, or his mind less tirm, we Khould still have had many a long year to wait tor "Leather Stocking" an 1 *' Ling Tom." lie was a linn believer in the right of property. He regarded it a^ an essential element of social organ i/at ion, which e\ cry good citi/.eii was bound to uphold. Three of his'later works were written in fulfilment of what he regard ed as his owu duty in this question. He would admit of no denial of the principle-, but when any violation of it that, could be tolerated occurred on his own grounds, he could he, lenient towards the offender, and even kind. One day 1 208 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. lie caught a man stealing fruit from hin garden. The case was HO flagrant a one that lie might have punished it severe ly. But instead of flying into a passion and Kending lor a constable, he reproved the culprit mildly, told him how great a wrong it was doing him to make his neighbors be lieve 'that there was no other way of getting at his fruit but by stealing it, and bidding him, the next time that he wanted any thing, come in at the gate like a true man and ask for it, helped him iili his basket and let him go. His love of detail made him minutely exact in all hi* business transactions. He was always open and liberal in his bargains, but ho loved to make them accurately, discuss them in all their bearings, and draw up the contract with his *'.wn hand and a business-like method which looked like any tiring but romance. The facsimile on the opposite page is a good specimen of this trait of his character, which, like all the other traits of a strong mind, pervaded his whole intel lectual organization. It was constantly breaking out in his conversation, AVe remember to have heard him explain minutely to a foreigner who had ju*t used voyage for pas sage, the difference between the two words.- < hi another occasion, while he was writing the u I'ravo," lie stopped us xwc morning to inquire how far social usage admitted of substituting tiynora for &iynt as it was written, and the work once fairly olf his hands, he was glad to lose sight of it and pass to something new. In the early part of his careen, he was in the habit of consult ing his friends, but practice and success gave him conli- dcnce, and few we believe, if any of his later works, ever went beyond his family circle till they were actually published. A\ r e would gladly go further, and speak of other qualities which are no less deserving of record, than those which we 212 , HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. have touched upon so cursorily. But wo have already exceeded our limits, awl this imperfect sketch must be brought to a close. Yet wo cannot bid adieu to a subject on which we feel BO deeply, without expressing tho hope that this great man will soon recievc at the hands of his own countrymen the same reward which he lias already received fyom foreigners. Xo productions of the American mind have been spread so extensively as the writings of Cooper. In every country of Europe you will liiul them hide by side with its own favorite classics. In a volume fresh from the. leading publishing house of Paris, we iind the prospectus of a new edition of all his novels, with vignettes, and in the favorite form of fashionable typography, on the name sheet with the announcement of new editions of Hcranger, La mar- tine, Thierry, Thiers, and Scott. An eminent physician of our city was called the other day to attend some emigrants recently arrived from Germany, lie was anxious to 'learn where they had got their knowledge of the country of their adoption. "We learnt it all from Cooper," was the reply. *'We have four translations of his works in German, and we all read them." "Have you any thing new from Cooper?" " Wlmt is' Cooper writing now f" arc (juestions that havo been asked us again and again in Italy, where his works are as well known as those of any native. And this, let it bo remembered, is not the transient interest excited by a clever sketch of some new scene, which palls upon the taste the moment that the novelty has ceased, but a reputation sus tained and continued by repeated trials in a period of unex ampled literary fertility. And w.hero are the records of our gratitude for. thia L'Ool'KH. 213 great work which he has dune fur us ? Where aro the busts ami the statues which are to tell posterity what a noble form was once the tenement of that noble mind ? The columns and the tablets, to point out to the pilgrim and the stranger, his favorite haunts and the scenes of his labors? At Florence, in the great square of the Cathedral, within the shadow of Giotto's tower, one of the first things to which your attention is directed, is a little slab of white marble with the simple inscription of 'Sasso di Dante/ Then- i> nothing historically positive about it, but an old tradition says, that this was the place where Dante loved to comv and gaze at the immortal dome of Brunelleschi, and repentant Florence, jealous of every record of the son whom >he condemned to exile and the stake, put up this ILtlc tablet on the spot, to tell by what feet it had been hallowed. And now that the grave has closed fur the first time amongst us, over a man great in those things which make nations great forever, shall his dust mingle like common earth, with the unknown thousands who lived for themselves and are forgotten? Shall he thus pass from amongst us in the fulness of his maturity, and the year of his death bear no record in our annals? It cannot, be that where wealth is lavished with eager competition in procr.-Mnn.-, and pageants and vain displays, which fade from the memory with the last shout of the weary multitude, there should not be enough of manly pride to pay the debt of gratitude and justice. It cannot be that the wealth ami liberality of New- York, should fail in this freshness of her expanding magnifi cence, to find some means of connecting the manifestations of her own power, with the memory of one of the best, and 214 HOMKS OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. truest of her sons ; or that men who look forward with trust. And labor with earnest hearts in the cause of their country, should forget that the surest pledge of the future, is the full and grateful recognition of the past. 41 Lott ? /k liCK tfitoart (gfcmtt. ffp ''^.-w^ I ' ^$&v'js^ ' ^*?r*-' . -* '. - i ! ? |i, .;-.> EVERETT. town of Dorchester, in which Mr. Everett was born, A is one of the oldest of the Puritan settlements in "Mas sachusetts l>ay. It took its name from Dorchester, in Eng land, where lived John "White, a Puritan divine, -who has sometimes been culled "the father of the Massachusetts. colony" nnd~"tho patriarch' of New England." The mer- chanU who a.-sociaU'd for trade in Massachuftotta l>ay hi Idi'.'J were of old Dorchester, and this town proved in the English rebellion to be one of the centres of opposition to 218 HOICKS OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. Charles the First. In his valuable paper on the origin of Massachusetts, Mr. Haven has shown how close was the connection always maintained between old Dorchester and the infant colony. Very naturally, the first settlers gave thiii familiar and honored name to one of their first and finest positions. At the time of the siege of Boston Dorchester attained Bonie revolutionary notoriety. The batteries thrown up by Washington, which drove the English ileet from the harbor in 1770, were established on Dorchester Heights. These hills are within the present line of the city of Boston. We copy from a line painting by Mr, II. Vautin, a repre sentation of the house in Dorchester in which Mr. Edward Everett was born. This picture was painted a few years bince, but the house is little changed in external appearance since 1704, the year of Mr. Everett's birth. It is now a hundred years old or more. It stands about a mile from the centre of the village of Dorchester, at a point long known as the "Five Corners." Here Mr. Everett's father lived from the year 1792, when he left the charge of the new South. Church, in Boston, until his death in 1802. We fear that no remarkable incidents can be related of the history of this comfortable country residence. It is now occupied by the Messrs. Richardson, who have owned it for many years. After the death of his father, Mr. Everett's mother, with her young family, removed to Boston, and at the public school of Boston and at Exeter Academy he was titled for Harvard College. He also attended in Boston a 'private school kept by the late Hon. Ezekiel Webster, the brother of Hon. Daniel Webster. EVKKETT. Jill) ITc entered college in 1807, at which time he was but a tew months more than thirteen years old. lie left college in 1811 the youngest member of his class, but witli the highest honors of the college. Hi* distinguished brother Alexander, who graduated live years before, at the age >!' sixteen, was also the highest scholar in his class. Leaving the college halls which have been the homes of so many American authors, Mr. Everett in 1813 succeeded his friend Mr. Buckminster, the pastor of Brattle-street Church, in Huston. His home was then established in the parsonage belonging to that society. In such a volume as this, it is not improper to pay that this house, now venerable from a half-antiquity, although now surrounded by the noisiest business of the city, was appropriately situated for the purposes of a parsonage when (Jov. Hancock presented it to Brattle-street Church. The business of the town has since swept all around it, perhaps* unfortunately for its occupants; but, by the will of ' Gov. Hancock the parsonage is anchored and is likely to be, in that po>ition. A house in which Mr. Buckminster, Mr. Everett, Dr. .Palfrey and Mr. Lothrop have lived succes sively, deserves mention among Ihe homes of American authors. Mr. Kverett left this residence when he accepted the Kliot professorship of (Jreek literature at Cambridge. He then spent some years in foreign travel. When he accepted the active duties of his professorship, he lived for some time in the Washington house or Craigie house, the present resi dence of Prof. Longfellow, which is described in another part -of this volume. He afterwards occupied there a house 220 HOMES OF AMERICAN A U Til Olid. in the pretty avenue known by students aa Professors' Kow. This house was built by Prof. Farrar, and it* now his homo. Mri Everett entered Congress in 1824, and was lor ten successive years the representative of the Middlesex district. During this time the residence of his family, and his own while ho was not occupied at Washington, was at tirst AV in ter Hill, in Charlestown, now in Somcmlle, a place also noted in the history of the siego of .Boston, 'lie afterwards removed to the more thickly nettled part of Charlestown, in Dow-street. Mr. Everett was chosen Governor of Massachusetts in 1S35. Ho was elected to this post for four KUCCCSMVC years. During this time he resided in Boston, in the house which he now occupies, or at Watertown, in the house well known in that vicinity as the home for many years of the late Dr. Marshall Spring. In the autumn of the year 1889, in the delicately bal anced politics of Massachusetts, where then, as now, parties were very evenly divided, and in a variety of local ques tions which it would be hard to explain in history or biog raphy, Mr. Everett received one vote too few, out of more than a hundred thousand, and Gov. Morton was elected his successor. There is a good story told, of which we should hardly venture to give the particulars, of his describing this defeat the next year to a European Grand Duke, who lis tened to. the precise statistics with no little curiosity. Grand Dukes have had a chance since to learn the value of votes better than they knew them then. In the spring of 18-10 Mr. Everett went to Europe with his family. He spent a winter in Florence; and was engaged in a summer tour, EVERETT. 221 Avhen ho received his appointment as Minister to London from the administration of Gen. Harrison, lie arrived in that city at the close of the your 1S41, and remained there until he was recalled in the spring of 1845. At tliis time the presidency of the University at Cam bridge had just been vacated by Mr. Qutncy'a resignation. The friends of the University eagerly solicited Mr. Everett to become his successor. He accepted the invitation atVer some hesitation, and was formally inaugurated on the tir.^t of May, 184(>. His administration of the University was short, but it is still gratefully remembered by those who were connected with it at that time. It inspirited and in some regards gave new tone to the venerable institution, it certainly excited the enthusiasm of its friends, and was signalized by some important enlargements of its endow ments. The Lawrence Scicntiiic School was endowed and established during these years. He was President, of the University but three years, when the condition of his health, which was not equal to the harassing requisitions of its thou sand duties of detail, compelled him to retire. A pleasant essay might be written by some Cambridge man, on that old " President's House," which Mr. Everett occupied while President and for two or three years after wards. It stands close on the high road, exposing its ho>pi- table front to every blast of dust from roads dusty to a pro verb. The anxious boy waiting Examination, or the gray- haired Alumnus revisiting Alma Mater, meet it iirst, as the eager omnibus-boy, unconscious of romance, delivers them at their destination. Magnificent in its day, it is, though- of old fashion and low ceiled rooms, comfortable now. Its 222 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. hospitalities nover failed in the presidential dynasties which can bo remembered ; and many a graduate and many a graduate's fairer friends, recollect the brilliancy of its lights 44f a Commencement evening, or as a "Class Day" celebra tion passed away; the pleasant littlu retiring places in its narrow grounds, and the spirited strains of evening music, from the performer hidden somewhere on such occasions in its shrubberies. And how faithfully remembered, more distinctly, perhaps, than any of its rooms,- the wing in which was the President's " oiticial residence!" Here he administered rebuke or praise; and here passed those criti cal interviews of which the apocryphal narrations imikj KO large part of the food with which witty Sophomore regales the craving ears of wondering Freshman. For the present, all these associations are of the past. Dr. Sparks occupies his own house at Home little distance from the College halls, and the old President's home is a lodging-House and board ing-house for students. It was built in 17iiO-'27.. President Wadsworth, whose name his descendant Prof. Longfellow bears, was its first occupant. Ilolyoke, Locke, and Langdon, in the dynasty of the last of whom the College buildings were made bar racks for the Revolutionary troops, whose successors, the stu dent.'-, were hardly less revolutionary ; for he retired from uflice when a body of impudent boys desired him to <1> soj-r Willard, who planted the large trees around the house, and who is remembered by living students, Dr. Webber, ' I)r, Kirklaud, Mr. Quincy and Mr. Everett have occupied it in succession. Here is our excuse for dwelling on its history among the Homes of American Authors. i > N . , ... ,, . EVERETT. 223 Mr, Everett ia again residing in his own house in Sum mer-street, in Boston. Many years since, this house was oe- eupied by lion. Daniel Webster. Mr. Everett has recently added to it the beautiful library of which our enoston, where may yet be seen the truces of dismantled fortifica tions, landmarks of the struggle for independence which nerved and elevated his ancestry, and prepared the way for those peaceful but hurdly-won triumphs of the scholar, in which he has HO largely shared. The son of a clergyman, his boyhood was familiar with the wholesome discipline and intellectual tone of an educated New England family ; and at tho early age of thirteen he entered College, and in 1S11 graduated with every sign of the highest promise. At that KVERETT. period, as before ami subsequently, a peculiar local interest attached to the theological profession in Boston. An enthu siasm for eloquent and refined preaching obtained union*: the cultivated 'inhabitants.. The Puritan morals and the respect for mental superiority which characterizes that cum-' inunity, together with the prevalence- of a higher degree of literary ta-te, caused pulpit eloquence to be singularly ap : preciuted. The list of Boston divines comprised the iuo*f honored names, and their social intluence and position were remarkable. It is therefore not surprising that the friends of a -new candidate for intellectual fame should urge him to adopt the ministerial vocation. In the case, of Everett, however, a special motive for such a course existed. At the -period when his talents and scholaivhip became known beyond the University, a voice upon whose faintest accent the most intelligent congregation of Boston had hung with breathless delight, was hushed for ever. Buckminstcr had closed a brief and beautiful life amid the tears of devoted parishioners; and the vacuum thus created, Everett, also young, gifted and without reproach, was urged to fill. Thus at the very outset were his abilities severely tested ;" and it is proof enough of his superior mind, that so hazard ous an experiment succeeded. During the iirst year of his youthful ministry, and while enlisting the sympathies of a large and critical audience by his sermons, he wrote and published an able work on the intrinsic scriptural evidences of Christianity. It was, how ever, obvious to the disinterested admirers of Everett that Ins true field of action lay in the domain of general litera ture; and that in' promoting the interests of academic edu- 15 220 HOMES OF AM Ell 1C AN AUTlIOltS. cation, his tasto and lovo of knowledge would iiud more ample results than 111 any exclusive pursuit. Accordingly, iu 1815, when he attained his majority, he was elected Pro fessor of the Greek language and literature in Harvard Uni versity, with leave of absence to prosecute his studies and recruit his. health in Europe. He reached Liverpool at tho critical moment when the intelligence of .Napoleon's lliglit from Klla had thrown the whole continent into agitation ; and, therefore,, lingered in England until the battle of Waterloo, Thence he proceeded to Gottingen, and having acquired the German language and made a tour of inquiry amid the seats of learning in that country, established him self, for a time, at Paris; and subsequently visited Scotland, Wales, dilferent parts of France, Switzerland and Italy, and passed the winter of 1^18 at Koine. In the spring of the following year he made the tour of Greece, thence went to Constantinople, and returned to Paris and London by the way of Vienna. On his arrival in the United States, after four and a half years of foreign travel and study, he com menced his duties as Greek professor illustrating tho language, history and antiquities, by an able and interest ing course of lectures. As a contributor to the .North American Review, which for some years was tinder his editorship, he became the most popular and effective expo nent of American talent and culture which had appeared in the form of periodical literature. For ten years aftei relinquishing this genial and most useful department of labor, Mr. Everett was a member of the national Houso of Representatives, In lvS,"r> he was elected Governor of Massachusetts, and held the otUee tour successive years. In EVEHKTT. 227 1841 ho was appointed Minister to England; and, whoa a change of administration induced his return home in'1840, ho wan chosen- President of Harvard 'College. It is hut & few years since he resigned that eminent office and took up his residence in Boston, where his time is divided between this literary avocations so accordant with his taste, and the pleasures of a cultivated society. In the career thus outlined, we perceive all the elements desirahlo to give scope and inspiration to his rare gifts and systematic application. Kach sphere in which ho exerted his powers bore the fruits of genius, learning, and conscien tious industry. Circumstances, too, were singularly propi tious. AVith the solid though limited basis of New England, morality and scholarship, and the impulse derived from ti literary social atmosphere, he entered upon the broad Held of German culture, prepared to adopt its best and evade its baneful agencies. On his first visit to Paris, (he com panionship of Corny, who had so eminently promoted the Greek cause with his pen, put Mr. Everett at once upon a track of inquiry and feeling, which he afterwards nobly vin dicated. In Koine he was intimate with Caiujvn, and there studied ancient by the light of modern art. To AH Pacha he carried letters from Lord ISyron ; and 'no American scholar ever visited that classic region better prepared to realize its associations. The eifect of these manifold adv:m- tai^es soon appeared. As a professor, while he unfolded the spirit of antiquity, he also prepared the most desirable mam- mils' for the students; and advocated the cause of modern Greece, in the pages of his Review, with a knowledge of tin* subject, and an enthusiasm tor liberty which won the unlet- 228 HOMKS OP AMERICAN AUTHOU8. tered while it fascinated the learned. In Congress, ho united the most graceful oratory with a methodical and unwearied attention to. the details of legislative business. Aa a foreign minister, the dignity and tact as well as varied ' acquisition he carried into the social circle, and his relnark- ahle gift as an occasional speaker, gained fur him universal respect and for his country peculiar honor. As a critic, the good-natured yet keen rebukes he administered to tho super ficial commentators on our habits and institutions, delighted thousands of readers and silenced the flippant horde of trav ellers with a torrent of graceful irony, biipported by facts and arguments. As a man of letters, in every branch of public service and in society and private life, Mr. Everett has combined the useful with the ornamental, with a tact, a universality and a faithfulness almost unprecedented. At Windsor Castle we find him fluently conversing with each member of the diplomatic corps in their vernacular tongue; in Florence, addressing the Scientific Congress with charac teristic grace and wisdom; in London, entertaining the most gifted and wisely chosen party of artists, authors and men of rank or state, in a manner which elicits their best social sentiments ; at hom-e, in the professor's chair, in the- popular assembly, in the lyceum-hall, or to celebrate an historical occasion, giving expression to high sentiment or memora- able fact with the finished style and thrilling emphasis of the accomplished orator ; and, in the intervals of these em ployments, we find him sometimes weaving into beautiful verso the impressions derived from his observation or -read' ing, as witness the " Dirge of Alaric" and u Santa Croce." It has been feaid that Mr. Everett owes it to himself and EVEUETT. 