presented to the UNIVERSITY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO by MRS. KENNETH N. BAKER ILLUSTRIOUS MEN AND THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS; Oil, OF BIOGRAPHY SHORT LIVES OF THE MOST INTERESTING PERSONS OF ALL AGES AND COUNTRIES ; AND CONTAINING SKETCHES OF THE LIVES AND DEEDS OF THE MOST EMINENT PHILANTHROPISTS, INVENTORS, AUTHORS, POETS. DISCOVERERS, SOLDIERS, ADVEN- TURERS, TRAVELERS, POLITICIANS, AND RULERS, THAT HAVE EVER LIVED. THE ARUNDEL PRINT, NEW YORK. Copyright, 1856 and 1881, by JAMES PARTON and JOHN D. WILLIAMS. PREFACE. BIOGRAPHY, which is the most ancient kind of composition with which we are acquainted, remains to this day the most interesting. Fiction itself, and the drama not less, as well as the highest forms of epic poetry, derive their value from their biographic truth, and their interest from the insatiable desire which men have to know how it has fared with their fellows. "Man alone," says a great poet, "is interesting to man." It is true, that we can acquire a taste for branches of science which only remotely affect the condition of our species, or do not affect it at all ; but this is, in a certain sense, an unnatural taste, something acquired, like the preference which some persons have for repulsive flavors and outlandish forms. Speaking of the natural tastes of our kind, we can still say with Goethe, " Man alone is interesting to man." Any volume, therefore, in which lives of men are recorded with any degree of fulness or vivacity, is sure to meet with a certain welcome from the reading public. In the work now presented, the reader will find some account, more or less extensive, of a considerable number of the most remark- able men who have ever lived. The word " interesting," as applied in the title page to the persons treated in this work, was used designedly, and gives the true reason why these persons were selected in preference to others. As a portion of these sketches were written for young people, it was obviously necessary for me to confine myself to such subjects as furnished a curious and interesting IV PREFACE. story ; and the same principle guided n.e in the selection of the other subjects. I think, therefore, that the reader will, at least, find this an inter- esting volume, and, I hope, not less instructive on that account. Not one of the lives recorded here but what contains matter to cheer, or warn, or enlighten. Following the bent of my own taste, I have dwelt little upon the destroyers, nor have often chosen even the armed defenders of their kind. I have preferred to relate the benignant actions of philan- thropists, discoverers, inventors, and philosophers, to whom the progress of man, in every age, has been chiefly due, and to whom the homage of our veneration and gratitude most justly belongs. JAMES PARTON. TABLE OF CONTENTS. GENERAL WASHINGTON AT HOME. PAGE The General favored with a Curtain Lecture Anecdote His great Wealth Char- acter of his Mother Extracts from his Diary His Daily Life His Habits 9 INAUGURATION OF GENERAL WASHINGTON. Meeting of the First Congress Counting the Electoral Votes Unwillingness of the Genernl to leave Home His triumpTial Progress to New York He takes the Oath The Inaugural Address 16 WHAT IS KNOWN OP SHAKESPEARE. Spelling of his Name Rank of the Family Shakespeare's Education Marriage Goes to London His dramatic Career Retires to Stratford Death 23 JOHN HOWARD, THE PHILANTHROPIST. The great Lisbon Earthquake Its Effects on the mind of Howard Business and Wealth of his Father His Apprenticeship to a Grocer Death of his Father Inherits a large Estate Mat es the Tour of Europe Returns to England His long Illness Marries hisAued Nurse His liiippy Life with Her Her Death Howard sets ont for Portugal A Prisoner of War His Sufferings in a French Dungeon His Release and Return Home Procures the Release of many of his Companions Marries again Builds Cottages for his Tenants His Benevolence JIB a Landlord His religious Opinions Was probably acquainted with Franklin Birth of his Son Death of his Wife Appointed High Sheriff Personally examines the Jails Discovers the Hoirors prevailing in English Jails Publishes the Results of his Investigations Receives the Thanks of 'Parliament Renews his Inquiries A Candidate for Parliament His Services to American Prisoners of War His Travels on ' he Continent of Europe Extracts from his Journal His Interview with the Emperor of Austria The Black Assize of Oxford His Ti avels in Sweden and Russia The Russi n Knout Ruin and Death of his Son His last Travels His Death 30 ZERAH COLBURN. Anecdote of the Discovery of his Talents His Father instances of the Boy's wonder- ful Powers Anecdotes of his Quickness Exhibited as u Show in the United States Residence in England His great Exploits there Goes upon the Stage Turns Methodist Preacher Loses his Calculating Power 79 SAMUEL DECHAMPLAIN. His Early Life and Voyages Sails to Canada His Second Voyage to Canada Founds the City of Quebec Discovers Lake Champtain His Death at Quebec 84 DEATH OF COMMODORE DECATUR. His Early Life In the Warwith Algiers In the War of 1812 Hostile Correspondence with Barren The Duel Death of Decatur 86 BLAISE PASCAL. Invents the Omnibus System Superstition in France then The Child Bewitched His Talent for Mathematics His Narrow Escape from Destruction Frightened into Excessive Devotion His Life of Self-torture Specimens of his "Thoughts. 1 ' 96 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS. FATHER MATHEW. PAGE The Annnal Celebration of his Birthday in New York The Usefulness of the Father Mathew Societies Origin of Father Mathew's Interest in Temperance Beginning of his Labors His Wonderful Success iu Ireland The beneficial Effects of his Labors Anecdotes Extracts from one of his Sermons His last Sickness and Death 109 SCENE IN THE LIFE OF AARON BURR. Burr severed from the human Race, and why Interest of the Ladies in his Sorrows A Clergyman deputed to converse with Him Dr. .Mat hews selected The Interview Burr's subsequent Career as a Lawyer 115 CAPTAIN JAMES LAWRENCE. His Tomb in New York His Wife His early Life His Career in the Navy The Poet Sonthey iu the American Naval Victories in 1813 122 WAS BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MEAN? Remark of Jefferson Davis His Liberality in Childhood As a Yonth As a Husband and Master As a public Man His Generosity to his poor Friends and Relations 128 THE POET VIRGIL. Present Currency of his Works Traditions respecting his Youth Goes to Rome Specimens of his Poetry Death 134 JAMES WATT. Truth stranger than Fiction How Watt conceived his Idea The Ancestors of Watt His great Invention His long Struggle In Partnership with Boulton Character of Boulton Great Success of the Firm Anecdote of Boswell Watt and Sir Walter Scott Great Importance of the Invention 140 POOR JOHN FITCH. The First Exhibition of the Steamboat at Philadelphia The early Misfortunes of the Inventor His miserable Marriage Abandons his Wife Serves in the Revolu- tionary War Conceives the Idea of a Steamboat Great Progress of the Invention Fails from want of Capital The Inventor ' broken-hearted A Suicide 146 ROBERT FULTON. Gets Idea of the Steamboat from poor John Fitch Not the Inventor Never claimed to be Early Life Troublesome Boy at School Generosity to his Mother Gives her a Farm A Miniature Painter in Philadelphia Goes to Europe Lives with Benjamin West Paints a Panorama Experiments on the Steamboat in France Partnership with Chancellor Livingston First Steamboat sinks The " Clermont," on the Hudson Brilliant Triumph Sickness and Death 153 ELI WHITNEY. Invents the Cotton Gin Anecdote of the suggestion of the Idea Early Life of Whitney Utility of his Invention Cheated out of the Benefit of it Improves and Manufactures Firearms Marriage The future Held for Improvers in the South 159 AUDUBON. Early Life His Love of Birds Pursues his Studies in France His Wanderings in the Western Forests Terrible Loss of his Specimens by Mice Publishes his Work His Person described Retires to the Banks of the Hudson Death 163 THE POET MILTON. His Father Education Travels in Italy School-master Serves under Cromwell Becomes Blind Paradise Lost 167 TABLE OF CONTENTS. vii JOHN ADAMS. PAGE Antiquity of his Family In College Why a Lawyer His Success at the Bar Member of Congress After the Revolution Hia Death, and Epitaph 173 JOHN ADAMS AND MRS. ADAMS AT THE COURT OF GEORGE III. John Adams presented to the King Hia Speech The King's Reply The Subsequent Conversation. Mrs. Adams and the Queen Mrs. Adams at Court 181 INAUGURATION OF JOHN ADAMS. Mrs. Adams upon the Election of her Husband General Washington's joy on retiring from Office The Inauguration Mr. Adams 1 own Account of the Scene 191 STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. His Arrival in Illinois His early Life A successful Politician Member of Congress Scene at Chicago Close of his Life 196 NICHOLAS COPERNICUS. Great Men appear in Groups Education of Copernicus TTis arduous Studies Hia Discoveries Danger of the Inquisition A good Churchman His Work pub- lished His House still preserved His Death 204 CHAUNCET JEROME. Clocks in old Times Yankee Clocks now Family and Trai ning of Jerome Appren- ticed to u Carpenter Begins Clockuiaking The wooden Clock invented Rapid Growth of the Business Jerome sets up for Himself A magnificent Order Invents the cheap Brass Clock His great Success His Ruin Finds work in Chicago 309 CHARLES GOODYEAR. Origin of his Interest in India Rubber The India Rubber Mania in New England Begins his Experiments His many Failure* Difficulties in the Way Partial Successes lure him on Extreme Poverty Sufferings of his Family His Final Triumph Continues to Experiment Dies insolvent 215 THOMAS JEFFERSON AT HOME. His wife's Beauty and Accomplishments Courted by Jefferson Their Wedding- TripToils of a Planter's Wife Her Trials in the Revolution Her early Death 221 BENEDICT ARNOLD NEW LIGHT. His Character as a Boy A Business Man Ravages his native State The Wages of his Treason His Descendants 228 SAMUEL ADAMS. Why less known than John His early Life Unsuccessful in Business Serves the Public Takes the Lead again- 1 the King Anecdotes In Congress Closing Years 8*J RECOLLECTIONS OF WINFIELD SCOTT. His Poverty First Sight of Him Interviews with him His Recollections of Aaron Burr? 7 238 SIR ISAAC NEWTON. His celebrated Fight at School Place of his Birth His Education His mechanical Talent in Childhood Newton at Cambridge His arduous Studies Makes his great Discovery of the Law of Gravitation How he was led to it Appointed Master of the Mint Twice in love Extracts from his Diary Anecdotes The Inscription on his Tomb 244 viii TABLE OF CONTENTS. GALILEO. PA6 Terrors of the Inquisition Poverty of his Childhood His Love of Learning His Discoveries Arrested by the Inquisition Pronounced guilty, and oblwed to recant A Blind old Man His great Knowledge 261 VASCO DA GAMA. Ills Rank as a Discoverer Selected to command the Expedition to India Sails for that Country Events on the Voyage Quells a Mutiny Reaches India His subsequent Voyages His Person and Character . 206 DOCTOR HAHXEMANN. His Birth and Education Practises Medicine Dissatisfied with the Science Pounds Homeopathy Persecuted by the Apothecaries His great Successes Removal to Paris 272 ALFOXSE THE FIRST OP PORTUGAL. Former Greatness of Portugal Indebtedness of the Country to Alfonse His early Life His gigantic Stature His brilliant Campaigns Founds the Kingdom of Portugal Takes Lisbon His Marriage and Family 277 BARTHOLOMEW DIAS. What the World owes to Portugal The Mariner's Compass introduced The first Dis- coveries on the Coast of Africa The great Voyage of Dias He discovers the Cape of Good Hope His Shipwreck and Death 283 EARLY LIFE OP LORD BYRON. EHect of his Title upon his Mind Spoiled by his Mother Schoolboy Anecdote At College His early Poetry His subsequent Career 288 FERXAXDO MAGALHAEXS. Commonly called Magellan Importance of Portugal in Navigation He enters the Portuguese Novy Employed by Charles V. Discovers Patagonia Passes through Magellan Straits Reaches the Ladrones llis Death 296 SIR HUMPHREY DAYY. His Appearance as a Lecturer In London Anecdote His Education His Inventions and Discoveries Marries a Fortune Made a Baronet His Character 301 SIR MARTIN FROBISHER. Character of the Yorkshiremen Frobisher ambitions of making Discoveries Finds a Patron in the Earl of Warwick His Voyage to Labrador Supposes he has dis- covered Gold Sails under Sir Francis Drake 306 ALPHONSE D' ALBUQUERQUE. Persecution of the Heathen in Former Times Fights the Moors in Africa His Voyage to India His Conquests in that Country His Booty His edifying Death 811 HERXAXDO CORTEZ. His Early Life A Love Adventure Emizrates to the West Indies A Planter Sails for Mexico His Conquests in Mexico His Scruples of Conscience 317 FRANCISCO PIZARRO. Begins Life a Swine-herl Enlists in the Spanish Army Settles nt Panama Sails for Peru Conquers the Country His tragical Death His Character 323 SEBASTIAN CABOT. The Residence of John Cabot in England Sebastian a Map-maker The Voyage of the two Cabots Their Discoveries Sebastian's other Voyages His Object and Character 329 TABLE OF CONTEXTS. ix PAUL JONES. PAGE Early Life Joins the United States Navy His great Success Cruises in the English Waters Attacks White Haven Restores the Earl of Selkirk's Plate Captures the Drake Takes the Serapis His last Plan 334 GUSTAYUS III. Ascends the throne of Sweden Becomes an Absolute Monarch His Assassination. . . 340 THOMAS JEFFERSON. His early Education Studies Law Successful at the Bar A Democrat In Congress Anecdotes concerning the Declaration of Independence Governor of Virginia President of the United States 346 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. His Family and early Life Goes to Sea as a Cabin Boy Commands a Ship at Eighteen Embarks in the Slave trade Attacked by a Spanish Fleet Ravages the Coasts of New Grenada Sails through the Straits of Magellan Second in command against the Spanish Armada What are we tj think of Him ? 337 HENRY HUDSON. He was not a Dutchman His first Voyage Sails again in the Service of Holland Discovers tlie Hudson River His last Voyage Discovers Hudson's Bay Mutiny of his Crew Murdered 332 JACQUES CARTIER. Why the St. Lawrence was so named Early Importance of the Cod Fishery Cartier's Jirst Voyage Enters the Moutli of the St. Lawrence Lands on the Island of Montreal Sufferings of the Crew 338 THE POET HORACE. His Father a Slave His own Account of his Education Serves in the Army Earns his living by Poetry Patronized and enriched by the Emperor Augustus 378 CAPTAIN COOK. Born in Poverty Goes to Sea in a Coal Vessel Becomes an Officer in the Royal Navy Se'rves in Canada under General Wolfe -His Romantic Marriage His Voyages in the Pacific Killed by the Savages 379 ADMIRAL SIR WILLIAM PARRY. Serves in the War of 1812 in the English Navy Sails to the North under Captain Ross Commands an Expediti n Ten Months in the Ice Save* his Men from Scurvy Endeavors to reach the North Pole Cause of his Failure His closing Years. 383 SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. The Franl;lin Family His early Fondness for the Sea Enters the Navy Serves gallantly under Nelson His Marriage Governor of Van Diemen's Land His last and fatal Expedition to the North The Efforts made to rescue Him Causes of their Failure Discovery of the Relics 390 VOLTAIRE AND CATHERINE OF RUSSIA. Her Origin Marries the Crown Prince of Russia Character of her Husband Ascends the Throne Her Services to Russia Her Character 402 CONFUCIUS. His early Life His Marriage and first Employments His efforts to obtain Wisdom His Death His Works Outline of his Teaching Promulgates the Golden Rule 408 THE TWO CATOS. Origin of the Family Cato the Censor Affects great Austerity His Removal to Rome Accompanies Scipio to Sicily Specimens of his Sayings His Person Cato the Philosopher His Suicide 419 X TABLE OF CONTENTS. PETER THE GREAT. nun His early Life His Friendship for Francis Lefort His Education under Lefort Seizes the supreme Power Travels in Quest of Knowledge Reforms his Country His Faults and Virtues 426 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. His Education His Character as a Youth Ascends the Throne Ilis Territories invaded Defeats hi* Enemies Wages War against Poland Overcome by Peter the Great His Death 433 MAZEPPA. The Name celebrated by Voltaire and Byron The true Story of his early Life Why he was an Euemy of Peter the Great Joins Charles the Twelfth Shares his Fate 439 DEATEI OP LOUIS FOURTEENTH. Easier to die well than to live well The King's Dei-lining Health Seized with mortal Sickness His Advice to his Heir His Farewell to his Court His last Words His Death 444 JOHN LAW. His great Celebrity His Family and Education Wanders over Europe Makes a Fortune by Gambling Settles in Paris Disorder in the Finances His Schemes to restore them Appointed Minister of Finance Evils of an inflated Currency The .Reaction One hundred thousand persons ruined 450 GENERAL HENRY KNOX. His early Life Joins the Army His Services during the Revolution Secretary of War 457 DANIEL WEBSTER'S FIRST MARRIAGE. Clergymen in New England formerly Early Life of Mrs. Webster Her first Ac- "quaintance with her Husband Married Life Her Death 462 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. Place of his Birth His Education His first Speech Services in the Revolution Secretary of the Treasury 469 LA FAYETTE. A Democratic Marquis Antiquity of the Family Offers his Services to Silas Dcane Sails to America A Major-General in the American Army Return to France His subsequent Services His Course in the French Revolution Anecdotes Imprisoned in Austria Close of his Life 473 BOLIVAR. Reasons of the Backwardness of South America Henry Clay's Opinion Ear'y Life of Bolivar His Campaigns Delivers his Country His last Plan and Death 486 GARIBALDI. Not a bogus Patriot His Family and early Life A Cabin-Boy a Price upon his Head Fourteen Years in South America In Italy again His Speech 492 LORD PALMERSTON. His Diet His Habits of Exercise The House of Commons His Mode of Speaking Anecdote Not superstitious His Advice to the Scotch Clergymen 499 LOUIS PHILLIPPE IN THE UNITED STATES. Origin of his Family Execution of his Father Louis Phillipe a School-teacher Voyage to America llis Travels here Anecdotes 504 TABLE OF CONTENTS. JULIUS PAOB Compared with Napoleon Ilis Rise to Power Emperor His Assassination His Chamber His successor ......................................................... 511 PRESIDENT MADISON'S MARRIED LIFE. Mrs. Madison's Family Left a Widow Marries Mr. Madison Their Flight from Washington .................... ............................................... 517 JOHN A. SUTTER. An Officer in the French Army Emigrates to America His Misfortunes and Wander- ings here Settles in California Extent of his Possessions Marshall joins Him Gold discovered The Secret divulged The Rush of Gold Seekers Sutler and Marshall ruined ......................................................... . ____ 522 DR. VALENTINE MOTT. Receives his Death-Shock by hearing of President Lincoln's Assassination His early Life and professional Education Studies in Europe Anecdote of his procuring Bodies for Dissection His Success as a Surgeon His great Operations .......... 527 ANDREW JACKSON'S ROMANTIC MARRIAGE. His wife's Family Her Early Life Death of her Father Married and Divorced Marries Jackson Happiness with him Her Character and Death ............... 533 MARCUS AURELIUS, THE WISEST OF THE PAGANS. His Early Life He becomes Heir to the Throne Is Emperor His Thoughts His Death ............................................................................. 541 ARISTOTLE. i Born in Greece Death of his Father He joins Plato as a Friend and Pupil Invited to superintend the Education of the Son of Philip of Macedon His Marriages, etc ............................................................................... 553 MAIER ROTHSCHILD. His Father Education among his Father's money-bags Introduction to the Land- grave of Hesse His rapid rise ................................................... 564 PETER COOPER. His parents His inventions The Cooper Institute and its Schools .................... 569 THE BEGINNINGS OF SCIENCE IN THE U. S. JOHX HARVARD. His example Leaves his Library and half his estate to found a College Other Curious Gifts Early days of the College ................................................. 581 ELIHU TALE. His gifts to Tale College Foundation of the College .................................. 589 DR. DWIGUT. Life at Yale ..................... . ....................................................... 594 PROFESSOR SILLIMAN. Why Professor B. Silliman did not go to Georgia Elected Professor of Yale College His new Retorts ................................................................ 596 ORIGIN OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. PROFESSOR HORSE. His return from Europe He invents the Electric Telegraph on board the ship Unable to get capital in America Goes to England and tries there ........................ 602 EZRA CORNELL. Hie Boyhood His first Invention Associated with Morse in laying Telegraph Lines.. 607 xii TABLE OF CONTENTS. PIERRE ANTOINE BERRYER. PAS* His Birth and Education He defends Marshal Ney Also Louis Napoleon 612 JARED SPARKS. His early Life How he got. his Education Goes to Exeter Academy Thence to Harvard Preaches at Baltimore Edits the North American Review Becomes President of Harvard College 619 PRINCE BISMARCK. Enters Parliament Goes to Vienna to study Austria Is sent as Ambassador to Russia Thence to France Made Prime Minister to the King 626 PAINLESS SURGERY BY ETHER. DR. W. T. G. MORTON. His early Life His attempts to utilize Ether His failures and success 635 DR. HORACE WELLS. Established as a Dentist at Hartford He goes to Harvard to explain his Ether plan His failure 638 COUNT RUMFORD. His family Name Born on a Farm in Massachusetts Teaches school at Concord Marries Forced to leave his Home and fly to England Becomes Prime Minister of Bavaria Founds the Royal Institution in London His death and bequests. . 645 POCAHONTAS AND HER HUSBAND. The real History of Pocahoritas and John Smith Her descent and early Life Her marriage to John Rolfe They visit England 654 DAVID CROCKETT. His early Life Leaves Home with a cattle drover at twelve Reaches Baltimore Works his way back to Tennessee Marries Joins the Army under Jackson Is elected to Congress 663 HISTORY OF THE SEWING MACHINE. ELIAS HOWE. Hi% early Life on a Farm Goes to Lowell Thence to Cambridge and Boston Invents the Sewin? Machine Goes to London Leaves there very poor 675 ISAAC MERRITT SINGER. Hia Infringement on Howe's Patent 698 WILLIAM 0. GROVER. A Boston Tailor Invents a new Stitch for the Sewing Machine The Formation of the celebrated Sewing Machine Combination 699 ORIGIN OP THE COTTON WEAVING MACHINERY. JAMES HARGRBAVES. Invents the Carding Machine and Spinning Jenny His bouse broken into and the machines ruined Flies to Nottingham Makes new machines Is ruined 708 RICHARD ARKWRIGHT. Invents the Spinning Frame Tries to find Perpetual Motion, bnt fails Is Knighted by George 111 707 THE PEEL FAMILY. Robert Peel a Farmer, bnt turns Cotton Spinner Then Printer of Calicoes Finally became grandfather of the great Sir Robert Peel 715 TABLE OF CONTENTS. xiii LITERATURE OF THE UNITED STATES. WASHINGTON IRVING. PAO E His youth Ilia connection with the Morning Chronicle Goes to England Publishes the Sketch Book in 1819-His death 718 FENIMORE COOPER. His descent Goes to Yale College His marriage Takes to Literature His suits for Libel 723 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. Commences to write Poetry at age of 9 Thanatopsis when 19 Joins the Evening Post , 729 TWO OF OUR BOHEMIANS. EDGAR ALLAN FOE. As Sub-Editor of the Evening Mirror Death of his Parents Is adopted by John Allan, of Richmond Sent to school in England Thence to the University of Virginia Goes to We^t Point llii expulsion 736 "ARTEMUS WARD." Charles F. Browne Learns the trade of type setting at Skowhegan At 16 finds his way to Boston Goes West and becomes Editor <>f tin- Cleveland Plaindealer His Famous Letter Turns Lecturer, and dies in London, England . 743 JOSIAH QUINCY. A model gentleman of the old school Born in Boston His Boyhood and happy marriage Elected to Congress 749 MICHAEL FARADAY. His apprenticeship His appointment at the Royal Institution His marriage His last days at Hampton Court 761 THE REAL MERITS OF COLUMBUS. What led him to think of discovering the unknown lands His marriage and letter to Italy Is convinced Starts to find Japan, and discovers America 771 AMERIGO VESPUCCI. Sails as purser on a vessel from the Canary Islands His second voyage His knowledge of Columbus His book called ''The Four Voyages" Why the New World was called America 792 WILLIAM GED, THE FIRST STEREOTYPER. He invents the art of Stereotyping His attempts and failures Ones to London His unfortunate partnerships and death SCO ALGERNON SIDNEY. The forerunner of Jefferson and Madison His pedigree Joins Cromwell's Army Wounded at Marston Moor Opposes Cromwell in Parliament Put out by Crom- well His opposition to Charles II. and the Duke of York Tried for High Treason His execution 807 THOMAS HOOD. His Life and trials His fictitious titles for the Library of the Duke of Devonshire His jokes made during his spells of sickness 820 CHARLES DICKENS. As a public speaker, with a sketch of some of his Speeches 831 ILLUSTRIOUS MEN OR, PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. GENERAL WASHINGTON AT HOME. GENERAL WASHINGTON stood six feet three in his slip- pers, and, in the prime of his life was rather slender than otherwise, but as straight as an arrow. His form was well-pro- portioned and evenly developed, so that he carried his tallnesis gracefully, and looked strikingly well on horseback. There has never been a more active, sinewy figure than his when he was a young man ; it was only in later life that his movements became slow and dignified. His wife was a plump, pretty little woman, very sprightly and gay in her young days, and quite as fond of having her own way as Indies usually are. She settled down into a good, plain, domestic wife, who looked sharply after her servants, and was seldom seen without her knitting-needles in full play. She was far from being what we should now call an educated woman. Scarcely any of the ladies of that day knew much more than to read their prayer-book and almanacs, and keep simple accounts. Mrs. Washington probably never read a book through in her life, and as to her spelling, the less said of it the better. "Washington himself, before he became a public man, was a bad speller. People were not so particular then in such matters as they are now ; and besides, there really was no settled system of spelling a hundred years ago. "When the general wrote for a " rheam of paper," a beaver " hatt," a suit of w cloaths," and a pair of " sattin " shoes, there was no "Webster unabridged tc 10 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BlOGRAPlif. keep people's spelling within bounds. Nor was he much of a reader of books. He read a little of the History of England now and then, and a paper from the Spectator occasionally on rain} r days ; but he had little literary taste. He was essentially an out-of-doors man, and few things were more disagreeable to him than confinement at the desk. There was nothing in his house which could be called a library ; he had a few old-fash- ioned books, which he seldom disturbed and never read long at a time. The general and his wife lived happily together, but it is evi- dent that, like most heiresses, she was a little exacting, and it is highly probable that the great Washington was sometimes favored with a curtain lecture. The celebrated authoress, Miss Bremer, is our authority for this surmise. She relates that a gentleman once slept at Mount Vernon in the room next to that occupied by the master and mistress of the mansion ; and when all the inmates were in bed, and the house was still, he over- heard, through the thin partition, the voice of Mrs. Washington. He could not but listen, and it was a curtain-lecture which she was giving her lord. He had done something during the day which she thought ought to have been done differently, and she was giving him her opinion in somewhat animated and quite decided tones. The great man listened in silence till she had done, and then, without a remark upon the subject in hand, said : "Now, good sleep to you, my dear." What an example to husbands I When Washington was appointed to command the revolu- tionary armies, it is plain from his letters home that one of his greatest objections to accepting the appointment was, the " un- easiness," as he termed it, that it would cause his wife to have him absent from home. General Washington was a very rich man ; his wife was very rich, and her three children Avere heirs to great wealth. He had a little principality to govern. Besides the farms about his own residence on the Potomac, with several hundred slaves upon them, he possessed wild lands in most of the best locations then known, as well as shares in several incorporated companies. He GENERAL WASHINGTON AT HOME. 1J derived an important part of his influence from the greatness of his wealth and the antiquity of his family, things which were then held in much more respect than they arc now. Washing- ton's estate was not worth more than three-quarters of a million dollars ; but it gave him far more personal consequence in the country than ten times such a fortune could at present. The rich planter of that day, living as he did on a wide domain of his own, the owner of those who served him, riding about in his coach and six, and with no near neighbors to restrain, censure, or outshine him, was a kind of farmer-prince. It was fortunnte for Washington that he came to this wealth when his character was mature. Being a younger son, he had no expectations of wealth in his youth, and he was brought up in a very hardy, sensible manner, on an cnormons farm, not a fourth partof which was cultivated. His fatherdying when he waseleven years old, he came directly under the influence of his mother, who was one of the women of whom people say, " There is no nonsense about her." She was a plain, illiterate, energetic, strong-willed lady, perfectly capable of conducting the affairs of a farm, and scorning the help of others. When she was ad- vanced in years, her son-in-law offered to manage her business for her. "You may keep the accounts, Fielding," was her reply, "for your eyesight is better than mine ; but I can manage my affairs myself." On another occasion General Washington asked her to come and live with him at Mount Vernon. "I thank you, George," said she; "but I prefer being inde- pendent." And so to the last she lived in her own plain farm-house, and superintended the culture of her own acres, not disdaining to labor with her own hands. When LaFayette visited her he found her at work in her garden, with her old sun-bonnet on, and she came in to sec him, saying : " I would not pay you so poor a compliment, marquis, as to stay to change my dress." I have often thought that she must have resembled Betsey Trotwood, as drawn by Charles Dickens in David Copperfield, 12 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. and as found in many country homes both in Old England and in New, honest, strict, energetic women, a little rough in their manners, but capable of eminent generosity when there is oc- casion for it. Being the son of such a woman, and trained by her in a simple, rational manner, George Washington was pre- pared to enjoy the lot that fell to him, without being spoiled by it. With all his wealth he was not exempt from labor. Cultivat- ing a large tract of country, he spent much of his time in riding about to visit the different farms, to consult his overseers and superintend his improvements. It is computed that he spent about one-half of the days of his life on horseback. Like all out-of-door men, he was exceedingly fond of a good horse, a taste which he had in common with his mother, who was said to be as good a judge of horses as any man in Virginia. Nothing was more common than for him to mount his horse after break- fast and ride all day, only dismounting for a few minutes at a time. On those great plantations far from any large town, and worked by negroes, the master was often obliged personally to superin- tend any operation which was out of the ordinary routine. No doubt when General Washington entered in his diary, ft Bottled thirty-five dozen of cider," the hand with which he wrote the words still smelt of the liquid. We find in his diary many such entries as these : ' " Spent the greater part of the day in making a new plough of my own invention." " Peter (my smith) and I, after several efforts to make a plough after a new model, partly of my own contriving, were fain to give it over, at least for the present." "Fitted a two-eyed plough, instead of a duck-bill plough, and with much difficulty made my chariot wheel-horses plough. Put the pole-end horses into the plough in the morning, and put the postilion and hind horse in the afternoon ; but the ground being well swarded over, and very heavy ploughing, I repented putting them in at all, for fear it should give them a habit of stopping in the chariot." " Apprehending the herrings were come, hauled the seine ; but GENERAL WASHINGTON AT HOME. 13 caught only a few of them, though a good many of othei sorts of fish." " Seven o'clock, a messenger came to inform me that my mill was in great danger of being destroyed. I immediately hurried off all hands, with shovels, etc., to its assistance, and got there myself just time enough to give it a reprieve for this time, by wheeling gravel into the place which the water had washed. While I was there a very heavy thunder shower came on, which lasted upwards of an hour. I tried what time the mill required to grind a bushel of corn, and, to my surprise, found it was within five minutes of an hour. Old Anthony attributed this to the low head of water ; but whether it was so or not I cannot say. The works are all decayed and out of order, which I rather take to be the cause." Such a mill we should think hardly worth saving. Even the vigorous Washington could not get a Virginia plantation into very good order. We read elsewhere in his diary that he owned one hundred and one cows, and yet had to buy butter sometimes for the use of his family. Would the reader like to know the reason? General Washington himself tells us. He mentions in his diary that one morning in February, 1760, he went out to where " my carpenters n were hewing, the said carpenters being black slaves. "I found," he wrote, "that four of them, namely, George, Tom, Mike, and young Billy, had only hewed one hundred and twenty feet since yesterday at ten o'clock." Surprised at this meagre result of a day's labor of four men, he sat down to see how they managed. Under the spell of the master's eye they worked faster, but still in a wonderfully bung- ling and dawdling manner. He records that, after they had prepared a log for cutting into lengths, " they spent twenty-five minutes more in getting the cross-cut saw, standing to consider what to do, sawing the stock in two places," etc. He found that the four men had done exactly one man's work the day before, supposing they could work no faster than they had done while he watched them, and that one intelligent, active laborer could do about as much hewing in two days as they would in a week. Here we have the reason why a man possessing one hundred and one cows had to buy butter. If this was the case with the best 14 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. farmer in Virginia, and one of the richest, what must have been the condition of the ordinary plantations? Much of his time, however, was spent in taking oare of these dilatory and uncalculating laborers. If a malignant disease broke out among them, it was the master who alone had the nerve and energy to make the requisite arrangements. The small-pox once ravaged his negro quarters. He enters in his diary : "After taking the doctor's directions in regard to my people, I set out for niy quarters, and got there about twelve o'clock, time enough to find everything in the utmost confusion, disorder and backwardness, my overseer on his back with a broken leg, au.d not half a crop, especially of corn ground, prepared." In these desperate circumstances, with the dead to be buried, the dying to be comforted, the sick to be ministered to, and the well to be tranquillized, the master proceeded to arrange hospit- als, separate the sick from the well, provide nurses, and give instruction as to the treatment of the disease. Such were some of the employments of Washington when he was a Virginia planter. His pleasures were few, but they were such as he keenly enjoyed. We learn from his diary that he hunted, during the season, about twice a week, and it is plain that these were his happy days. There are scores of entries like the following : "Went hunting after breakfast, and found a fox at Muddy Hole, and killed her after a chase of better than two hours, and after treeing her twice, the last of which times she fell dead out of the tree, after being there several minutes apparently well." There were balls occasionally at Alexandria, and we find Washington attending them, and entering into the humors and gayeties of the entertainment with much spirit. The usual course of a day at Mount Vernon was something like this : The master rose early, shaved and dressed himself, except that his queue was arranged by a servant. His first visit was to the stable. It is recorded of him that he once applied, with his own strong right arm, a stirrup strap to the shoulders of a groom who had allowed a favorite horse to stand all night in thr sweat and dust of a day's hunt. I think I know some GENERAL WASHINGTON AT HOME. 15 lovers of the horse who will be able to forgive this action without the least difficulty. After a light breakfast of corn cake* honey, and tea, the general would tell his guests, if he had any, and he usually had, to amuse themselves in their own way till dinner time, offering them his stables, his hunting and fishing apparatus, his boats and his books to their choice. Then he would mount his horse and ride about his farms, returning at half- past two, in time to dress for dinner at three. He was always dressed with care for this meal, as on all other occasions of cer- emony. He liked plain dishes, drank home-brewed ale, and was particularly fond of baked apples, hickory nuts, and other sim- ple products of the country. It was his custom to sit a good while at the table after dinner, eating nuts, sipping wine, and talking over his hunts and his adventures while in service during the French war. His usual toast was, " All our friends." The evening was spent in the family circle around the blazing wood fire, and by ten o'clock he was usually asleep. Such was the ordinary life of this illustrious farmer at home, before his coun- try called him to the field to defend her liberties ; t.nd it was just the kind of life that was best fitted to prepare him for the command of an army of American farmers. 16 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY, INAUGURATION OF WASHINGTON. THE first Congress, under the present Constitution, met in the city of New York, on the 4th of March, 1789. That, at least, was the day appointed for its meeting ; but when the hour had arrived, it was found that, out of twenty-six senators, only eight were present, and of a numerous House of Representa- tives but fourteen members were in their seats. Both houses adjourned from day to day, and it was not until the Gth of April that a quorum of both houses was present. The first business in order, after the organization, was the counting of the votes for president and vice-president, and thus to ascertain who it was whom the people had elected to set the now government in motion. The constitution then required that the person who had received the highest number of electo- ral votes should be the president, and the person who received the next highest number should be the vice-president. For the first office there was nothing that resembled competition. Not only was every electoral vote cast for General Washington, but, so far as is known, he was the choice of every individual voter in every State of the Union. When we look over the list of those who received votes for the vice-presidency, we cannot but be struck with the transi- tory nature of political fame. Who has ever heard of an American politician by the name of John Milton ? Yet John Milton was a man of sufficient prominence in the United States, in 1780, to receive two electoral votes for the presidency. One Edward Telfair received a vote. Who was Telfair? These two persons are so completely forgotten that their jiames are not even mentioned in the biographical dictionaries. Among the other persons, nearly forgotten, who received votes for this INAUGURATION OF WASHINGTON. 17 office, -we find Benjamin Lincoln, James Armstrong, Robert H. Harrison, Samuel Huntingdon, and John Rutledge. The can- didate elected was John Adams, who received thirty -four votes. John Jay received nine votes, and John Hancock four votes, and the rest were scattered among the unknown names just mentioned. When the result of the election was proclaimed, a member of the Senate was appointed to go to Mount Vernon and notify General Washington of his election. The long delay which had occurred while a quorum of Congress was assembling was re- garded by the general, as he himself remarked, in the light of a "reprieve." He wrote to his old companion in arms, General Knox : " My movements to the chair of government will be accom- panied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution ; so unwilling am I, in the evening of a life nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an ocean of difficulties, without that competency of political skill, abilities, and inclination, which are necessary to manage the helm. I am sensible that I am embarking the voice of the people and a good name of my own on this voyage ; but what returns will be made for them, Heaven alone can foretell. In- tegrity and firmness are all I can promise. These, be the voyage long or short, shall never forsake me, although I may be deserted by all men ; for, of the consolations which are to be derived from these, under any circumstances, the world cannot deprive me." All the letters of Washington written at this period show the unwillingness with which he left his beloved retirement to resume the control of public affairs. It was more than unwil- lingness, it was aversion and dread. He distrusted his own abilities, nor was he satisfied with every part of the new Con- stitution. Two clays, however, after the messenger reached him with the official news of his election, he began his journey to the seat of government. That journey was a triumphal progress. He had scarcely gone beyond the boundaries of his own estate, when he was met by a company of horsemen from Alexandria, who escorted him to that ancient town, where a public banquet had been pro- 2 18 PEOPLE S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. vidcd for him. Most of the faces surrounding the table on this occasion were those of old friends and neighbors, and Washing- ton was deeply moved by this affectionate tribute. As he pro- ceeded northward, people came out into the highways to see him pass, and there was no town or village upon the route, but appointed its deputation to welcome and escort him. Baltimore, both on his arrival and departure, sent forth a numerous caval- cade, and gave him a salute of artillery. Chester detained him at a public breakfast, and he passed through Philadelphia under triumphal arches and hailed by the cheers of the people. Tren- ton where, twelve years before, he had won the first victory of the Revolution gave him a reception which made an ineffaceable impression upon his mind. The mothers of the city here gathered at the bridge over the Delaware, and, as he passed under a triumphal arch erected upon the bridge, thirteen young girls, clad in white dresses, and adorned with garlands, scattered flowers in his path, singing as they did so an ode in his honor. At Elizabethtown, where a committee of both Houses of Con- gress, and the Mayor and Corporation of New York were in waiting to receive him, he was conducted on board of a mag- nificent barge constructed for the purpose. Thirteen New York pilots, in white uniform, manned and rowed this vessel. A fleet of other boats and barges, decorated with streamers and ribbons, followed the stately craft that bore the president-elect ; and as the beautiful procession glided through the narrow strait be- tween New Jersey and Staten Island, other boats, gay with flags and streamers, fell into line; until, emerging into the broad harbor, the whole fleet swept up to the city, while bands of music and patriotic songs were heard on every side. Every ship in the bay was dressed as on festive occasions, and saluted the general's barge as it passed. As the president-elect drew near the landing-place, there was a ringing of bells, a roar of artillery, and a shouting from the assembled ..multitude, such as had never before been heard in America. The governor of the State received him upon the wharf, and there, too, was General Kuox and other soldiers of the Revolution. A carriage stood ready to convey him to the INAUGURATION OF WASHINGTON. 19 residence prepare for him, and a carpet had been spread from the carriage door to the boat. As he intimated a preference to walk, a procession was formed, which increased as the proces- sion of boats had d( ne upon the water. Every house by which he passed was decorated with flags and banners, and bore some kind of emblem or sentence containing a compliment to him- self. To the ladies who filled the windows, who waved their handkerchiefs, and who shed flowers and tears before him, he took off his hat and bowed politely. This ovation, as we can perceive in Washington's diary, was rather saddening than cheering to him. He wrote in his diary that evening : " The display of boats which attended and joined us on this occasion, some with vocal and some with instrumental music on board ; the decorations of the ships, the roar of cannon, and the loud acclamations of the people which rent the skies as I passed along the wharves, filled my mind with sensations as painful (considering the reverse of this scene which may be the case after all my labors to do good) as they are pleasing." There was still some delay. The question arose in Congress by what title the president should be addressed. Some pro- posed "His Excellency;" others, "His Highness;" others, "His Serene Highness." One party wished him to be addressed as "His Highness, the President of the United States of Amer- ica and Protector of their Liberties." It was wisely concluded, however, after many days' debate, that he should have no title except the simple name of his office, "President of the United States." It was on the 30th of April that the ceremony of the in- auguration at length took place. At nine o'clock in the morn- ing religious services were performed in all the churches of the city. At twelve o'clock, the military companies of New York halted before the door of Washington's residence, and, a half an hour after, the procession moved in the following order: First, the troops ; next, the committees of both houses of Congress in carriages ; next, the president-elect in a grand state-coach ; next, his aide-de-camp and his secretary in one of the general's own carriages ; and the procession was closed by 20 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGK&.PHY. the carriages of the foreign ministers and a train of citizens. When the head of the procession had reached the hall, it halted, the troops were drawn upon each side of the pavement, and between them General Washington and his attendants walked to the building and ascended to the senate-chamber, where the vice-president advanced to meet him, and conducted him to a chair of state. The whole assembly sat in silence for a minute or two, when the vice-president rose and informed General Washington that all things were now ready for him to take the oath which the constitution required ; and, so saying, he conducted the presi- dent-elect to a balcony, in full view of the people assembled in the street and covering the roofs of the houses. In the centre of this balcony there was a table covered with crimson velvet, in the middle of which, upon a cushion of the same material, lay a richly bound Bible. The eyes of a great multitude were fixed upon the balcony at the moment when Washington came into view, accompanied by the vice-president, the chancellor of the State of New York, and other distinguished official per- sons. He was dressed in a manner which displayed the majesty of his form to excellent advantage. His full suit of dark-brown cloth was relieved by a steel-hilted sword, by white silk stock- ings and silver shoe-buckles ; and his hair was powdered and gathered into a bag behind, in the fashion of that day. The crowd greeted him with enthusiastic cheers. Coming forward to the front of the balcony, he bowed several times to the people, with his hand upon his heart, and then retreated, some- what hastily, to an arm-chair near the table, and sat down. When all was hushed into silence, Washington again rose, and came forward, and stood in view of all the people, with the vice-president on his right, and Chancellor Livingston, who was to administer the oath, on the left. When the chancellor was about to begin, the secretary of the Senate held up the Bible on its crimson cushion ; and while the oath was read, Washington laid his hand upon the open book. When the reading was finished, he said, with great solemnity of man- ner: " I swear ; so help me God I " 21 After which, he bowed and kissed the book. The chancel- lor, then, waving his hand toward the people, cried out : " Long live George Washington, President of the United States ! " The preconcerted signal was then given, and, at once, all the bells in the town rang a triumphant peal ; the cannons were fired ; and the people gave cheer upon cheer. The president now bowed once more to the multitude, and returned to the senate-chamber, where he resumed his seat in the chair of state. When silence was restored, he rose and began, in a low, deep, and somewhat tremulous voice, to read that noble inaugural address, so full of dignity, wisdom, and pathos. The opening sentences were singularly affecting : " Fellow-Citizens of the Senate, and of the House of Repre- sentatives : "Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notifica- tion was transmitted by your order, and received on the four- teenth da}' of the present mouth. On the one hand, I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years ; a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary, as well as more dear to me, by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health, to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his quali- fications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one, who, inheriting inferior endowments from nature, and unpractised in the duties of civil administration, ought to be peculiarly con- scious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions, all I dare aver is, that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance by which it might be effected. All I dare hope is that if, in executing 22 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. this task, I have been too much swayed by a grateful remem- brance of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the confidence of my fellow-citizens, and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me, my error will be palliated by the motives which misled me, and its consequences be judged by my country with some share of the partiality in which they originated." He then proceeded to give an outline of his opinion respect- ing the policy to be adopted by the new government, and con- cluded by a psalm-like invocation : " Having thus imparted to you my sentiments, as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave ; but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the human race, in humble supplication, that since He has been pleased to favor the American people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquil I ity, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity on a form of government for the security of their union, and the advance- ment of their happiness, so his divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures, on which the success of this government must depend." After the address the president and vice-president, followed by both housos of Congress and a large number of officers, civil and military, walked to St. Paul's Church in Broadway, where a religious service was conducted by the Bishop of the Episco- pal Church of New York. It was a universal holiday in the city, and in the evening many houses were illuminated, and there was a display of fireworks. WHAT IS KNOWN OF SHAKESPEARE. 23 WHAT IS KNOWN OF SHAKESPEARE. THE catalogue of works about Shakespeare in the British Museum consists, I am told, of four folio volumes. The mere catalogue ! We have, in this city, several collectors of Shake- spearian literature, one of whom has got together a whole room full of books, numbering, perhaps, two thousand volumes, all of which relate, in some way, to Shakespeare. Nevertheless, the substance of what we really know of the man and his life can be stated in one of these short articles. In the first place, how did he spell his name ? When he wrote it, he spelt it in various ways ; but when he had it printed he spelt it Shake-speare, or Shakespeare, and so did his intimate friend, Ben Jonson. In his own day, the name was spelt in thirty-three different ways : Shaxpur, Schakespeyr, Chacksper, Shakaspeare, Schakespeire, etc. At present, the name is al- most universally spelt Shakspeare, but certainly it were far more proper to spell it as the poet printed it Shakespeare. It is very difficult, however, to change an established mode of spelling a familiar name, and probably we shall go on omitting the middle letter to the end of time. The father of the poet was John Shakespeare, a man in mid- dle life, who could not write his own name, the sou of a far- mer named Richard Shakespeare, and probably the descendant of a long line of tillers of the soil. The poet's mother was Mary Arden, the youngest of a family of seven girls, the daugh- ters of a man of ancient family. She inherited from her father a farm of fifty or sixty acres, and a sum of money equal, in our present currency, to about three hundred dollars, which, with her heart and hand, she gave to John Shakespeare about a yeai after her father's death. It is fair to infer, from John Shake 24 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. spcarc's marrying the daughter of a "gentleman" (his own father's landlord), that he was a young man of more than ordi- nary spirit and endowments. At the time of his marriage, John Shakespeare was a glove- maker in the town of Stratford-upon-Avou ; but he also had something to do with farming, perhaps rented a piece of land in the neighborhood, or bought standing crops on speculation, as our village store-keepers often do. He was a prosperous man of considerable substance, which he increased prett} rapid- ly for those times. He evidently stood well with his townsmen, since he was intrusted by them with several offices of some importance. His first office, which was conferred upon him when he had been married a year, was that of ale-taster. A year after, he was elected one of the fourteen burgesses of the town. In the following year, we find him constable ; soon after, a magistrate, and then chamberlain. It is conjectured that he was about thirty years of age when he held this last office, which was one of considerable dignity and responsibility. To this thriving young man two daughters were born, both of whom died in infancy, leaving him childless. Then was born William, the poet. There is no existing record of his birth, and therefore the date of that event is unknown ; but we know that he was christened on the 26th of April, 1564; and as it was customary then to christen children three days after their birth, it is safe to conjecture that he was born April 23d, and that is the da}' on which his birthday is usually celebrated. John Shakespeare still rose in the social scale. During the childhood of his son, he was high bailiff, justice of the peace, alderman, and mayor. His wealth increased, too, and the priv- ilege was conferred upon him of bearing a coat of arms. The house in which the poet passed his early years was a pleasant and commodious one for that day, and there is no reason to doubt that he had everything needful for his comfort and enjoy- ment. In all probability he was a happy member of a happy household. When the boy was ten years old his father was certainly among the very first citizens of a substantial and im- portant country town of fifteen hundred inhabitants. There was in Stratford an ancient grammar school, where WHAT IS KNOWN OF SHAKESPEARE. 25 Latin and Greek were taught ; and taught (as I guess) in the ancient dull way ; for this school Shakespeare attended from about his seventh to his fourteenth year, and he speaks in his plays, of boys creeping "unwillingly to school," and of their going from school with alacri y. There are thirteen passages in the works of Shakespeare expressive of the tedium and dis- gust which boys used to endure in the barbarous schools of the olden time ; whereas, there is not one which alludes to school as a pleasant place. We are justified in inferring, from these facts, that this boy found it dull work going to Stratford gram- mar school. At Stratford there was a charnel-house, containing an im- mense collection of human bones, with an opening through which they could be seen. The description given, in Romeo and Juliet, of the vault wherein Juliet was buried, was suggested by this charnel-house. Many of the names of Shakespeare's characters were common in Stratford in Shakespeare's time, as the following : Barclolf, Fluellen, Peto, Sly, Herne, Page, Ford. Of all the discoveries which modern research has made re- specting the early life of Shakespeare, the most important is the one now to be mentioned : During his boyhood and youth he saw plays performed by, at least, twelve different companies of actors ! How could this be in a remote country town, where there was no theatre? Turn to the play of Hamlet, Act II., Scene 2, and you will see. Hamlet and his friends are talking together in the king's castle* when a trumpet is heard without, which announces the approach of a company of strolling play- ers. Hamlet receives them kindly, orders a play of them, causes them to be well lodged and entertained in the castle as long as they remained. In writing that scene, Shakespeare was re- cording, in part, his recollections of what used to occur in Stratford when his father was mayor, or alderman. About once a year a company of actors came riding into the town ("then came each actor on his ass"), and made their way to the mayor, of whom they asked the privilege of performing in the place. If permission was accorded, part of the expense of the enter- tainment was borne by the tcwn treasury, and only a very small 36 26 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. charge was made for admission. The records of Stratford show that from the time William Shakespeare was six years of age to the time he was eighteen, twelve companies performed in the town. They also show that the largest sum ever paid to a com- pany was paid during the mayoralty of John Shakespeare. The sums paid under other mayors ranged from three shillings to seventeen shillings ; but when John Shakespeare was mayor the town book-keeper had to make the following magnificent entry : "Item, payed to the queene's pleyers, 9 pounds." We may infer from these facts, 1st, that John Shakespeare was particularly fond of the drama ; 2d, that William Shake- speare, inheriting this taste, had abundant opportunities of grat- ifying it, and of becoming acquainted personally with actors. When the boy was fourteen years of age and was still going to school, his father's affairs became disordered. The probabili- ty is that he had lived too liberally. He had eight children in all, of whom five lived to maturity, and he was a man to be bountiful to his children. Moreover, the many offices which he had filled may have taken too much of his time from private business. And I have sometimes thought that the caution which the poet is known to have practised in lending money may have been owing to his father having lost his property by an exces- sive trust in others. Whatever may have been the cause or causes of his misfortunes, he became so much involved as to be in constant fear of arrest for debt ; and, finally, he was arrested and thrown into prison. He was a poor man thenceforth for some years ; until, in fact, he began to receive assistance from his thriving son, William. In consequence of these embarrassments, William Shake speare at the age of fourteen was taken from school to assist his father in his various operations, such as farming, dealing in woo', in animals, and other products of a grazing country. It is possible, and almost probable, that he assisted his father in killing and selling beef. Now we come to the great calamity of Shakespeare's life. One of his father's friends was Richard Hathaway, a substantial farmer near Stratford, who had a daughter, Anne, eight years WHAT IS KNOWN OF SHAKESPEARE. 27 older than Shakespeare. When he was a boy of eighteen, and she a woman of twenty-six, they were married ; and five months after, their first child was born. No one who has mucU knowl- edge of human nature needs any evidence that such a marriage was a ceaseless misery and shame to him as long as he lived. The many passages of his works in which unfavorable views are given of the female character, reveal the melancholy truth. The ill-starred couple had three children, Susanna, Hamuet, and Judith, all of whom were born before the father was twenty- one, the two last-named being twins. Here was a bad situation for a young man to be in upon com- ing of age : his father ruined ; four brothers and sisters younger than himself ; a wife and three children upon his hands; his wife's father dead ; and no opening for him in his native town, where once his family had held their heads so high. There were in London then five individuals who had gone as poor young men from Shakespeare's own county to the metrop- olis, and there risen to some distinction as actors ; one of whom, and he the most successful of them all, was from Stratford itself. How natural, then, that in such circumstances the un- happy husband should look toward London and the stage for deliverance at once from domestic broils and pecuniary trou- bles ! The story of his getting into a scrape by stealing deer may be true, or may not; but surely this }'oung man had reasons enough to fly, without reckoning the displeasure of a country squire. Charles Rcade says on this point : " He was not driven out of Stratford by misconduct, or he could not have returned to the town in 1592. He suffered no personal indignities from Justice Lacy, for all such matters are recorded at Stratford, and there is no trace of it. I notice, too, that when a man leaves a place where he has been degraded, his heart leaves it. Shakespeare's heart can be proved never to have left Stratford for a single day." Mr. Reade is, perhaps, a little too positive in this passage, as is the custom of that brilliant author. No matter. Shake- speare, when he was about twenty-two years of age, went co London, and obtained an humble place in a company of players. From acting he advanced to tinkering and adapting old plays, 28 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. and from that to writing plays of his own, which are now uni- versally recognized as the greatest productions of human genius. His authorship enabled him to buy shares in the theatre, and he was very soon a prosperous man, able, when he went home to see his children, his father, his brothers and sisters, to take with him something substantial for their comfort. He never removed his family to London, but visited them frequently, and invested money in Stratford, when he had any to spare from his business as manager of a theatre. In ten years after leaving home he bought one of the hand- somest houses in Stratford for the residence of his family, and was decidedly the most distinguished literary man of Great Britain. His great plays attracted immense multitudes of spec- tators and excited unbounded enthusiasm. Many passages could be quoted (I have them now before me) from writers of his own time, in which Shakespeare is ranked with the greatest dramatists of Greece, Rome, and France. Those who think that this poet was not keenly appreciated and bountifully re- warded in his own day are utterly mistaken. Fame and wealth were his to his heart's desire. Among other tributes to his genius was one from a rogue who impudently put the name of Shakespeare upon the title-page of a book to make it sell. When he had been sixteen years in London, he ceased to act. This was in 1603. In 1607 his eldest daughter, Susanna, was married to a physician, Dr. John Hall, of Stratford, and in the same year Edmund Shakespeare, a brother of the poet, and an obscure actor in his theatre, died in London. Shakespeare lived in the metropolis, as actor, dramatist, and manager, for twenty-four years, and then retired to his native town upon an income equal, in our present currency, to ten thousand dollars per annum. That is to say, his income was about four hundred and ten pounds per annum, which is equal to two thousand pounds in money of the present time, which is equal to more than ten thousand dollars in greenbacks. After set- tling in Stratford he wrote three plays, of which one was the sub- lime and pleasing Tempest. His parents and his son were dead, and there is good reason to believe that from his twenty-first y>,ar he had never been a husband to his wife, and really had no home. WHAT IS KNOWN OF SHAKESPEARE. 29 He died suddenly in 1616, aged fifty-two, leaving his wife and two married daughters. Both of his daughters had chil- dren, and one of them a grandchild ; but before the close of the century the family had become extinct. He had no heir, either to his estate or to his genius. He was, in all probability, the first of his family who ever knew how to write, and he car- ried the art of writing to a point which no man, in all the future of the human race, will ever be likely to surpass. Because a man is a very great poet or artist is not a reason for supposing that he is a great man. On the contrary, a per- son may have the most wonderful talents, and yet be an exceed- ingly inferior human being, mean, grasping, sensual, and false. We do not know enough of the man, William Shake- speare, to judge of his character with certainty, though I think the little we do know indicates that he had his share of human infirmity. But when we come to consider him as an artist and poet, we feel that it is presumption even to praise him ; and, for oiy part, I consider that I am more indebted to him than to any other creature that ever trod this earth. 