229 his country to bequeath a memorial of his great acquisitions and brilliant endowments, more complete and individual than any which has yet appeared; and it has also been con fidently asserted that a portion of his leisure is dedicated to such an object. The best actual record of his industry and genius, however, exists in the volumes of "Orations and Speeches " recently collected ; and we trust the public ex pectation that his critical and historical essays are to be thus gathered up, revised and published, under his own eye, will not be disappointed. As an orator, however, he is chiefly recognized.. "If Webster is the Michael Angelo of American ora tory, Everett is the Raphael. In the formers definition of eloquence, he recognizes its latent existence in the occasion as well as in the man, and in the subject; his own oratory is remarkable for grasping the bold and essential, for devel oping, as it were, the anatomical basis the very sinews and nerves of his subject; while Everett instinctively catches 'and unfolds the grace of the occasion, whatever it be; in his mind the sense of beauty is vivid, and nothing is more surprising in his oratory, than the ease and facility with which he seizes upon the redeeming associations of every topic, however far removed it may be from the legitimate domain of taste or scholarship. In addressing a Mercantile Library Association, he places Commerce in so noble and captivating a light that the " weary honors of successful ambition," won by studious toil, grow dim in comparison to the wide relations, social influence, and princely munificence of the great merchant. lie advocates the privileges, and describes -the progress of Science, and the imagination ex- 280 HOMES OF AMEUICAN AUTIIOltS, panda in delightful visions of the ameliorating destinies of tlu- world, and tho infinite possibilities that crowd the path of undiscovered truth, lie sots before an Association of Me chanics the relation of their pursuits to the welfare of man, and tho importance of knowledge to tho artisan, and their vocation rises at once to the highest dignity and promise, lie enforces the natural charms and permanent utility of agriculture, and the Farmer's lot seems the most, desirable of human occupations. The variety of occasions to which ho has thus ably administered is the best proof of his fertile resources and adaptive power. He has successfully plead for Greece and Africa, for the prisoner and the intemperate, for art and literature, for popular and college education, for railroads and the militia, for the completion of the monu ment on Hunker Jlill, and the restoration of York Minster, for manufactures, trade, the distribution of the Bible, and the cause of Ireland ; and '"From the oldies of oblivion 1 * btrcam, I'roj.iuou-* snatched ouch memorable theme.' ' Equally impressive and graceful, while tho intellectual crowd, at a New England academic festival, hang upon his familiar accents, and when responding to the welcome of a foreign city ; and, crowned with the graces of true ora tory, his eloquence is as unfaltering and appropriate when uttered to a royal society as to a delegation of Sacs and Foxes, and as readily attunes itself to the fading memory of the illiterate old soldier, as to the quick sympathies of the youthful scholar." * Charu?tmtica of Literature." , #6 C t / - i >, "S ' V tff J\ **&+** &'^e+vb <**' - s ^C X *-^*^V -/ / *s (Emerson. ilSVc^f -A .V-*T'* , 1 " " J : r-/f :, V \'&i'< ' v 1\H P i Sfi !' '';,_ fcii : : s ? '' *&)., i*- EMERSON. rnilE village of Concord, Massachusetts, lies an hour's rule JL from Boston, upon the great Northern Railway. It i one of those quiet New England towns, \yhose few white houses, grouped upon the plain, make but a slight impres sion upon the mind of the busy traveller, hurrying to or from the city. As the- conductor shouts "Concord!" tho busy traveller has scarcely time to recall "Concord, Lexing ton and Bunker Hill," be-fore the town has vanished and he is darting through woods and fields as .solitary as those he 234 HOMES OFAMERIOAN AUTHORS. has just left in New -Hampshire. Yet as it vanished, ho may chance to seo two or three spires, and as they rush behind the trees his eyes fall upon a gleaming bheet of water. It is Walden Pond, or.lYiildon "Water, ad Orphic Alcott used to call it, whose virgin seclusion wad a just image of that of the little village, until one afternoon, some half dozen or more years since, a shriek sharper than any that had rung from Walden woods since the lust war-whoop of the last In dians of Muskotaquidj announced to astonished Concord, drowsing in the river meadows, that the nineteenth century hud overtaken it. Yet long before the material force of the age bound the town to the rest of the world, the spiritual " force of a single mind in it hud attracted attention to it, and made its lonely plains as dear to many widely scat tered minds as the groves of the academy or the vineyards of Yaucluse. Except in causing the erection of the Kuilwuy build ings iind several dwellings near it, steuni bus not much changed Concord. It is yet one of the quiet country towns whose eh arm is incredible to all but those who by loving it have found it worthy of love. The shire-town of the great agricultural county of Middlesex, it is not disturbed by the feverish throb of factories, nor by any roar of inexorable toil but the few puffs of the locomotive. One day, during the autumn, it is thronged with the neighboring farmers, who hold their high festival the annual cattle-show there. But the calm tenor of Concord life is not varied even on that day, by any thing more exciting than fat oxen, and the cud-chewing eloquence of the agricultural dinner. The pop ulation of the region is composed of sturdy, sterling men, K M E It S N . . 235 worthy representatives of the ancestors who sowed along the Concord shore*, with their seed-corn and rye, the germs of a prodigious national greatness. At intervals every day the rattle, roar and whistle of the swift shuttle darting to and from the metropolitan heart of New England, weaving pros perity upon tlu- land, remind those farmers in their silent fields, that the great world yet wags 'and wrestles. And tln'j farmer-boy sweeping with Hashing scythe through the river meadows, whose coarse grass glitters, apt for mowing, in the early June morning, pauses as the whistle dies into the dis tance, and wiping his brow and whetting his Made anew, (questions the country-smitten citizen, the amateur Corydon struggling with imperfect stroke behind, him, of the mystic- romance of city life. The sluggish repose of. the little river images the farmer- boy's life, lie bullies hi.-> oxen, and trembles at the locomo tives Ills wonder and fancy stretch toward the great world beyond the barn-yard and the village church, as the torpid stream tends toward the ocean. The river, in fact, seems the thread upon which all the beads of that rustic- life are strung, the clue to its traiujuil character. If it were an impetuous stream, dashing along as if it claimed and rcijuir- ed the career to which every American river is entitled, T- a career it would have. Wheels, factories, shops, traders, factory-girls, boards of directors, dreary white lines of board- ing-house, all the signs that indicate the spirit of the age^and of the American age, would ari>e upon its margin. Some shaven magician from State-street would run up by rail, anil, from proposals, maps, schedules of stock, eVc., educe a spa- eions factory as easily as Aladdin's palace arose from iiuth- 236 HOMES OF AM Ell 1C AN AUTHORS. ing. Instead of a dreaming, pastoral poet of a village, Con cord would be a rushing, whirling, hustling manufacturer of a town, like its thrifty neighbor Lowell. Many a line equip age, Hashing along city way 8, many an EUzabethan-Qothic- ' Grecian rural retreat, in which State-street- woos Pan and grows Arcadian in summer, would be reduced, in the last analysis, to the Concord mills. Yet if these broad river meadows grew factories instuad of corn, they might perhaps 'lack another harvest, of which the poet's thought in the sickle. "One linrvi'rtt from your fUM ll< 'UK- \\unl brought Id' 1 oxcii >-ti<>ir.', Anot IKT crop your um-4 yit-Kl, \\liirli 1 L'atliT ill U KOIIg," sings Emerson, and again, as the 'afternoon light strikes pen sive across his' memory, as over the iields below him, 44 Knows liu who till* (hia lonely tu 1.1, To reap iU ranty corn, Wlwt in\ -lit- crops liia ii'Trs vii 1.1, At iui.lui_'lil ami ut in. .fii t " Tho Concord river, uptn whose winding shores the town has scattered its few houses, as if, loitering over the plain Homo fervent day, it had fallen asleep obedient to the slum berous spell, and had not since awakened, is a languid, shal low stream, that loiters through broad meadows, which fringe it with rushes and long grasses. Its sluggish current scarcely moves the autumn leaves showered upon it by a few maples that lean over the Assabeth as one of its branches is named. EMERSON. 237 Yellow lily-buds and leathery lily-pads tesselato its surface, and the white water-lilies, pale, proud Ladies of Shalott, bare their virgin breasts to the sun in the seclusion of its dis tant reaches. Clustering vines of wild grape hang its wood ed shores with a tapestry of the South and the Jlhine." The pickerel-weed marks with blue spikes of tlowers the points where small tributary brooks llow in, and along the dusky windings of those brooks, cardinal-flowers with a scarlet splendor paint the Tropics upon New England green. All summer long, from founts unknown, in the upper counties, from some anonymous pond or wooded hillside moist wiiji springs, bteals the gentle river through the plain, spread ing at one point above the town into a little lake, called by the tanners " FairhavcU Hay," as if all its ICSMT minus must share the sunny significance of Concord. Then, shrinking again, alarmed at ils own boldness, it dreams on toward thr Merrimac and the sea. The absence of factories has already implied its shallow- ness and slowness. In truth it is a very slow river, belong ing much more to the Indian than to the Yankee; fc> much so, indeed, that until within a very few years there was an annual visit to its shores from a few sad heirs of its old mas ters, who pitched a group of tents in the meadows and wove their tidy baskets and strung their beads in unsmiling silence. It was the same thing that I saw in Jerusalem among the le\ys. Every Friday they repair to the remains of the old Temple wall, and pray and wail, kneeling upon the pave ment and kissing the stones. But that passionate oriental regret was not more impressive than this silent homage of u waning race, who, as they beheld the unchanged river, knew 288 HOMES OF AM Kit 1C AN All IK) US. that, unlike it, the last drops of their existence were gradually flowing away, and that lor their tribes there shall be no in gathering. So shallow is the stream that the amateur Corydons who embark at morning to explore its remoter shores, will, not infrequently in midsummer, iind their boat as suddenly tran quil and motionless as the river, having placidly grounded upon its oozy bottom. Or, returning at evening, they mav lean over the edge as they lie at length in the boat, and float with the almost imperceptible current, brushing the tips of the long water-grass and reeds below them in the stream - a river jungle, in which lurk pickerel and trout a with the Mentation of a bird drifting upon soft evening air over the treetops. No available or profitable craft navigate these waters, and animated gentlemen from the city who run up for " a mouthful of fresh air," cannot possibly detect the final cause of such a river. Vet the dreaming idler has a place on maps and a name in history. Near the town it is crossed by three or four bridges. One is a massive structure to help the railroad over. The htern, strong pile readily betrays that it is part of g<>d, solid stock, owned in the right quarter. Close- by it is a little arched utonc bridge, auxiliary to a great road leading to Bomo vague region of the world called Acton upon guide- posts and on maps. Just beyond these bridges the river bends and forgets the railroad, but is grateful to the graceful arch of the little stone bridge for making its curve more pic turesque, and, as it muses toward the Old Manse, listlosly brushing the lilies, it. wonders if Kllery Channing, who lives beyond, npon-a hillside sloping to the shore, wrote his poem EME11SON. 230 uf The Bridge to that particular one. There are two or thrue wooden bridges also, always combining well with the land scape, always making and suggesting pictures. The Concord, as 1 said, has a name in history. }i car .one of the wooden bridges yon turn aside from the main road, eloMj by the "Old "Manse," - whose musses of mystic hue were gathered by Ifawthorne, who lived there for threv years, and a few steps bring you to the river, and to a small monument upon its brink. It is a narrow, grassy \vay ; not a field nor a meadow, but of that shape and char acter which would perplex the animated stranger from the city, who would see, also, its nnlitness for a building-tot: The narrow, grassy way is the old road, which in the month of April, ITTo, led to a bridge that crossed the stream at thi- f-pot. And upon the river's margin, upon the bridge ai:d the shore beyond, took place the .>harp htruggle between the .Middlesex fanners and the ccurlct British soldiers, known uh tradition as "Concord light." The small monument record* the day and the event. When it was erected, Kmerson wrok? the followin hmn for the ceremon; A run, JO, U v the rude l.i id / that arched the flood, Their flag to Aon!'* brei-zo unfurled, - unco the ut.li.itll.'.l fanii.-rs e>toul t Anl Hreil the shot licanl round the \\>iM u- if tll^ hlH'O t) Alike the oomiiUM'or il*nt >!< j>i ; And Time tin ruined bridge hua Down the dark .Dttrcftin tlmt r<. \\vai-d .rv-] v 240 HOMES OF AIIEUICAN AUTIIOU3 "On tU'u greeu l.uuk, ly this sort treum, We see to-day a votive atone, , That memory muy their deed redeem, When, like our sirea, our BOIIS ure gone. ' Sj.ii it that niaiK- tlu-.-f heroes dare To die, or leave tlu'ir ehildreu free, Hid Time and Nature gently r-jmiv The shaft we raise to them and Thee." Close under the rough .stone wall at the 'left, which separates it from the little grassy orchard of the Manse, is a small m is the grand charm of Concord. At night the stars are secit from the roads crossing the plain, as from a ship. at sea. The landscape would be called tame by those who think n. scenery grand but that of mountains or the sea-coast. But the wide solitude of that, region is not so accounted by tho^e who live there. To them it is rich and suggestive, as Km- erson shows, by saying in the essay upon u Nature," * M\ house .Clauds in low land, with limited outlook, and on the skirt of the village. But 1 g<> with my friend to the shore of our little river, and with one stroke of the paddle I leave the village politics and personalities, yes, and the world of villages and personalities behind, and pass into a delicate, realm of sunset aird moonlight, too bright almost for spotted man to enter without novitiate and probation. AVe pene trate bodily this incredible beauty; we dip our hands in this painted element ; our eyes urn bathed in these lights 1C 242 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. and forms. A holiday, a villesgiatura, a royal revel, the proudest, most heart-rejoicing festival that valor and beauty, power and taste ever decked and enjoyed, establishes itself upon tho instant." And again, as indicating where the true charm of scenery lies, "In every landscape the point of astonishment is the meeting of the sky and the earth, and that is seen from the lirst hillock, as well as from the top of the Alleghanies. The stars stoop down over the brownest, homeliest common, with all the spiritual magniticence which they shed on the Campagna or on the marble deserts of Egypt." lie is speaking here, of course, of the spiritual excitement of Beauty, which crops up every where in Na ture, like gold in a rich region-; but the quality of the imagery indicates the character of tho scenery in which, the essay was written. Concord is too far from Boston to rival in garden culti vation its neighbors, West Cambridge, Lexington and Wal- tham; nor can it boast, with Brookline, Dorchester and Cam bridge, the handsome summer homes of city wealth. But, it surpasses them all, perhaps, in a genuine country fresh ness and feeling, derived from its loneliness. If not touched by city elegance, niether is it infected by city meretricious- ness it is sweet, wholesome country. By climbing one of the hills, your eye sweeps a wide, wide landscape, until it rests upon graceful AVachuset, or, further and mistier, Monadnoc, the lofty outpost of New Hampshire hills. Level scenery is not tame. Tho ocean, the prairie, the desert, are not tame, although of monotonous surface. Tin- gentle undulations which mark certain scenes, a rippling landscape, in which all sense of space, of breadth and. of EMERSON. 243 height is lost, that is tame. It may bo made beautiful by exquisite cultivation, ad it often is in England and on 'parts of the Hudson shores, but it is, at best, rather pleasing than inspiring. For a permanent view the eye craves large and simple forms, as the body requires plain food for its bc-i nourishment. The town of Concord is built mainly upon one side 'of the river. In its centre is a large open square, shaded by tine elms. A white wooden church, in the most classical style of Yankee-Greek, stands upon the square. The Court House is upon one of the corners. In the old Court UOUM-, 111 the days when I knew Concord, many conventions weiv held for humane as well as merely political objects. On*' summer' day I especially remember, when I did not envy Athens its forum, for Emerson and William Henry Chan- ning spoke. In the speech of both burned the sacred tire of eloquence, but in Emerson it was light, and in Chunming heat. From this square diverge four roads, like highways from u forum. One leads by the Court House and under stately sycamores to the Old Manse and the buttle-ground, another goes directly to the river, and a third is the main avenue of the town. After passing the shops this third divides, and one branch forms a fair and noble street, spacious and loftily arched with elms, the houses standing liberally apart, each with its garden-plot in front. The fourth avenue is tho old Boston road, also dividing, at the edge of the village, into tho direct route to the metropolis and the Lexington turn pike. The house of Mr, Emerson stands opposite this junction. HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. It is a plain, square, white dwelling-house, yet it has a city air, and could not be mistaken for a farmhouse. A quiet merchant, you would say, unostentatious and simple, has here hidden himself from town. Hut a thick grove of pine ami fir-trees, almost brushing the two windows upon the right of the door, and occupying the space between them and the road, suggests at least a. peculiar taste in the retired merchant, or hints the possibility that he may have sold his place to a Pout or Philosopher, or to some old Kast India sea-captain, perhaps, who cannot sleep without the sound of waves, and so plants pines to rustle, surf-like, against his chamber- window. The fact, strangely enough, partly supports your theory. In the year 1828 Charles Coolidge, a brother of J. Toinple- inan Coolidge, a merchant of repute in Boston, and grandson of Joseph Coolidge, a patriarchal denizen of Bowdoin Square in that city, came to Concord and built this house, (irate- fully remembering the lofty horse-chestnuts which shaded the city square, and which, .perhaps, first inspired him* with the wish to be a nearer neighbor of woods and fields, he planted a row of them along his lot, which this year ripen their. twenty-lifth harvest. With the liberal hospitality of a New England merchant, he did not forget the spacious col lars of the city, and, as Mr, Emerson writes, "he built the only good cellar that had then bcvu built in Concord." Mr. Emerson bought the house in the year 1885. lie found it a plain, convenient, and thoroughly-built country residence. An amiable neighbor of Mr. Coolidge bad placed a miserable old barn irregularly upon the edge of that gen tleman's lot, which, tbr the sake of comeliness, he was forced ISi *-; i ; >- jTJJjJjf ' "*$' >' *";** ?!;; ' **!, i, r> '''^-V - fi ^J ( . : [Ip^p/- ' r^iiw "- ..X;: S*"* l 'S*a^'*^i ' . - ^'- : ' / ~ ri ^ ir " ;, KMKRSON. 245 to buy oiid set straight and smooth into a decent dependence of the mansion-house. The estate, upon passing into Mr. Emerson's hands, comprised the house, barn, and two acres of hind, lie has enlarged liou.se and barn, and the two acres have grown to nine. Our author is no farmer, except as every country gentleman is, yet the kindly slope from the rear of the house to a little brook, which, passing to the calm Concord beyond, washes the edge of his land, yields him at least occasional beans and peas, or some friend, agriculturally enthusiastic, and an original Urook Farmer,, experiments with guano in the garden, and produces melons and other vines with a success that relieves Brook Farm from every slur of inadequate practical genius. Mr. Emer son has shaded his originally bare land with trees, and counts near a hundred apple and pear trees in his orchard. The whole estate is quite level, inclining only toward the Ijt- tle brook, and is well watered and convenient. The Orphic Alcott, or Plato Skitnpole, as Aspa-ia called him, well known in the transcendental history of New England, designed and with his own hands erected a summer-house, which gracefully adorns the lawn, if I may so call the smooth grass-plot at the side of the house. Un happily, this edifice promises no long duration, not being ** technically based and pointed." This is not a strange, although a disagreeable fact, to Mr. Emerson, who has been always the most faithful and appreciating of the lovers of ' Mr. Alcott. It is natural that, the Orphic Alcott should build graceful summer-houses. There are even people who declare that he has covered the pleasant but somewhat misty lawns of ethical speculation with a thousand such 246 HOMES OF AM KICK AN AUTHORS. edifices, which need only to be a little more " technically based and pointed " to be quite perfect. At present, they whisper, the wind blows clean through them, and no iigures of flesh and blood are ever Been there, but only pallid phan toms with large, calm eyes, eating uncooked grain out ot baskets, and discoursing in a sublime shibboleth of which mortals have no key. But how could Plato Skimpole, who goes down to Ilingham on the sea, in a New England Jan uary, clad only in a suit of linen, hope to build immortal summer-houses ? Mr. Emerson's Library is the room at the right of the door upon entering the house. It is a simple square room, not walled with books like the den of a literary grub, nor merely elegant like the ornamental retreat of a dilettante. The books are arranged upon .plain shelves, not in architec tural bookcases, and the room is hung with a few choice engravings of the greatest men. There was a fair copy of Michael Angelo's " Fates," which, properly enough, impart ed that grave serenity to the ornament of the room which is always apparent in what is written there. It is the study of a scholar. All our author's published writings, the essays, orations, and poems, date from this room, as much as they date from any place or moment. The villagers, indeed, fancy their philosophical contemporary affected by the nov el i'st James's constancy of composition. They relate, with wide eyes, that he has a. huge manuscript book, in which be incessantly records the ends of thoughts, bits of observation and experience, and facts of all kinds, a kind of intellec tual -and scientific rag-lmg, into which all shreds and rem nants of conversations and reminiscences of wayside reveries EMERSON. 247 are incontinently thrust. This work goes on, they aver, day and night, and when he. travels the rag-bag travels too, ard grows more plethoric with each inilo of the journey. And a story, which will one day he a tradition, is perpetuated in the village, that one night, before his wife had become com pletely accustomed to his habits, she awoke suddenly, and hearing him groping about the room, inquired anxiously, -r- 44 My dear, are you unwell ?" " No, my love, only an idea." The Library is not only the study of a scholar, it is the bower of a poet. The pines lean against the windows, and to the student deeply sunk in learned lore, or soaring upon the daring speculations of an intrepid philosophy, they whis per a fiecret beyond that of the philosopher's stone, and ping of the springs of poetry. The site of the house is not memorable. There is no reasonable ground to suppose that BO much as an Indian wigwam ever occupied the spot ; nor has Henry Thoreau, a very faithful friend of Mr. Emerson's, and of the woods and waters of his native Concord, ever found an Indian arrow head upon the premises. Henry Thoreau's instinct is as sure- toward the facts of nature as the witch-hazel toward treasure. If every quiet country town in New England had a son, -who, with a lore like SclbornoX and an eye like Buffon's, had watched and studied its landscape and history, and then published the result, as Thoreau has done, in a book as rcdo- lent of genuine and perceptive sympathy with nature, as u dover-lield of honey, Xew England would seem as poetic and beautiful as Greece. Thoreau lives in the Kerry-pas tures upon a bank over Walden pond, and in a little house 248 II O M,E 3 OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. of hid own building. One pleasant summer afternoon a small party of us helped him raise it u bit of life as Arca dian as any at Brook Farm. Elsewhere in the village he turns up arrowheads abundantly, and Hawthorne mention* that Thoreau initiated him into the mystery of finding them. Lint neither the Indians, nor Nature, nor Thoreau can invest the quiet residence of our author with tho dignity, or even the suspicion of a legend. History stops short in that direc tion with Charles Coolidge, Ksq., and the year 18iiS. There is little prospect from the house. Directly oppo site a low blutf overhangs the Boston road and obstructs the view. Upon the other sides the level land stretches awav. Toward Lexington it is a broad, half-marshy region, and between the brook behind and the river, good farms lie upon the outskirts of the town. Pilgrims drawn to Con cord by tho desire of conversing with the man, whose writ ten or spoken eloquence has so profoundly charmed them, and who have placed him in some pavilion of fancy, some peculiar residence, find him in no porch of 'philosophy nor academic grove, but in a plain white house by tho wayside, ready to entertain every comer as an ambassador from some remote Cathay of speculation whence the stars arc more nearly seen. But the familiar reader of our author will not bo surprised to find the. ." walking eye-ball" simply sheltered, and the " endless experimenter with no past at my back," housed without ornament. Such a reader will have felt tho Spartan severity of this intellect, and have noticed that the realm of this imagination is rather sculps turCsquo than pictorial, more Greek than Italian. Therefore ho will bo pleased to alight at the little gate, and hear the KM 1130 N. 249 breesiy welcome of the pines, and the no leas cordial &atuta- tion of their owner. For if the visitor knows what he is about, he has come to this plain for bracing, mountain air. These serious Concord roaches are no vale of Cashmere. Whcrej Plato Skimpole is architect of the summer-house, you nim) r imagine what is to be expected in the man>T<>n itself. It- is always morning within those doors, "If yon have nothing to say, if you are really not an. envoy from MHiie- kingdom or colony of thought, and cannot cast a gem upon the heaped pile, you had better pass by upon the other side. . For it is the peculiarity of Emerson's mind to IK* always on the alert. He eati no lotus, but for ever quaffs the waters which engender immortal thirst. If the memorabilia of his house could find their proper Xenophon, the want of antecedent arrowheads upon thv premises would not prove very disastrous to the interest oi" the history. The fame of the philosopher attracts admiring friends and enthusiasts from every quarter, and the scholarly grace and urbane hospitality of the gentleman send them charmed away. Friendly foes, who altogether differ from Kmcrson, come to break a lance with him upon the level pastures of Concord, with all the cheerful and appreciative zeal of those who longed " To drink delight of buttlo with their pcora Fur on the ringing plains of windy Troy." It is not hazardous to say that the greatest questions of our day and of all ''days, have been nowhere more amply dis cussed, with more poetic insight or profound conviction, than in the comely, square white house upon the edge of 250 HOMES OF AMERICAN A'UTUOllS. flu- Lexington turnpike. There have even been attempts at soH&thing more formal and club-like than the chance con versations of occasional guests, one of which will certainly tie nowhere recorded but upon these puges. It wad in the year 18-15 that a circle of persons of vari- us ages, and differing very much in every thing but sym pathy, found themselves in Concord. Toward the end of the autumn Mr. Emerson suggested that they should meet every Monday evening through the winter in his Library. ** Monsieur Aubepine," u Miles Coverdale," and other phan toms, since generally known as Nathaniel Hawthorne, who then occupied the Old Manse the inflexible Henry Thoroau, a scholastic and pastoral Orson, then living ami->ng the black berry pastures of Walden pond Plato Skimpole, thon biih- limely meditating impossible summer-houses in a little house upn the Boston road the enthusiastic agriculturist ami Hrook Farmer already mentioned, then an inmate of Mr. Emerson's house, who added the genial cultivation of a scholar to the amenities of the natural gentleman a stur dy farmer neighbor, who had bravely fought his weary way through inherited embarrassments to the small success of a New England husbandman, and whose faithful wife had seven times merited well of .her country two city youths, ready for the fragments from the feast of wit and wisdom and the host himself, composed this Club.. Ellcry Channing, who* had that winter harnessed his Pegasus to the New-York Tribune, was a kind of corresponding member. The news of this world was to be transmitted through his eminently prac tical genius, as the Club deemed itself competent to take charge of tidings from all other spheres. EMERSON*. 251 I went, tlio first Monday evening, very much as Ixion may have gone to his banquet. The philosophers sat digni fied and erect. There was a constrained, hut very amiable silence, which hud the impertinence of a tacit inquiry, seem- ing to ask, * % Who will now proceed to say 'he finest thing that has ever been said i " It was quite involuntary anil unavoidable, tor the members lacked that lluent social genius without which a Club is impossible. It was a Con* gress. of oracles on the one hand, and of curious listeners upon the other. I vaguely remember that the Orphic Al- cott invaded the Sahara of silence with a solemn " saving," to which, after due pause, the honorable member lor black berry pastures responded by some keen and graphic obser vation, while the Olympian host, anxious that so much good material should be spun into something, beamed smiling encouragement upon all parties. J>ut the conversation ln?- came more and more staccato. Miles Coverdale, a statue of night and silence, sat, a little removed, under a portrait of Dante, gaxing imperturbably upon the group; and as he sat in the shadow, his dark hair and eyes and suit of sable* made him, in that society, the black thread of mystery which he weaves into his stones, while the slutting presence of .the IJrouk Farmer played like heat-lightning around the room. I recall little else but a grave eating of russet apples by the erect philosophers, and a solemn disappearance tut*- night. The Club struggled through three Monday evening-. Plato was perpetually putting apples of gold in pictures of silver; for such was the rich ore of his thoughts, coined by the deep melody of his voice. Orson charmed us with the secrets won from his interviews with Pan in the Wuhleii 252 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. woods while Emerson, with the awal of an engineer trying to dam wild waters, sought to bind the wide-flying em broidery of discourse into a web of clear sweet sense. But still in vain. The oracular sayings were the unalloyed sac charine clement ; and every chemist knows how much else goes to practical food how much coar.se, rough, woody fibre is essential. The Club struggled on valiantly, discoursing celestially, eating apples, and disappearing in the dark, until the third evening it Vanished altogether. l*ut I have since known clubs of fifty times that number, who.se collective genius was not more than that of either one of the Dii Ma- jores of our Concord coterie. The fault was its too great concentration. It was hot relaxation, as a club should be, but tension. Society is a play, a game, a tournament ; not a battle. It is the easy grace of undress ; not an intellectual, full-dress parade. I have already hinted this unbending intellectual ahtcrity of our author. His Hport is serious his humor is earnest. He stands like a sentinel. His look, and manner, and habit -of thought cry " Who goes there ?" and if he does not hear the countersign, he brings the intruder to a halt. It is for this' surprising fidelity and integrity that his influence has been so deep, and sure,. and permanent, upon the intellectual Kit; of the young men of Now England; and of Old Kng- land, tdo,. where in Manchester there wore regular weeklv meetings at which his works were read. What he said long ago iu* his preface to the American edition of Carlyle's Mis cellanies, that they were papers which had spoken to the yo.ung men of the time " with an emphasis that hindered them from sleep," is strikingly true of his own writings. EMERSON. 253 His first Blim, anonymous duodecimo, " Nature," was as lair and fascinating to the royal young minds who met it in thu course of their reading, as Egeria to Numa wandering in the grove. The essays, orations, and poems followed, develop ing and elaborating the same spiritual ami heroic philosophy, applying it to life, history, and literature, with a vigor antl richness so supreme, that not only do many account him our truest philosopher, hut others acknowledge him as our most characteristic pcet. It would be a curious inquiry how much and what kind of influence the placid scenery of Concord has exercised upon his mind. " I chide society, 1 embrace solitude," he says; "ami yet I am not so ungrateful as not to see thv wise, the lovely, and the noble-minded, as from time to time they pass my gate." It is not difficult to understand his fondness for the spot, lie has been always familiar with it, always more or less a resident of the village. Horn in Bos ton upon the spot where the Channeey Place Church now Mauds, part of his youth was passed in the Old Manse, which was built by his grandfather and in which his father was born; ami there he wrote "Nature." From the mag nificent admiration of ancestral England, he was glad to return two years since to quiet Concord, and to acres which will not yield a single arrowhead. The Swiss sigh for their mountains; but the Nubians, also, pine for their desert plains. Those who are born by the seil long annually to return, and to rest their eyes upon its living horizon. Is it because the earliest impressions made when the mind is most plastic, are most durable f or because youth is that golden age bounding the confines of memory, and 254 UOMES OF AMEUICAN AUTIJOK8. floating for ever, an alluring mirage, as we recede further from it? ' The imagination of the man -who roams the solitary pas tures of Concord, or floats, dreaming, down its river, will easily see its landscape upon Emerson's pages. " That country is fairest," he says, " which is inhabited liy tin* noblest minds." And although . that idler 'upon the rivor may have leaned over the Mediterranean from Genoese- and Neapolitan villas or have glanced down the steep, green valley of Sicilian Enna, seeking " herself the fairest flower,* or walked the shores where Cleopatra and Helen walked yet the charm of a landscape which is felt, rather than scon, will l>e imperishable. "Travelling is a Fool's Paradise," says Emerson. But he passed its gates to learn that U-s- son. His writings, however, have no imported air. If there bo something oriental in his philosophy and tropical in his imagination, they have yet the strong flavor of his 1 Mother Earth the underived sweetness of the open Con cord sky,. and the spacious breadth of the Concord horizon. Militant 6ilmore Simms. m ' r l'1' * - .SIMMS. fill IK country resilience of William Gilmoro Sinnns is on A the plantation of his father-in-law, Mr. Roach, in Earn- well District, South Carolina, near Midway; a railway station, at just half the distance between Charleston and Augusta. Here he parses half the year, the most agreeable half in that climate, its pleasant winter, and portions of its spring and autumn in a thinly settled country divided into large [limitations, principally yielding cotton, with smaller fields 'of maize, sweet potatoes, pea-nuts, and other productions of the region, to which the sugar-cane has lately been added. Forests of oak, and of the majestic long-leaved pine, surround the dwelling, interspersed with broad openings, and stretch far away on all sides. In the edge of one of them arc the habitations of the negroes by whom the plan tation is cultivated, who are indulgently treated and lead an easy life. The bridle-roads through these noble for ests, over the hard white sand from which rise the lofty stems of the pines, are very beautiful. Sometimes they 17 H O M K S O F A M E U I C A N A U T 11 O it * . wind by the borders of swamps, grecu in midwinter with the holly, the red bay, and other trees that wear their leaves throughout the year, among which the yellow jessamine twines itself and forms dense arbors, perfuming the air in March to a great distance with ihe delicate odor of its blos soms. Ill the midst of these swamps rises the tall Virginia cypress, with its roots in the dark water, the summer haunt of the alligator, who sleeps away the winter in holes made under the bank. Mr. Simms, both in his noetry and prose, has made large and striking use of the imagery supplied by the peculiar scenery of this region. The house is a spacious country dwelling, without any pretensions to architectural elegance, comfortable for the climate, though built without that attention to what a South Carolinian would call the unwholesome exclusion of the outer air which is thought necessary in these colder lati tudes. Around it are scattered a number of smaller build ings of brick, and a little further stand rows and clumps of evergreens the water-oak, with its glistening light-colored foliage, the live-oak, with darker leaves, 'and the Carolina bird-cherry, one of the most beautiful trees of the South, blooming before the winter is past, and murmuring- with multitudes of bees. In one of the lower rooms of this dwell ing, in the midst of a well chosen library, many of the works which comprise the numerous catalogue of Mr. Simms's works were written. Mr. Simms was born April 17, 1800, in the State of South Carolina. It was at iii>t intended that he should study med icine, but his inclinations having led him to the law, he de voted himself to the study of that profession. His literary SIMMS. 259 Itabits arc very uniform. His working hours usually com- mence ia the. morning, and last till two or three in the alter- uoon, after which he indulges in out-door recreations, in read ing, or society. If friends or visitors hreak into his hours of morning labor, which he does not often permit, he usually redeems the lost time at night, after the guests have retired, lie is a late sitter, and consequently a late riser. Landscape gardening is one of his favorite pastimes, and the groumU adjoining his residence aiford agreeable evidence of his good taste. Mr. Si mms is a man of athletic make, a full muscular development, and a fresh complexion, tokens of vigorous health, which however is not without its interruptions, ow ing, I doubt not, to his etudious'and sedentary habits; for al though not indisposed to physical exertion, the inclination to mental activity in the form of literary occupation, predomi nates with him over every other taste and pursuit. His man ia- iv, like the expression of his countenance, are singularly frank and ingenuous, his temper generous and sincere, his do mestic affections strung, his friendships faithful and lasting, and hi* life blameless. Xo man ever wore his character more iu the general sight of men than ho, or had -ever less occasion 'to-do otherwise. The activity of mind of which 1 have spoken, i.i as apparent in his conversation as in his writings. He is fond of discussion, likes to pursue an argument to its final retreat, and is not unwilling to complete a disquisition which others, in their ordinary discourse, would leave in outline. He has travelled extensively in the South and Southwest.. mingling freely with all classes, and has accumulated an apparently exhaustless fund of anecdotes and incidents, illus 260 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUT1IOKS. trutivo of lifo and manners. These lie relates, with groat zest and inimitable humor, reproducing to perfection the pe culiar dialect and tones of the various characters introduced/ whether Band-lappcr, backwoodsman, half-breed, or negro. His literary character has this peculiarity, which I may call remarkable, that writing t as he does with very great rapidity, and paying little regard to the objections brought by others against what he writes, he has gone on improving upon himself. His first attempts in poetry were crude and jejune. As he proceeded, ho left them immeasurably be hind, in command of materials and power of execution, till . in his beautiful poem of Atuluntis, the finest, I think, he has written, his faculties seem to have nearly reached their ma turity in this department. One of his pieces, entitled "The Edge of the Swamp," may be quoted here not only as a specimen of his descriptive verse, but as an illustration of the peculiar source from which his imagery is derived : "TU a wild bjK)t ami hath a gloomy look; The bird bings never merrily in the trees, And the young leaves seem blighted. A runk growth Hjireuds powonoualy rouml, with |>ower to taint, With blistering de\\ js the thoughtless hand that dan-a To |>enetrate, the covert. Cyjiressen Crowd on the dank, wet earth ; and, stretched at length, The euyman a fit dweller in sueh home Slumber*, half buried in the sedgy grass, lie^ulc the green ooze where ho shelters him. A whooping erune ereeta his keletn form, And bhrieks in flight. Two tmiumer dueks aroused To a|>irehen*ion, us they hear hid ery, itj> from the lagoon, with marvellous haste, SIMMS. 261 Fojlowiiig hw guidance. Meetly taught by tluw, And r.tan l d at uur i apid, near approach, The fctoel-jftWed monster, from his grassy bed, (Yawl* blow ly to his .-limy, green alx>do, Which atraight receives him. You behold him now, His ridgy tack uprising as he speed*, In tilt-in-'-, to the eeutre of the btream, Whence his head j-< TS ulono. A butterfly That, travelling all ihe day, has counted clime* Only by flowers, to rest himself awhile, Lights on the monster's brow. The *urly mute , . Si i-aiu'Iit \vuy gooa down, HJ suddenly, that he, The dandy of the summer flowers and wooda, l>i|>s his li'_ r lit wiug>\ and spoils his golden coat, With the rank water of that turbid j>ond, Wondering and vexed, the plumcM citi/en Flies, with an hurried elFort, to the ehoiv, Seeking his kindred tlowei*s: but s-eks in vain Ntthing of genial growth may there be been, Nothing of K-autiful ! Wild, ragged trees, That look like felon hpeetres, fetid hhrulw, That taint the gh)omy atmosphere dusk shadea, That gather, half a cloud, and half a tiend In aspect, lurking on the bwamp's wild edge, (il(Hm with their (4erniie>s and forbidding frowns The general prospect. The tad butterfly, Waving his lackered wings, darts quickly on, And, by his free flight, counsels Us to t>peed, l-'or better lodgings, and u scene more sweet, 'ilian the.se dreur borders offer us to-night. His prose writings show a Hiihilur process of gradual im proveinent, though in them the change is less marked, owing to his having appeared bei'ore tlie public as a novelist at a riper period of his literary lite. In all that he has written 262 IIOMKS OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. his excellencies are unborrowed ; their merits arc the devel opjnent of original native germs, without any apparent aid froiu models. His thoughts, his diction, his arrangement. are his own ; he reminds you of no other author ; even ly the lesser graces of literary execution, he combines language jitter no pattern set by other authors, however beautiful. His novels have had a wide circulation, -and are admired tor the rapidity and fervor of the narrative, their picturesque descriptions, the energy with which they express the stronger emotions, and the force with which they portray local man ners. His critical writings, which have appeared in the Southern periodicals and are quite numerous, are less known. They often, no doubt, have in them those imperfections which belong to rapid composition, hut I must be allowed to single out from among them one example of great excel lence, his analysis and estimate of the literary character ot oper, a critical essay of great depth and discrimination, to which I am not sure that any thing hitherto written on the same subject is fully equal, lie published his "Lyrics'' in 18:25, eighteen years ago ; his longest and best poem, " Ata- lantis, a Story of the Sea," in lSII*J; " Martin Fahcr," "CJuy Uivers," i; Yemasce," k% Partisan," " Melliehampe," and many others, in succession. The entire series of his works, poetry and prose, comprises about titty volumes. \ i i N p : ; . K <, i! K >si * v > * \ SI < v I I- J : kl ]'^: 1 ^ I " * * X ^ H: ( H i C* \ } -f i; ^ * J ^ K ' S V ^ v-^ s ^ 'f i * ^ I V il ' i^ i ^ ft > V K , x~ ? < N If 'I * \ } } I" N - li ' J V v ^ \ ^ C . N J- J j \ } $ y Ji 3tnr| m. Vongftlloto. g^JJMftn ti IfeJ! pit- . ^. if . 1 Ir ft ar - 'H v -k-\ S^ Ell- >*- - Lk' u W: \ B ' J *,- 1- r ^F ' 1 nl i gM| 1 .^,.- . ^.,;_. ^ LONGFELLOW. ' Once, all, unco, vrithia tli.-v walk, One \vhiu iDcinoiy oft rerttlU, The Father of his Country dwelt ; And yonder meadow, bnuid and damp, The tires of th lv.ie^in^ rump KneiiT.letl with a liurnin^ ln-li, Dp und down tin -i- -i-h.iin^ .-lair-, Heavy with the weight of Sounded his majestie tread ; Yes, within this very room Sat he in ih.