30 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. JOHN HOWARD. NOVEMBER the 1st, 1755, the people of Lisbon were alarmed by that awful rumbling beneath the earth which, as they well knew, usually preceded an earthquake. Before they could escape from their houses, the shock came, which overthrew the greater part of the city, and buried thousands of persons in its ruins. The sea retired, leaving the bottom of the harbor bare, but immediately returned in a fearful wave fifty feet high, over- whelming everything in its course. The inhabitants who could get clear of the ruins rushed in thousands to a magnificent marble wharf, just completed, which seemed to offer a place of safety. This massive structure, densely covered with men, women, and children, suddenly sunk, bearing with it to un- known depths the entire multitude. Not a creature escaped ; not a human body rose again to the surface ; not a fragment of anything that was on the wharf was ever again seen by human eye; and when, by and by, the water was sounded over the place where it had stood, the depth was found to be six hun- dred feet. Within the space of six minutes, sixty thousand persons are supposed to have perished ; and those who survived were so encompassed about with horror, that they might well have envied those whom the sea had submerged or the falling houses crushed. Not Lisbon alone, but all Portugal, was shaken by this tre- mendous convulsion, which was felt, indeed, over a third part of the earth. The same shock which almost destroyed Lisbon shook down chimneys in Massachusetts and jarred the habita- tions in Iceland. But it was in Portugal that its force was chiefly spent. There, mountains were rent, towns engulfed, farms moved away in a mass, rivers turned from their course, JOHN HOWARD. 31 the whole land desolated, and all the inhabitants paralyzed with terror. When the earthquake had subsided, fires broke out in the prostrated towns, and bands of robbers, in the total suspen- sion of government, ravaged and plundered the helpless people, and committed every kind of abominable excess. During all that winter the sufferings of the people were grievous, and to this day Portugal has not recovered from the stroke. Such an event, at any time, would have excited universal consternation, and called forth a great deal of remark ; but there were some circumstances peculiar to that period which caused it to come with special power upon reflecting minds. The fashionable philosophy then was that of Pope's Essay on Man, which had been translated into French and German, and was continually quoted in society. It was very common to hear such expressions as, "Whatever is is right;" "Partial evil is the general good;" "This is the best of possible worlds;" " Each creature is as happy as is consistent with the happiness of the whole." Sentiments of this kind we now call " Optim- ism." In the midst of all this shallow talk, came the tidings of an appalling catastrophe, which struck every soul with amazement and terror, as if to show the futility of all human attempts to form a consistent theory respecting the government of the universe. The youthful Goethe and the aged Voltaire have both left records in their works of the effect of the Lisbon earthquake upon the glib praters of Optimism, as well as of the universal and long-continued horror which it excited in the public mind. It was this catastrophe which was the means of calling into exercise the latent benevolence of John Howard, who is now styled in all lands and tongues, "the philanthropist." The father of this benevolent being was noted for his penu- riousness. He was a member of the firm of Howard and Ham- ilton, upholsterers and carpet-dealers, who, for fifty years or more, supplied the fashionable people of London with their wares. In this business, Mr. Howard (who was also named John) acquired a very handsome fortune ; so that, beside leav- ing a liberal independence to his only daughter, he bequeathed to his only son a fine landed estate, two country houses, a house 32 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. in London, and seven thousand pounds sterling in money. So penurious was he in his old age, that he permitted his houses to get out of repair to such a degree that it cost his son, on coming into possession, a large sum to render them comfortable. His avarice, however, did not prevent him sending his son to the best schools the dissenters then had in England ; but as the teachers in those schools were selected, not for their fitness, but for their creed, they were not always very capable of calling forth the energies of the youthful mind. John Howard, there- fore, was a decidedly illiterate man. He spelled very incor- rectly, and expressed himself, on paper, in the most awkward and ungrammatical manner. He was, probably, a dull boy, as he was rather a dull man. There is no question that, in point of mere intellect, he was not much above the average of Eng- lish tradesmen. It was the custom at that day for the sons of tradesmen, no matter how rich their fathers might be, to be regularly appren- ticed for seven years to some business. Young Howard was apprenticed to a great firm of wholesale grocers, to whom his father paid seven hundred pounds premium. In consideration of this large sum, the apprentice was treated like a younger son of the head partner. He was allowed to keep a man-servant and two saddle-horses ; he rode in the park like a lord ; he took his rides into the country ; his pockets had plenty of money in them ; and, in short, he was such a grocer's apprentice as the modern world knows nothing about, but whose pranks may be read of in some old books. This particular apprentice, how- ever, was a very serious youth. His father bad reared him in the strictest principles of the Calvinistic dissenters, and the boy appears to have imbibed those principles heartily, and lived in accordance with them from his childhood up. He was guilty of none of the excesses common to young men of that day, and to which his circumstances appeared to invite him. At an early period he joined a dissenting church, with which he remained connected through life. In matters of mere doctrine he was moderate and very tolerant, while his conduct was regulated in the most rigid conformity with his profession. Under a quiet JOHN HOWARD. 33 exteuor he concealed a burning religious enthusiasm, which filled his diary with expressions of rapture and longing. In 1749, when he was twenty-three years of age, his father died. His apprenticeship net having yet expired, he bought the remainder of his time, and made the tour of Europe. On this tour, so far as is known, he felt no particular interest in the objects which afterwards absorbed his mind whenever he trav- elled. He bought a large number of pictures, sculptures, and curiosities, with which he decorated his favorite country-seat, and comported himself, in all respects, like an ordinary travel- ler. He took pains, however, to acquire the languages of the countries which he visited, particularly the French, in which he conversed with much fluency. After a residence abroad of a year or two, he returned home, and occupied himself with the .study of natural philosophy, and read some medical works, little thinking at the time of what use his slight knowledge of medicine would be to him in after years. He was one of those gentlemen who are fond of observing the thermometer, and making very exact records of its variations. In everything he was an exact man, extremely punctual, scrupu- lously just; and he demanded from his servants the same quali- ties. The only evidence which he gave, at this period, of unu- sual benevolence, was his great' liberality in rewarding those who served him, his frequent gifts to the church which he at- tended, and his charitable donations to the poor of his neigh- borhood. On one occasion he subscribed fifty pounds toward building a parsonage for his minister, and on another he fur- nished his church with a new pulpit. His marriage was the first event in his life that was extraor- dinary ; and that was very extraordinary. In his twenty-fifth year he had a long and dangerous illness. When he was first seized he was living in lodgings near London, where he fancied he was not treated with the attention his case demanded. He consequently removed to the house of a widow, who was herself a confirmed invalid, and fifty-two years of age. This lady, who possessed a small independence, nursed him during many months with such tender care that he felt toward her an unbounded gratitude, and, upon his recovery, he offered her his hand. To 3 34 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. the remonstrances of the lad}' upon the great disparity of their ages and fortune, he replied with such persuasive warmth that her scruples were overcome, and the marriage took place. With his usual fine sense of justice, he caused her property to be set- tied upon her sister. This singular marriage between a man of twenty-five and a woman of fifty-two was productive, as Howard always averred, of nothing but happiness. After two years and a half of tranquil felicity, the lady died. During the last six months of her life he was able to repay her care of him in his own sickness by at- tending her in hers. He watched over her, day and night, with all the devotion and tenderness of a husband whose youthful bride is stricken with disease in the hone}*moon. "I would give a hundred pounds," he would say, "to procure her one night's sleep." And he often used to declare, after her death, that if he ever married again, it would be just such a woman that he would prefer. He was now a melancholy widower. A day or two after the funeral of his wife, the news reached England of the destruction of Lisbon by an earthquake, and every subsequent arrival brought new details of the catastrophe, and additional particu- lars of the sufferings of the people. The benevolence of all lands was keenly touched by a disaster so unprecedented and appall- ing, and efforts were everywhere made for the relief of the stricken people of Portugal. Howard resolved to go himself and witness the scene, and lend a hand to the relief of the sufferers. It is probable, however, that his motive in going to Portugal was not wholly one of benevolence. He wished to distract his mind, to observe the phenomena of the convulsion, as well as to nssuage the miseries of the inhabitants. It was in the midst of the bloody seven years' war that hu took passage in the Lisbon packet, the Hanover. He was not destined to reach his port. A few days after leaving England the packet was captured by a French privateer, and he, with all his companions, was a prisoner of war. He now, like royal Lear in the forest, was called to endure the anguish "which wretches feel," and which he spent laborious years in assuaging. The privateer was forty hours in reaching JOHN HOWARD. 35 the nearest French port ; and during that time the prisoners had not a drop of water nor an atom of food. Arriving at Brest, they were thrust into a filthy dungeon under ground, and there again they were kept miserable hours without nourishment. At length a joint of mutton was thrown down into their dungeon, like meat into a dog-kennel ; and this, for want of a knife, they were obliged to tear to pieces with their hands. For six days and nights they were detained in this damp and stinking hole, gnawing bones, and sleeping upon wet straw. Removed then to another town and a better prison, his jailer, on his own respon- sibility, permitted him to live in the town on parole, and one of the inhabitants was so impressed with a sense of his integrity as to lend him money upon his word alone. Being thus at liberty, he devoted himself to an investigation of the manner in which prisoners of war were treated in France. He ascertained, by cor- responding with those confined in other towns, and by personal inspection of the prisons near at hand, that they were treated with horrible barbarity. "Hundreds had perished, and thirty- six were buried in a hole in one day." After two months' detention, he was allowed to go to Eng- land, on this condition : If he could induce the British govern- ment to send back a French naval officer in exchange, no was at liberty to remain ; if not, he was to return to France. This ex- change was easily effected, and he was a free man. He imme- diately laid before the government the full and exact information he had collected respecting the treatment of the prisoners, which led to the mitigation of their sufferings, and greatly hastened their exchange. Three ship-loads of prisoners owed their speedier release directly to his exertions. He always said that it was personal experience and observa- tion of the cruelties inflicted by the French jailers and contract- ors upon the prisoners of war, that first kindled his compassion for those of his fellow-men who have no one to stand between them and the arbitrary will of unwatched officials. Howard was forty-six years of age before he entered upon those labors which have made his name another word for philanthropy. To his neighbors, however, and especially to his tenants, he was known, long before, as one of the most 36 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. benevolent of men. It could not be said of Jam that he was generous when the eye of the public was upon him, and ireari in the seclusion of his own estate. He was, in truth, not only a most liberal and considerate landlord, but it was he who set the fashion, so to speak, to English landlords of taking an in- terest in the welfare of their poorer neighbors and dependents. Some of his plans have since been extensively adopted, to the great benefit of many thousands of families. Soon after his escape from France he married a lady much better suited to him, in age, than the venerable widow who had first accepted his hand. This union was in every respect for- tunate and happy ; for his wife fully concurred with him in his benevolent schemes, and adapted herself to his peculiar humors. Having settled upon his patrimonial estate at Cardington, iu Bedfordshire, he divided his time between the improvement of his gardens and grounds, and the elevation of his tenants. The village, when he first went to live near it, was little more than a collection of huts and hovels, usually composed of one or two rooms, in which large families lived more like pigs than human beings. Few of the adults, and none of the children, could read. There were no schools for the poor, and never had been, in all that region of country. The men wasted their earnings in the ale-house, which was the only flourishing establishment in the place ; and the whole of the laboring population was so sunk in ignorance, thriftlessuess, and vice, that nothing short of the determined benevolence of a Howard could have raised them from it. Nor was this state of things peculiar to Bed- fordshire ; the description of Cardington applied to half the agricultural parishes of England a hundred years ago. Howard began by improving the dwellings of his tenant!-. One after another, he pulled down the ancient hovels, and built, in their stead, neat and convenient cottages, containing never less than three rooms. To each cottage he attached a small garden in the rear for vegetables, and in front a little patch for flowers, surrounding the whole with a pretty picket fence. As the ground was low and marshy, he had it drained by a system of ditches, which almost banished from the place the agues and the fevers to which the inhabitants had before JOHN HOWARD. 37 been subject. When he had completed one cottage, he let it to the man in the village who bore the best character for sobriety and industry ; and he let it at the same rent which was paid for the wretched huts. Howard, I may here remark, was an excellent man of business. He fixed his new cottages at the old rate of rent, because he found, by careful calculation, that that rate yielded him a proper return for the capital invested. It is greatly to the credit of his good sense and good manage- ment, that, after a long life of the most liberal expenditure for the public good, he left his estate in a better condition than he received it from his father. This cottage-building, for example, was an excellent investment, though that was not the motive which impelled him to undertake it. As often as he had a cottage completed, he looked about for a sober and diligent tenant for it ; so that his cottage-building furnished a most powerful inducement to reform. Besides this, he let his cottages on certain conditions favorable to virtue and good order. One was, that the tenant should go to church once every Sunday ; another, that he should never go to the ale- house ; another, that he should never gamble ; another, that he should let his children go to the school which he had estab- lished for them. It was so exceedingly desirable to a poor man to have one of his cottages, with a garden attached, at a rent of about ten dollars a year, that he had no difficulty in inducing the villagers to comply with his conditions. He con tinued his rebuilding until all the old cottages that belonged to him had given place to new ones ; and then he bought others for the same purpose. One of his neighbors, too, observing what an excellent effect a clean and proper dwelling had upon the morals of a family, followed his example, and built a con- siderable number of cottages ; so that, in about ten years, the whole village was rebuilt, and, from being one of the meanest, dirtiest, and most unhealthy places in the county, it became the prettiest, pleasantest, and most salubrious village in that part of England. An anecdote will serve to show how heartily his wife entered into his plans. At the close of a year, when he had made up his acccuuts, he found that he had a balance on hand ; and, as 38 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. he made it a rule to spend all his income, he proposed to his wife that they should employ this sum in visiting London. " What a pretty cottage it would build ! " said she ; and a cottage was built with it, accordingly. Besides providing his tenants with decent habitations, he endeavored to teach them how to live in them. Schools were established by him for the children, and he was in the habit of visiting his tenants in their cottages, conversing with them upon their work, their gardens, their children, and pointing out the best modes of culture and the proper mode of rearing chil- dren. As he had taken some pains to inform himself respecting diseases and their causes, he was frequently able to give them good advice respecting their complaints, and thus saved them the expense of a doctor. In times of scarcity, he exerted him- self to procure employment for those who needed it, getting situations among his friends for deserving girls and young men, keeping many hands busy upon his own grounds, and in weav- ing linen for his family. It is said that he had linen enough in his house when he died to last fifty years longer. He was reluctant to give money in charity, except to persons who could not work. His way was to provide work, even if the work was not needed. This principle, however, did not prevent his giving presents on proper occasions to deserving objects. All his servants were generously remembered by him at Christmas and on their birthdays; and, when one of their daughters was married, he was fond of presenting the bride with a good cow. The old women of his parish had many a chaldron of coal from him in the winter, and he was a great tosser of pennies to boys whom he met on the road, of whom he had heard good accounts from the school-mistress. As one of his neighbors truly remarked of him, "It was his meat and drink to do good." Benevolence of this kind was well adapted to England, though it would be out of place in America. Here, we expect and desire every man to take care of himself and his family, because every virtuous man, who has good health, can earn the means of doing so. We should not like to see a rich landlord setting up to be the father of his village, poking his nose into people's houses and affairs, dictating on what terms their chil- JOHN HOWARD. 39 then should be educated, and letting them their houses oil con- dition of their going to church every Sunday. But in England, where one man in a parish may have ten thousand pounds a year, and nine-tenths of his neighbors only ten shillings a week ; where one man has had every possible chance to im- prove himself, and nearly all the rest have had no chance at all ; where one man lives in a spacious and elegant abode, filled with everything which can minister to his comfort and pleasure, and most of his neighbors pass their lives in little, crowded huts, composed of a single room ; in those circumstances, no power can raise the people in the scale of civilization but the benevolence of that one man. Howard's conduct to his poor neighbors and fellow-citizens was entirely admirable ill- suited as it would be in a land where the conditions of men are more equal. While thus contributing to the enjoyment of others, he did not neglect to enjoy life himself. He was a thorough country gentleman. His grounds and gardens were unfailing sources of pleasure to him. Some of the walks which he laid out, and some of the trees which he planted, are still to be seen at Card- ington, as well as a curious garden-house made entirely of roots, in which his much-loved thermometer hung, and where he recorded his observations of the weather. He sent a paper, occasionally, upon the weather and the temperature, to the Royal Society of London, which led to his being elected a member of that institution. Dr. Franklin was a member at the same time; and, as Howard was intimately acquainted with several of Franklin's friends, it is highly probable that the English and the American philanthropists knew one another. It may be, however, that the difference of their religious opinions kept them apart, Franklin being a deist, and Howard a. very decided and most ardent trinitarian. On one point Howard agreed with Dr. Franklin : he was the friend of America during the whole of our revolutionary period. So opposed was he to the tyrannical measures of Lord North, that, later in life, when he could have been a member of parliament by holding his tongue on that subject, he boldly avowed his oppositior, and lost his seat. 4:0 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. For seven years he lived in the country with his wife. Nothing was wanting to his happiness but children, which, for seven years, v/ere denied him. Then a son was born, who filled up the measure of his joy. A few days after the birth of this child, he left his wife in the morning to go to church, she being apparently as well as could be expected. On his return, he found her indisposed, and a few minutes after, as he was hand- ing her a cup of chocolate, she fell back upon her pillow and immediately breathed her last. It was a fearful blow to a man so affectionate and so domestic in his habits as John Howard, and it cast over his mind a shadow which was never quite dissi- pated while he lived. The boy, whom he had obtained at the price of his happiness, was a large and healthy child ; it lived to be the consoler of his solitude, but finally the shame and misery of his old age. For the relief of his mind, he made another extensive tour upon the Continent, and visited various parts of his own country ; residing only occasionally at his home, but always attentive to the welfare of his tenants, whether present or absent. On one of his tours he had a severe fit of the gout, which led him to resolve that, if ever he recovered, he would never again drink wine or spirits. He kept his resolution, though he continued to provide wine for his guests. Soon after, his health being still impaired, he tried the experiment of living without meat; and, as a vegetable diet seemed to benefit him, he never again partook of animal food. All this was highly serviceable to him in his philanthropic travels, wheii he was often beyond the reach of any supplies except the most simple. He could live, and often did live, for weeks at a time, upon biscuit, raisins, and tea. Tea, in fact, was his onl} luxury. He always travelled with a supply of the best tea, and a portable apparatus for preparing it. On arriving at a town, he would sit in his carriage and dine upon tea and biscuit, but send his servant to the inn to get a good dinner. He could bid defiance to all inn-keepers, as he was totally inde- pendent of them for his comfort, and he could sleep as well in his carriage as in a bed. Such a man was John Howard, and so passed his life till he JOHN HOWARD. 41 was forty-six years of age ; when an event occurred which called his attention again to the condition and treatment of a class of his fellow-beings, whose sufferings were unpitied be- cause they were unknown, the unprotected prey of savage men, savage laws, and that fell tyrant of England, ancient cus- tom. In the year 1773 John Howard was appointed high sheriff of the county of Bedfordshire, in which he resided. In Eng- land the sheriffs are appointed by the king, and he usually se- lects one of the leading gentlemen or noblemen of the county, who holds the office one year. The disagreeable duties of the place are performed by under sheriffs. Twice a year the higb sheriff, clad in the showy robes of his office, rode out of town in his carriage, and escorted to the town hall, amid the pealing ot bells, the judges who came to hold the semi-annual court ; and in the evening he gave a ball, which was attended by the judges, the lawyers, and the principal families of the county. He also occasionally entertained at dinner the gentlemen of the neigh- borhood ; and these were all the duties which custom and public opinion demanded of the high sheriff. As he received no sal- ary, and the office involved considerable expense, it was never bestowed except upon a man of wealth. John Howard w 7 as not a man to tread without questioning in the footsteps of a predecessor ; nor was he a person likely to think that a duty which the law imposes on one man can be prop- erly performed by another man. As soon, therefore, as he had received his appointment, he took the extraordinary course of looking into the law to ascertain what the duties were which appertain to it. He found that the county jail was under his jurisdiction, and that he was bound to see that the jailers did their duty, and that the prisoners were properly dealt with. Accordingly, instead of sending a deputy to attend to this duty, he went himself to the prison, gave every part and department of it a thorough inspection, and inquired into the condition of each prisoner. He found many things there that distressed him ; but there was one abuse which so deeply offended his sense of justice, that he at once set about reforming it. At that day, a jailer had no salary, but was supported chiefly 4:2 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. by fees extorted from the prisoners on their leaving jail. Cus- tom had established, with the force of law, that every prisoner, whether felon or debtor, whether discharged because the jury had acquitted him, or because no bill of indictment was found against him, or because his term of imprisonment had expired, should pa} r , before leaving the jail, a fee of fifteen shillings and four pence to the jailer, and another fee of two shillings to the turnkey, about five dollars in all. If a prisoner could not raise this sum, the jailer was allowed to keep him in prison till he could. The reader may judge of the feelings of a Howard when he discovered that some men had been confined many weeks, some many months, and one man four years, solely be- cause they were unable to pay the fees for their delivery. He found that some prisoners who had been proved innocent, and others against whom 'no bill had been found, still languished in a loathsome dungeon, because there was no one on earth able and willing to lend them the trifling sum of nineteen shillings and four pence, while the county was at the expense of support- ing them. Such frightful abuses as this come of great men put- ting off their duties upon deputies. These fees had been exacted so long, that no one could give any account of the origin of the system, or knew why such an odd sum as fifteen shillings and four pence had been fixed upon ; yet John Howard was the first high sheriff to direct attention to its inhumanity and absurdity. Howard promptly called the attention of the judges to the sub- ject, and they appeared as much shocked at his recital as he had been at the discovery. He proposed, as a remedy, that the fees then due should be paid by the county ; that the old system should at once be abolished ; and that the jailer should be supported in future by a salary. They were disposed to adopt his plans ; " but," said they, with the true British reverence for old cus- toms, " is there any precedent for paying a jailer a salary and charging it to a county?" Howard could not answer this ques- tion, but said that he would immediately visit some of the ad- jacent counties, and see what customs prevailed with regard to the discharge of prisoners and the payment of jailers. He did so, and found everywhere the same system, and at every jail JOHN HOWARD. 43 poor prisoners detained for the lack of the nineteen shillings and four pence. That short excursion in search of a precedent revealed to his benevolent mind such enormous and dreadful defects in the prison system of England, that he, soon after, set out upon a more extensive journey, determined to inform himself thorough- ly upon the subject, and let the light of publicity into the hide- ous dungeons where innocent and guilty, the unfortunate debtor and the atrocious criminal, youthful offenders and men grown old in iniquity, festered and rotted together. A county prison, he found, usually consisted of three princi- pal rooms. One of them, called the day-room, resembled, in general appearance and furniture, the tap-room of a low, village ale-house, except that it was ill-lighted and worse ventilated, and exceedingly unclean. In this apartment all the. inmates of the prison, men and women, debtors and felons, passed the day. As the jailer had the privilege of selling beer and liquors to the prisoners, they were supplied with just as much drink as they could pay for ; and, consequently, this day-room often presented a scene of riotous debauchery. Every new comer had to treat the whole company ; and all fines, bets, and penalties were dis- charged by pots of ale and bowls of punch. As no employ- ment was provided for the prisoners, nor any books, most of them spent the day, and every day, in playing cards and in drinking the beer and brandy which were the invariable stakes. The presence of women was frequently the occasion of excesses still more abominable. In this school of depravity, maintained at the expense of the virtuous portion of the community, youth- ful offenders, whom judicious treatment could easily have res- cued, were rendered in a few weeks adepts in all the arts by which crime preys upon virtue. There, murderers recounted tales of butchery, highway robbers vaunted their exploits on the road, house-breakers unfolded their secrets and magnified their gains. There, young women, imprisoned on suspicion of a trifling theft, were thrown among the most abandoned of their own sex, and the most brutal of ours. There, the honest debtor, the respectable father of a virtuous family, bankrupt through 44 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. the delinquency of others or by sadden calamity, was compelled to live iu the closest contact with the vilest of his species. At night, the men and women were generally (but not iu all prisons) separated. The two night-rooms, one for men and the other for women, were, in almost every prison in England, under ground. Howard went into one of these dungeons that was twenty -four steps below the surface, and another that was thirty-seven ; but they were usually ten or twelve feet under ground, with two small windows about two feet square. The floor was littered with what had once been straw, but which was soon ground into powder when the dungeon was dry, and into paste when it was damp. Damp it usually was, and chilly, and foul, and stinking, to a degree that only the heroic benevolence of a Howard could have borne to remain in it voluntarily. On this pulverized and rotten straw, teeming with vermin and sur- charged with poisonous odors, the walls and ceiling exuding filth, the prisoners slept, covered, in winter, with a damp and filthy rug. The jail-fever, of course, raged in all such prisons, and often spread into the towns. It was not uncommon for judges, law- yers, and jurymen to catch that malignant disease from the pris- oners whom they tried ; the bar and the bench of England, in the last century, lost some of their brightest ornaments from this most deadly of fevers. Such was its peculiar virulence that the surgeons of some of the jails were exempted, by the terms of their contract, from attending any prisoner who had it. There was another shocking abuse which Howard found to be very general. Many of the prisons being ancient, parts of old castles or the wing of a convent, they were very inse- cure ; and as the jailer was responsible for the safe keeping of the prisoners, he resorted to the easiest means of securing them that he was acquainted with. Accordingly, Howard found in some prisons all the inmates chained. Sometimes they were only handcuffed, or had their ankles chained together ; but in a few of the oldest prisons the poor wretches were chained to a wall in the daytime, and to the floor at night. Few things, in the course of his first tour, so sorely afflicted the benevolent heart of John Howard, still bleeding from the loss of his wife, as to see women dragging about heavy and clanking fetters, or JOHN HOWARD. 4.5 chained to a thick iron ring in the floor. Another thing pain- fully offended his sense of delicacy : in many prisons there was but one yard, which was common to the male and female inmates. The food of the prisoners he found to be generally insufficient. The jailers usually fed them by contract ; so that the less the prisoners ate, the more the jailer gained. In almost every jail that he visited, he found men detained be- yond their term because they could not pay the fees of the jailer and turnkey. In one prison there were two sailors, whose offence had been so slight that the magistrate had sentenced them to pay a fine of one shilling each. They had paid the fine, but could not raise the money for the fees, and they remained in one of these pestilential dungeons until Howard visited it, when he paid their fees, and restored them to liberty. Here and there he found a prison where some attention was paid to cleanliness and decency, where the rooms were not abso- lutely unfit for the residence of human beings, and where the inmates were not the prey of the jailer. On the other hand, he occasionally discovered one where all the usual abuses were aggravated. One prison consisted of a single room, or passage, twenty-seven feet long and seven feet wide, lighted by one win- dow. In another, where the men -and women were not sep- arated, night or day, as many as seven births had taken place in a year. From 1773 to 1776 Howard's chief employment was to pur- sue his investigations into the condition of the prisons of Great Britain. In the course of those three years he personally, and most thoroughly, inspected 'every prison in the three kingdoms that offered any peculiarity. He travelled ten thousand miles at his own expense, and delivered from prison a large number of poor debtors by paying their debts, and many petty criminals by paying their fees. Wherever he went he brought some alle- viation to the lot of the prisoners by gifts of money, bread, meat, or tea, and by remonstrating with jailers, surgeons, chaplains, and magistrates. Several prisons underwent a complete renova- tion and reformation solely in consequence of his conversations with county magistrates and circuit judges. 40 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. Iii the second year of his inquiries, his efforts had become so far known that he was summoned before a committee of the House of Commons to give information as to the results of his investigations. The members of the committee, amazed at such sublime devotion to a calling so painful and repulsive, and charmed with the fitness, exactness, and modesty of his replies, caused him to be summoned to the bar to receive the thanks of the house for his "humanity and zeal." He obeyed the sum- mons. Amid the cheers of members he modestty advanced to the bar, where he stood with bowed head, while the Speaker communicated to him the thanks of his countrymen. There was never a man more truly modest than John Howard, but at this unusual and noble recognition of his labors, his heart was touched, and his purpose strengthened. When, after other years of heroic labors in the same cause, he published the results of his inquiries, he dedicated the volume to the House of Com- mons, and thanked them in his turn for the encouragement they had afforded him. It has been the lot of many philanthropists to encounter obloquy and opposition in their efforts to benefit mankind. It was Howard's happier fortune to enjoy, at all times, the ap- proval of his countrymen, and to receive needful aid from per- sons in authority. He was so devoid of all pretence, and went about his work in such a quiet, earnest manner, and gave such unquestionable proofs of the benevolence of his motives, that the enmity of men whose evil practices he exposed was dis- armed, and all others observed his proceedings with admiration. His rank, too, as a gentleman of independent property, greatly facilitated his labors, and when he had publicly received the thanks of the House of Commons, he had a kind of official character, which opened to him the doors of every jail the moment he presented himself. He pursued his investigations in a very business-like manner, carrying with him a rule with which to measure the dungeons, a pair of scales for weighing the allowance of food, and a memorandum book in which to record his facts. I have before remarked, that almost every man in England whose memory England now cherishes with pride, sided with JOHN HOWARD. 47 America during the revolutionary war ; just as nearly every man whom England will honor a century hence, sympathized with the United Statei during the late contest. Howard had many friends in the circle of distinguished men who surrounded Dr. Franklin in London, and opposed, as they did, the hostile measures of the king. In 1774, the liberal party in Bedford- shire nominated him for parliament, and, after a most severe contest, he was elected by a small majority. The " issue " in this election was, whether the king and Lord North should be sustained in their American policy ; and the election of Howard was, therefore, a defeat for the administration. The ministry, however, succeeded in finding a pretext for annulling the elec- tion. Some of Howard's votes were declared illegal, enough to give the seat to a tory. The loss of a seat in parliament was not much regretted by him for his own sake, but he felt acutely the wrong done to the great and patriotic party which had elected him. "I was a victim of the ministry," he wrote, after learning the result of the struggle. " Most surely I should not have fallen in with all their severe measures relative to the Americans, and my constant declaration that not one emolument of five shillings, were I in parliament, would I ever accept of, marked me out as an object of their aversion. I sensibly feel for an injured people ; their affection and esteem I shall ever reflect on with pleasure and gratitude. As to myself, I calmly retire." The allusion here to the "emolument" of members of parlia- ment requires a word of explanation. At that day, it was so common for the ministry to carry leading measures by bribery, that a member who refused to accept anything from an admin- istration, was set down, as a matter of course, in the ranks of the opposition. I have read letters from members of parliament to a prime minister, humbly apologizing for not accepting a proffered bribe, and I have elsewhere (see Parton's Life of Franklin) shown that the steady majority which enabled Lord North to provoke America to resistance, was bought and paid for. That minister had always about one hundred and thirty members of parliament in his pay, who received from five hun- dred to one thousand pounds per session ; and the rest of his 4:8 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. majority was secured by the gift of office, commissions, con- tracts, and church livings, to the sons and friends of members. Fortunate was it for the poor prisoners of Europe that John Howard was cheated of his seat in parliament. In the spring of 1775, when he was about to begin the preparation of his prison notes for the press, it occurred to him that an inspection of some of the prisons of France, Germany, and Holland might furnish some facts useful to his purpose. In April, therefore, while some of his countrymen were running away from the battle of Lexington, he crossed to Paris, and stood before the frowning towers of the Bastile, seeking admission to its gloomy dungeons. That ancient fortress was surrounded by a wide ditch, which was crossed by a drawbridge, and this ditch was girdled by a thick and lofty wall. Unprovided with an order or pass, Howard knocked vigorously at the outer gate, which was open, and then walked in, past the guard, and, advancing to the drawbridge, stood there contemplating the gloomy edi- fice. Very soon, an officer presented himself, who appeared to be astonished beyond measure at his audacity, and ordered him back. He retreated, and passed by the silent guard again to the outer world, "the only person," as one of his friends re- marked, "who, in four centuries, had ever left the Bastile reluctantly." After attempting in vain to gain admission to other prisons in Paris, he was so fortunate as to discover an ancient royal decree, which directed jailers to admit to prisons under their eharge all persons desirous of giving alms to prisoners, and to permit them to give their alms into the prisoners' own hands. Armed with this decree, he obtained access to all the prisons of Paris, excepting only the impenetrable Bastile. He found that, upon the whole, the prison system of France was better than that of England ; the prisons were cleaner, the food was better, the rules more just and humane. But, in some of the large prisons of Paris, he discovered under-ground dungeons of the most revolting description, "totally dark," he observes, "and beyond imagination horrid and dreadful." In one prison, there were eight cells, sixteen steps below the surface of the earth, in size thirteen feet by nine, without window or lamp, and venti- JOHN HOWAKD. 49 lated only by a funnel. Into these damp, cold, and noisome cells, not a ray of light ever penetrated, and "in them," says Howard, "poor creatures were confined, day and night, for weeks, for months together." After only a few days' confine- ment in one of them, a man would come out yellow, emaciated, and almost out of his senses. Howard was never content merely to ascertain the existence of such dungeons ; he went down into them himself, remained in them an hour or more, conversed with their wretched inmates, and employed his rule, his scales, and his thermometer, to render his description exact. Leaving France, he traversed the Low Countries, visiting O ' * O prisons and hospitals. At Ghent, then under the dominion of Austria, he found, to his equal surprise and delight, a prison free from all the abuses he had elsewhere observed, and abound- ing in excellent features of which he had never heard. Every inmate had a separate room which w r as perfectly clean ; a decent bed, with mattress, blankets, and sheets ; an abundance of water, which he was compelled to use in the purification of his person and his cell. But the crowning merit of this institu- tion was that every prisoner was kept at work. Large work- rooms were filled with silent laborers, who were thus enabled to earn a considerable part of the expense of their maintenance, and, by working over-time, to accumulate a little sum with which to start afresh in the world at the expiration of their term. It may be truly said that Howard's visit to this prison was the means of changing the prison system of the world. Here he saw a practical demonstration of the truth of his own the- ory that a prison should be a place of punishment, but not a scene of torture ; a means of reforming criminals, not of con- firming them in criminal habits. The records of this admirable prison showed that the effects of its discipline were generally salutary, and, in very many cases, resulted in restoring its sub- jects to virtue. Fortified by such an example, he felt that he could now return to his native land, and not confine himself to an exposure of the demoralizing cruelties of its prisons, but point out a remedy which time and experience had tried. In all the prisons of the Continent he found one horror which was unknown in England, a torture chamber. It was a cus- 4 50 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. torn then, in all the countries of Europe, except Prussia, to subject criminals to the torture, in order to compel them to con- fess their crimes and reveal their accomplices. This chamber was usually under ground, that the cries of the sufferer might not be heard. Clad only in a long flannel gown, the trembling victim was led to this apartment, where were assembled the magistrates, the executioners, a surgeon, and a secretary ; and there he was tortured till his agony had wrung from him a con- fession, real or fictitious. Sometimes it was the thumb-screw, sometimes the boot, sometimes a chair with blunt spikes in the seat, sometimes it was a machine for dislocating the arms, some- times it was the lash or the shower-bath, that tried the endur- ance of the accused. These chambers of torture Howard visited, but he purposely forebore to lend a false attraction to his book by describing them. It was not till 1780 that the tor- ture was abolished in France. The man most instrumental in effecting this reform was Voltaire, who for forty years never lost an opportunity of aiming at it a shaft of ridicule or of argument. It was Voltaire, also, whose writings induced Frederick the Great to abolish the torture in Prussia. Keturning home after an extensive tour on the Continent, he determined to visit again the prisons of England, before sitting down to give the public the benefit of his investigations. That done, he made a second continental tour, and then proceeded to the preparation of his book. Aw r are of the defects of his edu- cation, he availed himself of the aid of competent literary men, though he scrutinized most carefully the progress of the work, and read the proofs with extraordinary attention. The motto selected for the book, from the poet Thomson, was very appropriate : " Ah ! little think the gay, Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround, How many pine in want and dungeon glooms, Shut from the common air." The title of the work was, " The State of the Prisons in Eng- land and Wales, with Preliminary Observations, and an Account of some Foreign Prisons ; by John Howard, F. E. S." It was a weighty quarto, of 520 pages, illustrated by four large and JOHN HOWARD. 51 expensive plates. Having defrayed the whole expense of this extensive and very costly work, he presented a copy of it to every public man in England of any note or general influence, and placed the rest of the edition in the bookstores, to be sold at about half the cost of producing them. Having thus, as he supposed, completed his labors on behalf of prisoners, in which he had spent tive years, he retired again to his seat in Bedfordshire, to enjoy a little repose, leaving his work to make its way with the public, and to produce such results as it might. Howard was about fifty-one years of age when he went home to his favorite seat to enjoy the pleasures of the country, and the society of his boy, then a promising lad of ten. He was exceedingly fond of his son, though he governed him, as some of his friends thought, a little too much in the patri- archal style, demanding from him the most prompt and exact obedience, and avoiding, on principle, to give him any explana- tion of the reasons of his requirements. He never struck the boy a blow in his life. The severest punishment he ever in- flicted was compelling him to sit still for a certain time without speaking, and such was his ascendency over the child, that one of his neighbors said that if he should tell the boy to hold his hand in the fire, he would do it. He appears to have carried the patriarchal principle too far. The boy obeyed his father, but did not confide in him ; respected his father, but was not very fond of him ; was proud of his father, but did not feel at home in his company. Obedience is certainly due from a child to its parents, and ought to be required ; but the grand point is to secure the child's confidence and love, so that it will natu- rally impart to its parents its secrets, aud prefer their society to that of any other persons in the world. During Howard's absence on his philanthropic journeys, the boy was left at a boarding-school, near the residence of his aunt, at whose house he spent his holidays. The father, however, frequently visited him, and watched his progress with exemplary attention. Before Howard had been long at home, he observed with pleasure that his labors were bearing fruit. Besides a genera] though partial reform in the county prisons, parliament deter- 52 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. mined to build a model prison on the plan of the one in Client, as described in Howard's book, and he was again summoned before the House of Commons to give further information on the subject. The magazines and newspapers, too, in reviewing his work, held up his unique and self-denying labors to the ad- miration of his countrymen ; which not only rendered his name illustrious, but opened to him new fields of exertion. He was now so identified in the public mind with prison reform, that if any abuse in a jail attracted attention, he was sure to be informed of it, and urged to look into it. Besides all this, his only sister died during this interval of rest, and left him twelve thousand pounds. Now, in Europe, if a man inherits an estate from his father, he considers himself in honor bound to leave {hat estate to his son in at least as good a condition as he found it. Having received this large addition to his property, How- ard was freed from all scruples on this subject ; and, while reserving his patrimony intact for his son, set apart the money received from his sister's estate as a fund for continuing his philanthropic labors. Discovering now that . both parliament and the public were intent on reforming the prisons of England, he determined to set out on a more extensive tour of the Continent, to gather new information respecting the working of the excellent prisons in the Low Countries, as well as new proofs of the evil effects of the old system of dungeons and torture. Before leaving England, he was led to visit the hulks anchored in the Thames, wherein were confined large numbers of convicts awaiting trans- portation. He told members of the government what he saw there. On going on board one of these ships, the captain handed him a piece of excellent biscuit, as a specimen of the food which he gave the prisoners ; but Howard had visited too many prisons to believe one syllable of anything told him by the keepers thereof. The thing that he believed was, the hag- gard and sallow countenances of the wretched convicts, as they wearily paced the deck, half naked, unclean, and stinking. When he saw men looking so, when he smelt that peculiar smell of the jail, he knew that something was wrong. He waited, accordingly, till mess-time, and applied his own eyes, nose, and JOHN HOWARD. 53 scales to the dinner as actually served out. He found the bis- cuit green-, mouldy, and maggoty, the meat tainted, the Crater impure. Taking from his pocket the biscuit given him by the captain, he held it up before the convicts, in the captain's presence, and reproached him with the fraud he was practising upon the men, r.nd the falsehood with which he had endeavored to conceal it. He went below, where he found large numbers of sick men lying on the floor, with not so much as straw under them, to whom were given only the loathsome and poisonous provisions which had caused their sickness. He was not sur- prised to learn that one-third of the convicts die before leaving the country to begin the fulfilment of their sentence ; and he told the government that, unless the system were changed, there would be no need of transporting prisoners to Botany Bay, for they would all die in the Thames. It was a horrid aggravation of this infernal cruelty, that the long detention on board those hulks from four to eight months did not ex- punge a day from the term of their sentence ; it was so much added to their legal punishment. Howard at once reported what he l?ad seen to the Committee of the House of Commons, mid the worst of these outrages were abolished within a week. The health and appearance of the men changed for the better immediately. In the spring of 1778, while all the liberal world was rejoic- ing over the alliance just concluded between France and the United States, and reading in the newspapers the details of Dr. Franklin's presentation to Louis XVI. and Maria Antoi- nette, John Howard crossed the channel once more on his god- like errand, and arrived safely in Holland. At Amsterdam he met with the only serious accident that befell him on his numer- ous journeys. A horse, running away with a dray, threw the vehicle .against him with such violence, that he was a month in recovering from his injuries, during which he suffered very severely. To give the reader a nearer insight into the mind of this singular man, I will here copy a few sentences from the diary kept by him during this illness : "May 11, 1778. Do me good, O God, by this painful 54 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. affliction ; may I see the great uncertainty of health, ease, and comfort; that all my springs are in thee. Oh, the painful and wearisome nights I possess ! May I be more thankful if restored to health, more compassionate to others, more absolutely de- voted to God. '* May 13. In pain and anguish all night, my very life a burthen to me. Help, Lord : vain is the help of man. In thee do I put my trust, let me not be confounded. "'May 14. This night my fever abated, my pains less; I thank God I had two hours' sleep ; prior to which, for eighteen days and nights, not four hours' sleep, liighteous art thou in all thy ways, and holy in all thy works, sanctify this afflic- tion, and show me wherefore thou contendest with me; bring me out of the furnace as silver purified seven times. "May 16. A more quiet night and less fever, yet much pain until the morning. If God should please to restore me to days of prosperity, may I remember the days of sorrow, to make me habitually serious and humble : may I learn from this affliction more than I have learned before, and have reason to bless God for it." These brief passages will suffice to make the reader ac- quainted with Howard's habit of thought and feeling; for all that part of his diary which relates to himself is precisely in the strain of the extracts given. The whole struggle of his life was to do the work to which he felt himself called, and to ex- tinguish in himself all human foibles and frailties that might hinder him, or render his motives less pure and single. As soon as he had recovered his health, he was again at work, visiting prisons, descending into dungeons, penetrating torture-chambers, distributing alms to prisoners, discharging the debts of imprisoned debtors, conversing with magistrates, judges, princes, and monarchs upon his darling theme, and endeavoring to enlist their sympathy and co-operation. At the court of the Emperor of Austria, he was entertained with distinction, both by the enlightened emperor, Joseph, and by his mother, the renowned Maria Theresa, Queen of Hun- gary. He dined with the emperor, and conversed with him for JOHN HOWARD. 55 two hours, laying before him all the horrors of the Austrian dungeons, but duly commending so much of the Austrian prison-system as he found praiseworthy. Dining, a few days after, at the house of the English ambassador, Sir Eobert Mur- ray Keith, where a large company of Austrian princes and nobles were assembled, the conversation turned upon the absurd iniquity of the torture ; when one of the Austrians observed, " that the glory of abolishing the torture in the Austrian do- minions belonged to his present Imperial Majesty Joseph II." "Pardon me," said Howard ; " his Imperial Majesty has only abolished one species of torture to establish another in its place more cruel ; for the torture which he abolished lasted at the most only a few hours ; but that which he has appointed lasts many w r eeks, nay, sometimes years. The poor wretches are plunged into a noisome dungeon, as black as the Black Hole of Calcutta, from which they are taken only if they confess what is laid to their charge." "Hush ! " said the ambassador; "your words will be reported to his majesty." " What ! " cried Howard ; " shall my tongue be tied from speaking truth by any king or emperor in the world? J repeat what I asserted, and maintain its veracity." The company appeared awestruck at his boldness, and ad- mired it ; but no one ventured to make any observation what- ever, and a dead silence ensued. They were not, perhaps, aware that he had said the same thing to the emperor himself. After a journey of nine months, during which he travelled four thousand six hundred and thirty-six miles, and visited the prisons of France, Holland, Prussia, Austria, Italy, and Switz- erland, he returned once more to his native land, with his note- books overflowing with facts and suggestions with which to aid his government in their design to construct a model prison, and to reform the county jails already existing. These notes were, in due time, digested and published in the form of an appendix to his previous work. Having once begun his labors on behalf of the prisoner and the outcast, Howard ended them only with his life. His tour in Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and Poland, was quickly followed 56 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. by another journey in England, and that was succeeded by a tour of nearly four thousand miles in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Austria ; during which he passed from dungeons and hospitals to the palaces of monarchy, conveying to royal ears the cry of the despairing victims of their indifference. We cannot follow him in these extensive journeys. A few incidents, however, that varied the monotony of horror, we may glean from the records he has left us. In the debtors' prison at Sheffield, Howard found a cutler plying his trade, who was in jail for a debt of thirty cents. The fees of the court which had consigned him to prison amounted to nearly five dollars, and this sum he had been for several weeks trying to earn in prison. In another jail there was a man, with a wife and five children, confined for court fees of about one dollar, and jailer's fee of eighty cents. This man was con- fined in the same apartment with robbers arid murderers, and had little hope of being able to raise the money for his dis- charge. All such debtors and they were numerous then in England Howard released by paying their debts. A very striking occurrence came under his notice in Spain, which, I am sure, a romance-writer, could employ as the basis of a thrilling tale. In Portugal and Spain, a cruel custom prevailed of keeping accused persons in jail for months, and even years, before bringing them to trial, and of deferring the execution of capital punishment for periods equally long. Such was the fidelity of the people of those countries to their plighted word, that jailers were accustomed to let out such prisoners on their parole. A man who had been sentenced to death seven years before, and had been for a long time out on parole, was suddenly ordered for execution. At that time he was in the country, living with his family and working industriously at his trade. On receiving the summons to come to Lisbon and meet his doom, he bade farewell to his family and friends, and promptly presented himself at the jail. The facts, however, were made known to the government, and his admirable fidelity was rewarded with a pardon. Howard remonstrated vigorously against these cruel delays, both in conversation with the gran- dees and in his published narrative. JOHN HOWARD. 57 Nowhere in Europe was the torture more frequently applied, or more excruciating, than in Hanover, then under the dominion of the royal family of England. In an interview with the Duke of York, one of the princes of that family, he described the tor- tures inflicted there, when the prince promised that as soon as he was of age he would abolish the practice. In his book, there- fore, Howard alluded to the peculiarly cruel tortures employed in Hanover, and added that the system would not be of long continuance. When the Duke of York had reached his legal majority, Howard sent him a copy of his work with a ribbon inserted to call attention to the passage. The delicate hint was taken, and the torture-chambers were forever closed in that kingdom. No man, perhaps, has ever had such power over criminals as John Howard. There was a terrible rebellion in one of the Lon- don prisons, when two hundred ruffians, driven mad by cruelty, were gathered in the prison-yard, threatening death to any man who should approach them. Howard insisted on going in among them, and did so, in spite of the advice of the jailers and the entreaties of his friends. His very appearance disarmed them, and they listened to his quiet and reasonable remonstrances in respectful silence. He listened patiently in his turn to a recital of their grievances, after which he pointed out the folly of their attempting to resist the authorities, advised them at once to sub- mit, and promised to make their complaints known. They took his advice at length, and went peacefully to their cells. He was once, however, frightened by a woman. The lady in question, who was shown to his apartment in London, was of such amazingly tall stature, and so masculine in appearance, that he thought her a man in disguise, a jailer, perhaps, whose cruelties he had exposed, and who had come to assassi- nate him. He darted to the bell, and, summoning his servant, gave him a sign to remain in the room till the fearful visitor was gone. It soon appeared that the lady had conceived a profound veneration for his character, and had come only to testify to him in person her gratitude and admiration. After detaining him with a long and pompous eulogy she took her leave, saying that now she had seen Mr. Howard she could die in peace. 58 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. It was not because he was indifferent to the charms of female society that he remained so long a widower. On the contrary, he was exceedingly fond of the company of ladies, and never returned from his continental tours without bringing home for his female friends presents of rare and delicate handiwork, some of which required great care in packing and handling. He would have gladly married again, if he could have found a woman like the wife he had lost. Once, in Holland, on a canal boat, he was powerfully struck by the charms of a young lady travelling with an elderly gentleman, who seemed to be her father. When they left the boat, he ordered his servant to fol- low them and make inquiries. He was exceedingly disconcerted on learning that the young lady was the wife of her elderly companion. On another occasion, in England, he was so much attracted by the writings of a lady who was then rising to distinction as authoress, that he made a journey to the place of her residence, intending to offer her his hand. In the public room of his inn he questioned a gentleman as to the lady's family and character, when he learned, to his sore mortification, that she was about to be married. Further conversation revealed the amusing fact that his informant had come to the town on the same errand as himself, and was going home disappointed. The enamored swains had no resource but to laugh at one another. The Pope was one of the monarchs with whom he conversed on his great subject. He was received at the papal palace with unusual distinction, and he was dispensed from the ceremony of kissing the toe of the pontiff. When he was about to retire, after a long conversation on the prisons of Italy, the Pope said to him, laying his hand upon his very Protestant head : "I know you Englishmen do not mind these things, but the blessing of an old man can do you no harm." Some of the short sayings entered by Howard in his diary are noble and true. The following will touch every generous mind : "Let this maxim be a leading feature of my life, Constantly to favor and relieve those that are lowest." This also is exceedingly grand : JOHN HOWARD, 59 'Christ has made poverty and meanness, joined to holiness, to be a state of dignity." The following is truer than many suppose : " Courage and humanity are inseparable friends." Another of his favorite maxims was this : " Generosity and self-command are the striking aspects of benevolence." Howard himself was a very brave man. At Constantinople, when the plague was raging, he visited the infected districts and the plague hospitals without the least trepidation, and remained in them hours at a time, watching the progress of the disease, with a view to ascertain its cause, and learn the best modes of treatment. He was of opinion that his vegetable diet tended to preserve him from contagion. During his last stay at Vienna, he had a conversation of two hours' duration with the Emperor of Austria, in the course of which he told that high and mighty potentate some disagreeable truths. The emperor having invited him to the palace for the purpose, Howard sent back word that, as he was going to leave Vienna on the following day, he should not be able to wait on his majesty. The emperor then sent him a second message, that he would see him the next morning before his departure, at as early an hour as he chose to name. Howard replied that he would be at the palace at nine precisely, and he kept his appoint- ment to the minute. He was shown into a small room fitted up like a counting-house, with desks, stools, and the usual appara- tus of book-keeping, for Joseph II. was very much a man of business. After the usual civilities, the emperor introduced the topic by asking his guest what he thought of his new military hospital, which Howard had visited a few days before. " I beg first to be informed," said the philanthropist, " whether I may speak my mind freely." The emperor having assured him that he desired his real opin- ion, Howard answered the question bluntly enough. "I must, then," said he, "take the libeity of saying that your majesty's military hospital is loaded with defects. The allow- ance of bread is too small; the apartments are not kept clean, and are also, in many respects, ill-constructed. One defed 60 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. particularly struck me : the care of the sick is committed to men, who are very unfit for that office, especially when it is im- posed on them as a punishment, as I understand to be the case here." "As to the bread," replied the emperor, "the allowance is the same as that of every other soldier, one pound a day." "It is not sufficient," said Howard, "for a man who is re- quired to do any kind of work, or who is recovering from sick- ness ; it is barely adequate to the support of life." "What do you think," asked the emperor, "of the new tower or lunatics ? " "It is by no means such as I could wish ; it is too confined, and not properly managed." Saying which, Howard took his note-book from his pocket, and pointed out the faults of the establishment, as he had noted them down at the time of his visit. He was proceeding to discourse of the prisons of Austria, a subject upon which he had expressed strong opinions on a previous visit, some years before. As he hesitated to enter upon this topic, the emperor said : " Speak without fear." "I saw in them," Howard continued, "many things that filled me with astonishment and grief. They all have dungeons. The torture is said to be abolished in your majesty's dominions, but it is only so in appearance, for what is now practised is worse than any torture. Poor wretches are confined twenty feet under ground, in places just fitted to receive their bodies, and some of them are kept there for eighteen months. Others are in dungeons, chained so closely to the wall that they can hardly breathe. All of them are deprived of proper consolation and religious support." "Sir," interrupted the emperor, with some abruptness, "in your country they Jiang for the slightest offences." "I grant," said Howard, "that the multiplicity of her capital punishments is a disgrace to England ; but one fault does not excuse another, nor, in this instance, is the parallel just ; for, I declare I would rather be hanged, if it were possible, ten times over, than undergo such a continuance of sufferings as the JOHN HOWARD. 