-f hoiirH of Weary both in heart and head. OME calm uftcrnuoii in the tmmmcr of 1837 young man passed down the olm-bhadod walk that separated the old Oragio Louse, in Cambridge, from the high road. Hunching 266 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. the door, ho paused to observe the huge, old-fashioned brass knocker, 'and the quaint handle, relies, evidently, of an epoch of colonial state. To his mind, however, the house and these signs of its age, were not interesting from the romance of antiquity alone, but from their association with the early days of our revolution, when General "Washington, after the 'hat tiu of jiunker Hill, had his headquarters in the mansion. Had his hand, perhaps, lifted ibis same latch, lingering as ho clasped it in the whirl of n myriad emotions? Had he, too, paused in the calm summer afternoon, and watched tlie silver gleam of the broad river in the meadows the dreamy blue of the Milton hills beyond? And had the tranquillity of that landscape penetrated his heart with u the sleep tha-t is among the hills,- 1 ' and whose fairest dream to him was a hope now realized in the peaceful prosperity of his country? At least the young man knew that if the details of the mansion had been somewhat altered, so that he could not be perfectly sure -of touching what Washington touched, yet he saw what Washington t-aw the same placid meadow- lands, the same undulating horizon, the name calm stream. And it is thus that an. old house of distinct association, as serts its claim, and secures its influence. It is a nucleus of interest, a heart of romance, from which pulse a thousand reveries enchanting the summer hours. For although every old country mansion is invested with a nameless charm, from that antiquity which imagination is for ever crowding with the pageant of a stately and beautiful life, yet if there be some clearly outlined story, even a historic scene peculiar Vo it, then around that, as the bold and picturesque fore ground, all the imagery of youth and love and beauty, in a LONGFELLOW. 267 thousandfold variety of development, is grouped, and every room has its poetic passage, every window it8 haunting face, every garden path its floating and fading form of a quite im perishable beauty. So the young man passed "not unaccompanied down the elm-shaded path, but the air and the scene were affluent of radiant phantoms. Imaginary ladies of a state and dignity only possible in the era of periwigs, advanced in all tin 1 solemnity of mob-caps to welcome the stranger. Grave aid courtiers, be-rutlled, be-wigged, sworded ami laced, trod in- audibly, with gracious bow, the spacious walk, and comely maidens, resident in mortal memory now only as hhrivelled and tawny duennas, glanced modest looks, and wondered what new charm had risen that morning upon the some what dull hori/oii of fheir life. These, arrayed in the rich ness of a poet's fancy, advanced to welcome him. For well they knew whatever of peculiar interest adorned their house would blossom into permanent forms of beauty in the light of genius. They advanced to meet him as the inhabitants of foreign and strange towns approach with supplication and submission the leader in whose eye llames victory, MIIV that he would do for them more than they could do for them* selves. Hut when the bra/en clang of the huge knocker luid ceased resounding, the great door slowly opened, and ru. jJumtom serving-man, but a veritable flesh and blood re tainer of the hostess of the mansion invited the visitor U enter. He inquired for Mrs. Cragie. In answer the door of -a little parlor was thrown open, and the young man beheld a tall, erect figure, majestically crowned with a tur- 2J68 HOMES. OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. ban, beneath which burned a pair of keen gray eyes. A commanding gravity of deportment, harmonious with the gentlewoman's age, and with the ancestral respectability of the mansion, assured profound respect; while, at a glance, it was clear to see that combination of reduced dignity con- descending to a lower estate, and that pride of essential supe riority to circumstances, which is traditional among women in the situation of the turbaned lady. There was kindliness mellowing the severity of her reply to her visitor's inquiry if there was a room vacant in the house. "'I lodge students no longer,' 1 she responded gravely, possibly not without regret, as she contemplated the ap plicant, that she had vowed so stern a resolution, 4 * IS lit 1 am not a student," answered the stranger j u I am a Professor in the University." "A Professor?" said she inquiringly, as if her mind failed to conceive a Professor without a clerical sobriety of apparel, a white cravat, or at least, spectacles. "Professor Longfellow," continued the guest, introducing himself. " Ah ! that is different," said the old lady, her features slightly relaxing, as if professors were, ex-oflieio, innocuous, and she need no longer barricade herself behind a stern gravity of demeanor. u I will show you what there is." Thereupon she preceded the Professor up the stairs, and gaining the upper hall, paused at each door, opened it, per mitted him to perceive its delightful fitness for his purpose, kindled expectation to the utmost then quietly closed the door again, observing, 4i You cannot have that." It was most Barmecide hospitality.- The professorial eyes glanced rest- LONGFELL.OW. 269 lessly around the fine old-fashioned points of the mansion, marked the wooden carvings, the air of opulent respecta bility in the past, which corresponds in Xew England to the impression of ancient no1>ility in old England, and wondered in which of these pleasant fields of suggestive association Iu< was to be allowed to pitch his tent. The turbaned hostc at length opened the door of the southeast corner room in the second story, and, while the guest looked wistfully in and awaited the customary " You cannot have that," he was agreeably surprised by a variation of the strain to the efiect that he might occupy it. The room was upon the front of the house, and looked over the meadows to the river. It had an atmosphere of fascinating repose, in which the young malt was at one* domesticated, as in an old home. The elms of the avenue shaded his windows, and as he glanced from them, the fiilin- HUT lay asleep upon the landscape in the windless day. u This," said the old lady, with a slight sadness hi her voice, as if speaking of times for ever past ami to which she herself properly belonged, ** this was General Washington'-* chamber." A light more pensive played over the landscape, in th0 Poet's eyes, as he heard her words. He knew that sijch a presence had consecrated the house, and peculiarly that room, lie felt .that whoever tills the places once occupied by the great and good, is himself held to greatness ami goodness by a sympathy and necessity sweet as mysterious. For ever after, his imagination is a more lordly picture-gal lery than that of ancestral halls. Through that gallery he wanders, strong in his humility ami resolve, valiant as the 270 HOMES OF AMEKICAN AUTHORS. last sciou of noble Norman races, devoting himself as of old knights were devoted, by earnest midnight meditation and holy vowa, to "Act, act in tho living Present! Heart within, ami Uod oVrhcad I " Tlio stately hostess retired, and the next day the new lodger took possession of his room, lie lived entirely apart from the old lady, although under the same roof. Her man ner of life was quiet .and unobtrusive. The silence of the aneicnt mansion, which to' its new resident was truly " the till air of delightful studies," was not disturbed by tho rlnill cackle of a country household, lu the morning, after |H) had settled himself to the day's occupation, tho scholar heard the faint and measured tread of the old lady as sho descended to breakfast, her silken gown rustling along the hull as if the shadowy brocade of some elder dame departed, who failed to discover in the ghostly stillness of tho well- known passage, that she had wandered from her sphere. Then, after due interval, if, upon his way to the day's colle giate duties, the Professor entered the hostess's little parlor to oiler her good morning or, make some domestic, sugges- 4*1011, he found her seated by the open window, through which stole tho sweet Now England air, lifting the few gray locks that straggled from the turban, as tenderly as Greek winds played with Helen's curls. Upon her lap lay an open vol ume of Voltaire, possibly, for the catholicity of the old lady's mind entertained whatever was vigorous and free, and from, the brilliant wit of the Frenchman, and his icy precision of thought and statement, she turned to the warm LONGFELLOW. 271 day that flooded the meadows with summer, and which in the high tree-tops above her head sang in breezy, fitful cadences of a beauty that no denizen of the summer Miall ever see, and a song sweeter than lie shall ever hear. It was because she had heard imd felt this breath of nature that tin- matron in her quaint old age could enjoy the page of the Frenchman, even as in her youth she could have udm'iivi! the delicacy of his point-lace rutlles, nor have leas enjoyed, by reason of that admiration, the green garden-walk of Fcrncy, in which she might have seen them. Or at times, as the scholar studied, ho heard footsteps upon the walk, and the old kitoeker clanged the arrival of guests, who passed into tho parlor, and, as the dour opctHil and closed, he could hear, far away and confused, the sounds of htately conversation, until there was a prolonged and loud er noise, a bustle, the jar of the heavy door elo>ing, the dying echo of footsteps, and then the deep and ghoMly silence again closed around tho small event as the sea ripples into calm over a sinking stone. Or more dreamily btill, as at twilight the Poet sat musing in his darkening room liear : ing the "footsteps of angels" sounding, melodious and low, through all the other " voices of the Night," he seemed to catch snatches of mournful music thrilling the deep silence with Borrow, and, listening more intently, lie heard dis tinctly the harpsichord in tho old lady's parlor, and knew that she was sitting, turbancd and wrinkled, where she had sat in the glowing triumph of youth, and with wandering fingers was drawing in feeble and uncertain cadence from the keys, tunes she had once dashed from them in all the . fulness of harmony. Or when, the summer following the 274 HOMES OF AM E HI CAN AUTHORS. of its own insertion at that period, inasmuch as tho builder of tho house would hardly commit the authentic witness of tts erection to the mercies of smoke and soot. History capi tulates before the exact date of the building of the Oragie House, as completely as before that of the- foundation of Thebes. , lint the house was evidently generously built, and Col. John Vassal haying lived there in generous style, died, and lies under the free-stone tablet. His son John fell upon revolutionary time-*, and was a royalist. The observer of the house will not be surprised at the fact. That the occupant of such a mansion should, in colonial troubles, side with the government was as natural as the fealty of a . JougTas or a Howard to the king. The house, however, passed from his hands, and was pur chased by the provincial government at the beginning of serious work with the mother country. After the battle of Bunker Hill, it was allotted to General Washington as his headquarters. It was entirely unfurnished, but tho charity of neighbors iilled it with necessary furniture. The south eastern room upon tho lower floor, at the right of the front door, and now occupied as a study by Mr. Longfellow, was devoted to the same purpose by Washington. The room over it, as Madame Cragie has already informed ii.:, was his chamber. The room upon the lower floor, in tho roar of the tftudy, which was afterwards enlarged and is now the Poet's library, was occupied by tho aids-de-camps of the com- mander-in-chief. And the southwest room, upon the lower jl' i S /* Al < ! yi'i '->\- % - '-' '- it * \ ^ ' f -' : "1 ^fp- : '. a^-.V- : ! ' -iiit-jP " LONGFELLOW. 281 gracious in perfumed pomp, surely the Poet saw advancing, holding in hia hand some one of those antique carved pitch ers brimmed with that costly wine, and exhorting him to drain potent draughts, that not by him should the lame of the incredible days be tarnished, but that, as when a hundred guests sat at the banquet, and a score of full-freighted ships arrived for Thomas Tracy, the traveller should say, 'f " A purple light thin.-i over all, It beams from tho Luck of EJenhull." The vow was pledged, and now under the few elms that remain of those which the fellow-worms of Mrs. (Vagie blighted, tho ghost of Thomas Tracy walks appeased. In his still southeastern upper chamber, in which "NViish- irigton had also slept, the Poet wrote "Hyperion 1 * in the years 1838-9. It is truly a romance, a beaker of the wine of youth, and was instantly received as such by the public. That public was,, and must always be, of the young. No book had appeared which so admirably expressed tho ro mantic experience of every poetic young mind in Europe, .and an experience which will be constantly renewed. -Prob ably no American book had ever so passionate a popularity as "Hyperion." It was published in the summer of 18'J9 by .tvolman, who had then removed to New- York, but at the time of publication he failed, and it was undertaken by John Owen, tho University publisher in Cambridge. It is a singular tribute to the integrity of the work, and a marked illustration of the peculiarity of American development, that Horace Greeley, famous as a political journalist, and inti mately associated with every kind of positive and practical 282 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHOIiS. movement, was among tlio very earliest of the warmest lovers of "Hyperion." It shows our national eclecticism of sen timent and sense, which is constantly betraying itself in a thousand other ways. Hero, too, in the southeast chamber, were written the " Voices of the Night," published in 1840. Some of the more noted, such as the " Psalm of Lite," had already ap peared in the Knickerbocker Magazine. Strangely enough as a fact in American literary history, the fame of the romance was even surpassed, and one of the. most popu lar books of the day was Longfellow's Poems. They were read every where by every one, and were republished and have continued to be republished in England and in vari ous other countries. The secret of his popularity as a poet is probably that of all similar popularity, namely, the fact that his poetry expresses a universal sentiment in the sim plest arid most melodious manner. Each of his most noted poems is the song of a feeling common to every mind in moods into which every mind is liable to fall. Thus " A Psalm of Life," "Footsteps of Angels," "To the Kiver Charles," "Excelsior," "The Bridge," "A Gleam of Sun shine," "The Day is done," "The Old Clock on the Staiiv," "The Arrow and the Song," "The Fire of Driftwood," "Twilight," "The. open "Window," are all most adequate and inexpressibly delicate renderings of quite universal emotions. There is a humanity in them which is irresist ible in the fit measures to which they are wedded. If some elegiac poets have strung rosaries of tears, there is a weak ness of wo iii their verses which repels ; but the quiet, pen sive thought, the twilight of the mind, in which the little LONG* 1 EL LOW. 283 facts of life arc saddened in view of their relation to the eternal laws, time and change, -this is the meditation and mourning of every manly heart; and this is the alluring and liernmnunt charm of Longfellow's poetry. In 1842 the .Ballads and other Poems were published, and in the same year the Poet sailed again for Europe. He passed the summer upon the Rhine, residing some time at Boppart, where he saw much 'of the ardent young German poet Frciligratli. He returned alter a few months, compos ing the poems on slavery during the homeward passage. Upon landing, he found the world drunken with the grace of Funny Ellsler, and learned, from high authority, that her saltations were more than poetry, whereupon he wrote the fragrant "Spanish Student," which smells of the utmost South, and was a strange blossoming for the garden of Thomas Tracy. In 1843 Longfellow bought the house. The two hundred ac-ivs of Andrew Cragie had shrunken to eight. But the meadow-land in front sloping to the river was secured by the Poet, who thereby secured also the wide and winning prospect, the broad green reaches, and the gentle Milton .hills. And if, sitting in the most midsummer moment of his life, he yielded to the persuasions of the fciren land scape before him, and the vague voices of the ancestral "house, and dreamed of a fate fairer than any Vassal, or Tracy, or Cragie knew, even when they mused upon the destiny of the proudest son of their house, was it a dream too dear, a poem impossible 1 In 184(5 the "Belfry of Bruges" collection was published, in 1S47 the "Evungeline," in 1850 "Seaside and Fireside," 284 HOMES OF AUEUICAN AUTHORS. and HI 1851 the last and Lost of hid works, up to the present time "The Golden Legend." In this poem he has obeyed the kigbest humanity of the poet's culling, by revealing, which alone the poet can, not coldly, but in the glowing and affluent reality of life, this truth, that the samo human heart has throbbed in all ages and under all circumstances, and that the devotion of Love is for ever and from the be ginning, the true salvation of man. To this great and fun damental value of the poem is added all the dramatic pre cision of the most accomplished artist. The art is so subtly concealed that it is not suspected. The rapid reader ex claims, "Why! there is no modern blood in this; it might have been exhumed in a cloister." Yes, and there is the' triumph of art. So entirely are the intervening years anni hilated' that their existence is not suspected. Taking us by the hand, as Virgil Dante, the Poet introduces us directly to the time he chooses, and we are at owce flushed and wanned by the samo glorious and eternal heart which is also the light of our day. This is the stroke which makes all times .and nations kin, and which, in any individual instance, cer tifies the poetic power. ' The library of the Poet is the long northeastern room upon the lower floor. It opens upon the garden, which retains still the quaint devices of an antique design, har monious with the house. The room is surrounded with handsome book-cases, and one stands also between two Co rinthian columns at one end, which impart dignity and rich ness to the apartment. A little table by the northern win dow, looking upon the garden, is the usual seat of the Poet. A bust or two, the rich carvings of the cases, the LONGFELLOW. 285 spaciousness of the room, a leopard-skin lying upon the floor, and a few shelves of strictly literary curiosities, reveal not only the haunt of the elegant scholar and poet, but the favorite resort of the family circle. But the northern gloom of a New England winter is intolerant of this serene delight, this beautiful domesticity, and urges the inmates to tho Hiudk-r room in front of the house communicating with tin* library, and the study of General Washington. This is still distinctively "the study," as the rear room is "the library/' Hooks are here, and all the graceful detail of an elegant Household, and upon the walls hang crayon portraits of Emerson, Simmer, and Hawthorne. Emerging into the hall, the eyes of the enamored visitor fall upon the massive old staircase with the clock upon the landing. Directly he hears a singing in his mind : "Somewhat back from the village street, Stand* the old fuehiotu-d country-scat, Across ita antique |>ortico Tull |Hi>lar-trees their shadows throw, And from ltd station in the hall An an. -it nt timepiece r-a\> to* all, ' For ever never ! Never for ever ! ' " Hut he docs not see the particular clock of the poem, which htood upon another staircase in another quaint old man siou, although the verse truly belongs to all old clocks in all old country-seats, just as the "Village Blacksmith" and his smithy are not alone the stalwart man and dingy >lip under the "spreading chestnut-tree" which the Prefer- 266 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHOR 3. . so^ daily passes upon his way to his college duties, but be long wherever a smithy stands. Through the meadows in front flows the placid Charles. "River I that in silence wuulest Thro* the nnradow^ bright and free, Till at length thy rest thou fiudoat In the bosom of the &ea 1 " So calmly, likewise, flows the Poet's lite. No longer in his reveries can mingle more than the sweet melancholy of the old house's associations. Xo tradition records a ghost in those ghostly chambers. As if all sign of thcni should pass away, not only Mrs. Cragie'a fellow-worms destroyed the elms in front, but a noble linden-tree in the garden, faded as she failed, and languished into decay after her death. But the pensive grandeur of an old mansion sheds a softer than the "purple light" of the luck of Edenhall upon the Poet's fancies and his page. lie who has written the Gold en Legend knows, best of all, the reality and significance of that life in the old 'Cragie House, whose dates, except for this slight sketch, had almost dropped from history. And while the exquisite music of this poem of our author's lingers in the heart of the reader, as he turns from this page, will he hot seem to be sitting, on on.e of the dreamy summer afternoons, in the old chamber where so often the young. Poet sat lost in the luxury of reverie, and hearing with intoxicating sadness the ghosts of tunes long since for gotten, which the turbaned and trembling widow of Andrew jCragie vaguely played upon the harpsichord : &^ P~4 *r I Q -tf -rr .J .> ^ \ I - tt hand.* 1 Nathaniel $atotbonu. 19 r &PIP' r: ' : m m ' >--^>-: | i-V'3 '^*{J ''- ' \;^'^^>- > ' % ' : ' ., - , - I0yy na < p ..*. ,. HAWTHORNE. HAWTITORNE lias himself drawn the picture of the "Old Manao " iu Concord. Ho haa given to it that quiet richness of coloring which ideally belongs to an old country mansion. It seemed so fitting a residence for one who loves to explore the twilight of antiquity and the gloomier the Letter that the visitor, among the felicities of whoso life was included the freedom of' the Manse, cotdd nut but fancy that our author's eyes first saw the daylight enchanted by the slumberous orchard behind the house, or 292 HOMES OF AMKKICAN AUTUOltB. tranquillized into twilight by the spacious avenue in front. Tin; character of his imagination, and the golden gloom of its blossoming, completely harmonize with the rusty, gable- roofed old house upon the river side, and the reader of his books would bo sure that his boyhood and youth knew no othei friends than the dreaming river, and the melancholy meadows and drooping foliage of its vicinity. Since the reader, however, would greatly mistake if he fancied this, in good sooth, the ancestral halls of the Haw- thornes, the genuine Ilawthorne-den, he will be glad to save the credit of his fancy by knowing that it was here our author's bridal tour, which commenced in Boston, then tlirce hours away, ended, and his niu'.i'ivd life be gan. Here, also, his iirst child was born, and here tho.se sad and silver mosses accumulated upon his fancy, from which he heaped' so soil a bed J jr. our dreaming. " Be tween two tall gate-posts of .tough hewn stone (the gate itself having fallen from its hinges at home unknown epoch) we beheld the gray front of the old parsonage, terminating the vista of an avenue of black ash trees." It was a pleasant tip ring day in the year IS-l.'J, and as they entered the house, nosegays of fresh flowers, arranged by friendly ha'uds, wel comed them to Concord and Summer. The dark-haired man, who led his wife along the avenue that afternoon, had been recently an otlicer of the customs ill Iroston, before which he had led a solitary life in Salem. Graduated with Longfellow at Bowdoin College, in Maine, he htul lived a hermit in respectable Salem, an absolute ivcluse even from his own family, walking out by night iiiid writing wild tales by day, most of which were burnt HAWTHORNE. 293 iii his bachelor tire, and some of which, in newspapers, magazines uiul annual*, led u wandering, uncertain, am! mostly unnoticed life. Those tales, among this elans, which \\nv attainable, he collected into a small volume, and appris ing the world that they were "twice-told," sent them forth anew to make their own way, in the year 1S41. But he piped to the world, and it did not bing. lie wept to it, and it did not mourn. The book, however, as all good hooks do. made its way into various hearts. Yet the few pcnetrant minds which recognized a remarkable power and a --'method of strange fascination in tke stories, did not make the public, nor influence the public mind. "I was," he says in the lust edition of these tales, "the most unknown author in Amer ica." Full of glancing wit, of tender satire, of exquisite natural description, of subtle and strange analysis of human 1 life, darkly passionate and weird, they yet floated imhaijed barques upon the sea of publicity, unhailed, but laden and gleaming at every eivvice with the true treasure of Cathay. Bancroft, then Collector in Boston, prompt to rccogui/.e and to honor talent, made the dreaming story-teller a surveyor in the custoin-houhe, thus opening to him a new range of experience. From the society of phantoms he stepped upon Long Wharf and plumply confronted Captain Cuttle and l)irck Hatteraick. It was no less romance to our author. There is no greater error of those who are called '"practical men," than the supposition that life is, or can be, other than a dream to a dreamer. Shut him up in a counting-room, bar ricade him with bales of merchandise and limit his library to ;he ledger and cashrbook, and his prospect to 'the neighboring .-igns ; talk "Bills receivable" and "Sundries Dr. to cash '' 294 aoMKs OF AMKKIOAN AUTUOUS. to him for ever, and you are only a very amusing or very annoying phantora to him. The merchant-prince might as well hope to make himself n poet, us the poet a practical or * practicable man. Ife has laws to ohey not at all the le^ stringent because men of a different temperament refuse to acknowledge them, and he i?> held ton loyalty quite beyond their conception. So Captain Cuttle and Dirck Ilatteraick were a.s pleasant figures to our author in the picture of life, a.s any others, lie weni daily upon the vessels, looked, and listened, and learn ed, was a favorite of the sailors, as such men always are, did his work faithfully, and having dreamed his dream upon Long "Wharf, was married and slipped up to the Old MaiiM\ and a new chapter in the romance. It opened in u the most delightful little nook of a study that ever offered its snug seclusion to a scholar." Of the three years in the Old Manse the prelude to the " Mosses " is the most perfect history, and of the quality of those years the " Mosses " themselves are sufficient proof. They were mostly written in the little study, and originally published in the DMIIO- cratic lievicw, then edited by Hawthorne's friend O'Sul- livan. To the inhabitants of Concord, however, our author was as much a phantom and a fable as the old pastor of the parish, dead half a century before, and whose taded portrait in the attic was gradually rejoining its original in native dust. The gate, fallen from its lunges in a remote antiquity, was never re-hung. i% Tlie wheel-track leading to the do.r" remained still overgrown with grass. Xo bold villager e\er invaded the sleep of " the glimmering shadows" in the HAWTHORNE. 295 avenue. At evening no lights gleamed from the windows^ Scarce once in many months did the single old knobbv- faeed coachman at the railroad bring n faro to w Mr. Haw thorne's." " h there anybody in the old house?*' sobbed the old ladies in despair, imbibing tea of a livid green. That knocker, which evory body had enjoyed the right of lilting to summon the good old Pastor, no temerity now dared to touch. Heavens ! what if the figure in the mouldy portrait should peer, in answer, over the eaves, and shake ftolenmly his decaying surplice ! Nay, what if the myste rious man himself should answer the suminons and come to the door! It is easy to summon spirits, but if they come ( Collective Concord, mowing in the river meadows, embraced the better part of valor and left the knocker untouched. A cloud of romance suddenly fell out of the heaven of fancy and enveloped the Old Manse : " in uniting Ihe bt-urdetl barley The JvajH-r iva|>ing lut? uiul early" did not glance more wistfully toward the island of Shalnt? and its mysterious lady than the reapers of Concord rye looked at the Old Manse and wondered over its inmate. Sometimes, in the forenoon, a darkly clad figure wa* seen in the little garden-plot putting in corn or melon seed, and gravely hoeing. It was a brief apparition. The farnu-r pac ing toward town and seeing the solitary cultivator, lost his faith in the fact and believed he had dreamed, when, upon returning, he saw no sign of life, except, possibly, upon some Monday, the ghostly skirt of a shirt flapping spectrally in the distant orchard. Day dawned and darkened over the lonely 296 HOMES OF AMK1UCAX AUTHORS. Summer with "buds and bird-voices" caaie ringing in from the South, and clad the old ash tree* in deeper green. the Old Manso in proibundcr mystery. (jorgeoua uiitniaii came to visit the btory-teller ia his little western study, ami departing, wept rainbows among his trees. Winter impa tiently swept down tho hill opposite, rilling the trees of each lu*t, clinging hit of Summer, as it* thrusting aside opposing harrior* and determined to seureh the mystery. Hut hi- white rohes ilouted around the Old Manse, ghostly as th decaying surplice of the old Pastor's portrait, and ia'th Mm\vy keehision of "Whiter the mystery was as akysterioa> a?> ever. Occasionally Kaiersua, or Kllory Channing, or Henry Tliore;iU, tome 1'oet, as once AVhiUier, jouraeying to tin- Merrimac, or an old llrook Farmer who remembered Mih*.- Covcrdalej with Arcadian sympathy, went down the ave nue and disappeared in the house. Sometimes a close observer, had he been aaibushed among the long grasse* of the orchard, might have seen the host and one of hi? guests emerging at the back door and sauntering to the riverside, step into the boat, and iloat oil' until they faded in the shadow. The spectacle Would not have lessened the romance. If it were afternoon, one of the spectrally sunny afternoons which often bewitch that region, he would be only the more convinced that there was Home- thing inexplicable in tho whole matter of this man whom' nobody knew, who was never once seen at town-meeting, and concerning whoai it was whispered that he did not constantly attend church all day, although he occupied the reverend parsonage of the village, and had nnnica>- 1IAWTHOUNK. 29tf wed acres of manuscript sermons in his attic, beside the nearly extinct portrait of an utterly extinct clergyman. Mrs. Kadclitlc and Monk Lewis were nothing to thU; ami the awe-stricken observer, if lie could creep safely out of the l')>ig grass, did not fail to do so quietly, fortifying hi* courage by remembering stories of the genial humanity of the la>t old Pastor who inhabited the Manse, and who lor tifty years was the bland and beneficent Pope of Concord. A genial, gracious old man, whose memory is yet sweet in the village, and who. wedded to the grave traditions of New T England theology, believed of his young relative Waldo Emerson., a^ MUs Flighty, touching her forehead, said 'of her landlord, that he was *i M, quite w," but was proud to love in him the hereditary integrity of noble ancestors. This old gentleman, an eminent ligure in the history of the Manse, and in all reminiscences of Concord, partook sufHciently of mundane weaknesses to betray his mortality, Hawthorne describes him watching the battle of Concord, from his study window. Hut when the uncertainty of that dark moment had so happily resulted, and the first battle ground of the revolution had become a spot of hallowed and patriotic consideration, it was a pardonable pride in the good old man to order his servant, whenever there was company, to assist him in reaping the glory due to the owner of a spot " so sacred. Accordingly, when home reverend or distinguish" ed guest Fat with the Pastor in his little parlor, or, of a sum mer evening, at the hospitable door under the trees, Jere miah or Nicodemus, the cow-boy, would deferentially ap proach and inquire, " Into what pasture shall I turn the cow to-night, Sir?'* 298 HOMES OF,AMKKICAK AUTHOUS. And the old gentleman would audibly reply : k< Into the battle-field, Nieodemus, into the battle-iield ! " Then naturally followed wonder, inquiry, a walk in the twilight to the rive* -bank, the old go ntlemanV story, the corresponding respect of the listening visitor, and the conse quent quiet complacency and harmless satisfaction in the clergyiriairs bosom. That throb of pride was the one .drop of peculiar advantage which the Pastor distilled from the revolution, lie could not but fancy that ho had a hand iu B'O famous a deed accomplished upon land now his own, and demeaned himself, accordingly, with continental dig nity, Tne pulpit, however, was his especial sphere. There he reigned supreme ; there he exhorted, rebuked ami advised, as in the days of Mather. There he inspired that profound reverence, of which he was so proud, ami which induced the matrons of the village, when he was coming to make a visit, to bedizen the children in their Sunday suits, to parade the best tea-pot, and to oiler the most capacious chair. In the pulpit he delivered every thing with the pompous cadence of the elder New England clergy, and a sly. joke- is told at the expense of his even temper, that on one occasion, when lof- .ily reading the hymn, he encountered a blot upon the page quite obliterating the word, but without losing the cadence, ulthough in a very vindictive tone at the truant word, or the culprit who erased it, he finished the reading as follows: "ll.- MIS iij'i.u hU throne, al>ovo, Alt* ii-Hiii! angcld 11 -.-, 'While Justice, Merey, Truth, uiul another word which id blotted out, e lii.-> princely drc**,* 1 HAWTHORNE. 290 Wo linger around tho Old Manse and it* occupants a* fondly as Hawthorne, but no more fondly than all who have been unco within the influence of it* spell. Tlvere glhmncr iu my memory a lew hazy days, of a tranquil and half pen- Mve character, which I am conscious were passed in and jiruund the house, and their pensive ness I know to bo only that touch of twilight which inhered in the house and all ils associations. In-side the few chance visitors I havt named, there were cily friends, occasionally, figure* quitr unknown to the village, who came preceded by the steam shriek of the locomotive, were dropped at- the gate-post*, and were seen no more. The owner was as much a vagmi name to me as to any one. I hiring Hawthorne's tirst year's residence in Concord, 1 had driven up with some friends to an esthetic. te;i at Mr. 'Kmcrson's. It was in the winter, and a great wood lire blamed upon the hospitable hearth. There wire vari ous men and women of note assembled, and I, who li*- te.ncd attentively to all the line things that were Kid, was tor Bome time scarcely aware of a man who sat upon the edge of the circle, a little withdrawn, his head slightly thrown forward upon his breast, and his bright eyes clearly .burning under his black brow. As I drifto-l down tin- stivain of talk, this person, who tat silent as a ,sh:ldow, looked to me, as "Webster might have looked, bad he hem a poet, a kind of poetic Webster. He ivxo-und walked to the window, and stood quietly there for a long time, watch ing the dead white landscape. Xo appeal was made to him, nobody looked after him, the conversation flowed steadily on as if every one understood that his silence was to be respect- 300 110MKS OF A It KU 1C AN AUTHORS. fil. It was the same thing at table. In vain the silent man imhihi-d esthetic tea. Whatever fancies it inspired did not iiower at his lips. But there was a light in his eye which assured me that nothing was lost. So supremo was his silence that it presently engrossed me to the exclusion of ev,cry thing else. There was very brilliant discourse, hut this silence was much more poetic and fascinating. Fine things were said by the philosophers, but much finer tilings were implied by the dumbness of this gentleman with hea\y blows and black hair. When he presently rose and went, Kme-rsou, with the "slow, wise smile" that breaks over his fuec, like "day over the hky, said : " Hawthorne rides well his horse of the night." Thus he remained in my memory, a shadow, a phantom, until nu.re than a year afterward. Then I camo to live in Concord. Every day I passed his house, but when the vil lagers, thinking that perhaps I had some clue to the mys tery, said, " Do yon know this !Mr. Hawthorne ? " I said " No," and trusted to Time. Time justified my confidence, and one day I, too, went down flic avenue, and disappeared in the house. I mounted tlvse mysterious stairs to that apocryphal study. I saw "'the cheerful coat of paint, and golden-tinted paper-hang ings, lighting up the small apartment ; while the shadow of a willow 1 tree, that swept against the overhanging caves attempered the cheery western sunshine." 1 looked from the little northern window whence the old Pastor watched the battle, and in the small dining-room beneath it, upon, the first floor, there were HAWTHORNE. 801 " Duiuty cltickcu, HioW'whit anil the golden juices of Italian vineyard*, which still fea>t insatiable memory. Our author occupied the: Old Manse lor three year^ During that time he was not seen, probably, hy more tlrati a do/.en of tlu villagers. Ifis walks could easily avoid thy town, 'and upon the river he was always sure of solitude. It was his favorite habit w bathe every evening in the KMT, after nightfall, ant) in that part of it over which the old bridge stood, at which the battle was fought. Some times, but .rarely, his boat accompanied another up thf stream, and I recall the silent ami preternatural vigor with which, on one occasion, he wielded his paddle to counteract the bad rowing of a friend who conscientiously considered it his duty to do something and not let Hawthorne work alone ; but who, with every stroke, neutralized all Haw thorne's efforts.. I suppose he would have struggled until he- fell senseless, rather than ask his friend to doist. His principle seemed to be, if a man cannot understand without talking to him, it is quite useless to talk, because it is imma terial whether such a mam understands or not. His own sympathy was bo broad and sure, that although nothing 'had been said for hours, his companion knew that nt a thing had escaped his eye, nor had a single pulse of beauty in the day, or scene, or society, failed to thrill his heart. In this way his silence was most .social. Every thing seemed to have been said. It was a Iarmecide feast of discourse, from which a greater satisfaction resulted than troin an ac- iual banquet. JQ2 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUT1IO118. Wiieii a formal attempt was made to desert this stylo uld have been utterly different. Imt imprisoned in. tin* proprieties of a parlor, each a wild man in his way, with a necessity of talking inherent in the nature of the ocea-sion, there was only a waste of treasure. This was the only "call " in which I ever knew Hawthorne to be in volved. . ; In Mr. Emerson's house, I said it seemed always morn ing. But Hawthorne's black-ash trees, and scraggy apple- boughs shaded "A lauil in whii'h it BOOUUH! ul\vayn afternoon." \ do not doubt that the lotus gruw along the grassy -marge, of fho Concord behind his house, and that it was served, subtly concealed, to all his giu>sts. The housv, its inmates, and its, Hie, lay > dream-like, upon the edge of the little village. UAWT1IOHNE. 303 You- fancied that they all came together and belonged t<>- gether, and were glad that at length some idol of your imagi nation, sonic poet whoso spell had held you, and would hold you for ever, was housed as such a poet should be. ' During the lapse of tho three years since the bridal tour of -twenty miles ended at the "two tall ^ate-posts of rough hewn si one," a little wicker wagon had appeared at intervals upon the avenue, and a placid babe, whoso eyes the soft Concord day had touched with the blue of its beauty, lav looking tranquilly up at tho grave old trees, which sighed lofly lullabies over her bleep. The tranquillity of the goldcn- haired Una was the living and breathing type of the dreamy life of t-he Old Manse. Perhaps, that being attained, it was as well to go. Perhaps our author was not surprised nor displeased .when the hints came, "growing wore and more dUtinct, that the owner of the old house was pining for his native air." One afternoon 1 entered the study, and learned fnun its occupant that the last story he should ever write- there was written. The son of the old pastor yeamcd for his homestead. The light of another summer would seek it> poet in the Old Clause, but in vain. While Hawthorne had been quietly writing in the "most delightful little nook of a study," Mr. Polk had been elected President, and Mr. Bancroft in the Cabinet did not forget his old friend the surveyor in the custom-house. There caiiio siiggc*tions and oilers of various attractions. Still loving Xew England, would he tarry there, or, as inspectut of woods and forests in some far-away island of the Southern Sea, some ha/.y strip of distance seen from Florida, would he taste the tropics? He meditated all the chances, without 304 HOMES OF AMEIUCAN AUTHORS. immediately deciding. Gathering up his household gods, he passed out of the Old Manse as its heir entered, and before the eml of Hummer was domesticated in the custom-house of his native town of Salem. .This was in the year 18I(>. Upon leaving the Old Manse he published the "Mosses," announc ing that it was the last collection of tales he should put forth. Those who knew him and recognized his value to our 1 he rat tire, trembled lest this was the last word from one who .fpuko only pearls and rubies. It was a foolish fear. The MIU must shine the scsi must roll ---the bird must sing, ami the poet write. Djuring his life in Sajem, of which the introduction to the "Scarlet Letter" describes the oiHcjal aspect, he wrote that romance. It is inspired by the spirit o\vl," as a small lake near that mm "SU* - ft > / ; - / ,- // II AWTUORKE. 300 luwn is called, In this retreat he wrote the "House of the >>even Gables," which more deeply confirmed the literary pu.-ition already acquired tor him hy the first romance. The scene is laid ia Salem, as if he could not escape a strange fa>cination in the witch-haunted town of our early history. It is the same Mack canvas upon which plays 'the rainbow* lhi:h of his fancy, never, in its brightest moment, more than illuminating the gloom. This marks all his writings. They have a terrible beauty, like the Siren, and their fascination, is as Mire. Alter bix years of absence, Hawthorne bus returned t> Concord, where he has purchased a small house formerly -oc cupied by Orphic Alcott. When that philosopher came into possession, it was a miserable little house of two peaked gables. JJut, the genius which recreated itself in devi>ing. graceful summer-houses, like that for Mr. KmcrsoiL- already O # * noticed, noon smoothed the new residence into some kind oi : eumeliness. Jt was an old house when Mr. Alcott entered it, but his tasteful linger touched it with picturesque #frte.e. Not like a tired old drudge of a house, rusting into unhon- red decay, but with a mode.-t fre>hncss that does not belie the innate sobriety of a venerable New England farm-house^ the present residence of our author stands withdrawn a few yards from the high road to Boston, along which Marched the British soldiers to Concord bridge. It lies at the foot of a wooded hill, a neat house of a u ru*ty olive hue," with a l"iivli in front, and a central peak and a piazza at each end. The genius for summer-houses has had full play upon the hill hclund. Here, upon the hnmcly steppes of Concord, U a Mrain-of IVisia. -Mr. Alcott built terraces, and arbors, and 20 IIAW'J'IIORNK. 805 tuwu id called. In this retreat he wrote the "IIo.uso of "the' Seven Gables," which more deeply confirmed the literary portion already acquired lor him hy the first romance. The scehc is laid in Salem, as if ho could not escape a strange lamination in the witch-haunted town of our early history. h i.-. the same black canvas upon which plays the rainbow- l!a>h of his fancy, never, in its brightest moment, more than illuminating the gloom. Tliis marks all his writings. They have a terrible beauty, like the Siren, ami their fascination is as sure. Alter six years of absence, Hawthorne has returned to Concord, where he has purchased a small house formerly oc-. rupu'd by Orphic Alcott. When that philosopher canu- into possession, it was a miserable little house of two peaked gables. iut the genius which recreated itself in devising graceful summer-houses, like that for Mr. Kmerson, ahvady 'noticed, soon smoothed the new residence into some kind of o.nu-liness. It was an old house when Mr. Alcutt entered, it, but his tasteful linger touched it with picturesque grace. Not. like a tired old drudge of a 'house, rusting into unhon- ored decay, but with a modest freshness that does not belie tlie innate sobriety of a venerable New England farm-house, the present residence of our author stands withdrawn a few yards from the high road in Imston, along which marched the I'ritish soldiers to Concord bridge. It lies at the foot f a wooded hill, a neat house of a <% rusty 'olive hue," with a |M,IV!I in front, and a central peak and a pia/xa at each end. The genius for summer-houses has had full play upon the hill behind. Hi-re, upon the homely steppes of Concord, is a >traiu of IVisia. Mr. Alcott built terraces, and arbors, au4 20 300 HOMES OF AMERICAN A U Til O US. pavilions, of boughs and rough steins of trees, revealing somewhat inadequately, perhaps the hanging gardens of" delight that adorn the Babylon of his Orphic imagination. The hill-side is no unapt emblem of his intellectual habit, which garnishes the arid commonplaces of lite with a cold poetic aurora, forgetting that it is the inexorable law <>t' light to deform as well as adorn. Treating life as a grand epic poem, the philosophic Aleott forgets that Homer must nod, or We fchould all fall asleep. The world would not be very beautiful nor interesting, if it were all one huge summit of Mont Blanc. Unhappily, the terraced hill-side, like the summer-house upon Mr. Emerson's lawn, "lacks technical arrangement," and the wild winds play with these architectural toys of fancy, like lions with humming-birds. They are gradually failing, shattered, and disappearing. Fine locust-trees shade them, and Ornament the hill with perennial beauty. The hanging gardens of Semiramis were not more fragrant than Hawthorne's hill-side during the Juno blossoming of tiie locusts. A few young elms, some white pines and young oaks, complete the catalogue of trees. A light bree/.e con stantly fans the brow of the hill, making harps of the tree- tops, ami singing to our author, who "with a book' in my hand, or an unwritten book in my thoughts," lies stretched beneath them in the shade. From 'the height of the hill the eye courses, unrestrained, over the solitary landscape of Concord, broad and still, broken only by the slight wooded undulat'oiis of insignifi cant hilW-ks. The river is not visible, nor any gleam of lake. "\Val den pond is just behind the wood in front, and ' lv't& *.*; T5fcfev'V 2 4'- ; ''' - '$&m$* v ; .( . uuoj. .ij=|; C| : l &iy I i ;, *. --/^r l *- *x_.. ill MfX? - ; ' ^ : '^v,' 1 A ^f-r --M-i-ii' ;.*. ' " I ?vSQ :^i : -isafi^' HAWTIIOKNE. 