63 unhappy beings endure who have the misfortune to be confined in your majesty's prisons. Many of these men have not been brought to trial, and should they be found innocent of the crimes laid to their charge, it is out of your majesty's power to make them a reparation for the injuries you have done them ; for it is now too late to do them justice, weakened and deranged in their health and faculties as they are, by so long a solitary confinement." He objected also to the convicts being sent out in gangs to clean the streets, and showed himself a good politician, but a bad courtier, by dwelling on the excellent prison regulations of the King of Prussia. The emperor asked him what he thought of the poor-houses of Austria. "In them, too," said this uncompromising Briton, "there are many defects. In the first place, the people are obliged to sleep in their clothes, a practice that never fails to breed distempers in the end. Secondly, little or no attention is paid to cleanli- ness. Thirdly, the allowance of bread is too small." "Where," asked the emperor, much disturbed, "did you find any institutions better of this kind?" " There was one better," replied Howard, with marked em- phasis. M And where was that ? " "At Ghent," said Howard, "but not so now not so now ! " Howard here alluded to an institution, which, when he first saw r it, was a model of excellence, but which had deteriorated under the present emperor. At the mention of Ghent the emperor rose, and was evidently moved by the rebuke. He took his reprover by the hand, thanked him cordially for his advice, and bade him farewell with the warmest expressions of regard. He told the English ambassador, the next day, that his countryman was a man without ceremony or compliment, but that he liked him all the better for it, and should follow such of his recommendations as he approved. Soon after his return from his second journey on the Conti- nent of Europe, Howard started on a new tour in England, in 62 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. order to ascertain how far the promised reforms in the county jails had been carried out. He found that most of them had been in some degree improved, but that all of them were still very far from being what they should be. On this journey he saw several extremely curious things. We have all heard much of the conservatism that prevails at the city of Oxford ; but I doubt if any one has recorded so remark- able an instance of it as John Howard, in his diary of this tour. In the year 1577, the jail fever raged in the county jail at Ox- ford, and spread from the prison to the court, and from the court to the town. In the course of forty hours, the lord chief baron (as the presiding judge was called), the high sheriff, the jurymen, and all who were in the court room, to the number of three hundred, died of this malignant disease. The citizens fled in terror from the town, and, ever after, that session of the court was called the "Black Assize." After the lapse of two hundred and four years, John Howard visited that prison, and found it just as close, as offensive, and as liable to breed the fever, as it had been at the time of the Black Assize. Nothing had been changed. There were the same low ceilings, the same small windows, the same unclean- ness, as in 1577. "I should not greatly wonder," wrote How- ard, "to hear of another Black Assize at Oxford." This is an illustration of that conservative spirit which has recently re- jected Mr. Gladstone, and which Matthew Arnold thinks so "romantic." It is pleasant to connect the name of Howard with the Amer- ican Revolution. At this time there were many hundreds of American prisoners of war in the jails along the southern coast of England. Howard visited them all, inquired, with his usual thoroughness, into their condition, and made many of them par- takers of his bounty. During the first two years of the war the British government had pretended to regard these prisoners as traitors and felons ; but when Dr. Franklin's little fleet of cruisers, and Paul Jones' audacious gallantry, had filled the prisons of France with British sailors, the ministry saw the subject in another light, and treated them as prisoners of war. Dr. Franklin allowed each of them eighteen pence a week, and JOHN HOWARD. 63 caused them to be frequently visited by English friends of America. Howard found them, therefore, in 1780, tolerably comfortable, though suffering from having nothing to do. One horrid abuse, however, called from him indignant remonstrance. It seems that the jailer paid ten shillings reward to any one who brought in an escaped prisoner, and as he paid this out of his own pocket, he took care to get it back from the prisoner. The prisoner having no money except his eighteen pence a week, the jailer locked him up in a dark dungeon, and kept him on half rations, till the sum of ten shillings was made up, which required (according to the jailer's computation) forty days. Howard notified the government of this cruelty, and argued that a prisoner of war, unlike a criminal, had a right to escape if he could, and ought not to be punished for it at all. In another place of confinement for prisoners of war, he whisked out his pocket scales at an unexpected moment, and found that the jailer was giving out loaves of bread two ounces under weight. This led him to apply his nose to the meat, which was tainted. These facts he made known to the American agent, who had the meat exchanged, and the deficiency in the bread made good. In another prison he found one hundred and thirteen French and American prisoners without shoes, stockings, or shirts, and many sick men lying upon rotten straw, which led him to recom- mend to the government to appoint an inspector, whose duty it should be to report quarterly the condition and wants of prison- ers of war, and see that jailers and contractors did their duty. The custom of locking up men and women together still pre- vailed in many prisons. In one, he found two soldiers and a young girl, all of whom were sentenced to a year's imprison- ment, confined in the same room in the daytime. In another, eleven young girls were confined, day and night, with a large number of raving lunatics, men and women. On visiting another, be was pleased to see that, since his last visit, the sewer had been boarded up, so that noiv the rats could not prey upon the criminals, as they had formerly done, in one in- stance, devouring half the face of an officer confined for debt. At the bridewell, in Liverpool, he found a singular custom pre- vailing. Every woman, on her admission to the jail, was (J4: PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. brought into the bath-room clad only in a flannel chemise, ana placed in a chair with her back to the bath-tub. This chair turned on a hinge, and when the signal was given, it was turned over, and the woman with it, who went backwards into the water over head and ears. This operation was repeated three times, when the woman was considered initiated. Howard inquired why the men were not subjected to this clucking: but he could only learn that such was not the custom at Liverpool. The ducking-chair reminded him of a prison which he had once visited in Holland, where every prisoner was severely whipped, both on entering and on leaving the prison. Howard seems to have inclined to an approval of this custom, for he was the farthest possible from being a philanthropist of the rose- water description. He thought prisons should be places that criminals would dislike exceedingly ; but he was of opinion that the State has no right to inflict penalties injurious to health and character ; but that the punishments which it inflicts should be salutary to both. He was not a man to whine about a young rascal's getting a good whipping, if a good whipping would do him any good. On his return from this tour, he was appointed one of three commissioners to superintend the construction of a prison upon the plans unfolded by him in his work. He hesitated long to accept this appointment, because there was a salary attached to it. He seems to have been of Dr. Franklin's opinion, and may have heard Franklin express it, that public service, involving trust and responsibility, should be rendered gratuitously, or with no other reward than the honor of holding a public office. His scruples were overcome, however, and he entered upon the discharge of his duties as commissioner. He soon discovered that one of his colleagues was a gentleman who expected to have his own way in every particular ; an obstinate, impracticable man, not to be convinced or persuaded. After months of effort, the commissioners could not so much as agree as to where the prison should be built ; and Howard, finding that he must con- sent to a location of which he disapproved, or keep the enter- prise at' a stand still, resigned his office. There were fields for the exercise of his benevolence still un- JOHN HOWARD. 65 explored. In JVLty, 1781, he set off upon his third tour of the Continent of Europe, intending now to penetrate the dungeons of the north of Europe, particularly those of Russia and Poland, countries then little known to the rest of the world. Passin^ O through Holland and part of Germany, he was gratified to see, in the cleanliness of many prisons, and in the improved appear- ance of prisoners, the results of his previous visits. In Den- mark, the whole system of punishment bore the marks of antiquity. The whipping-post stood in every town, the terror of evil-doers. Criminals were still executed by beheading, and, not unfrequently, by breaking on the wheel. Petty thefts were punished by inserting the head of the thief in the head of a barrel, so that the barrel covered him like a cloak, and in this costume he was marched about the streets, attended by a guard. No penalty, he says, was so much dreaded by petty criminals as this. Grand larceny was punished by whipping, and by making the criminal a slave for life. The prisons of Denmark were close, crowded, and offensive, to such a degree that, after re- maining in one of them only a short time, he was seized with a violent headache. In two small rooms, ten feet high, he counted one hundred and forty-three men, who never changed their clothes at night, and who had new clothes every two years. Half naked, emaciated, sick, and without employment, inhaling air that was poisonous, many of them chained, these poor wretches endured a hideous monotony of anguish that moved him to equal indignation and pity. Underneath this scene of horror, ten steps down, he discovered seven small dungeons, each having one minute window, through which came a few feeble rays of light, and a little air ; and in these dungeons were eleven pallid, miserable men, whose appearance, says Howard, was "shocking to humanity." He remonstrated so vehemently against this infernal cruelty, that, before he left the town, he had the satisfaction of seeing the prison much cleaner and less offensive than he found it. In Sweden, the same ignorance of the necessity of ventilation, and the same appalling indifference to human suffering, shocked him everywhere. Here, too, the English custom prevailed of permitting jailers to sell liquors to the prisoners, and again he 5 (J6 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. saw felons drinking and carousing together by day, and inhaiing the pestiferous air of under-ground dungeons at nigut. An amusing instance of his habit of believing nothing but what he saw, occurred in Sweden. He was told that the young king, Gustavus III., had abolished torture throughout his do- minions, and had, in particular, ordered the torture-chamber in Stockholm to be bricked up. This would have satisfied m'ost men; but Howard, on visiting that prison, insisted on being taken to the cellar, and shown the very wall that was said to have been built. He was not very much astonished to find that the king's order had not been obeyed. There was the torture- chamber still open, with all its apparatus. A similar anecdote is related of his journey in Russia. He was told at Petersburg!! that the empress had abolished capital punishment. Instead of entering this information in his diary, as many travellers would have done, he called a coach and drove to the house of the executioner. That functionary, alarmed at seeing an unknown gentleman enter his door, ap- peared very much embarrassed, a state of mind which Howard purposely increased by assuming an air of authority. He as- sured the man, however, that he had nothing to fear, provided he told the exact truth, which he promised to do. "Can you," asked Howard, "inflict the knout in such a man- ner as to cause death in a short time?" "Yes; I can," replied the executioner. "In how short a time?" "In a day or two." "Have you ever so inflicted it?" "I have." "Have you lately?" " Yes ; the last man who was punished with my hands by the knout died of the punishment." "How do you render it thus mortal?" " By one or more strokes on the sides, which carry off large pieces of flesh." "Do you receive orders thus to inflict the punishment?" "I do." He concluded from this conversation, not that capital punish- JOHN HOWARD. t>7 ment had been abolished in Russia, but that the mode of inflict- ing it had been changed from sudden and painless to slow and agonizing. A few days after, he saw a man and a woman publicly knouted. Twenty-five strokes of the thick leathern thong upon the woman's naked back, and sixty upon that of the man, nearly sufficed to kill both. The woman was borne away limp and insensible, but recovered ; the man was no more seen, and was supposed to have died. The prisons of Russia, and its system of recruiting, filled his memorandum book with horrors, and he returned home after travelling four thousand four hundred and sixty-five miles, to make known to the rulers of nations what cruelties were com- mitted, in their name, upon that portion of their subjects whom they are peculiarly bound to protect, the poor, the criminal, the lunatic, and the conscript. The close of Howard's life, otherwise serene and happy, was embittered by one most poignant sorrow. His only son, a handsome, spirited, and intelligent youth, fell into vicious habits, and became, at twenty-five, a total wreck in body and mind, and ended his days in a mad-house. Every virtuous parent has an interest in knowing why so good a man should have so wretchedly failed in rearing his child to virtue. It was not that he neglected his parental duties, nor that he was wanting in the tenderest affection for his boy. He usually planned his journeys so as to be at home during his son's vacations, and, when this could not be, the lad resided with his aunt, who loved him much, and who presided over an orderly and virtuous home. In the selection of his schools, too, Howard spared no pains to find such as were con- ducted with a special view to the moral improvement of the pupils. He would not send his son to Eton, though such had been his intention, because he was told by one of the masters of that school, that no particular attention was bestowed there upon the moral education of the boys. This was, perhaps, an error in judgment on the part of the father. Young Howard was the heir to two large estates, and, at Eton, this would have been no distinction ; .because at that school he would have met a hundred boys richer than himself, and higher in rank; C8 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. whereas, at the third-rate private schools which he attended, his great expectations, as well as the celebrity of his father, marked him out from his companions as an object to be favored by teachers, courted by pupils, and flattered by visitors. There was an unusual disparity of age between father and son. When the youth was eighteen, Howard was fifty-six. This disparity alone would have made it more difficult for the father to associate with the son on those easy and affectionate terms which alone win a child's confidence. Besides this, as I have before intimated, he was a father of the old school. He was one of those who demand from wife, child, and servant, a prompt, unquestioning obedience to unex- plained commands. He required a submission of his child's will to his own will, to such a degree as to render his presence a painful restraint upon the child's most trifling actions. While the world gazed in rapture at Howard's sublime career of benevolence, to this active, pleasure-loving youth, he was merely a very particular, precise, opinionative "old man," or "governor," who checked him constantly in the enjoyment of pleasures that were freely permitted to his school-fellows. On principle, too, Howard avoided all those caresses and ex- pressions of fondness, which nature prompts, fearing lest his son should presume upon his love, and the less regard his authority. He began the education of his son almost as soon as the child was old enough to manifest a preference. He laid it down as an inflexible rule that the infant should have nothing that it cried for, an excellent principle when it is not carried too far, but one which is much better enforced by a mother than a father. A mother does not usually lay down any inflexible rule for the government of a very young child, but varies her treatment with the occasion. She learns to respect the crying of her infant, and possesses that intimate knowledge of her off- spring which enables her to discriminate between the cry of petulance and ill-temper, and the cry which nature prompts as the expression of pain and desire. Few men have the quick sympathy with infancy which maternal love inspires. The mother is endowed with instincts implanted within her by the JOHN HOWARD. 69 unerring wisdom of God, while a father is left to the guidance of that imperfect and variable light which he proudly styles his reason. When Howard heard his child crying in the nursery, he would go to the apartment, and, taking the child gently into his lap, hold it there until it had ceased, and then hand it back to the nurse. A mother might sometimes do this, but she would be very far from making it an invariable' rule. A good mother soon learns that a child under two years of age seldom cries except when it ought to cry, and she would generally soothe and caress it rather than make its crying an occasion of moral discipline. Howard was exceedingly particular with regard to the diet of the boy, and careful to inure him to hardship. This, too, was an excellent thing, but he did not carry it out wisely. He purposely forbore all explanation of his rules and denials. He never thought it right to say to the child : " My son, these pears will make you sick, if you eat many of them, or eat them at improper times." He merely said: "Jack, never touch a pear unless I give it to you." If the boy yielded to the temptation afforded by a garden full of fruit, he would place him in a seat, and command him not to stir or speak until he should give him permission. Such was his .ascendency over the child, that once when he had given him such an order and had forgotten all about it, he found the child, four hours after, in the precise spot where he had placed him, fast asleep. Now, nothing is easier than to subdue the will of a boy, even to this degree. But how does this system work when, by and by, the child is a child no longer? The habit of obedience remains, but the father's eye cannot be always upon the lad ; and, while he practises a very strict external obedience, his mind begins to revolt, and he is a "good boy" only so long as the father is present to enforce his commands. The grand art of education is to so inform the child's understanding, and so mould his disposition, that he will prefer to do right. It is true, that a father must sometimes issue positive orders and compel exact obedience ; but the best parents do this seldom, 70 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. and endeavor chiefly to render the virtue of their children an ill ward, self-sustaining force. Few men have been more truly good than John Howard, and he knew how to " let his light shine" to all the nations of the earth. But he had not the art of rendering virtue attractive to his only son. Living, as he did, under a constant and awful sense of the unseen realities of another world, he undervalued the charms of this, and felt that man's only business here is to prepare for hereafter. He dwelt upon those truths too exclu- sively. For him, a man who had outlived the illusions of youth, whose only joy was to do good by self-denying and perilous toil, a lonely old widower, too, those austere con- ceptions of duty were satisfying and comforting. How re- pulsive must they have been to a young man, abounding in spirits, eager for enjoyment, and possessing superabundant means of gratifying every desire ! What a pity his father could not have sympathized with his youth, and ennobled his pleasures by sharing in them ! I have frequently observed how similar habits and scruples tend to divide young people from their elders, making in each family two distinct classes, one of which forswears all pleasure, and the other cares for nothing but pleasure, each bitterly cen- suring the other. A sight more melancholy than this, a state of things more demoralizing than this, I have never beheld ; because we see here the noblest forces of human nature the authority of conscience and the impulses of youth warring upon and spoiling one another ; parents injuring their children from their very anxiety to keep them from harm. The immediate cause of the ruin of young Howard was the servant who accompanied his father on his philanthropic journeys. This servant, by his assiduous attention to his master, had won his complete confidence, and he was the con- stant playmate of his son during his vacations. The two young fellows were equally averse to Howard's precise and rigid ways, and combined their ingenuity in evading the rules of his house. The servant early initiated the lad into the low vices of London, and accompanied him on many a midnight prowl. The youth took to vicious pleasures with fatal readiness, and he was ruined JOHN HOWARD. 71 past remedy before his father suspected that he had gone astray. Diseases contracted in the lowest dens of infamy were treated with remedies so powerful as to impair his constitution, and plant within him the seeds of insanity. His college career was one of wild riot and debauchery. He would bring home K O from Cambridge, in his father's absence, a party of roysterers, and keep up a continual debauch upon the contents of a well- stored cellar, frightening from the house his father's old servants, and alarming all the neighborhood. When he came of age, and had the control of a large income, he was recklessly extravagant, and astonished the village with his phaetons and bis tandems. His naturally irritable temper was aggravated by nis excesses, and soon his frequent paroxysms of fury announced the approach of madness. Howard was in the south of Europe when first his friends ventured to inform him of his sou's condition. "I have a mel- ancholy letter," he wrote, "relative to my unhappy young man. It is indeed a bitter affliction a son, an only son!" He hurried home. The first five hundred miles he never stopped, day nor night, except to change horses. He reached his house to find his son a raving madman, and to learn that his physicians had little hope of his restoration. One of the symptoms of his madness was a most violent antipathy to his father, which ban- ished Howard from his home, until the increasing violence of the malady compelled the removal of the patient to an asylum, where he died at the age of thirty-five. Howard saw his error too late. In conversation with the minister of his church and others, he regretted deeply that he had not been more his lost sou's companion and friend, and sympathized more with his youthful impulses. It was small comfort now to think that he had acted for the best. A parent who sees his only child ruined cannot console himself with such a poor excuse, because the reflection continually conies back to torment him, "I ought to have known better." When Howard was no more, there were not wanting persons to raise the charge that the man who had spent the best years of his life in philanthropic labors, had been Avanting in his duty to his own offspring, and had driven him mad by his harshness 72 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. and severity. The publication of this calumny had the effect of calling forth the facts which have been briefly given above. All his friends and servants testified that he had been a most affec- tionate, careful, and conscientious father, who had only erred in carrying out good principles with the rigidity of a father, in- stead of employing the pliant, sympathetic method of a mother. M My hands," wrote Dr. Aikin, who was Howard's literary as- sistant, " tremble with indignation and horror while I copy the accusation ; and scarcely can I restrain myself within temper- ate bounds whilst I refute a slander black as hell, against a man whose unparalleled benevolence rendered him the pride and ornament of human nature." Upon his return from his tour in the south of Europe, How ard, according to his custom, published an account of his ob- servations, dwelling particularly upon the plague hospitals and the system of quarantine. At the close of this work the fol- lowing passage occurred : "To my country I commit the result of my past labors. It is my intention again to quit it for the purpose of revisiting Turkey, Russia, and some other countries, and extending my tour to the East. I am not insensible of the dangers that must attend such a journey. Trusting, however, in the protection of that kind Providence which haj> hitherto preserved me, I calmly and cheerfully commit myself to the disposal of unerring Wisdom. Should it please God to cut off my life in the prose- cution of this design, let not my conduct be uncaudidly imputed to rashness or enthusiasm, but to a serious, deliberate convic- tion that I am pursuing the path of duty; and to a sincere desire of being made an instrument of more extensive useful- ness to my fellow-creatures than could be expected in the nar- rower circle of a retired life." The particular object of this new journey was to investigate the causes of the plague, that most terrible of diseases, which, every few years, desolated the Eastern world, and occasionally ravaged the south of Europe. It was Howard's determination to track the monster to his lair. He was resolved to go to the JOHN HOWARD. 73 places where the plague originated, and endeavor to ascertain the circumstances in which it began its destructive course, and the means by which it was communicated from city to city, and from country to country. He wished, also, to study the various modes of treating it, and, especially, to try whether certain medicines of English manufacture, in which he had great confi- dence, could not be introduced into the East with advantage. He had a strong presentiment that from this journey he should never return, and therefore thought it wrong to expose his ser- vant to its manifold perils. The man, however, so earnestly entreated to be allowed to accompany him, that his scruples were at last overcome. All his preparations were made with a view to the probability of his never again seeing his native land. He made his will with great deliberation, bequeathing a great number of small legacies to his dependents and friends, overlooking no one who had the slightest claim to his favor. To twenty poor widows he left two guineas each. He left five pounds each to ten of his poor cottagers who should not have been in an ale-house for the twelve months preceding his death. The same sum was to be given to ten other poor families who had been most regular in their attendance at church during the same period. He left fifty pounds to the poor of the parish where he had married his "last invaluable wife." To two of his farm tenants, who had formerly been in his service, he left twenty pounds ; and to two others, who were widows, ten guineas each. The clergymen whose churches he had at- tended, the literary men who had assisted him in the composition of his works, his circle of private friends, all were remem- bered. For the release of poor debtors from confinement ho left fifty pounds, and fifty more to be distributed among other inmates of jails. To the society formed through him for the relief of prisoners generally, he bequeathed five hundred pounds. The bulk of his estate, according to the English custom, he left (in trust) to his son, the next of kin to inherit in case his son died a lunatic. These legacies may seem trifling to some readers. But in England, as in all old countries, a very small unexpected ad- dition to a poor man's income may be a very great boon. A 74 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. small legacy, too, has this advantage : if it does not do great good, it cannot do much harm. It were, perhaps, to be desired, that rich men, in making their wills, would distribute their for- tune more widely than they usually do, and confer a certain blessing upon many, rather than a doubtful good upon a few. Before leaving England, Howard inquired in person into the circumstances of all his tenants, and made such changes in their leases as seemed desirable for them. His old servants were all put into a way of securing a provision for their old age. A guardian was appointed for his son, and means were provided for the continuance of the schools which he had established upon his estates, which, indeed, were continued for many years after his death. He paid every debt, to the uttermost farthing. All that foresight and liberality could do to secure the permanent well-being of all with whom he was connected, was done by this incomparable man, whose only aspiration was to confer the greatest good upon the greatest number. He paid farewell visits to his friends, and when they endeavored to dissuade him from his design, he would say : " If I live to return from this journey, I promise you I will spend the evening of my life at home among my neighbors. But if it pleases God to take me hence, his will be done. Cairo is as near heaven as Cardingtou." Howard was strangely averse to being the object of public applause, and this aversion increased as he grew older. When he had been last abroad, news reached him that a number of his admirers were preparing to erect a monument in his honor. It is no exaggeration to say that he was horror-stricken at the in- telligence. He wrote immediately to England to say that if the design were carried out he should be ashamed to return to his country. Nothing, he added, that his worst enemy could de- vise could be such a " punishment " to him as the erection of the proposed monument, and he wondered his friends should not have known him better than to sanction such a project. He declared that he claimed no credit for anything he had done, but that in his exertions on behalf of prisoners, he had been merely "riding his hobby-horse." In consequence of his ur- gent entreaties, the scheme was given up, or rather, postponed JOHN HOWARD. 