307 not far away over the meadows sluggishly steals the river. It is the most quiet of prospects. Eight acres of good luiid lie in front of the house, across the road, and in the rear the estate extends a little distance over the brow of the hill. This hitter is not good garden-ground, hut it yields that other crop which the {>oct ** gathers in a Bong." Perhaps the world will forgive our author that he is not a prize fanner, .. and makes hut an indifferent ligurc at the annual cattle-show. AVc haves seen that he is more nomadic than agricultural. " lie has wandered from spot to spot, pitching a temporary tent, then ,-triking it for ' fresh fields and pastures new." Tt is natural, therefore, that he should call his 'house "the AVax-' side,'* a bench upon the road where he sits for a while . before pacing on. If the wayfarer iinds him upon that bench he shall have rare pleasure in sitting with him, yet shudder while he stays. For the pictures of our poet have more than the shadows of Rembrandt. If you listen to his story, the lonely pastures and dull towns of our dear old homely New England shall become suddenly as radiant with grace and terrible with tragedy as any country ami any time. The waning afternoon in Concord, in which the blue-frocked farmers are reaping and hoeing, shall set in pensive glory. The woods will for ever after be haunted with strange forms. You will hear whispers, and music " i r "the air."- In the softest morning you will suspect Midness ; in -the most fervent noon, a nameless terror. It is because the imagination of our author treads the almost imper ceptible line between the natural and the supernatural. ANV are all conscious of striking it sometimes. 1'nt we avoid ? it. We recoil and hurry away, nor. dare to glauce over our 308 II OWES OF AMERICAN Al'TIIOKS. tdioulders lest wt> should sec phantoms. What arc these tales of supernatural appearances, as well authenticated ab any news of the day, and what is the sphere which they imply"? What is the more subtle intellectual apprehension if fata and its influence upon imagination and life? What ever it is, it is the mystery of the fascination of these tales. They converse with that dreadful realm ns' with oiir real world. The light of our him is. poured hy genius upon the phantoms we did not dare to contemplate, and lo! they are ourselves, unmasked, and playing our many parts 4 An un- , utterablc sadness sei/es the reader, as the inevitable black thread appears. For here (ieiiius assures us what we trem bled to suspect, but could not avoid suspecting, that the. black thread is inwoven with all forms of -life, with all de velopment of character. It is for this peculiarity, which harmonizes so well with ancient places, whose pensive silence seems the trance of memory musing over the, young and lovely life that illumi nated its lost years, that Hawthorne is so intimately asso ciated with the "Old Manse." Yet that was but the tent of a night for him. Already with the ki Hlithedale Romance," which is dated from Concord, a new interest begins to cluster around " the "Wayside." 1 know not how 1 can more titly conclude these reminis cences of Concord and Hawthorne, whose own stories have always a saddening close, than by relating an occurrence which blighted to many hearts the beauty of the quiet Con- cord river, and seemed not inconsonant with its lonely land- r-capr. It has the further fitness of typifying the operation of our author's imagination : a tranquil stream, clear and HAWTHOBNK. 809 bright with sunny gleams, crowned with lilies and graceful with swaying grass, yet doing terrible deeds inexorably, and therefore for ever after, of a shadowed beauty. Martha was the daughter of a plain Concord fanner, a girl of delicate and shy temperament, who excelled so much in study, that she was sent to a tine academy in a neighbor ing town, and won all the honors of the cour.se. She met at the school, and in the society of the place, a refinement and cultivation, a social gayety and grace, which were entirely unknown in the hard lite she had led at home, and whieliTby their very novelty, as well as because they harmonized with her own nature and dreams, were doubly beautiful and" fasci nating. She enjoyed this life to the full, while ln-r timidity kept her only a spectator; and she ornamented it with a fresher grace, suggestive of the wods and iields, when she ventured to engage in the airy game. It was a sphere for her capacities and talents. She shone in it, and the con sciousness of a true position and genial appreciation, gave her the full use of .all her powers. She admired and was admired. She was surrounded by gratifications of taste,' by the stimulants and rewards of ambition. The v.'orld wa- happy, and she was worthy to live in it. Hut at times a cloud suddenly dashed athwart the sun a shadow stole, dark and chill, to the very edge of the charmed circle in which she stood. She knew well what it was, and what it foretold, but she would not pause nor heed. The sun sin me again; the future smiled; youth, beauty, and nil grntle hopea and thoughts, bathed the moment in lambent light. But school-days ended at lant, and with the receding town in which they had been passed, the bright days of lift- 810 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. disappeared, and for ever. , It is i)rubablo that the girl'? fancy had been fed, perhaps indiscreetly pampered, by her experience there. But it. was no fairy laud. It was an academy town in New England, and the fact that it was BO alluring id a fair indication of the kind of life from which she had emerged, and to which she now returned. What could she do? In the dreary round of petty details, in the incessant drudgery of a poor farmer's household, with no companions of any sympathy for the family of a hard- working New England farmer are not the Cliloes and Claris sas of pastoral poetry, nor are cow-boys Corydons, with no opportunity of retirement and cultivation, for reading and studying, which is always voted "stuff" under such circum- Bhuflccs, - the light suddenly quenched out of life, what was she to do ? "Adapt herself to her circumstances. A\ r hy had she shot from her sphere in this silly way?" .demands unanimous common sense in valiant heroics. The simple answer is, that she had only used all her op portunities, and that, although it was no fault of hers that the routine of her life was in every way repulsive, she did strug gle to accommodate herself to it, and failed. "When she found it impossible to drag on at home, she became an in mate of a refined and cultivated household in the village, where she had opportunity to follow her own fancies, and to associate with educated and attractive persons. But even here 'she could not escape the .feeling 'that it was all tempo rary, tliat her position was one of dependence ; and her pride, nW grown morbid, often drove 'her from the very society which alone was agreeable to her. This was all genuine. HAWTHORNE. 811 There was not the slightest strain of the fcmme incompriM in her demeanor. She was always shy and silent, with a- touching reserve which won interest and confidence, but left, 'also a vague sadness in the mind of the observer. After a tt\v months she made another effort to rend the cloud tvhirh \va gradually "darkening around her, and opened a school for young children. Hut although the interest of friends *& cured for her a partial success, her gravity and sadness failed to excite the sympathy of her pupils, who missed in her th-e playful gaycty always most winning to children. Martha/ however, pushed bravely on, a figure of tragic sobriety, to all who watched -her course. The farmers thought her a strange girl, and wondered at the ways of a farmer's daiigh- . ter who was not content to milk cows, and churn butter, and fry pork, without further hope or thought. The good clergy man of the town, interested in her situation, sought a confi dence she did not care to bestow, and so, doling out a, b, c, to a wild group of boys and girls, she found that she could not untie the Gordian knot of her life, and felt, with terror, that it must be cut. One summer evening she left her father's house and walked into the fields alone. Night came, but Martha did not return. The family became anxious, inquired if any one- had noticed the direction in which she went, learned from the neighbors that she was not visiting, that there was no lecture nor meeting to detain her, and wonder passed into apprehension. Neighbors went into the adjacent woods and called,, but received no answer.- Every instant the awful shadow of some dread event solemnized the gathering groups. Every one thought what no one dared whisper, until a low 312 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. roico suggested " the river." Then, with the swiftness of cer tainty, all friends, far and near, were roused, and thronged along the banks of the stream. Torches flashed in boats that put off in the terrible search. Hawthorne, then living in the Oh! Manse, was summoned, and the man whom the villagers had" only seen at morning as a musing spectre in his garden, now appeared among them at night to devote his strong arm and steady heart to their service. The boats drifted slowly ilt>wn the stream the torches flared strangely upon the black repose of the water, and upon the long, slim grasses that, weeping, fringed the riiarge. Upon both banks silent ;tnd awe-stricken crowds hastened along, eager and dread ing to find the slightest trace of what they sought. Sud- de'nly they enme upon a few articles of dress, heavy with the night-flow. No one spoke, for no one had doubted the result. It \\a,s clear that Martha had strayed to the river, and qui etly asked of its stillness the repose she sought. The boats . 'gathered uround the spot, With every implement that could be of service the melancholy search began. Long intervals of tearful eik'nce ensued, but at length, toward midnight, the sweet face of the dead girl was raised more placidly to jhe stars than ever it had been to the suh. "Ob! is it -weed, or tub, or floating buir, A trtKi o' goKU'ii Imir, O' tlrowiu'tl mault'ii'* bair, Above tbc ncta at wit \ Wag never pulnum yet tbut ebone BO fair Among tln v stakes on Dee." So ended a. village tragedy. The reader may possibly r i N ( V[ * <* > "* *v i * t'\ x f i J ^>* rIS v rs -ft ^ i ^ ? ^- fl^'^Cf'R ? iL .' P r^ \ i Wk k ' K> HAWTHORNE. 818 find in it the original of the thrilling conclusion of the " Blithedalo Romance," and learn anew that dark us is the thread with which Hawthorne weaves his spells, it is n> darker than those with which tragedies are spun, even in regions apparently so torpid as Concord. Samel Sfiftrtsttr. . ^ . * **-' WEBSTER. life of Daniel Webster is too closely interwoven A with tlio history of tlio last forty years to bo made the subject of a sketch like the present Ilia name suggesti) important questions and events of great moment. A single glance at that stern brow and dark eye calls up names and recollections that thrill you. Culhoun and Adam* and Randolph and Clay a volume of such history as may never be written again -the passage of a great nation through one of the most diilicult phases of its develop- 318 HOMES OF AMKU1CAN AUTHORS. ' ment earnest discussion in (lie. Senate-house toilsome investigations in the cabinet eloquent appeals to the peo ple ami all combined with untiring devotion to a labo rious protection and occasional excursions into one of -the mu*i difficult fields of literature, the hours of Biich a life wonkl scorn to have passed too gravely to have left room lor lighter scenes and more genial tasted, l*ut fortunately there are, kindlier things in his nature, and qualities which bring him closer to the sympathies of common men. Wo have IK) partiality for heroes on pedestals. It was never meant that our necks should be strained out of all decen cy by this constant gazing upwards. Many a great man has been wade BO excessively great by his worshippers, that every trace of poor human nature has been obliter ate^ and nothing left but an unearthly compound, without a single particle of reality about it to show that it was originally rnade out of the same clay with ourselves. Eveu Washington has not escaped this senseless transformation; and though no man could laugh more heartily, his biog raphers seem to feel that they have made a dangerous eon- cession When they allow that he was occasionally known to smile. No wonder that biography should be so cold, when the chief labor of those who write it seems to be to prove that their heroes were either angels,, or demigods, or demons, or auy thing but men. For the present, at least, we have no temptation to follow their example ; for the only part of Webster's biography which we shall attempt to give, with any thing like detail, is his childhood and early youth. TKo house in'whic.h he was born was one of those one- story farmhouses, with its single chimney in the centre of a WEBSTER. 810 sharp roof, a front door standing stiflly between two narrow front window*, receiving most of its light .from the sides, and -having all its good rooms on the ground Hour, which arc fresh in the memory of every body that has ever rode a mile in New England.* A giant elm spread its |>rntt?liiig bronchos over the bhingle-roof, and directly in front, one of -those limpid littlo streams, which give such fresnness t' a landscape, ran prattling by the wayside. A rustic bridge connected the two banks, and a high hill crowned with a country church, closed the landscape in this direction. To the southwest there was a still wider range for the eye, .wlucli at the period of his infancy, ran over a broad ex panse of Woodland and imperfect clearings, till it rested, at last, on the swelling outlines of the Kearsage. Hard by the house itself, was the log-cabin in which his elder brothers and sisters were born, and which his father, a soldier of the old French war, had built in the heart of the forest. The new house, for a frame-house was something in those days, was built on the occasion of his father's sec ond marriage. AVe should add, perhaps, for topographical accuracy, that it was situated in the town of Salisbury, Mer- rimac county, New Hampshire. Here, then, while the forest still lay close around, and the traces of the dangers and hardships of border life were fresh at every step, Daniel Webster first saw the light, a feeble and sickly child, on the 18th of January, 1782, the last year far off that he was glad when the blacksmith's or the mill happened to lie in the same direction, and he could get an occasional lift on his way. Sometimes, too, it was altogether out of tho reach of a morning and evening's walk in that rough season, and then lie was put with some neighbor to board. . In a dark glen in the niidst of the forest, and not fur from the house, his father had built a saw-mill, which helped him to eke out his income, without interfering materially \vitli his other duties. Iji the intervals .of school-going, Daniel, who was not' yet strong enough for heavier tasks, >vas his ehixjf assistant at the mill. There was the gate to raise and ihe log to set, and then, for the next fifteen or twenty min utes, his time was his own. Happily his love of reading WKB3TKK. . 821 was already awakened, and happily, too, his intelligent ami judicious mother had turned it in the hest direction. His tory and biography were his favorite Looks, and while .the saw was dividing some veteran of the forest into plunks, which, for all that we know to the contrary, may yet he otanding amid the wood-work of the .Capitol, his young wind was laying up treasures, to which it still clings 'with the tenacity of early and happy associations He had already formed another taste, to:, to which ho has always held fast through life. One spring day, when _ he was about live years old, he happened to be riding be hind his father on a road that led them by a brook. "Dan," said tin) old gentleman, "how would you like to catch a trout?" There could be no doubt about the answer, and in. a few moments the barefooted stripling was furnished with a hazel-rod from the roadside, a hook and string from his father's pocket, and creeping up along a rock thut lay on the margin of a deep pool, he threw it, as he was bid, into the opposite side, and soon found that he had hooked a large trout. Whether from inexperience or eagerness, or the Mid- den burst of joy at this first development of a passion which, if nature ever planted any thing in the human mind, hhe hud surely planted in his, it might perhaps be diflicult to suy; but whichever it was, the young angler lost his bal- ^ and tumbled headlong into the water. The ducking have been a cold one for a puny boy at that season and in that climate, but still he stuck manfully to his prize, and when his father pulled him out, it was with the rod in his baud and the fish dangling at the end. Some thirty years afterwards, and when he had already 21 32$ HOMES OF AMKUICAN AUTHORS. served his nutivo stato with distinction, as a representative to Congress, he found himself for about ten days a member of the Legislature of Massachusetts. Anxious to hear his part in the promotion of the pulxlic welfare, and finding all the moita obvious topics already taken up, he introduced a bill, which is still a law in the state, and which forbid*, iKutar pains and penalties, the taking of trout in any otljcr Way but the old .one of hook and line. With what a line effect might these two anecdotes be drawn together, if we only had the pen' of an Irving to do it with. It may well be supposed that with a strong passion for reading, his father's books were noon exhausted. District libraries were not yet known ; but two or three gentlemen who knew the value of books, hud already exerted them selves to form a circulating library in the village of Sal is-, bury, and from this a new, though not always an abundant supply, could be obtained. Among his early favorites was the Spectator, which has sown so much good seed in so many minds that would have been closed to any other form of; instruction. Air. Webster still speaks of the de light with which he first read u Ohevy Chase," turning over ihe pftges of the criticism to follow the poem connectedly, and wondering much that Addison should have been put to such pains, to prove that the story, was a good one. Iludibras also soon became a special favorite, without in terfering with his enjoyment of Pope's Homer, and what in this connection, may heem somewhat strange, the " Essay on Man/' So strong, indeed, was the hold which this last took upon his mind that lie learnt the whole .of it by heart, and still, it is said, can repeat it word for word. Another WEBSTER. 823 of his early favorites was Watta* Psalms and Hymns, which 4ook thoir place in his memory hy the side of Pope and other fruits of his miscellaneous reading. The lUble, us we have already said, had been put into his hands very early, and he soon could read it with great solemnity and effect. "When ho was only seven years old, his lather kept a public house, and it ..was a standing saying of teamsters, as they stopped at the door, " Come, let's go in and have a psalm from Dan Webster." AVo err greatly if much of that clearness of stylo and purity of language which distinguish Webster's speeches and writings, be not owing to his early familiarity with these models of pure and genuine English. At fourteen he' was sent to Philips' Academy, Kxeter.. It was a new world for him new faces, new scenes x and new duties. His progress for his opportunities had been good, but in a school of an order so much higher than any tiling he had ever seen before, it could carry him no further than the, loot of the lowest class. The boys, too, laughed at him, and called him a backwoodsman. It was mortifying, and if he had not been lucky enough to find borne judicious friends to listen to his grievances, and give him that counte nance and encouragement, for the l.ack of which so many rich minds have failed to produce their fruit, might even have discouraged him. The usher, Mr. Nicholas Kmery, who has lived to witness the confirmation of his early judgment, was foremost in this kind otlice, assuring him that if ho would only make a good uso of his tune, all would come out right in the end. The young scholar be lieved him, and labored assiduously at his ta^ks. The end of the month came round; the class were ranged in a line: 324 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. and tho tutor, scarcely less gratified, perhaps, than his obe. dient pupil, took him formally by the ana, and leading him along the front, placed him with his own hand at the head ot* the class. It was the first step, and the boy's ambition was roused. Tho next term's studios were followed up still more closely, and tho summing up looked for with no lit tlo anxiety, for there were rivals to contend with, of whose merit he was fully aware. The first words were doubtful- "Dan iel Webster, gather up your books and take down .your cap." "They 4r
  • f the poor boy, as he obeyed the command, and then waited with sore misgivings for what was to follow. "Now sir," resumed the kind-hearted tutor, ''you will please report yourself to the teacher of tho first class ; and yo, young gentlemen, will tako an- affectionate leave of your classmate, for you will never see him again." lint although ho was perfectly successful in all his other studies, he found a sad stumbling-block in the weekly exer cise of 'declamation. -Not that his memory failed him, for ho learnt. by heart easily, and never forgot what Jie had once learned. But ho could not make up his mind to stand out before the school and speak when everybody's eye was upon him. Btukminster, whoso early death is still remembered with pain, did and said every thing that he could to per suade him "try once only try." The tutors frowned and laughed ; but it was all in vain. ITe could neither be laughed nor froWned out of his timidity, and finally, we believe, left school without once having ventured to tako tho first stop in the art which was to become tho daily exercise of his life. WEBSTEH. 325 Jt was a misfortune that ho was not able to complete his Studies at this excellent institution. lie hud completed his course of English grammar, made good progress in his cither English studios, and begun his Latin. But after a few mouths his father was obliged to take him away. His pro gress, however, had been such as to awaken the fondest hopes, and great as the eilort was, it was decided that he should be sent to college. This is a common word now, and we eau scarcely form a conception of the ideas that it con veyed to the mind of a farmer's boy of sixty years ago. It was to open his way to the university that poor- Kirko White publUhed his sweet little poem of Clifton (JroVe, and to prove his appreciation of its advantages that he tortured himself with mathematics after he got there. There tfaS no, such way for Webster, of pushing himself forward over .that, dilh'eult first step, and a college course was a mine of wisdom which he had never dared to think of as within his reach. But his father's decision was already taken. At the neighboring town of Boscawen there was a clergyman of the name of Wood, fully qualified to teach Latin and Greek enough to carry a boy of those days to the college door, and who had agreed to board and teach young AVeb&ter for a dollar a week. In February of '97, father and son set out upon their journey, ami it was now that Daniel iirst learnt how generously his lather was prepared to deal by him. "I remember," says he, "the very hill which we were ascending, through deep snows, in a Nuw England sleigh, when my father made known his purpose to me. I could not speak. How could lie, I thought, with so large a family and in such narrow cir cumstances, think of incurring so great an expense for met 326 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. A warjfa glow ran all over me, and I laid 'my head on my father^ shoulder and wept." ' Ho now had a iixed object in view and studied hard. He made rapid progress in his Latin, road Virgil and Cicero, and though tar from 'laying that critical foundation which can now ho laid by a willing scholar, went fur enough to form a taste for the great Komuii orator which he has never lost. Still two of his early tastes stuck by him- general reading, und.hirt rod and line. Hid. task wan never neglected ; but he would fitill be ranging the hills for game, and Decking out the 'tu tied banks and deep pools, the favorite haunt of the trout. Mr. Wood would nome times shako his head and look grave; but the lesson Was always ready, and what moro coulj he ask? On one occasion, after a reprimand for this love of the hills and streams, the old gentleman, who WHS to bo a Wat tho next morning, gave his pupil a hundred lines in Virgil for his task. Daniel set up all night, got live hun dred- lines instead of a hundred, and secured the whole of tho next day for his favorite sport. Here too he first road Don Quixotte. "I began to read it," he has been heard to say, .''and it is literally true that 1 never closed my eyes till I had iinished it; nor did I lay it down any time for live minutes, so great was the power of this extraordinary hook 'on my imagination." "When he iirst met Shakspeare wo have never heard ; but it is well known that few writers have exercised a more powerful influence over him. In August ho entered Dartmouth College, and set him self to his ta'sk manfully. His superiority was soon felt and acknowledged; but with it there were a genial temper. and social ha-bits which took away the. bitterness of rivalry, and WEBSTER. 827 gave him the same strong hold upon the affections of his ' companions .that ho had upon their esteem. Hi* view* and . ambitions extended with the field, lie took part in the pub lication of a weekly paper, furnishing selections from hi.-: own reading, and occasionally an editorial from his pen. Ify resolute will he overcame his dread of public speaking,., and delivered several addresses before college societies, borne of which were published. Me read o\teuMYcly,~~ chou.sing among the be>t historians and poets, and laying that groundwork of general literature, without which the hr.>l mind contracts and dries up in the mere routine of professional life. His time, however, was not altogether his own. lie well knew that the expense of his .education was one that his father could illy bear, and ho was resolved from the iir*t to do all that he could to lighten the hurtlwn. Then as now, the chief resource of poor students was h* school-teaching during the long winter vacations, and Web ster, like so many others of our great men, who bvgari the world with all its thorns and stumbling-blocks in their path, had to help himself along by teaching a country school. lie was still in his Sophomore year when he formed the plan of Becuring for his brother Ezekiel, to whom he was fondly attached, the same advantages which he was enjoy ing. When at home the two boys slept together, and the whole night, on a vacation visit, was devoted to a discussion of all the difficulties and doubts and hopes of this -brotherly conception. The next morning it was submitted to their father, who was ever willing and ready to do all and even more than he could afford to do for his children, and the result of the family council was, that Ezekiel too should 823 HOMES OF AMKK1UAN AUTHORS. have a college education. He was immediately sent to be gin, liis Latin, and entered Dartmouth in the -spring of the year in which his brother graduated. SiU'cesRful as Webster's college course was, he did not gain the first honors of his clans. A rival whose name has long been forgotten, received the " Valedictory," and the disappointed candidate, assembling a portion of his classuiates on the green behind the college, tore up his diploma in their presence, and casting the fragments into the air, cried out in a voice that was noon to be, a familiar tono in the high places of the land, ".My industry may make me a great man, but this miserable parchment can- Hot." It would be a curious inquiry, for one who had tho time, why. tho valedictorians and. salutatorians of our col leges are so seldom heard of in after life. There must be a cause, and whether it lie in the individual or the system, it is^vell worth the attention of a philosophic mind. Ife luid already chosen his profession, and immediately entered the oflico of Mr. Thompson, of Salisbury, as a stu dent of law. Mr. T. was a lawyer of the old school a man of talent and. respectable acquirements, but unskilled in the ad of smoothing the entrance into a dillicult science. Coke, with his abstract propositions and nice distinctions, was the lirst author that he put into the hands of his students a very good way, it may be, of making the rest of their course 'easy, but a sure one of breaking the spirits of any but the* most resolute. Happily.. for Mr. Webster, the necessity -of providing for his own and his brother's expenses relieved him fora time from this. unwelcome drudgery, Tu January he was invited to take charge of a large school at Fryeburg, WEBSTER. in Maine, with a salary of tlireo hundred and fifty dollars a your. The offer was joyfully accepted, and ho soon found himself installed in his now dignity, with two afternoons in the, week and all his evenings at his command. To make the most of his Kahiry ho undertook to act as assistant to the register of deeds of the county, whero two large volumes in a neat handwriting htill remain to hear witness to hi* indus try. Thin, at tho rate* of twenty-five cents a deed, brought him enough for his current expenses, and enabled him t lay up tho whole of his salary. Fryeburg, like Salisbury, had its circulating library, which supplied him with tho materials for many a pleasant ami profitable hour. His only recreation was twitting, and on his holiday afternoons Wednesday and Saturday ho anight always be found on tho banks of some brook, with his fishing-rod and his Shakspcare. One circumstance alone would have been sufficient to give Frycburg a pleas ant hold upon his memory, for it was here that he first tbund a copy of Blackstone, and opened for himself a far more cheerful pathway into his science than that which his instructor had marked out for him. The only record of his personal appearance at this period is contained in his own description of himself "'Long, blender, pale, and all eye's.'* " -Indeed," says he, "I went by tho name of be near his family, opened an office at Uoscawen, which after tw,o years he gave np t his "brother and removed to Portsmouth. Here, among many other eminent men, ho had for friends and associates at the bar Joseph Story and Jeremiah Mason. The next five years were devoted to the practice of his profession, in which he immediately took his place among tho first men 'of tho state. In 181*3 he was. elected* to the Ifouse of .Kepre- senjutiyes, and his history, from that day, becomes a -part of tho legal and civil and literary history of his country. It is evident from what we have said, that Mr. Webster must have been a very industrious man. lie is no believer WEBSTER. 833 in that absurd doctrine of the spontaneous development of genius, which has proved the ruin of so many clever men. His kmndedge has been the result of hard work. His hab its of close reasoning were won b^ careful discipline. lie learnt the art of arranging his own thoughts by patient analysis of the thoughts of others. His language, always vigorous, direct and pure, was drawn from daily, and nightly, study of the great writers of English literature, lllustra- tions, which seem to rise so spontaneously from the 'sub ject, are the fruits of extensive reading and close observa tion. His tenacious memory was carefully cultivated in youth, and the learning by rote, which so many reject as unworthy of their genius, was one of his favorite exercises, (iihhon prided himself not a little upon being able to repeat, in his old age, an ode of Voltaire's, which he had not seen since he was a young man ; and wonderful things are told of Macuulay's feats of memory. Webster learnt the 4 .' Ks.si'y on Alan" in his childhood, and though he has 'nut looked * at it since he was fifteen, can still recite the greater part of it without .hesitating. It is one of the secret* of Mr. Web ster's Mieeess, that he has held on tenaciously to his early acquisitions, The Latin that he learnt at college was made the basis of careful subsequent study, and Cicero continues to be his favorite author to the present day. Mr. Webster has always been an early riser. Like Seotr^ he has done the greater part of his work "in the morning." Uelbre others are stirring, he may be seen on his way to market, purchasing his day's dinner or busily talking with the marketmen from the country, whose conversation he loves. Then comes his correspondence and* 'the morning * HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. paper, and when ho scuta himself at the breakfast-table, tla< day's work of a common man is already done. Flailing is still his favorite amusement, and ho is never M happy as -when lie can escape for a few days from the toils of oftice, and indulge himself with his hook and line. Ijero again the habits of a thoughtful mind are ever break ing forth. lie has made himself familiar with the ways of the little animals that have afforded him so much sport, and made many observations upon them that would add a curi ous and valuable cfeqjrter to natural history. It was while trouting on the Marshpee brook, that he planned out his Hunker Hill address, and the " venerable men " who first listened to' one of its most eloquent jpassUgcs, are eaid to have beeii a couple of trout of uncommon si/e and beauty. All men havo their favorite hours and modes of composing, the comparison of which would form not only an amusing chapter, but a valuable commentary upon that doctrine of idiosyneracies which some eminent men are so much attach ed to. Adam Smith always dictated to an amanuensis, walking up and down .the room. Jlumo ran oil* his ilowing periods comfortably pillowed on a sofa. Burke wrote in a little room with bare walls. Schiller and Button in summer-' houses nt tho end of their gardens ; and Johnson used to assert with his dictatorial positivoness, that a ma-n could write just as well at one time or in ono place as another. We do not know that Mr. Webster has any particular the ory upon tho subject, but his practice is decidedly in favor of the open air. His great pica in the Dartmouth College case was arranged on an excursion from Boston to Barnsta- ble. The speech which he puts into tho mouth of John WEBSTER. 335 Adams in his Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, and which has puzzled so many novices in history, was composed while riding in a New England chaise. And indeed, whether rid ing, or hunting, or fishing, his mind seems always to have heen busy, and doubtless with him, as with every body else who has written much, many a thought has dropped, from his pen in the retirement of hid closet, which had its birth' in the sunlight, amid green fields and laughing streams. Mr. "Webster's favorite resorts in his occasional escapes from business, are his farms. The "Elms farm," in New Hampshire, about three miles from his birth-place, and on which he passed several years of his childhood, is abroad tract of a thousand acres, lying in a bend o'f the Memmar, within sight of the White Mountains. This is chk'fly valua ble as a grazing farm. 'Marsh field is in Plymouth county, Massachusetts, about thirty miles from Boston. It contains two thousand aero* of land in high cultivation, with two or three dozen buildings of various kinds, ii flower-garden covering an acre ahd filled with a rich variety of native plants, an old orchard of some three hundred trees, a new one of a thousand, forest trees of every kind, a hundred thousand of which have grown from need of his own planting, and the whole intersected with roads and avenues and gravelled walks, and shady paths, which lead you onward through such a variety of charming vistas and scenes, that foot and eye never grow weary of tracing the grateful succession. Near the house are three little lakes of fresh water two of them the favorite resort of tribes of ducks and geese, and one, the largest of all, with little ecdgy islands scattered over its 336 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS* surface, the exclusive domain of a largo floct of wild geese, which, ailef irifcny trials^ Mr. Webster succeeded ii\ taming down to a fixed home. To complete the landscape, we must add "an immense expanse of ttiarsh land, veined with silver streumis, dotted with islands of unbroken forest, skirted with a far-reaching beach, and bounded by the blue ocean." With thu engraving to tell the whole story at a glance, it Would be but a waste of paper to attempt to describe the house. We will only add that it stands upon the summit of n grassy lawn, under the shadow of an elm tree, with nine rooms on the ground iloor, and is ornamented with pic tures, engravings, statuary, and every variety of curiosities. The west 'rootn is a Gothic library,. built from tho design of th*.! lato Mrs. Apple ton. The whole of Mr. Webster's books, however, are not here. The law library is at Boston, and tho library of natural hibtory and agriculture, in the farm- otlive at the end of the gardeir. The entire collection is valued at forty thousand dollars. .Mr. Webster's arrival at his farms. is a signal of gather ings ami congratulatory visits from his neighbors, all of whom come to take him by the hand and express their deep interest in his welfare. The fisherman knows that lie will have work enough for every day, and an early start- to lu^in with. The farmer comes in with his reports, and then there is the round among tho cattle, of which he is a perfect judge, and an examination of the fields and the progress jf the crop, for ho is a skilful farmer, hiving not only tho sight of com fields and the odor of new-mown grass, but the, details of planting and manuring, and all the pro cesses of agriculture. lie first taught the Marshtield farmers ' . I i " . \ I ' - . ' . Pi WEBSTER. 387 the value of kelp and sea-weed, and some of his neighbors say that they could well afford to give him five tons of hay u year lor the lesson. It is pleasant to think of a great man in such a spot with the scenes he loves best around him, and friends who know his worth. It is pleasant to think that the wearied mind can still i|nd refreshment in the aim- pie and genial pursuit* of rural life, and that the cares and excitements of the great scenes in which so large a portion of his career has been passed, havo hot with him, as they have with so many others, destroyed the relish for the culm an*l sweet companionship of nature and of books. Long may he live to enjoy it. Scarcely is the wish uttered ere Death makea its fulfil ment impossible. On Sunday, the 23d of October, 1852, the electric nervos of the land thrilled to their utmost extremity with the shock of the death of Daniel Webster. He died on the morning of that day, a pathetic grandeur marking his last moments, not inconsonant with his character and career. Henceforth the pleasant home which we have been describing; is no lunger the residence of Genius, but the phrinu of a national reverence and admiration, Aud the future pilgrims from Maine to Mexico, wandering, thought ful, through the chambers and over the grounds of Mai>li- lield, will, by the strength and permanence of the charm that attracts thorn, attest the truth of Webster's self-uttered epitaph "I still livo." Jolm DeniUton $enneij. |obn \ I ', ;w m . . - . ! a - < v - ' . . ; KENNEDY. TIl popular idea of an author's home is a room in a garret, furnished with a hungry-looking wife, a baby in a cradle, a dun at the door, and the author writing, at a broken-logged table, an epic poem, or an essay on gok} mines. But this, like many other of our popular ideas, is an importation from Grub-street; which happens. to be almost the only "institution" that wo have 'not endeavor ed to copy from our English ancestors. Grub-street, hap- l*ly, is only a tradition among American authors, who, like all other Americans, have the faculty of earning their own living, and, when they fail to do it by authorship, are int too dull to accomplish it in eonie other way. The .present volume will bo likely to dispel the traditionary idea of an author's home, or at least of the home of au American author. It is not a great many years ago since Sydney Smith made that impudent inquiry in the Edinburgh Uc- view, which so lacerated our national pride, "Who reads -. an American book?" and here we present our countrymen, KENNEDY. THE popular idea of an author's homo is a room* in a garret, furnished with a hungry-looking wife, a baby in a cradle, a dun at the door, and the author writing, at a broken-legged' table, an epic poem, or an essay on gold mines. But this, like many other of our popular -ideas, is an importation from Grub-street ; which happens tQ .be almost the only " institution " that we have not endeavor ed to copy from our English ancestors. Grub-street, hap pily, is only a tradition among American authors, .who, like all other Americans, have tke faculty of earning their own ' living, and, when they fail to do it by authorship, are not too dull to accomplish it in some other way. The present volume will be likely to dispel the traditionary idea of an author's home, or at least of the home of an American author. It is not a great many years ago since Sydney * Smith made that impudent inquiry in the Edinburgh Re- . view, which so lacerated our national pride, "Who reads an American book ? " and here we present our countrymen, 342 HOICKS OP AMERICAN AUTHOUS. and the rest of the reading world, with a volume made up exclusively of descriptions of the homes of American au thors, and have materials in reserve for two more volumes of equal bulk on the same subject. The author of Horse Shoe Robinson is a good type of an American author. Seeing- that authorship did not hold out that prospect of independence, in pecuniary matters, which every American regards as essential to personal integrity and dignity of character, like the author of "Waverley, ho first devoted himself to the great business of securing a sufficient income by the exercise of his talents in an honorable profession, before ho ventured on the indulgence of his literary incli nations } hud we arc not sure that the world has not gaiiK'd by, this commendable prudence, as well aa the au thor. Ilia works have not been forced from him by the exactions of publishers, nor the pressing necessities of an improvident life. But thuy have been written from a ful ness of a well-disc iptiiMnl imagination, and a well-matured and thoroughly educated mind. Therefore tno first pro duction of Mr. Kennedy made its mark. It was a fin- iahetl and artistic Work, betraying neither haste, incom pleteness, nor inexperience ; and as the author had not neglected his opportunities, ho had no reason to complain of neglect when he appeared before the public as a candi date for their attention. It would be well for our national literature if our young authors were to. profit by the -manly example of the author of Swallow Barn and Horse Shoo Robinson, who commenced his career as an author at an age when many of our writers have exhausted themselves and become effete. Scott was forty years of ago when KENNEDY. 813 Wavorly was published, and the author of Swallow Bam was but three years younger when he made his iirst essay itt the same flold of literary labor. The "home" of Mr. Kennedy, which our engraving gives a view of, is a pleasant but unpretending country huiise, built directly on the left bank of the Patapscot river, about one mile below Ellicott's Mills, with a bridge leading across the river to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. It is encom passed with lofty and romantic hills, being at the foot of the noted highlands in Maryland known as the Elk Ridge* The house is more extensive than the view of it indicates; the older part of it is of frame, but the other part is built" of ..granite. It has been in the possession of the father-iu-law of Mr. Kennedy more than thirty years, and he has himself occupied it as a summer residence during the past twenty years; and here the greater part of his published works were written. Mr. Kennedy was born in the city of Baltimore on the 25th 'of October, 1795 ; he was the oldest of four brothers, his father being at the time of his birth a prosperous mer chant in that city, and his mother of the Pendleton family of Virginia. Ho was educated at the Baltimore University, and graduated at that institution in 1812, and bore arms' in the defence of his country at Bladensburgh and North' Point, when Maryland was invaded by the British troojva under General lloss. He was admitted to the bar in his native city iu the year 181 C, and practised law with groat success until he was elected a representative to Congress from Bal timore. Mr. Kennedy has always been a politician, since he entered upon the active scenes of life, and has achieved a 344 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. triple reputation ao a lawyer, an author, and a statesman. Although nearly all our authors have been lawyers, and nil our lawyers politicians, there is no other instance that wo can recall to mind, in < which eminence Iui8 been attained in all three callings, by the same individual. l"ho first literary adventure of the aiftltor of Swallow Barn was the Ked Book* a satirical publication', which ho produced -in partnership with his friend Peter Hoil'man Cruse, in imitation of the literary partnership of Irving and Paulding, in the production of Salmagundi. Irving appears to have been the model on which Mr. Kennedy formed himself in his first literary attempts ; for his next work, Swallow Barn, which was published in 1832, wiU man ifestly written with Bracebridge Hall in its author's memory. The vigorous genius of Mr. Kennedy needed no model fur his imitation; Swallow Barn was, in all its essentials, as original a production as Bracebridge Hall, and the author had the advantage of depicting scenes and characters that were then entirely new in the province of art. lie is en titled to the merit of a discoverer, and the new field which he opened to literary adventurers has since been most assid uously cultivated. But Swallow Barri still remains the best w^rk of its kind that has emanated from an American pen. Its pictures of plantation life in Virginia, not having been written for sectional or partisan purposes, are the most amusing and reliable that have been presented to us. They impress the northern reader with a feeling of their faithfulness, and have nothing of the extravagancies and distortions which other writers on the same ground appear to have found it impossible to avoid. Two years after the KENNEDY. S& publication of Swallow Barn, hia great romance of Horse Sh..o Robinson appeared, and in this stirring tale of Revo lutionary adventures in the South, ho asserted his own ori ginality of composition, and wrote without any otlier luodel than that of Nature. Hob of the Bowl, a Legend of St. Inigou-X appeared in 1838 ; and although the author aj>- pears to have bestowed more care upon it than upon either of his other productions, it was not so successful, as his two previous works. In 1840 ho published, anonymously, a political satire, called the Annals of Quodlibet, which con tained no small amount of wit and trenchant humor ; hut the most pungent satire is tame and spiritless in a country like ours, where the freedom, or licentiousness of the press permits the use of undisguised abuse in political warfare. And the Annals of Quodlibet did not make that kind of impression upon the public mind that a work of less merit would have done, if piquancy had been given to thQ perusal of it by the feeling which the peril of the author imparts to satirical publications in other countries. The satire, too, was local, and not likely to bo understood in another lati tude than that in which it was produced. Li 1840 was published Mr. Kennedy's Life of AVirt, in 'two volumes, a work which will add to the reputation of both the author and his subject. This was the last of his published productions. The political life of Mr. Kennedy commenced at a very early age. He was elected a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, to represent his native city in the year 1820, and in the two succeeding years. lie was three times elected a member of Congress, and always #4$ HOMES OF AMERICAN A U Til oil's. distinguished himself by his eloquent, manly and consist ent advocacy of the leading measures of Hie Whigs, of which, party he has always been a devoted member. In 1S44 lie published a defence of the "\Vhigs, a political essay displaying great talent, vigor of reasoning, and a perfect mastery of his subject. On tl5 resignation of the post of Secretary of the Navy by Mr, Graham, 'in consequence of his nomination to the Vice-Presidency by the Whigs, Mr. tfillmore offered the vacant place to Mr. Kennedy, which ho ndw fills to the great satisfaction of his parly and the people. It is a remarkable circumstance, that the only literary men who have had a scat in the Cabinet Bancroft, Paulding and Kennedy, should have all three been called to the head ol the same department. '-' v * :! -x 1 J -.