75 till after his death, when the monument \vas erected in St. Paul's Church in London. On the eve of his departure from England, he was deter- mined that no biography of him should be written after his death. He destroyed every paper and letter in his possession which he thought might be used as material for such a work, and he extorted a solemn promise from his clergyman that when he preached his funeral sermon, he would enter into no bio- graphical details respecting him. In pursuance of the same design he wrote his own epitaph, and even had it cut upon a tombstone, leaving blanks for the insertion of the place and date of his death. It contained merely his name, the time and place of his decease, and these words : "Christ is my hope." July the fourth, 1789, being then sixty-two years of age, Howard left his native land, which he was destined never to look upon again. On his way to Russia, he passed through parts of Holland, Hanover, and Germany, revisiting their prisons, and was often consoled by observing that his previous visits had produced alleviations in the condition of their inmates. In Russia he continued his benevolent labors on behalf of the conscripts and sick soldiers, and disclosed all the horrors of the Russian mili- tary system as then conducted. He reached at length the town of Cherson, in Russian Tartary, where there was avast military hospital, which, from its manifold defects, bred as much disease as it cured. This town was full of gay company, attracted to the place by the grand fetes, masquerade balls, and theatrical entertainments with which the officers were celebrating some recent triumphs of the Russian arms. The hospital fever attacked many of the visitors, and among others a young lady, who was carried to her home, twenty-four miles distant, dangerously sick with it. Howard, meanwhile, regardless of the festive scenes around him, and equally regardless of the infection that pervaded the air, spent laborious days in visiting the sick, both within and without the hospital, administering his favorite English medi- cines. His medical skill being in high repute, the family of the young lady besought him to visit her, as all the remedies 76 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. usually employed had failed to relieve her, and her condition was extremely critical. He replied that he made no pretensions to medical knowledge, and was accustomed to visit only those who were too poor to employ a physician. Yielding, however, to their entreaties, he went to see her, gave her some medicine and advice, which were immediately beneficial and seemed al- most to draw her back from an open grave. On leaving the grateful family, he told them to send for him again if she con- tinued to improve ; but that if she grew worse it would be of no use. Soon after his return to Cherson, he received a lettei saying that his patient was better, and begging him to visit her again and complete his good work. On looking at the date of this letter, he was alarmed to discover that it had been eight days in coming. Nevertheless, he was determined to go. The rain was falling in torrents, a cold, December rain, and the wind was blow- ing a gale. As he could not, without much delay, procure a vehicle, he' mounted an old dray horse and rode the twenty-four miles through the tempest. He arrived to find his patient dy- ing. He tried, however, some powerful medicines upon her, with a view to excite perspiration; and, in order to ascertain whether they were producing the wished-for effect, he lifted the bedclothes and felt of her arm. As he did so, the effluvia from her body was so offensive that he could scarcely endure it. She died soon after, and he returned to Cherson. Three days later he was seized with the same fever. The exhaustion of his long and painful ride, and the shock to his feelings at finding his patient in the agonies of death, had ren- dered his system liable to the coutagnn, which had struck him, as he believed, at the moment of his lifting the bedclothes. From the first, he thought the attack would be fatal, though the progress of the disease was not rapid, nor were his suffer- ings severe. To one of the few Englishmen at Chersou, Ad- miral Priestman, he early expressed the opinion that he could not recover. " Priestman," said he to this friend one day, " you style this a dull conversation, and endeavor to divert my mind from dwell- ing on these things ; but I entertain very different sentiments. JOHN HOWARD. 77 Death has no terrors for me ; it is an event I always look to with cheerfulness, if not with pleasure ; and, be assured, the subject is more grateful to me than any other. I am well aware that I have but a short time to live ; my mode of life has ren- dered it impossible that I should get rid of this fever. If I had lived as you do, eating heartily of animal food and drinking wine, I might, perhaps, by altering my diet, be able to subdue it. But how can a man such as I am lower his diet, who has been accustomed for years to exist upon vegetables and water, a little bread and a little tea? I have no method of lowering my nourishment, and, therefore, I must die. It is such jolly fellows as you, Priestman, who get over these fevers." He then turned to the subject of his funeral. " There is a spot," said he, " near the village of Damphigny ; this would suit me nicely. You know it well, for I have often said I should like to be buried there ; and let me beg of you, as you value your old friend, not to suffer any pomp to be used at my funeral ; nor any monument, nor monumental inscription whatsoever, to mark where I am laid ; but lay me quietly in the earth, place a sun-dial over my grave, and let me be for- gotten." He further enjoined that he should not be buried according to the ritual of the Greek Church, nor any priest of that church have aught to do 'with his remains. On one of the last days of his life he was greatly solaced by a letter from England, which informed him that his son's con- dition appeared to be improving. Handing the letter to the admiral, he exclaimed: " Is not this comfort for a dying father? " His last request was, not to be buried by the Greek rite ; and his friend promised to read over his remains the burial service of the Church of England. He lingered twenty days after his seizure, the fever fits be- coming constantly more severe. On the morning of January 20th, 1790, he breathed his last. His dying injunctions were obeyed, and his remains still repose in that distant land. Howard was a man of somewhat short statue, and rather in- significant in appearance, though of alert and active habit. In 78 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. animated conversation his eye brightened, his face lighted up, and his words carried conviction to the heart. His voice was soft and winning, and there was that indescribable expression of sweetness and benevolence in his face which we observe in the countenances of men and women who have for many years entertained benign emotions and pure thoughts. His abilities were not splendid, nor his knowledge great. His glory is this : that although exempted, by the possession of an ample fortune, from the necessity of earning his livelihood, he did not choose to pass his life in ease and self-indulgence, but found work to do, and did it with the energy and perseverance with which an able man of business pursues his vocation. In so doing, he lived happily, wrought great good to the lowest of his species, and left to the highest the memory of a sublime career, which is the most precious part of the rich and vast inheritance which the present has received from the past. ZERAH COLBURN. 79 ZERAH COLBURN. ON a summer afternoon of the year 1810, in a frontier settle- ment of Vermont, a farmer was working at a carpenter's bench, and his little boy, six years of age, was playing with the shav- ings at his feet. The boy suddenly began to say to himself: "Five times seven are thirty-five. Six times seven are forty- two. Three times twelve are thirty-six." The father was startled ; for though the boy had been a few weeks at the district school, he neither knew his letters nor his figures. He began to question him in the multiplication table, and found that he knew it perfectly. Finally, half in joke, he asked him : "How much is 13 times 97?" The boy instantly gave the correct answer, 1,261. " I could not have been more surprised," the father used to say, " if a man had sprung out of the earth, and stood erect before me." He continued the examination, and discovered that the boy, who had had no instruction in arithmetic whatever", and could not tell a 4 from a 9, possessed the power of multiplying, in his head, four figures by four figures, with unerring correctness, in about ten seconds. The name of this astonished farmer was Abia Colburn, and that of his son was Zerah. There was nothing remarkable about the father or his family, except they all had one more finger and one more toe than the regular number. The boy also had five fingers and six toes. Abia Colburn was a dull, and even a stupid man ; a poor, plodding farmer, without much skill in his busi- ness, without enterprise or knowledge. It soon occurred to him, however, that this marvel of a boy 80 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. could be made more productive to him than a mortgaged farm; and, accordingly, he took him to a neighboring town, where a court was in session, and thence to Montpelier, where the legis- lature was assembled. There, in the presence of judges, law- yers, and legislators, the boy performed such astounding feats 'in mental arithmetic, that the report of his exploits was spread over the world. During this first year of his exhibition he solved such questions as the following, in periods of time vary- ing from three seconds to one minute : "How many seconds are there in 2,000 years?" Answer: 63,072,000,000. " How many strokes will a clock strike in 2,000 years ? " An- swer: 113,880,000. " What is the product of 12,225, multiplied by 1,223 ? " An- swer: 14,951,175. " What is the square of 1,449 ? " Answer : 2,099,601. "In seven acres of corn, with 17 rows to each acre, 64 hills to each row, 8 ears to each hill, and 150 kernels to each ear, how many kernels are there ?" Answer: 9,139,200. . Practice gave him greater facility. The next year he per- formed such problems as these : " How many hours are there in 1,811 years?" Answer (in twenty seconds) : 15,864,360. " How many seconds in 11 years?" Answer (in four sec- onds): 346,896,000. "What sum, multiplied by itself, will produce 998,001?" Answer (in three seconds) : 999. " How many hours in 38 years 2 months and 7 days ? " An- swer (in six seconds) : 334,488. Besides performing these calculations, the boy showed equal quickness in detecting arithmetical tricks and puzzles, such as the following : " Which is the most, twice twenty-five or twice five and twen- ty (2 X 5 + 20) ? " Answer (in a moment) : Twice twenty-five. " Which is the most, six dozen dozen or half a dozen dozen? " Answer : Six dozen dozen. "How many black beans will make five white ones ? " " Five," the boy, " if you skin them " ZERAH COLBURN. 81 The astonishment everywhere excited by this prodigy, our aged readers may still recollect. Some people thought him a conjurer. A woman came to him one day, saying that twenty years ago she had had some spoons stolen, and asked him where they were. One good lady said that, in her opinion, God had endowed the child with a miraculous gift in order that he might explain the mysterious numbers of the prophecies. Some peo- ple manifested a certain degree of terror in his presence, as though he were possessed of the devil. What added to the marvel was, that the boy was totally unable to explain the pro- cesses by which he effected his calculations. "God put it into my head," he said, one day, to an inquisi- tive lady, " but I cannot put it into yours." Some gentlemen of Boston offered to undertake the education of the boy, that this wonderful talent might be cultivated. But the foolish father, thinking he could gain more by exhibiting his son, refused the offer. The public, disapproving this selfish conduct, were less inclined than before to attend the exhibitions ; and therefore, after an unprofitable tour in the South, Abia Col- burn took his sou to England. In London, where he was exhibited for two or three years, his performances were almost incredibly difficult. Princes, nobles, philosophers, teachers, and the public were equally as- tounded. He gave, in less than half a minute, the number of seconds that had elapsed since the Christian era. He extracted the square root of numbers consisting of six figures, and the cube root of numbers consisting of nine figures, in less time than the result could be put down on paper. He was asked one day the factors of 171,395. There are seven pairs of factors by which that number can be produced, and only seven ; the boy named them all as rapidly as they could be recorded. He was required to name the factors of 36,083. "There are none," was his in- stantaneous reply; and he was right. Again, the number, 4,- 294,967,297, was proposed to him to find the factors. Now, certain French mathematicians had asserted that this was a prime number; but the German, Euler, had discovered that its factors are 641 and 6,700,417. This wonderful boy, then aged eight years, by the mere operation of his mind, named the factors in 82 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. about twenty seconds. He Avas once requested to multiply 999,999 by itself. At first he said he could not do it. But, in looking at the number again, he perceived that multiplying 37,- 037, by 37,037, and the product twice by 27, was just the same as multiplying 999,999 by 999,999. How he discovered this is a mystery, but he soon gave the correct answer : 999,998,000,- 001. Then he said he could multiply that by 49, which he im- mediately did, and the product by 25, producing at length the enormous result of 60,024,879,950,060,025. He could raise numbers consisting of one figure to the sixteenth power in less than a minute. Though these exploits excited universal wonder in England, the exhibition of the boy, owing to the great expenses attend- ing it, were not very profitable and gradually became less so. At length the benevolent Earl of Bristol engaged to undertake the education of the child at Westminster school, agreeing to pay seven hundred and fifty dollars a year for eight years. But Zerah showed no remarkable aptitude for study, not even in arithmetic and geometry. Meanwhile the father lived in pov- erty. Thinking still to make a profit from the boy, he took him away from school and carried him to France, where he was again exhibited, but without success. Some gentlemen of Paris procured from Napoleon his admission to a military school ; but the meddling father again interfered and returned with him to London. The patience of their English friends being then ex- hausted, they sunk into extreme poverty. Colburn then urged his son to go upon the stage as an actor, and he had still influ- ence enough to procure for the youth instruction from no less a person than Charles Kemble. For a year or two Zerah led the life of a strolling actor, playing in tragedy and comedy, writing plays which no manager would accept, and living always in great poverty. Then he opened a small school, and gained a little money by performing calculations for an astronomer. At length, being relieved of the incubus of his worthless father, who died, the liberality ot the Earl of Bristol enabled him to return to America, where he found his mother still living upon her farm. He was then twenty-one years of age, After spend- ing a short time in teaching, he became a Methodist preacher, ZERAH COLBURN. 83 and remained in that vocation till his death. He died in Ver- mont in 1839, aged 34 years. Neither as a preacher nor as a man did he display even average ability. He was, in fact, a very dull preacher, and a very ordinary person in every re- spect. As he grew older his calculating power diminished ; but this was merely from want of practice. Doubtless, he could have retained his ability if he had continued to use it. He was able, during the later years of his youth, to explain the processes by which he performed his calculations, some of which were so simple that they have since been employed in the New England schools. We have seen a class of boys, not more than twelve years of age, multiply six figures by six figures, without slate and pencil, by the method of Zerah Colburn. His mode of extracting the square root, also, can be acquired by boys quick at figures. But this does not lessen our aston- ishment that a boy of seven years, wholly untaught, should have discovered methods in calculation that had escaped the vigilance of mathematicians, from the days of Euclid to our own time. 84 PEOPLE'S BOOK OP BIOGRAPHY SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN. PERHAPS the reader would like to know a little of the brave and noble Frenchman who gave his name to our Lake Cham- plain. The Indian name of that lake was Sarauac ; but, since the year 1609, when it was first beheld by white men, it has borne the name of its discoverer. Samuel de Champlaiu was born in France, on the shores of the Bay of Biscay, in 1567, over three hundred years ago. Though of noble family, he was poor; and, entering the royal navy, he rose to the rank of captain. During one of the wars of Henry IV. , he left the sea and fought gallantly for the king on land ; and when the war was over, the king, who loved a man of merit, granted him a small pension in order to retain him near his person. But being far too much of a man to be willing to waste his life in dangling about a court, fond of ad- venture, eager to increase his knowledge, and desirous to do something for the glory of France and the spread of the Catholic religion, he obtained permission of the king to make a voyage to the New World. He was then thirty-three years of age. America had been discovered one hundred and eight years ; but in all that part of the continent now occupied by the United States and Canada there was no white settlement, except in Florida. John Smith had not yet seen Virginia ; Hendrick Hudson had not sailed up the river that bears his name ; the Puritans had not landed upon Plymouth Rock ; and, though the St. Lawrence had been discovered, no white man yet lived upon its shores. Obtaining command of one of the ships of a Spanish fleet, ho sailed to the West Indies, and remained two years and a half in Spanish America, making sketches and surveys, and keeping a SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN. 85 diary, which is preserved to this day in France. Besides visit* ing the principal West India ports, he made his way to the city of Mexico, and, on his return, visited Panama, where he con- ceived the project of cutting a canal across the Isthmus of Darien. Two hundred and sixty-three years have passed since Chainplain suggested the Darien Canal, and it is only within these few years that there has been a prospect of the work being attempted. I am informed that before many years have rolled away, plans will be submitted to the public for the execution of Captain de Champlain's scheme. Returning to the French court to relate his adventures to the king, he found De Chastes, a veteran soldier, full of a project to plant the cross and the flag of his country upon the shores of the majestic St. Lawrence, discovered by Cartier seventy }'ears before. Cham plain joined the enterprise. In 1603, in two small vessels, one of twelve tons and the other of fifteen (mere sail-boats) , the adventurers sailed ; designing only to make a preliminary survey of the country. The little craft, . having crossed the Atlantic in safety, entered the broad St. Lawrence, sailed past the lofty promontory on which Quebec now stands, and reached the island which now contains the city of Montreal, then an uninhabited wilderness. There they anchored, and Champlain, with a small party of Indians, continued the ascent of the river in one of the ship's boats. Soon he came to the rapids of the St. Lawrence, which he vainly attempted to ascend ; and so returned to the ships. The Indians drew for him rude maps of the lakes, lands, and rivers beyond the rapids, which inflamed his curiosity; but, as the object of the expedition was accomplished, he and his comrades descended the river and returned to France. Next year, 1604, early in the spring, with two larger ships, filled with a motley crew of gentlemen, merchants, Huguenot ministers, Catholic priests, thieves, and ruffians, Champlain sailed again for Canada, expecting now to make a permanent settlement. Avoiding the St. Lawrence, the adventurers selected for the sight of their establishment an island at the mouth of a river emptying into Passamaquodcly Bay. The ships returned to France, leaving on this rocky island seventy- 86 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. 'nine men, who experienced the horrors of a Canadian winter. Drifting ice sometimes cut them off from the main land, whence they drew their supplies of wood and water. Their wine froze solid in its barrels, and was served out to the men by the pound. Thirty-five of the seventy-nine men died of scurvy before the spring, and many more, bloated and covered wirh sores, were reduced to the last extremity. Amid the gloom and terror of the time, Champlain preserved his courage and serenity, and did all that was possible to save his companions from despair. In the spring, a vessel from France brought them good cheer and restoration ; when Champlain, in a vessel of fifteen tons, sailed southward along the New England coast in quest of a more genial clime, and a less inhospitable shore. They went as far as Cape Cod ; but, finding no place that satis- fied them, and their provisions failing, they returned to the settlement, and Champlain volunteered to brave another winter on that bleak and icy coast. That winter, however, proved remarkably mild, and Champlain made such excellent provision for the season, that only four men died of the scurvy. In- trigues at the French court broke up the colony the next year, and Captain de Champlaiu returned again to his native land. Three years passed, Champlain always pining for the wil- derness, the broad rivers, the strange men, and the transparent air of the Western World. He was ambitious, too, of being an instrument in bringing the Indians to a knowledge of Christi- anity, for he was one of those who think (to use his own language) that the salvation of one soul is of more importance than the conquest of an empire. A new company was formed under his auspices, and, in 1608, he set sail again for America, intending to plant a permanent colony on the banks of the St. Lawrence. He founded the city of Quebec. The first winter there was terrible ; but when, at length, the tardy spring had opened the river, the undaunted Champlain, leaving most of his companions to traffic in furs, gathered a party of Indians, and went forth upon a journey of exploration. In a small sloop, accompanied by a fleet of canoes, he once more ascended the St. Lawrence, again passed by the lofty mountain behind what is now Montreal ; and was again brought SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN. ' g7 to a stand by the rapids. He sent back his sloop to Quebec with most of his white followers ; and the Indians carried their light canoes around the rapids to the tranquil Sorel, where he embarked with them for further exploration. Two white men alone of all his party had volunteered to accompany him. His Indians were sixty in number, and the whole company filled twenty-four canoes. They advanced cautiously, for they were nearing the domain of the terrible Iroquois, the hereditary foes of the Indians under the command of Champlain. A few of the canoes kept far ahead of the main body, and the woods on each side of the river were scoured by warriors and hunters. At night the canoes were drawn up along the bank, and the whole party slept. The river widened as they went on, until, on a brilliant day in June, 1609, they entered the lake which -bears to this day the name of Champlain. They advanced up the lake as far as Crown Point, where their progress was stopped by a powerful war-party of Iroquois, outnumbering them four to one. Champlain landed his men. There were three Frenchmen, armed with muskets, and sixty Indians with boys and arrows, against more than two hundred Iroquois. The Iroquois ad- vanced gallantly to the fight, and in good order, while Cham- plain's Indians stood trembling at the disparity of numbers. At the proper moment, they opened their ranks, and Champlain, bearing his arquebuse, and glittering in steel armor, stood re- vealed to the bewildered foe. He took deliberate aim and fired. One chief fell dead, and another wounded. Instantly his Indians raised a terrific yell and sent a shower of arrows into the faltering Iroquois. The enemy returned the fire for a moment, but when two more shots from the arquebuses had been fired, a panic seized them, and they fled, leaving behind them dead, wounded, camp, weapons, everything. Charnplain's Indians were not inclined to advance further; they returned to their homes, and he, with his two Frenchmen, made their way back to Quebec. Thus it was that Lake Champlain, two hundred and fifty-six years ago, was discovered and baptized in blood. No one will ever be able to compute the sum of suffering PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. and toil which it cost to conquer the Western Continent from wild men and wild nature. It is now three hundred and seventy-six years since Columbus first landed upon one of its outlying islands, and still the work is much less than half done. What lives have been lost ! What lives have been spent! What anguish has been endured ! What labors have been performed ! For twenty-six years longer Champlaiu continued to preside over the interests of the colony he had planted. Sometimes we see him at the French court, pleading for it before the king or his ministers ; and sometimes deep in the heart of the wilder- ness, fighting for it with savage foes. While other men were only concerned to gather a rich store of furs, he thought of nothing but the lasting welfare of the settlement, the glory of France, and the salvation of the Indians. He was a brave, pure, and chivalric gentleman. Many years after his death, the Indians used to relate, with wonder and admiration, that when they entertained him in their villages, and offered all they had for his use, he was irreproachable toward their women. One must be acquainted both with the French of that day and with the customs of the Indians, to appreciate all the signifi- cance of such a fact. Champlain died at Quebec, on Christmas day, 1635, aged sixty-eight years. His last thoughts were for his colony, which was still feeble, and never more needed his care than when he was about to leave it forever. The little company of settlers, soldiers, and priests sadly followed his remains to their church, where one of them pronounced a funeral oration, and where they afterwards built a monument to his memory. COMMODORE DECATUR. 89 DEATH OF COMMODORE DECATUR. I SUPPOSE we all use more freedom in speaking of one another than we do in speaking to one another. Consequently, almost any person can destroy a friendship or embitter an en- mity by reporting to one man what another man has said of him. To do this is justly esteemed one of the meanest of all actions, as it is assuredly one of the most mischievous. The duel in which Commodore Decatur fell was directly caused by this bad, dastardly practice. Stephen Decatur, born in Maryland, in 1779, was the FARRA- GUT of his time. His father before him was a gallant officer in the infant navy of the United States, captured several British ships in the revolutionary war, and was retained in the service after the peace. In the year 1800, he was the Commodore of the American fleet of thirteen vessels cruising about the West Indies; but when Mr. Jeflerson reduced the navy, in 1801, Commodore Decatur was retired, and he became a merchant in Philadelphia, where he died in 1808. The old commodore, however, lived long enough to see his son a captain in the navy, and the darling of his countrymen. Entering the service as midshipman in 1798, when he was nineteen, he was a lieutenant at twenty, and at twenty-three he had reached the rank of first lieutenant of a brig, the captain of which was that very James Barron who afterwards killed him. Two years later, when our brilliant little war with Algiers was at its height, Decatur was in command of the brig Enterprise, one of the vessels of the fleet in the Mediterranean, and it was while commanding the Enterprise that he performed the exploit which made him a favorite hero of the American people. 90 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. The reader remembers, of course, that the Algerines had had the 'luck to catch a fine American frigate, the Philadelphia, aground and helpless, with her guns overboard ; and that they captured her and took her into the harbor of Tripoli, where they were fitting her out for a cruise. Baiubriclge, her captain, while a prisoner at Tripoli, contrived to send word to Commo- dore Preble that the Philadelphia was carelessly guarded and could easily be surprised and burnt. The Commodore consulted Lieutenant Decatur upon the project, and Decatur, the bravest of the brave, supported it with all the enthusiasm of his age and character. Commodore Preble came into the scheme, and named young Decatur commander of the expedition. Lieuten- ant Decatur called for volunteers, and every man and boy on boajd his brig expressed a willingness to join. Sixty-two of the best men were picked from the eager crow, who, with twelve officers, were transferred to a small Algerian vessel belonging to Tripoli, captured a few days before, and now rechiistened the Intrepid. It was a still, fine evening in February, 1803, at ten o'clock, when the Intrepid glided slowly and noiselessly into the harbor, Decatur at the helm, a Greek pilot at his side, and the crew lying along the deck. So complete was the surprise, and so well concerted the attack, that in just ten minutes from the time the Intrepid touched the frigate the Americans had possession of her. Decatur was the second man to reach her deck, Charles Morris, midshipman, having jumped two seconds before him. Everything having been provided beforehand for burning the ship, the fire burst forth with such unexpected rapidity that the Intrepid narrowly escaped catching. The work having been accomplished, a light breeze from shore sprang up in the nick of time and wafted the little vessel gently out of the harbor, lighted on her way by the flames, and saluted by the harmless thunder of Algerian guns. This gallant exploit made Decatur a captain. Without dwell- ing on his subsequent career, I can truly say that it was all of a piece with this brilliant opening. Far different was it with James Barren. Barren, a native of Virginia, and, like Decatur, the son of a revolutionary commc- COMMODORE DECATUR. 91 dore, entered the navy in the same year as Decatur, and out- stripped him in the race for promotion. A year after he entered the service, being then thirty-one years of age, he was a captain, and he continued to rise in the esteem of his countrymen until the year 1807, when a sad misfortune befell him, which cast a shadow over all his subsequent life. June 22d, 1807, the United States being at peace with all the world, the American frigate Chesapeake, thirty-eight guns, under command of Commodore Barren, left her anchorage in Hampton Roads, and stood out to sea, bound for the Mediter- ranean. About the same hour the British frigate Leopard, fifty guns, which had been lying for some time at the same anchorage, also put to sea, and being in better trim than the Chesapeake, and much better manned, got ahead of her some miles. But at three in the afternoon she wore round, bore down upon the Chesapeake, and sent a boat to her, with a despatch demanding to search the American ship for four de- serters from the English navy. Commodore Barren replied that he knew of no such deserters, and that his orders did not allow his crew to be mustered by any officers but their own. No sooner had the boat returned with this reply, than the British ship fired a broadside full into the American at short range. The Chesapeake, her decks littered with stores and animals, her crew undisciplined, her warlike apparatus all un- ready for use, could not fire a shot in her defence ; and conse- quently, when, by the continuous fire of the Leopard, three of the American crew had been killed and eighteen wounded, one of whom was the commodore himself, and when there were twen- ty-one shot in the hull of the Chesapeake, Barron struck his colors. The English captain made the search, took away the four alleged deserters, and sailed off, leaving the crippled Ches- apeake to get back to Hampton Roads as best she could. Commodore Barron was tried by a court-martial for going to sea unprepared to defend his ship, and the public clamored for his punishment. His defence was that his captain had informed him in writing that the ship was ready to sail, and that, the United States and Great Britain being at peace, the attack was not to have been anticipated. The ourt pronounced the defence 92 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. insufficient, and sentenced him to three years' suspension with- out pay. When the war broke out in 1812, he was not ap- pointed to a ship. Among those who opposed the reinstatement of Barren were the majority of the naval captains, and no one opposed it so openly and decidedly as Decatur. He thought that Ban-on had been to blame in the aifair of the Chesapeake. He also thought that, as there were so few ships in the navy, they ought to be commanded by men who had distinguished themselves during the war. It is evident, too, that he had lent a too credulous ear to the calumnies in circulation respecting Barren's conduct since the Chesapeake disaster. In short, he had a very bad opinion of Commodore Barren as an officer, and this bad opinion he was in the habit of expressing with the careless frankness of a sailor. Mean intermeddlers communicated the fact, with the usual exaggerations, to Barren, who was sore and sensitive from his long endurance of what he felt to be injustice. In June, 1819, he addressed *a note to Decatur to this effect : " SIR, I have been informed in Norfolk that you have said that you could insult me with impunity, or words to that effect. If you have said so you will no doubt avow it, and I shall expect to hear from you." Commodore Decatur's reply was evidently intended to be offensive. The italics are his own : w Sm, I have received your communication of the 12th instant. Before you could have been entitled to the information you have asked of me, you should have given up the name of your informer. That frankness which ought to characterize our profession required it. I shall not, however, refuse to answer you on that account, but shall be as candid in my communication to you as your letter or the case will warrant. "Whatever I may have thought or said, in the very frequent and free conversations I have had respecting you and your con- i I feel a thorough conviction that I never could have been COMMODORE DECATUR. 93 guilty of so much egotism as to say that ' I could insult you ' (or any other man) ' with impunity.' * Commodore Barron, in his reply, said : " Your declaration, if I understand it correctly, relieves my mind from the apprehension that you had so degraded my character as I had been induced to allege." Here the correspondence ought to have closed. Decatur, however, as though determined upon a quarrel, wrote again, and more stingingly than before : "As you have expressed yourself doubtfully as to your correct understanding of my letter of the aforesaid date, I have now to state, and I request you to understand distinctly, that I meant no more than to disclaim the specific and particular ex- pression to which your inquiry was directed ; to wit, that I had said that I could insult you with impunity. As to the motives of the ' several gentlemen of Norfolk,' your informants, or the rumors, ' which cannot be traced to their origin,' on which their information was founded, or who they are, it is a matter of per- fect indifference to me, as are also your motives in making such an inquiry upon such information." Commodore Barron justly interpreted this letter as a defiance, and he immediately challenged Decatur. A very long corre- spondence followed, in which it is evident that Barron did not desire a hostile meeting, and that Decatur was irreconcilably opposed to a friendly termination of the dispute. Decatur's letters were most exasperating. He concluded the last of his long letters in these words : " Your offering your life to me would be quite affecting, and might (as you evidently intend) excite sympathy, if it were not ridiculous. It will not be lost sight of that your jeopardizing your life depends .upon yourself, and not upon me ; and is done with the view of fighting your own character up. I have now 94 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. to inform you that I shall pay no further attention to any communication you may make to me, other than a direct call to the field." To this the still reluctant Barren replied : " Whenever you will consent to meet me on fair and equal grounds, that is, such as two honorable men may consider just and proper, you are at liberty to view this as that call. The whole tenor of your conduct to me justifies this course of pro- ceeding on my part. As for your charges and remarks, I regard them not, particularly your sympathy. You know not such a feeling. I cannot be suspected of making the attempt to excite it." Decatur answered : "SiR, I have received your communication of the 16th, and am at a loss to know what your intention is. If you intend it as a challenge, I accept it, and refer you to my friend Com- modore Bainbridge, who is fully authorized by me to make any arrangement he pleases, a? regards weapons, mode, or distance." This correspondence, which began in June, 1819, did not terminate till February, 1820, and the fatal meeting was de- layed seven weeks longer by the sickness of Commodore Barren. At length, on the 22d of March, 1820, the two officers met at Bladensburgh to decide their long controversy by the pistol. A considerable number of naval officers, besides the seconds, were on or near the field. One of the antagonists being near- sighted, they were placed at the distance of eight paces. When they were in position, Barren said to Decatur : "I hope on meeting in another world we shall be better friends than in this." w I have never been your enemy, sir," was Decatur's reply. The word being given, they fired so exactly, together that it sounded like the report of one pistol. Barren fell, badly COMMODORE DECATUR. 95 wounded. Decatur was about to fall, but was caught, and staggered forward a few steps, and sank down close to Barron ; and, as they lay on the ground, both expecting to die, they conversed together as follows as near as could be collected : "Let us," said Barron, "make friends before we meet in heaven. Everything has been conducted in the most honorable manner, and I forgive you from the bottom of my heart." " I have never been your enemy," Decatur replied, " and I freely forgive you my death, though I cannot forgive those who stimulated you to seek my life." "Would to God," said Barron, "that you had said as much yesterday ! " According to one witness, Decatur added : " God bless you, Barron." To which Barron replied, " God bless you, Decatur." The wounded men were then removed to their lodgings. Before the dawn of the next day Decatur breathed his last ; but Barron, after suffering severely for several months, recovered his health. He was eventually restored to the full honors of his profession, and lived to the year 1851, when he died, aged eighty-three, the senior officer of the navy. 96 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. BLAISE PASCAL. PASCAL, in his life of thirty-nine years, did three remarkable fhings : 1. He produced a book, "The Thoughts of Pascal," which, after existing two hundred years, is as highly, though not as generally, esteemed as it was when it was first published ; 2. He invented the arithmetical calculating machine, since im- proved by Babbage ; 3. He originated the omnibus system, which has become a feature of all cities. Few persons are aware, that when they ride in an omnibus, they are enjoying the result of one of the " Thoughts of Pascal." It is as though Ralph Waldo Emerson should invent a patent nut-cracker ; or as though Mr. Hoe should write a treatise upon the Evidences of Christianity. But when Heaven endows a man with an acute, ingenious mind, there is no telling what may not come from it. Pascal, the only son of an able and distinguished lawyer, was born in Clermont, in France, in 1623. He had two sisters, who were women of singular beauty and intelligence, and the whole family father, mother, son, and daughters were persons of eminent gifts of mind, heart, and person. Neverthe- less, so deeply sunk in superstition was the France of that day, that even this family, among the most able and enlightened of their time, did not escape it, but were a prey to the most pre- posterous beliefs. When the boy was a year old he was observed to resent, in the most violent manner, any caresses which his parents ex- changed. Either of them might kiss him in welcome, but if they kissed one another, he cried, kicked, and made a terrible ado. He had also the peculiarity (not very rare among chil- dren) of making a great outcry whenever a basin of water was BLA1SE PASCAL. V)7 brought near him. " Every one," writes an inmate and relative of the family, "said the child was bewitched by an old woman who was in the habit of receiving alms from the house." For some time the father disregarded this explanation of the mys- tery, but, at length, he called the woman into his office, and charged her with the crime of bewitching the child, a crime then punished with death upon the gallows, or at the stake. She denied the accusation ; but, when the father, assuming a severe countenance, threatened to inform against her unless she confessed, the terrified woman, as might have been expected, fell upon her knees, and said that if her life was spared she would tell all. She then avowed, that in revenge for his hav- ing refused to advocate her cause in a lawsuit, she had laid his child under an infernal spell, and the devil, to whom she had sold herself, had engaged to kill it. " What ! " exclaimed the terror-stricken parent, " must my son die, then?" " No," said she, " there is a remedy. The sorcery can be transferred to another creature." " Alas ! " cried the father, "I would rather my son should die, than that another should die for him." "But the spell can be transferred to a beast," said she. "I will give you a horse for the purpose," rejoined the father. . " No," replied the woman, " that will be too expensive ; a cat will do." So he gave her a cat. Taking the cat in her arms she went downstairs, and met on the w r ay two priests who were coming to console the family in their affliction. One of them said to her: " So you are going to commit another sorcery with that cat." Hearing these words, she threw the cat out of a window, and although the window was only six feet above the ground, the cat fell dead. Here was another awful portent, which threw the family into new consternation. The father provided her with another cat, with which she went her way. What she did with the unfortu- nate animal does not appear, but she returned in the evening, 98 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. and said that at sunrise the next morning, she must have a child seven years old, who must gather nine leaves of three kinds of herbs, which must be steeped and laid upon the child's stom- ach ; all of which was done by seven the next morning, and the father, relieved in mind, went to court and plead his causes as usual. Returning home to dinner at noon, he found the whole house in tears gathered round the child, who lay in his cradle as if dead. Overwhelmed with grief and rage, he turned to leave the room, and meeting the " witch " upon the threshold, he gave her such a tremendous box upon the ear as to knock her downstairs. When she got up she stammered out, " I see you are angry, sir, because you think your sou is dead ; but I forgot to tell you in the morning that he will appear dead until midnight. Leave him in his cradle till that hour, and he will come to life again." The child lay without pulse or any sign of life, watched with agonizing solicitude by his parents, until twenty minutes to one, when he began to yawn, and was soon taking nourishment in the usual way. In a few days he recovered his health, and one morning when his father returned from mass he was delighted to see the boy actually playing with the harmless fluid which he had formerly abhorred. Soon after, too, he would permit his parents to caress one another without showing any marks of displeasure. All of this, reader, is related with the utmost fulness of de- tail, and with unquestionable sincerity; not by an ignorant person of ignorant persons, but by a highly educated lady of one of the most accomplished and learned families in France. "Who will say the world has not advanced during the last two centuries ? This credulous and learned father, being released from the cares of business when the boy was eight years old, removed to Paris, and resolved to devote himself entirely to educating his son, who already exhibited all the usual signs of a superior un- derstanding. His chief care was to keep the boy backward in his studies. His maxim was, that a pupil should be always beyond his work, not the work beyond the pupil. The imma- ture mind, he thought, should never he required to struggle BLAISE. PASCAL. 99 ovith a lesson, and should be set only such tasks as it can per- form with moderate exertion and constant joy. He, therefore, let him begin Latin only in his twelfth year, and intended to confine him to that language until he had mastered it. Es- pecially was he solicitous to prevent his becoming interested in mathematics, his own favorite study, and one in which he ex- celled most men of his country. A kind of club of geometers met at the Pascal home every week, and there was continued conversation upon problems of geometry at the table in the evening. To thwart the awakened curiosity of his son, the father abstained from such conversation, locked up all the math- ematical books, and endeavored in every way to keep the boy from so much as knowing what geometry was. These precautions were unavailing. The inkling of knowl- edge, which the lad could not but gather in such a house, so inflamed his desire for more, that he employed his leisure in contriving a system of geometry for himself, aided only by a piece of charcoal and some boards. His father, coming into his room one day, found him so deeply absorbed in this pursuit that the boy heard nothing of his approach, but continued por- ing over his triangles and circles until he was startled into con- sciousness by hearing his father ask : "What are you doing, my son?" Father and son were equally moved, the son to be detected in devouring forbidden fruit, the father to discover that this youth of thirteen had effected a demonstration of the thirty- second proposition of the first book of Euclid. Without know- ing even the names of the figures, he had advanced so far. He called a circle a "round," and a line a "bar," but he understood Ahe rudimental principles of the science. The father was so overcome with wonder and admiration that he rushed to the house of one of his mathematical friends, and, bursting into his room, stood unable to utter a word, while tears rolled down his cheeks. His friend, supposing some great calamity had hap- pened, entreated him not to conceal the cause of his grief. "It is not," said M. Pascal, " from grief, but from joy, that I shed tears." He then related what he had discovered. His friend urged 100 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. him to interpose no further obstacles to his son's learning math- ematics, and the youth was at once provided with a Euclid and the requisite instruments. We are assured by one of Pascal's sisters that he demonstrated every proposition in Euclid with- out once asking assistance, and without once finding a difficulty. He was soon admitted to the evening meeting of the Geometers' club, where he distinguished himself both by solving and by originating interesting problems. He was but nineteen when, tired of performing endless multiplications, he invented the calculating machine, by which he could obtain the product of large factors by turning a handle. Father and son still toiled together in the search for knowl- edge, the son being most interested in science, and pursuing his studies with such ardor and continuity as to permanently impair his health. He inherited all his father's credulity and timidity. In matters relating to religion he considered it wrong to inquire, and maintained it to be the duty of every one simply to believe, without asking questions. Until his thirtieth year, though always regular in his life and amiable in his manners, he was not more religious than the son of such parents would naturally be. At that period, however, an event occurred which led him to abandon his scientific pur- suits and devote the rest of his existence to religious studies and exercises. As he was riding one day in Paris, in a carriage drawn by four horses, the leading horses took fright, ran away, and, dashing upon a bridge, which was without railings, sprang into the water. Fortunately the traces broke, the carriage stopped on the very edge of the bridge, and no one was injured. Pascal, however, whose mind and body were worn and weakened by excessive study, was so completely terrified that for many months he fancied he saw an abyss yawning at his side, into which he was about to be precipitated. To break the illusion, he would place a chair at that side of him ; but it was long be- fore he could lose the sense of imminent peril from this imagi- nary precipice. He was appalled, too, by the belief that if he had then lost his life his soul would have been eternally lost. No more geometry ; no more experiments in natural philoso- phy ; no more studies in ancient literature ; no more general BLAISE PASCAL. 101 society. Secluding himself from the world, he gave himself wholly up to the study of the Bible, and to the most austere mortification of his natural tastes and desires. Ho removed from his room all superfluous or luxurious articles, refused the assistance of servants, brought his own dinner from the kitchen, fasted frequently, partook only of the plainest fare, passed hours every day in prayer, and gave all the money he could spare to the poor. Around his waist, next his skin, he wore a girdle of iron, with points directed inward, and when he caught himself taking pleasure in anything not spiritual, or when any trifling or pleasant thought arose in his mind, he would press the points into his flesh with his elbow, to recall himself to what he called his " duty." His two great rules were to in- dulge in nothing he could do without, and to enjoy no worldly pleasure. He considered it a sin to take pleasure in his food, and purposely avoided the viands in which he had formerly de- lighted. He took great pains not to taste what he ate. When his sister remonstrated against his giving away so much money to the poor, and told him he would have nothing left for his old age, he made a very apt reply : '*! have always remarked," said he, "that however poor a man may be, he always leaves something behind him when he dies." It was his excessive alms-giving that led him to establish in Paris, in 1662, a system of public vehicles similar to that of our modern omnibuses. His estate was not large, and he often found himself unable to relieve the destitution that wrung his com- passionate heart. He conceived, therefore, the plan of having lines of "voitures" running at regular intervals to and from fixed points, and carrying passengers at the uniform rate of five cents. The project being authorized by the king, Louis XIV., was car- ried into successful operation under the personal supervision of Pascal, who let the various lines for certain sums per annum, and gave all the proceeds to the poor. Such was the illustrious origin of omnibuses, which, after serving a useful purpose for two centuries, are now about to be superseded by horse-cars. The few religious persons who frequented the society of Pascal were struck with the subtlety and ingenuity with which 102 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. he defended Christianity, or rather the Church, against the arguments of its foes. They besought him to write, for the edification of posterity, the substance of the thoughts which had so much comforted and established their own minds. He con- sented to do this ; and he was ever after in the habit of jotting down, hastily and briefly, any ideas which occurred to him that might be useful in the work proposed. These memoranda were written on any fragment of paper that happened to be within reach at the moment ; and, when a number of them had accu- mulated, he would tie them up in a bundle unassorted. But such a life as he lived is fatally contrary to the laws of nature. He gradually sunk under the rigor of his abstinences and the severity of his self-torture. A languor fell upon him, in his thirty-fifth year, which forbade all continuous labor, and it increased for four years, during which he "edified" all his friends by the patience with which he bore his protracted sui- cide. He never so much as arranged the materials for his work, but left them in the bundles in which he had tied them to get them out of the way. He died aged thirty-nine. The last words he uttered seemed to show that, after nearly ten years of such painful efforts to " prepare for death," he had not that perfect peace and confidence at the hour of his departure which might have been expected. "Abandon me not, O God!" he cried, as he sunk into un- consciousness. After his death, his friends selected from the mass of his papers the fragments which, under the title of the " Thoughts of Pascal," have been admired in every laud, and translated into every cultivated language. The original papers exist to* this day, just as Pascal left them, and the Paris edition of last year is strictly conformed to them. The earlier editions swarmed with errors and alterations. Some small books, like some small men, have a numerous and important offspring. The " Thoughts of Pascal " may be con- sidered the parent of a whole department of modern literature the literature relating to what are generally styled the " Evi- dences of Christianity." The mind of Pascal was at once fervid and acute. He was in deadly earnest. But then he was as in- BLAISE PASCAL. 103 genious 5/i suggesting difficulties as he was in removing them, and he irjagiued so many arguments against his own helief, that an eminent writer thinks that his work has, upon the whole, caused more unbelief than it has cured. Many of his opinions, too, that were uucontro verted in his own day, the world has outgrown, and the modern mind is lost in wonder that so great a man could have entertained them. The intelligent reader, I am sure, will be interested in knowing something of the serious thoughts of a superior French mind of two centuries ago. Pascal was fully persuaded that miracles were still performed in this world. One of his nieces was afflicted, for three years and a half, with a fistula in the tear-gland of one of her eyes, which the most eminent surgeons of Paris pronounced incura- ble. The mother of the child, acting upon the advice of Pascal, took her to a church where was preserved what was called " the holy thorn," that is, one of the thorns of Christ's crown of thorns. The fistula was then so bad that matter ran from it, not only through the eye, but from the nose and mouth. " Nev- ertheless," she says, " the child was cured, in a moment, by the touch of the holy thorn." Pascal himself was a thorough be- liever in this miracle, and it was chiefly through his exertions that the church solemnly certified to its authenticity, which he records as a triumph for the faith. "My brother," writes the joyful mother, "was sensibly touched by this grace, which he regarded as done to himself, since it was wrought upon a person who, besides her relation- ship, was also his spiritual daughter in baptism ; and his conso- lation was extreme to see that God manifested himself so clearly at a time when the faith appeared as if extinguished in the hearts of -most. So great was his joy that he was penetrated with it ; and this to such a degree, that, his mind being full of it, God inspired him with an infinity of admirable thoughts upon miracles, which, throwing a new light upon religion, re- doubled the love and respect which he had always had for it." Pascal was of opinion that pleasure, in all its forms, was hurtful and wicked, and upon this opinion he uniformly acted. Therefore, he utterly disapproved of marriage. In writing to his sister upon this subject, he said : 104: PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. *' Married people, however rich and wise they may be in the world's regard, are downright pagans before God." "An ad- vantageous marriage is as desirable in a worldly point of view as it is vile and prejudicial in the sight of God." Holding this opinion, he not only abstained from marriage himself, but induced one of his sisters to enter a convent, and urged his married sister vehemently not to entertain any offers of marriage made for her children during their minority. The utmost that he would concede was, that marriage might in some cases be allowed as the least of many evils. Friendship, also, he considered perilous to the soul, foolish and unchristian. Upon one of his papers was found written this passage : " It is unjust that a person should attach himself to me, even though he does it with pleasure and voluntarily. I should de- ceive those in whom I should kindle a friendly feeling for my- self; for I am not the true object of any one's regard, nor have I that within me which could satisfy them. Am I not soon to die? Then the object of their attachment will be no more. As I should be a guilty man if I caused any one to believe a false- hood, even though I insinuated the lie gently, and both of us derived pleasure from the deception, so I am not the less guilty if I cause any one to love me ; and if I attract people to my- self, I ought to caution them against the deceit, however agree- able it may be, for they ought to pass their lives and devote all their energies to pleasing and seeking God." This was hard doctrine to his affectionate sister and her chil- dren. But the man was better than his doctrine, and he both loved and attracted love in spite of it. Poverty and sickness he regarded as among the chief of bless- ings. He almost went as far as the modern French philoso- pher, Proudhon, who said, "Property is robbery." "No Christian," he used to say, " has a right to use any more of his property than is strictly necessary for his maintenance and the maintenance of those dependent upon him ; " all the rest, he thought, belonged to the poor and needy, and could not be with- held from them without injustice. He acted upon this principle BLAISE PASCAL. 105 most scrupulously. With regard to sickness, he considered it a signal favor of Heaven. "Pity me not," said he, when some one expressed sympathy for his sufferings, "pity me not, for sickness is the natural state of Christians ; because, when a man is sick, he is just as he ought to be always, suffering pain, enduring the privation of all the good and all the pleasures of sense, exempt from the evil passions which work within him all his life, without ambition, free from avarice, and in the continual expectation of death. Is it not precisely so, that Christians ought to pass their lives? And is it not a great happiness, when a man cannot avoid living exactly as he ought to live, and has nothing to do in the matter except submit to his lot humbly and without repining? This is the reason why I ask nothing of God except this grace." He had his desire fully gratified, for the last four years of his life were only a lingering death. One symptom of his disease was an inability to drink. He could take liquid only a drop at a time, so that one of the nauseous doses of medicine which people took in those days large goblets of black and filthy abomination was to him an hour's torture, which he endured with more than patience. He relished his misery and enjoyed the long disgust as a precious mortification. During the last weeks of his life he appeared to suffer much from the kindness of his friends and the abundance by which he was surrounded. He asked to have some poor sick man brought into his room and treated with the same care as himself. "I wish," said he, "to have the consolation of knowing that there is at least one poor sick person as well treated as I am, so ashamed am I to see around me such an abundance of good things. When I reflect that, while I have every alleviation, there are an infinite number of poor who are more sick than I, and yet are in want of things the most necessary, the thought gives me such pain that I can scarcely support it." This was a touching and noble thought, and one that must frequently occur to persons of good feeling, who enjoy every comfort in the midst of a wretched and destitute people. When we turn from the conversation of this refined devotee to the work by which he is chiefly known, the " Thoughts of 106 PEOPLE'S liOOK OF BIOGRAPHY Pascal," we observe the same mixture of fine moral feeling and perverted sense. In the early chapters he employs all his acutencss in showing the weakness, the ignorance the incapacity of man, and thus prepares the way for his main object, which is to show man's need of the guidance of an infallible church. A few of the striking detached "Thoughts," in the first part of the volume, are the following : " Do you wish people to believe something good of you ? Say nothing about it yourself." "If Cleopatra's nose had been shorter, all the politics of the world had taken another turn." " If all men knew what others said of them, there would not be four friends in the world." " Because people are disinterested, we ought not to conclude with certainty that they do not lie, for there are people who lie for the sake of lying." "When everything moves equally, nothing seems to move, as in a ship. So when all is going toward destruction, nothing seems to be out of order. The man who stops sees the rest hurrying to ruin, as from a fixed point." "A little thing consoles us, because a little thing afflicts us." " I do not admire the excess of a virtue such as valor, for example unless I see in the same person the excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas, who had extreme valoi and extreme benignity." " How pleasant, that a man should have the right to kill mi. because he lives on the other side of a river, and because his prince has a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him ! " "I wish with all my heart to see an Italian book, of which I know only the title, which alone is of more value than many books : ' Opinion rules the "World.' " "Vanity is so fixed in the heart of man, that a soldier, a la borer, a cook, a porter, vaunts himself and wishes to have his admirers ; and philosophers themselves not less. And those who write against glory desire the glory of having written well, and those who read such a discourse desire the glory of having read it ; and I who write this have, perhaps, the same desire, and, perhaps, those who will read it." BLAISE PASCAL 107 " Those who despise men most, and compare them with the beasts, still wish to be admired and believed, and thus contra- dict themselves." " Man is but a reed, the feeblest in nature ; but he is a think- ing reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapor, a drop of water, suffices. But though the universe should crush him, man would still be nobler than that which slew him, because he would know that he was dying ; while of the advantage which the universe had over him the universe would know nothing." "Nature is an infinite sphere, of which the centre is every- where, the circumference nowhere." " The good there is in a book was hard for the author to ac- quire, but the bad can be corrected in a moment." " Rivers are roads that march, and carry us where we wish to go." "The greatness of man consists in this, that he knows him- self to be miserable. A tree does not know that it is misera- ble. To know ourselves miserable, then, is to be miserable ; but it is also great to know ourselves miserable. Our very misery proves our greatness ; it is the misery of a great lord, of a kinir dethroned." " Here is a proof that man hates the truth, which fills me with horror : The Catholic religion does not oblige us to re- veal our sins to all the world ; it permits us to conceal them from all men, except one only, to whom it commands us to dis- cover the bottom of the heart just as it is. There is just one man in the world whom we are required to undeceive, and that one man is bound to keep the secret inviolable, so that this knowledge is in his mind as though it were not. Can we im- agine anything more charitable and tender? And yet, such is the corruption of the human heart, that it fi.ids something hard in this law ; and this is one of the principal reasons for the re- volt against the church in all Europe. How unjust and unrea- sonable is the heart of man, to think it an outrage to be required to do to one man what it would be only right to do to all I For, is it just that we should deceive our fellow-men?" 108 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. These few specimens will suffice to give an idea of the inge- nuity and point of the " Thoughts. " When the author has com- pleted the survey of the weakness and helplessness of us poor mortals, then he develops, with the same acuteness, the argu- ments which convinced him of the divine origin and binding authority of the Christian religion, as expounded by, and con- tained in, the church in which he was born. This part of his work has been drawn from as freely by Protestant as by Catho- lic writers, since the greater part of it is devoted to establishing the faith common to both ; and Pascal treats this part of his subject so exhaustively, that I doubt if there can be discovered in any modern author a single argument for the divine origin of Christianity the germ of which cannot be found in Pascal. FATHER MATHEW. 