< \ >{ I .1 S> * t 1 v'v '* '^ > N ^ ! :v -f A! t : \ \ \i X >^<*'1 Cf'jA .^:V I i "> : v\ ? i ^ / v ^ > < Y 7 ^ .) \J j'Jj J X .-* p x ^ '-, { ^ v, ; * ""- ,'.>' ^ ^ - > / <, ^ ^ X ^^ \ r '. v. 7 '.enri<'.,iv : Pret'at^i* ' 1 P Horse- ;>hoe hobmson* revised ^ 16bt . . Israts V ' ' " " '' ' ' .* Mtw ' - V;': . ' - \. *$'* v -.f - , . ^ly^ r -V^ 1 ' Jft^ - LOWELL pAMjBIUDGE is ono of the very few towns in New Eug- VJ land tliot is worth visiting for the sake of its old house*, It has its full share of turretod and beduined cottages, of "pic-crust battlements" and Athenian temples; but iu chief glory, besides its elms, and "muses' factories," are the fine old wooden mansions, which Bcem to be indige nous to the soil on which they stand, like the stately tfcea that surround them. These well preserved relics of -our ante-revolutionary splendor are not calculated to make us feel proud of our advancement in architectural taste, since we achieved our independence ; and wo cannot help thinking that men who are fond of building make-believe baronial castles, never could have had the spirit to dream of us*erl- ing their independence of the old world. People who are afraid to trust their own invention in so simple a thing as house-building, could never have trusted themselves in the more important business of government-making. Yet some of these fine old houses, that have so manly and independ- 300 HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. ent a look, wore built by stanch, conservative tories, who It-u rod republicanism, and had no faith ut all in the possi bility of a state without a kiiig. The fctately old mansion in which the poet Lowell was bom, one of the Unest in the- neighborhood of 1 W t<'ti,.Wtt3 built by Thomas Oliver^ the last royal liculcnant- governor of the province of Massachusetts, who remained true to his allegiance, and after the l)eclaratiou of Indepcn- iknce ve^nnved , to England, where he died. In Eliot's JJio- gfaphical Dictionary of tko fir.st settlers in New England, is the following brief ' account of this sturdy royalist: "Tlioinas flliver, the la>t lieutenant governor under the crown. He was a. man bf letters,: and possessed of inueh good nature and good breeding; ho was allahle, courteous, a (Miiuplete gentleman in hit* manners,, and the delight of his acquaintance, He was graduated at Harvard College in 1753. lie built an elegant mansion in Can^bridge, and en joyed u plentiful fortune. AVheii he left America it was wi-Ui extreme regret. He lived in the shades of retirement while in Europe, and very lately (1801.)) his death was an nounced in the public papers." The character of the man might easily have been told from examining his houKC ; it bears the marks of a generous and amiable nature, as unerringly as such qualities. are de noted by the shape of the head. Mean men do not build themselves such habitations. Much good nature is plainly traceable in its line large rooms, and its capacious chimneys, which might well be called "11*0 \s ind-j)ijH'jj of good hcHjutulitie." LGWKLL. 851 It has a broad staircase with easy landings, and a hall wide enough fur a traditionary duel to have been fought in it, .when, like many of the neighboring mansions, it was on it? [tied by revolutionary Boldiers. Washington, too, was once entertained under its roof, and after the war it became the property of Klbridge (terry, one of the RtgncTB of the Declaration of Independence;, who lived in it whilu he was Vive- 1 'resident of the United States. At his death it was purchased of the widow tf (Jerry -by its present owfier, Uie liev. Charles Lowell, father of the 1'oer, by. whom- it was' beautiiied and improved, Dr. Lowell planted the greater part -of the noble trees \\hieh now Kiirroimd it, conspicuous among them being the Kiiperb elms froni \vhie,h it derives its name. The grounds of Klmwood are about thirteen acres in extent, and, adjoin on one hide the cemetery of Mount Auburn, where two of the Poet's children, Ulanche and Kose, are buried. It wan on the grave of his first-born that the beautiful poem, full of gushing tenderness^ called "The First Snow-fall," was written; which we will copy here, because it lias not been included in either of the editions of his collected poems. The .-iin w Imd begun in the gloaming, Ami hu.-ily ull tho uiglit H.i-1 IM , n In iij.iii^ tu-ld und highway With u btlencti lf-|i and white. 'Kvery iinc and fir and hemlock Wore onuiue to> dear for an earl, Aiid the jmon-st t\vi^ ou the elm-tree Waa ridged inch-deep with i>earl. 852 UOMKt* O'F AMK1UCAN A U Til O US. k "From fthedi, uew-roofedSvith Currara, fame ehantich'cr'd m mllcd crow, Tito .-i ill rniln weit) ^>u, n< .1 to wanVduwn, AUil rllll lluUtl. d (toWll Uir MUOW. "I flood ami \\iitvlud ly thu wiiul.iw Til* IK.'I .. 1, - work of 1 1n- U , Auy. *' I thought of u inoiiiiii in iwoe( Auhuru Wh.-iv u litifo luaM-lniH' M.M.,1, How f (ho link' * wiit J''lijiu^ it m nUy^ A* Uitl I'ultiitd tho In^n-si in the wooa, "Up PJ...L. our own Mu'n Malx-l, Sa^yiii^, 'lullut, who nmki-a it snow I* Anl I toM oHIu- ^ood Allfuthor Who euros for us all In-low. 41 Again I looked ut I ho biiowfall, And thought of tht Ifuden eky lliat urchal \ i r uur th-^t gn-at wrrow, \Vlu-n that mound \viw htapi.'d bo higli. ** I rt'iiU'inliwi-d tho gradual {laticiico That fi-ll frtnu that cloud li Flako hy llako, hfuling and hiding The hi-ur of that l*-i j-etablu'd **Aiul uguin t the rhild I The *nmv that hushoth all, Darling, the merciful Father Alone can make it fall ! ' "Thin, with vyv* tliut'aaw not, I kissed her, And .-In-, ki.-.-iiiir l>ack, could nt know That )ni/ ki.-vj WU.H given to her oUtor Folded i'liK>o under diHipeniug snow.** LOWELL. Some of Lowell's finest poems huvo trees for their theme's, and lie appears to entertaiu a strong affection fur the leafy patriarchs beneath who^e branches he had played iu his 1)0}- hood. Jn one of the many poem* which 'have over flowed from his prodigal genius into the columns of obsfmv monthly and weekly periodicals, and have not yet bi?en pub lished in a volume, is one called "A Day in June," in winch occurs an exquisitely touching apostrophe to the 'Mull elm" that forms BO conspicuous tin object in the view of Elm wood drawn by our artist. "Simp, chord of manhood 1 ! t< it. T atruiul To-day I will h: u boy vguiii; Tho iniml'd pur.-uiiiL,' tleiiu-nt, l.iLu a bow Blackened ami unl< hi, lu Hotui) dark rorixT thall 1><- Iriuit ; The robin piii'j"*, nt of o)<), froiu the limb, Tin rat -bird omwo iu tho liluc liuh ; Through the dim urhor, hiin^-lf more dim, sih'iitly lsojs the liermit-Uinwh, The witlu-rcd K-avirn ko*-|i dumb for lain; Tiio iiTr.vA'iviit bnocanecring b.-> lluth btoriiu-d and rill.-d the nuim. TV f the lily, und swittercd the snored lliM>r With hasto-dropt gold from ohrino to door; Thi-iv, as* of yore, The rich milk-tifagiug butter-cup^ ltd tiny )MlUlu'(l urn h(M<* uj>, 1'ill. d \vilh riiKi Kiinuiu-r to the flJgo, T!M- nun in his own "wine to pledge; And one /i// elm, thit hundredth y (^rftinl and unappeirsublu ! Mctiiiuka in); li art froiu t-arh of lht'*o, I'ltirLs jiHi't of .'It i hi lm.nl back l.oth cvei-jr. hiddon id r wi/) Of wood and NsiiiT, tiill and j-luin ; And I will utoro tho bt-cret rit-, P\r days Ic.s6 gciic-rously bright, AslVreus heard.-, from noonti The fiery foixva to bloom ut night. IIo has fitiidied in the life-school of poetry, and all the lici tire's which ho has \vovou into the texture of his verse have boon drawn directly from nature. His descriptions of scenery are full of local coloring) and, in his k * .Indian-Sum mer Reverie," there are so many accurate and vivid pictures of Klmwood and its neighborhood, of the u silver Charles,'' the meadows, the trees, the distant hills, the colleges, the l * glimmering farms," and ".Coptic tombs," that we need hurdly do morw than transfer them to our pages to give a vivid picture of his homo and its associations. LOWELL. 355 "There gleama my native village, dear to me, Though higher change's wave* each day are seen, Whelming fields famed in boyhood'* history, Sanding with houses the diminished green ; There, in red brick, which softening time detiea, SUuid square and stiiT tlie Muse*' factories ;- Huw with my life knit up in every well-known scene I " Beyond that hillock's houoe-bespotted swell, Where (iothic clmp-ls hoibto the horse and chaise, Win-re Ojiiiet cits in Grecian teuijtlod dwell, Where (j)jitio toiulj reuind with prayer And praise, Where dust and mud the ey, w ho look alike on all, That mi*ty hair, that fmo Undiuo-liko mien, Tremulom aa down to feeling'^ faintest call ; Ah, dear old homestead I count it to thy fame That hither many timed the painter came - One elm yet beaw hi* name, a feathery tree and tell. "Dear native town! whoso choking elms each year With eddying dut before their time turn gray, Pining for rain, to me thy dust i.t dear ; Jt glorifies tho eve of Bummer day, And when the wc^U-ring sun half-sunken burns The mote-thick air to deepest orange turns, The westward horseman rides through cloud* of gold away " So palpable, I've Been those unshorn few, The six old willowa at tho causeway's end, Such trees Paul Potter never dreamed nor drew, Througli this dry mist their checkering bhadow* aen J, $50 HOMES OF AMERICAN A U Til OK 8. Btri|>cd, hero and there, with many a long-drawn thread, "\Vhrru btreauit d through leufy rhinekn tho trembling red, Puut which, in one bright trail, the hang-bird's Jhirdtea blend." In this brilliant descriptive poem ho exhibits his native town iu a series of changing pictures that 'bring tho scenes perfectly before us under all the varying phases of tho year. What landscape painter has given us h.uch pictures as these of the approaches of a New England winter 4 *' Or come wheii riiniaot gives its freshened zest, Lean oYr the bridge and lot the ruddy thrill, . White tlu> shorn nun uwolls down tho ha/y wc.st, GloW >i>|u>aitc; the inarHhts drink their nil And bwouu with purple v'in.s, tlu-n blouly fade Through j'iitk to broWu, u^ custwurd i\iu\ r^ the bhudc, Lc-ngtluning with btnilthy crt'-|>, i>t' Sttnt-nd'o darkening hill. "LntT, uihl .y 1 or*' winter w. holly rhut, Kro thnuigh the tir^t di-y-hnow the imnner grate^ And the !<>ath out -\\luvl H-ivani^ iu hlij)|>ery rutu, While firim-r iee the t-ager b>y avvaitr, Trying each buckle and strnj> brn, the river'h banks whine bright With Biuooth plati' nrhitir, trfachernun and IVail, . liy tlo fixwt'b clinking haiunu'rn forg>tl at uiglrt, fliitmt \\hii-h tlur huu'i'H of tho wtui jtro.vail, Cjivingji pretty fiublcru of the du'V Whoa gUiltier utniri in hgld .-li.nll nu It nway, Aud et>itt>M .-hall inn ve five-limbed, loosed from v.ur'e craniiping mail. 1 lie was b'orn at Klmwood on the liL'tl of February, 181D LOWELL. 357 the youngling of tlio flock, received his i'arly edu-cation in Cambridge, and in 1838 graduated at Harvard, where hit* father and grandfather had graduated before him. "Though lightly pj'uearchm lib three, Yet fitlltylt&f jui'at, 1 am glftl Ttijit here what eolh-^iiig wiu miuo I juul, It linked another tk, tlonr native town, with tluv." Ixi>lAN-Sl'MSOJt Ki VkKIK. After his "colleging" he studied law, and was admitted to the bar; but ho had opened an oiHce in Ha>t'n, to lure client?, a very littlo while, when ho discovered that he and the legal profession were not designed for each other. There could not have been a more ungenial and unprofitable pur^ suit than that of the law for a nature so trunk and genenUA as that of L(wvirs; and, happily lor him, ureerisity, v.hich kiuw no law, did m>t cimpel him, as it has many (ther-, to .-tick t*. the law, for a living,. against his inclination*, So h Hbundoned nil thoughts of the ermine, and of figuring in flu-qkin volumes, if he had ever indulged in any such fancies, which is hardly probable, and, turning hid back on a profession which is iitly typified by a woman with a ban dage over her eyes, he returned to hi* bouks ly. In company with his friend Kobcrt Tarter, he established a monthly inagaximj called the 4 * J^ohct-r," which, owing to the failure efs grantl- father, was one of the most eminent lawyers in Massachu- hetU; ho was a representntivo in Congress, and being a niemfKr ot' the convention which framed the i'nvt CiUinliiu- iS^n of his native State, he introduced the provision into the Hill of Kights which ab>li>hed slavery in Massachusetts. The father of Mr. Lowell is a distinguished Congregational 1st clergyman, who has been pastor of the "West church of Bos ton nearly lifty years, and is the author of several works of 1,0 W KLL. 369 a religion* character; lie graduated at Harvard, ami was, an intimate friend and classmate of Washington Alston. lie a lu rwards went to Edinburgh, whore he studied divinity, and matriculated tit the university there at the tame, time with Sir David Urewster, who was also a divinity student. A lew years ago, when Dr. Lowell was in Scotland with his \ut'e. and daughter, he paid a visit to Mclrt*e Abbey, and while there, lu-ard a man tell another that Sir David firewater would be with him directly, lie had not met the eminent philosopher siuee, they Xvere Students together, and did not Know that he was in the neighborhood of hia old friend V hou?>o, which he learned, on inquiry, was the, fact. Wl'en the philosopher, appeared, Dr. 'Lowell made himself ami foumL, from the heartiness of the embrace he that an interval ot- forty years had not diminished the attacflr ment of his early friend and companion. .'>-. The motlier of the Poet was a native of New Hampshire, and a sister of the late Captain Itobert T. Speiiec, of the IT. S. Navy. She was a woman of a remarkable mind, arid pos- isessed in an eminent degree the jo\ver of acquiring Inn- guages, a faculty whieh is inherited by her daugli|cr, M\>. Putnam, whoso controversy v.ilh ,Mr. P>owen ? ed.il or oi* tin? Norlh American Kevicw, respecting the late war in Jhin*. gary, bn>nghfc her name HO prominently before the public' that tlu-ro can be no impropriety in alluding to .lie* ' hfav, Mrs. Putnam in probably one of the. mo*! rtinmrkjiblo f fe male linguists, and there have been but Jew scholars who> v philological learning has been greater than hers. She -;.u- ver.-es n-adily in French, Italian, German^ Polish, SweJi^h, and Hungarian, and is familiar with twenty modem dialect.-?, 800 H O M K S OF A M E It I C A N A U T U O It S . besides the Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Persic, and Arabic. -Mrs. I'miiani mado the first translation into Knglish of Frederica Hremcr'ti novel of the " Neighbors," from tlie Swedish. The translation by Mary Howitt was made irom the. Cierman. The iHaternal ancestors of Lowell were of Danish origin, and emigrated to America from Kirk wall, in the OrkneyB. While Dr. Lowell was in Scut land with his family, they Went to the Orkneys to visit the burial-place of his wile's fopi- fathers, and while there ihe met a cousin, a native of England, whom she had never before seen, who had been many years in India, and on his return to his native land, had g>no, like her, on ;i pious pilgrimage to visit the graves of his ancestors. Among all the authors whose homes are noticed in this volume, Lowell is the only one who has the fortune to reside ih tho house in which he was born. It is a happiness which few Americans of mature, age can know. Kut Lowell lias been peculiarly lwj>py in his domestic relations; Nature has endowed him with a vigorous constitution and a healthy and happy temperament j and, but for the loss of his three chil dren, the youngest of whom, his only boy, died recently in lio-me, there would have been fewer shadows on his path than hnre fallen to the lot of other poets. A nature like bib .cau make its own sunshine, ami find an oasis in every desert ; .yet it was a rare, fortune that he found himself in such a home as his imagination would have created for him, if ho had been cast homeless upon the world. He loves to throw a purple light over the familiar scene, and to. invest it with a supcrlluousness of grateful gilding. The large -hearted love to give, whether their gifts be needed or not. The lovely LOWKLL. 361 landscape around Khmvood lookb btill lovelier in his verso than to tho unaided vision ; and the " clear nmrahes " through which the briny. Charles ebhs and dows, are pleaa- anUT for being seen through tho golden Luxe jf the .Poet'* ailuction, " Ik low, the Charles a btripe of nether bky> Now hid by rounded apple tivos bcl Wlioi! gujd the mi.tplucvd .-.i Now flickering golden through u wootlhiml twrccn. Tlit-ii ^picuding out, ut his iit-xt turn U'yoiiJ, v A bilvc-r eiri-lt-, like uu inland puiul . awurd tiloiitly through innr-lu's -purple and grt-cu. ' "Dear nia!>h'! vuin to hiia tho gift of tighl T \Vlu eaniutt in th-ir various ineoin<-.- bhui'<*j VI-OIH every $t>a.un iha\vn, of >ltade and lighl, \\ I... .-, .- in dii-ia l>ui kvtl* lrowit and hare; Juu*h ehange of .-luna or Bttli&hiuo <'aUera frv On Un-iu its hirj. >*-* of varitty, \viih li,ii r.ian .-till u.-ik-> h< r " in spring they lit! one lroad cxpunau of urei-H, O'er >vhich tho light uineriiiLr, throw buck tin* un, And the >tili hank- in ddi<^ null and run Of dimpling light, and with the ounvnt p n t* glide." HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHOR. v Elmwood M half a mile or so beyond the colleges, and Uvb oif from the main street ; tlie approach to it is through it pleasant j^reeii lane, or at leant it wius green when w%s la^JStyW it, the trees having beei* freshly wished of their ** biwvu dnst'Vby a shower which was Htill falling and the muddy division of the yeiy having apparently jiiht com menced, The house in BO Biir rounded \vith trves that you eateh htit a ^liiiiji.-^ of it until you btaml oj>])(>>ite to it. Though. Iniih of woodland, nearly a ce.ntury old, it hln\\\s no fci^ns of deeay. It m most njipi'opfiutely furni^-lied, and contains many interesting relies, old family pictures, and KOJUO 'liiii'.c works of art, anioiig \\hich are two busts ly I'owt-rs an-d two or tlavo portraits by Pap.e, among the line&t lie, lias painted. IVrhaps it may be gratifying to the reader to know that the Poet's, study, in which nearly all his poems have been written, is oil the third tloor, in that liu f coFner of the house on which, in the engraving, the light falls HO pleasantly. J.owell is generally looked upon a* a Herious poet, and, indeed, no one has a hotter claim to be HI regarded, for beri- ousm^H in one of the first essentials of all genuine poetry. I hit seriousness is not necessarily HadnesH. Much of his poetry overflows with mirthfid and jocund ieelings, and, in hjs most pungent natire there is a constant bubbling up of u geni'al ami loving nature; the. brilliant thi^hes of his wit aw hoitene*! by an evident gentleness of motive, lie is the lir.^t of our poets who has succeeded in making our harsh ami um'oufh ^'ankee dialect siiuservient to the uses of poetry ; ti;i-i lie has done with entire success in that admirable p of.humoio*UH piitire, <; The l>iglo\\ hipiir-' No | i- eer LOWELL. 363 of a similar character, in this country,., were ever half so pop uluF as the pithy verses of I Josea Biglow, in hpite of -their being BO strongly imbued with a trenchant spirit of opfiv-1- tion to the popular political views of the multitude; and many of- them have been widely circulated by UKJ IIC-WR- papers without any intimation being given of tkcir origin* Wo were sitting one evening in tho bar-room of ft hotel in Washington, just alter the election of (jeneral 'Til) K>r; when our political metropolis was tilled with olUce-M-ckers from all parts of the, country; the room was crowded with' rude men who were discussing political matters, and the la.st thing we could have looked for was a harangiiw on American poetry. A roughly-dressed down-eastery \\ t <- orwi.se to encounter an antagonist. Jiut nobody seemed dispoM'd to venture such an aer- tinn ; the novelty of the question, however, attnu trd the attention of the people near him, which was pnihahlv al! he wanted. ".Well," continued the speaker, with an air of dciiant confidence, "if any body says so, I am prepared to dispute him. I have found an American poet. 1 din't Know who he is, nor where he lives, but lu is the. author of tlu-e lines, and he is a ]>oet." lie tnpu]>er from hi- (HM-krt ;ud r-;il whul l'jir-"ii Wilhiir, in tht^ "Jlilow UOMKS VV AJklKKICAN AUTHOHS. THE COUJITIN'. Zekle ere|* Up, IpVUte An* p k. <1 in thru the binder, An* th<-e ot lluhly all alone, 'ith nu nut nigh to h< n.l.-r. Agin* i ho ehhubly erookncrk* hung, AU* in u'luoiiiM V-m runtfl 'ilui ole <^iiet;n'b arm Iht-t ^rau'tho.r Young back fn>m Coucunl "Th Maiinut lo^a ^hut Darkles out Towards tho poutieat, l>l-ss lu-rl An* l< i tl<' fir*-' ilaiKVtl all ulx>ut * The diiny imilar position among our poets. He has written consider* ahly lor the North American Kevicw, and some other peri odicals, but the only volume of pro>e which he lias published, he-ides {he "Bjglow Papers," was the "Conversations n the Old Dramatists," which appeared in 1810. Lowell is naturally a politician, but we do not imagine he will ever be elected a member of Congress, as his "rand- ' t^ f^ lather was. lie is uch a politician as Milton Was, and wil! never narrow himself down to any other party than one which includes all mankind within its "lines;" but he, cannot .-hut his eyes to the great movements of the day, ami dally with his Muse, when he can invoke her aid in the can-e of the. opprcs.-cd and fullering. He ha-* to con- lend with the disadvantages of a reputation for alM.ilitjon- iain, which is as unfavorable to the prospects of a ]* t as of a politician ; but his abolitionism is of a very different 306 HOMES OF AM EH 1C AN AUTHOHS. type .from that which has -made HO great u commotion among us. during tho last, ton or fifteen years. Notwith standing the unpopular imputation which nvts upon' his name, it does not appear' to have made him enemies in the South. Home of his warmest and must attached friends are residents of slave States and an; slave-holder** ; and one of the heartiest and most appreciative criticisms on his writ ing* that have appeared in this country was published in a Southern journal, a paper which 'can hardly he Mispcctcd of giving aid and encouragement to an enemy of the South. 4 x * M \^ 'N | I 4 ^ c $ 5i N ^ ^ N M .U * J , ' ,