10 ( J FATHER MATHEW. THE grand celebration in New York of the seventy-sixth birthday of Theobald Mathew, recalls to memory the extraor- dinary career of that benefactor of his race, and shows that the work begun in his lifetime goes on now that he is dead. There is a Father Mathew Total Abstinence Society in most, if not all, the Catholic parishes of New York. On the 10th of October, the members of these societies, wearing green scarfs and deco- rations, with banners flying and bands of music playing, marched through the principal streets of the city, and passed in review before the mayor and before the Archbishop of New York. It is good to see the stalwart sons of toil banding together for the purpose of supporting one another in a virtuous and most difficult resolution. In a city of seven thousand drink- ing places, the enemy lies in wait for them at every step, the working-man's deadliest enemy. Surely it is well for them to combine against a foe that despoils of character and energy, self-respect and the chance of prospering, and entails upon wife and children a miserable inheritance of poverty and shame. In the year 1838 there was, in the city of Cork, a small Tem- perance Society chiefly composed of Quakers. Cork and its suburbs contained a population of more than a hundred thou- sand, among whom, it could be almost said, drunkenness was the rule and sobriety the exception. This famous city, though it had some fine streets and a few handsome edifices, was chiefly composed of long, narrow lanes, lined with wretched huts and shanties, in which poverty sought a momentary respite from its sorrows in strong drink. The little band of Quakers, after struggling awhile with this gigantic evil, with scarcely any re- 110 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. stilts, were ready to give up in despair, when one of them posed that they should consult Father Mathew, and endeavor to enlist him as an active co-operator in the cause. Father Mathew was then only known as an exemplary, benevolent, and remarkably influential parish priest, nearly fifty years of age, and a resident of Cork ever since his ordi- nation in 1814. His father, who was the illegitimate son of a nobleman, died when Theobald was a child, and the boy was reared by an aunt to the age of twenty, when he entered the College of Maynooth, a seminary for the education of Catholic priests. Soon after his settlement at Cork he inherited prop- erty, which a dispensation from Rome allowed him to retain. With part of it he began the erection of a magnificent church, which, 1 believe, was not finished in his lifetime ; and with another portion he bought and laid out a cemetery, where the poor were provided with graves from a fund formed by selling graves to the rich. In the discharge of his priestly duties, he was noted for an indefatigable assiduity, especially in visiting and solacing the poor, and in promoting schemes for their ben- efit. Being a magistrate as well as a clergyman, he was fre- quently employed as an arbitrator in disputes, and many poor men relied on him for legal advice. He was one of those be- nevolent and trustworthy persons whom every one likes to have as executor of his will and guardian of orphan children. There was something in his manner, too, that was exceedingly win- ning, and he had a plain, direct, and very persuasive way of preaching, that made him much sought for when a collection was to be taken up. Probably there was no man in Ireland who could get more money into the plates for a benevolent ob- ject than Father Mathew. It was because of his paramount influence among the poor of Cork, and his singular power of winning over masses of men, that the Quakers sought his aid. He listened to their state- ments, and, after some hesitation, consented to lend a helping hand. Instead, however, of co-operating with them, he thought it best to proceed on his own account, and to set up a new and independent Temperance Society. He began by holding two temperance meetings a week, ID FATHER MATHEW. Ill the Horse-Bazaar of Cork ; one on Friday evening, when poor whiskey-drinkers feel the consequences of their drinking in empty pockets and stomachs ; the other on Saturday evening, when the possession of a week's wages is tempting every drinker to the whiskey-shop. At the first meeting a society was formed, of which he was chosen president, and he administered the pledge to thirty-five persons. The next evening, a much larger number attended, and two or three hundred joined. He usually delivered a short, plain, anecdotical address, after which he read the pledge, and those who wished to join the society came forward and signed*their names, or made their mark, in a book. But as the numbers increased, the signing took too much time, and he only required the candidates to repeat the pledge after him. They usually fell upon their knees before he pronounced it, and when they had uttered the words, he made over them the sign of the cross, which imparted to the promise something of the character of an oath. Father Mathe w's wonder-working pledge was as follows : "I promise, with the divine assistance, as long as I continue a member of the Teetotal Temperance Society, to abstain from all intoxicating drinks, except for medicinal or sacramental - purposes, and to prevent as much as possible, by advice and example, drunkenness in others." When these words had been slowly uttered, Father Mathew, with uplifted hand, pronounced a brief prayer : "May God bless you, and give you strength and grace to keep your promise." To which he sometimes added, as he made the sign of the cross : "In this sign alone you may hope to persevere and conquer." For the space of eighteen months he continued to hold his meetings at the Horse-Bazaar every Friday and Saturday even- ing, and with ever increasing success. Those who had taken the pledge preached temperance to their friends and relations, and brought them in to the meetings ; and in this way the circle of the reforming influence widened from week to week, until there arose a mania to take the pledge. During that year and a half, Father Mathew administered the pledge 112 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. to more people than the entire population of Cork, for soon the inhabitants of the adjacent country began to flock in on the meeting days. The change in the aspect of the place, and in the manners and behavior of the people, was wonderful. From being one of the most dissolute and disorderly places in Europe, Cork became the abode of peaceful industry. Hun- dreds of drinking places were closed. It so happened that Father Mathew had two brothers and a brother-in-law who were distillers of whiskey. Their business began to fall off; and at length, as the work went on, they were compelled to shut up their distilleries. * Until the year 1840 this remarkable movement was confined to the neighborhood of Cork, and it was a mere accident that gave it wider course. Having been invited to Limerick, a large town about fifty miles from Cork, to preach a charity sermon, he arrived there on Saturday, not expecting to have anything to do with teetotalism until his return. But a con- siderable number of persons residing in Limerick had made a pilgrimage to the Horse-Bazaar at Cork, and taken the pledge there ; and thus every one in the town had heard of Father Mathew's marvellous doings. No sooner was it known that he was in the town, than people began to assemble round the house in which he was, until the crowd was so immense that the regiment stationed in the place had to be summoned to aid in keeping the people from crushing one another. At one moment an iron railing gave way, and precipitated a mass of persons into the river Shannon ; from which, however, they were all rescued by the troops. All that day Father Mathew kept administering the pledge to thousands at a time, while new thousands came hurrying in from the country. These unexpected scenes at Limerick decided Father Mathew's future career. He became the Apostle of Temper- ance. In some of the densely peopled counties of Ireland he administered the pledge to fifty thousand persons a day for some days together. Three millions of the people of Ireland, it is computed, vowed themselves to total abstinence in his presence ; and in America his success was not less astonishing. But the most wonderful thing of all was, that the pledge thus FATHER MATHEW. 113 hastily taken was generally kept. The Irish people came to regard Father Mathew with almost superstitious veneration ; and, therefore, attached peculiar sanctity to a pledge made to him. Blind men came to him, asking him to restore their sight ; and sick women were often seen to touch him, as if expecting to be healed by "virtue " proceeding from his person. He told the lame and the blind, who came to him for miraculous restoration, that he had not the power to work miracles; but, if they persisted in believing that his touch would cure, he would good-naturedly lay his hand upon them. On one occa- sion, some men, who had come from a distance to take the pledge, on their return homeward chanced to drink water from a vessel in which a small quantity of whiskey had been acci- dentally left. They were horror-stricken. Nothing would satisfy them but to return to Father Mathew, explain the circumstance to him, and again take the pledge. Nothing takes place in this world without sufficient cause. Father Mathew really was an eminently kind-hearted, good man. To give the reader a taste of his quality, and an insight into the secret of his power, I will copy a few sentences from a sermon he once delivered in aid of an orphan asylum ill Ireland : "If," said he, "I were to pause to enumerate but the hun- dredth part of the many generous deeds of mercy performed even by the poorest of the poor, of which I myself have been witness, I would occupy the whole of the time which this discourse should last. Permit me, however, to state one simple case of facts : A poor woman found in the streets a male infant, which she brought to me, and asked imploringly what she was to do with it. Influenced, unhappily, by cold caution, I advised her to give it to the church-wardens. It was then even- ing. On the ensuing morning, early, I found this poor woman at my doors. She was a poor water-carrier. She cried bitterly, and said, ' I have not slept one wink all night for parting with that child which God had put in my way, and, if you will give me leave, I will take him back again.' I was filled with confusion at the pious tenderness of this poor 114 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. creature, and I went with her to the parish nurse for the infant, which she brought to her home with joy, exclaiming, in the very words of the prophet, 'Poor child, though thy mother has forgotten thee, I will not forget thee.' Eight years have elapsed since she brought to her humble home that exposed infant, and she is now blind from the constant exposure to wet and cold ; and ten times a day may be seen that poor water- carrier passing with her weary load, led by this little foundling boy. O merciful Jesus, I would gladly sacrifice the wealth and power of this wide world, to secure to myself the glorious welcome that awaits this poor blind water-carrier on the great accounting day ! Oh, what, compared to charity like this, the ermiued robe, the ivory sceptre, the golden throne, the jewelled diadem ! " Father Mathew died in December, 1856, aged sixty-six years. The great expenses in which he was involved by his labors on behalf of temperance caused him much pecuniary embarrassment in his later years. Queen Victoria granted him a pension of three hundred pounds a year, and he derived con- siderable sums from the sale of medals and diplomas ; but he gave away as many as he sold, and, I believe, that at the time of his death he was insolvent. Often, in going through streets where every other house contains a grog-shop, I have been ready to exclaim : " Oh for another Father Mathew!" SCENE IN THE LIFE OF AARON BURR. SCENE IN THE LIFE OF AARON BURR. IN 1812, Aaron Burr returned from Europe, fifty-six years uf age, a ruined man. Although acquitted in his trial for trea- son, his countrymen believed him guilty, and his old friends generally shunned his company. For four years he had wan- dered about Europe, and now returned home deeply in debt and destitute of resources, to endeavor to earn his livelihood by his old profession of the law. The first news which met him on his arrival was that his only daughter had lost her only child, a boy of whom Burr was ex- travagantly fond. He urged his afflicted daughter, who then resided in South Carolina, to visit him in New York ; and for this purpose she embarked on board of a small schooner, which was wrecked a few days after, and all on board perished. Ere long her husband died, and Burr was alone on the earth. To use his own language, he was " severed from the human race.'* These heavy blows, following one another so quickly, touched the hearts of some, who had known him formerly, with compas- sion, and this feeling would have prompted them to offer him consolation, but for the belief that his heart was not contrite, and that his life was no purer than it had been during his fortunate days. Respectable citizens, therefore, still held aloof from the man whom once they had courted, and whose company they had once considered an honor. There was at that time in New York a society of religious ladies, of different churches, who were in the habit of meeting weekly for conversation and religious exercises. These ladies remembered that Aaron Burr was the grandson of one distin- guished clergyman, and the son of another, and that his mother had been a woman eminent for her goodness. Often, in their 116 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY meetings, Colonel Burr, his errors and his sorrows, and the vir- tues of his ancestors, were the subject of conversation ; and it occurred to them that, perhaps, if he were kindly approached and wisely admonished, he muiht repent of the past, reform his conduct, and restore himself to the respect of his fellow-citizens. As he was never seen in a church, the ladies were puzzled to devise a scheme for getting access to his ear. They concluded, at length, to request one of the clergy to call upon him, and remind him of his virtuous ancestry, and urge him to follow their example. The person whom they selected for the errand was the Rev. Dr. J. M. Mathews, of the Dutch Re- formed Church, afterwards Chancellor of the New York Univer- sity, and still living among us. Dr. Mathews strenuously ob- jected to undertake so delicate and embarrassing a mission ; but the ladies continuing to persuade him, he at length reluctantly undertook it. Colonel Burr then lived and practised law in Nassau Street, within a few steps from the spot where he had established him- self as a young practitioner thirty years before. Dr. Mathews called in the evening, and was informed that Colonel Burr was at tea. He sent in his name, however, and Burr immediately came into the hall, asked him into his parlor, and behaved to him with that exquisite courtesy for which he was so famous. He invited the doctor to take a cup of tea, which, he said, was to him " tired nature's sweet restorer," and added that tea was everything to him, and that he often sipped it through the whole evening. He resumed his tea, and continued to taste it occa- sionally during most of the conversation which followed. As Dr. Mathews did not immediately explain the object of his com- ing, they conversed for a while upon various topics ; and the doctor testifies, in his "Recollections," that nothing can be imag- ined more delightful than Burr's conversation, nor more fasci- nating than his manners. The clergyman ventured, after some delay, to approach tue object of his visit by saying, that Colonel Burr's return to New York was a proof that the foreign lands, upon which he had been conversing, had not weaned him from his own country, and that he might be glad to know that he still had friends in Amer- SCENE IN THE LIFE OF AA-EON BUEB. 117 ica who took a deep interest in his welfare. Burr looked sur- prised, and fixed his eyes upon his visitor as though eager for an explanation of his remark. The doctor then stated his mission, and informed him at whose request it was undertaken. Burr listened most attentively, and when his visitor ceased speaking, he exclaimed : " Do I understand you rightly ? Do you say that these Chris- tian ladies and with the husbands of some among them I have formerly been acquainted have thought of Aaron Burr with kindness, and have made me a subject of their prayers for Di- vine mercy on my behalf? It is what I little expected, and, as a gentleman, I thank them for their kind remembrance of me. Be so good as to assure them of it. But, sir, I fear it is all in vain ; I fear they are asking Heaven for what Heaven has not in store for me." Dr. Mathews assured him that the ladies hoped for better things, and asked permission to speak plainly to him. "Certainly, certainly, most certainly," he answered; "why should you not? You can have but one motive in holding this interview. Let me hear what you would say. You have met me with a look of kindness ; you speak to me in tones of kind- ness. I do not so often meet with this from gentlemen in New York as to cast it behind me. Speak plainly to me, and I will speak plainly to you." The doctor then asked him this question : "Do you believe in the truth and inspiration of the Bible?" "I suppose," he replied, "I am generally considered an infi- del. But I am not an infidel in the proper sense of the word. I will not so disparage my own power to judge of evidence as to deny that the Bible is true. The only real infidel is the man who does not think, and because he is afraid to think. We will proceed on the supposition that the Bible is to be believed ! " Dr. Mathews then proceeded to accomplish the object of his coming. He spoke of Burr's religious ancestors, and dwelt upon his mother's hopes for him at his birth, when she prayed that her son might be as good a man as his father. At consider- able length he reviewed his past history, and the efforts that bad been made in his childhood and youth to train him up in the 118 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. way he should go. At the mention of his mother, Colonel Burr appeared to be deeply moved, and he listened to all the remarks of his visitor with every appearance of interest. The doctor paused at length, and waited for him to speak. "Perhaps," said Burr, "you would like to proceed. You know we are to speak without restraint ; I take it all well, for I know it is well meant. The doctor answered that there was another subject to which he wished to allude, and yet scarcely knew how to introduce it. "I wish to hear you," said Col. Burr. The clergyman then cut deeply into the heart of the bereaved and solitary man, by speaking to him of his lost daughter, whose voice, he said, ought to speak to him from the deep, warning him to repent. While Dr. Mathews was upon this subject the heart-broken father moaned and wept to such a degree that his visitor paused, and there was a long silence. Then Burr spoke as follows : "You are doing nothing more than your duty, and I am the more pleased with you for doing it so fully. This is a new scene for me. You have opened fountains that have long been dry, and that, perhaps, I may have thought were dried up forever. It is true, it is true, judgments have followed me for years, judgments in every form, in the heaviest form, till I am left alone of all that loved me, as father or near relative. There is a desolation here," laying his hand on his heart, "that none but the Searcher of Hearts can understand." Even these pathetic words did not induce the clergyman to spare him. He asked him if there was not something in the desolation of his own household which called to mind another household which his own hand had desolated. Burr's eyes flashed fire, but the expression passed away in a moment, and he asked, with a tone and look of sorrow : " What would you have me do ? How and where would you have me turn?" The clergyman then urged him again to repentance ; advised him to return, like the prodigal son, to attend church, and de- vote his future life to good works. Col. Burr interrupted his visitor, and said : SCENE IN THE LIFE OF AARON BURR. 110 tf You don't seem to know how I am viewed by the religious public, or by those who resort to your churches. Where is l!iere a man among all such whom I would be willing to meet, and who would welcome me into his pew ? Of your own con- gregation, would , or , or , give me a seat? These arc our merchant princes, men who give tone to Wall Street, and fix the standard of mercantile morals in our city. Would they make Aaron Burr a welcome visitor to your church ? Rather, indeed, I may ask, would you yourself do so? How would you feel walking up the aisle with me, and opening your pew door for my entrance ? " Dr. Mathews replied that such an event would give him great pleasure. "Then," said Burr, "you would indulge your feelings of kindness at the expense of your usefulness as the minister of your congregation. Do you believe that such gentlemen as I have named would be pleased, or rather that they would not be highly displeased, at seeing you do anything of the kind?" As he said these words, he rose from his chair, and paced up and down the room, his heart evidently swelling with indigna- tion and pride. Then, losing his self-control, he said, passion- ately : " There are men who join in this system of proscription who ought to be well aware that I know enough of them and their condition to hurl them into poverty, if I would only undertake the task. I could strip them of the very houses in which they and their families live, and turn them into the street. The title to much of the property now held by the rich men of our city would not bear to be sifted. I know all about it, and I may be induced some day to show what I am able to do in the matter." The doctor observed that he was not competent to judge of such affairs, which were far removed from the object of his> visit. Burr instantly sat down again, and, with the most exquisite politeness, apologized for his warmth, adding, that his mind was so chafed at times by the circumstances in which he found himself, that he was not always as self-possessed as he could wish. 120 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. "Once," said he, "I had the credit of such self-possession that nothing could disturb or overthrow it. I have less of it now. Age and sorrow combined wear away the strength of the strongest." The minister then most earnestly renewed his exhortation, and implored him to repent, and begin a new life. Burr heard him patiently, and said, in reply : "This is all true, and how strongly it reminds me of my early days ! It seems as if I heard good Dr. Bellamy again speaking to me. But I fear such appeals will have as little effect upon the old man as they had on the wayward youth. If there is any such good yet in store for me as you, sir, seem to desire, it must reach me at last in virtue of my birth from religious parentage, which, you justly observed, it has been my lot to have as a birthright." By this time it was late in the evening, and the clergyman rose to take leave. Burr looked Dr. Mathews steadily in the face, and spoke as follows : "I am far from being wearied of this conversation. On the contrary, I shall preserve a grateful recollection of it. I sin- cerely thank you for this visit, and, if it does me no good, I am anxious it should do you no harm. I hope that you will not mistake my motive in what I am about to say. I know who some of the men are to whom you sustain intimate relations. They entertain the most unfavorable opinion of me in every respect, and would not fail to mark it against any one who should treat me with any open avowal of good-will or civility. It would be to your detriment if such men should see you accost me in the public street with the expression of regard that your kindness might prompt. When wo meet in any of our great thoroughfares, it is best that we should not see each other. Do you understand me ? " Dr. Mathews replied" that he appreciated his motive, though he could not see the necessity of such a course, but that he would regulate his conduct by the wish Col. Burr had ex- pressed. "Excuse me," said the old lawyer, "I am the best judge." lie accompanied the clergyman to the door, and, at parting, SCENE IN THE LIFE OF AAEON BURR. 121 gave him his hand, which was as cold as a dead man's, and the doctor Left him, feeling that his visit had been in vain. In Aaron Burr there was no repentance. To the end of his life he cherished the delusion that the obloquy under which he rested was utterly unjust, and he often laughed at the public for being so imposed upon by his " enemies " as to believe that Aaron Burr was anything but a gentleman and a man of honor. The threat which, in his excitement, he let fall, respecting the estates of .some of the rich men of the city, he delayed not long to execute, and he gained large sums by bringing suits of eject- ment against men who had never doubted the sufficiency of their titles. Many of these suits were decided in his favor, and he took a share of the recovered property as his fee. PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. CAPTAIN JAMES LAWRENCE. MANY readers are familiar with the monument in front of Trinity Church in New York, which covers the remains of Cap- tain Lawrence, whose dying injunction, *' DOX'T GIVE UP THE SHIP ! " is part of the inheritance of every American citizen. It is an elegant monument of brown stone, bearing several appropriate inscriptions. Every patriotic visitor to Old Trinity lingers around it, and pays homage to the memory of a man who gave his life to his country, and remained firm in his devotion to her while suffering the anguish of a mortal wound. Such monuments as these are a priceless possession. Who could estimate the value to posterity of a simple, durable mon- ument in every village cemetery, to the memory of the soldiers who went from its vicinity and died in the war just closed? Such memorials need not be splendid nor costly. The roughest piece of granite consecrated to such a purpose would eclipse the most elaborate work of sculpture, and assist to keep alive the patriotic fire in generations unborn. The tomb of Captain Lawrence was opened, not long since, to receive the remains of his widow, who survived him fifty-two years, and died at Newport, on the fifteenth of Sep- tember, in the seventy-eighth year of her age. The little com- pany of friends that gathered about the hallowed spot on that occasion, were scarcely observed by the throng of passers-by, and the event was not noticed in the papers of the next morn- ing. Fifty-six years had elapsed since Julia Montaudevert, a lovely girl of nineteen, the daughter of a New York merchant, gave her hand at the altar of Trinity to Lieutenant Lawrence, then twenty-seven, and reputed the handsomest officer in the American navy, as he certainly was one of the bravest of any CAPTAIN .AMES LA-WRENCE. navy. She lived opposite the Bowling Green, near by, then the most elegant, quiet, and fashionable quarter of New York. She was a wife but four years, during much of which her husband was absent on duty. She became the mother of two daughters, one of whom was born after his death. She only recovered from her second confinement in time to follow his remains to the grave. Since that time she has resided chiefly at Newport, an object of interest and veneration to the frequenters of that place. At last, after more than half a century of widowhood, she returns to the home of her childhood, to the church in which she plighted her faith, and lies down by the side of her husband never more to be separated from him. A few old inhabitants of the city remember the couple, as they appeared during the honeymoon, she, a beautiful, blush- ing bride, he, clad in the stiff but showy uniform of that day, radiant with manly beauty, and invested with the charm of re- cent glory won in battle. James Lawrence, born in 1781, at Burlington, in New Jersey, where his father was a lawyer in good practice, was one of those boys who will go to sea, in spite of all opposition. Consequent- ly his father, who had wished to bring him up to his own pro- fession, yielded to the lad's decided preference, and obtained for him, in his seventeenth year, a midshipman's commission in the infant navy of the United States. Recognized at once as a val- uable officer, he was acting lieutenant at nineteen, commissioned a lieutenant at twenty-one, and first lieutenant of a schooner at twenty-three. His first distinction was won in the war with Tripoli, in 1804. A serious disaster had befallen the navy in the loss of the frigate Philadelphia, which ran on a reef in the Mediterranean ; and being attacked by the Tripoli fleet while she lay helpless on the rocks, Captain Brainbridge was compelled to surrender. Him- self, his officers, and a crew of nearly three hundred men were carried away prisoners to Tripoli, where they were tolerably treated and 'held for ransom. The ship was got afloat, and ta- ken to the same port, where she was anchored under the guns of the town, while her captors were repairing her for a cruise against American commerce. So important was it to deprive 124 PEOPLE'S .BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. the barbarians of so potent an engine of mischief, that the gal- lant Dccatur conceived the project of running into the harbor with a small vessel, surprising the frigate and setting her on fire. How neatly this was done, most readers know. The surprise was so complete, that Decatur had possession of the ship in just ten minutes after he had given the order to board. Combusti- bles were all ready, and were placed in various parts of the ves- sel. At the signal they were set on fire, and the ship, dry as tinder from many months' exposure to a tropical sun, blazed up with such rapidity that the ketch in which the Americans had boarded her, narrowly escaped being involved in the same con- flagration. Flames leaped from the frigate's port-holes and' wreathed round the masts, lighting up the bay with a brilliancy that was peri- lous in the extreme to the victors. Cuuing with their swords the hawser that bound them to the burning ship, the Americans eighty in number gave three cheers and bent to their oars. The cannon-balls of the enemy flew over their heads and dashed into the water near them ; but the vigorous use of six- teen sweeps soon carried them out of range, without the loss of a man. In this affair Lieutenant Lawrence commanded one division of the attacking party, and behaved with admirable coolness and gallantry. Decatur pronounced a fine eulogium upon him when he said : fr There is no more dodge about Lawrence than there is about the mainmast." Congress voted thanks and money to the men engaged in this spirited affair. Lawrence's share of the money was eighty dol- lars, which he preferred not to accept. The breaking out of the war of 1812 found Lawrence in com- mand of the sloop-of-war, Hornet, eighteen guns. It was in this vessel that he won his famous victory, off the coast of Brazil, over the English sloop, Peacock, eighteen guns, Captain Peeke. Sighting this vessel early in the afternoon of February 14th, 1813, Commander Lawrence, who was a remarkably skilful seaman, handled the Hornet o as to get the advantage of the CAPTAIN JAMES LAWRENCE. 125 enemy in position. At half pistol shot the vessels exchanged broadsides, and continued a furious fire, at intervals, for fifteen minutes, the American ship constantly out-manoeuvring her ad- versary. The British vessel was gallantly fought, and her com- mander used every exertion to regain the advantage of position. Lawrence, however, was too quick for him ; and the gunnery of the Hornet was strikingly superior to that of the Briton. In just fifteen minutes from the firing of the first gun, the Peacock not only struck her colors, but displayed a signal of distress. In fact, she was sinking ; and though the Americans made pro- digious efforts to keep her afloat, she went to the bottom in an hour, carrying down with her nine of her 'own crew and three of the Hornet's. In this encounter the English vessel lost her captain and four men killed, and had thirty-three men wounded, while the Hor- net had but one man killed and two wounded ; and was so little damaged that in three hours after the contest closed she was ready for another engagement. These sea victories of ours in the war of 1812 were a com- plete puzzle to the people of England. I read, the other day, a letter of the poet Southey, written in May, 1813, in which he says : " Tom " (his brother, a naval officer) " is made quite unhappy by these repeated victories of the Americans ; and, for my own part, I regard them with the deepest and gloomiest forebodings. The superior weight of metal will not account for all. I heard, a day or two ago, from a Liverpooliau, lately in America, that they stuff their wadding with bullets. This may kill a few more men, but will not explain how it is that our ships are so soon demolished, not merely disabled. Wordsworth (the poet) and I agreed in suspecting some improvement in gunnery. Peeke was certainly not a tyrant ; he is well known here, hav- ing married a cousin of Wordsworth ; his ship was in perfect or- der ; and he as brave and able a man *as any in the service. Here it seems the men behaved well ; but in ten minutes the ship was literally knocked to pieces, her sides fairly stove in ; and I think this can only be explained by some improvement in 34 126 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. the manufacture of powder, or in the manner of loading. . . It is in vain to treat the matter lightly, or seek to conceal from ourselves the extent of the evil. Our naval superiority is de- stroyed ! " I explain the mystery thus : The naval glories of England were chiefly won in combat with the fleets of Spain and France, nations not at home upon the sea. America is the only an- tagonist that England ever encountered upon the ocean which has a natural turn for seamanship equal to 'her own. Besides this equality in natural gift, we had the advantage of a quicker brain, and an inveterate habit of improving upon old methods. Our navy, too, was not officered from the younger sons of aris- tocrats, with whom it was a rule, as Captain Marryatt says, to send to sea "the fool of the family." His hold being crowded with prisoners, Lawrence made all sail for the United States, where the acclamations of the nation welcomed him. The government promoted him, at the age of thirty-one, to the rank of captain, the highest grade then exist- ing in our navy, and Congress votecl him thanks and a gold medal. After enjoying a few weeks on shore the society of his wife and child, he was assigned to the command of the frigate Chesapeake, then lying in Boston harbor, preparing for a cruise against the enemy's whaling fleet off the coast of Greenland. The British frigate Shannon was blockading Boston harbor. On the morning of June 1st, 1813, this ship came into the bay, as if challenging the Chesapeake to an engagement. Captain Lawrence, with a crew dissatisfied from the non-payment of their prize money, his first lieutenant sick on shore, his officers few, young, and inexperienced, had determined to avoid, if pos- sible, an encounter with the Shannon ; but this bold defiance was too much for his resolution, and he put to sea. .Thirty miles from shore, late in the afternoon, the well-known battle occurred, one of the shortest,- fiercest, and most destructive engagements that evertook place between single ships. After eight minutes of furious cannonading at very close quarters, in which the American ship gave more damage than she received, an anchor of the Shannon caught the rigging of the Chesapeake, CAPTAIN JAMES LAWRENCE. which exposed her to a raking fire, that swept her decks. Both captains instantly ordered boarders to be called ; but the bugle man of the Chesapeake, a negro, had hid himself, and when he was found, he was so paralyzed by terror that he could not sound a note. This delay at the critical moment was fatal. Captain Law- rence, already wounded in the leg, received a mortal wound through the body, and was carried below ; and when the Eng- lish crew cautiously came on board, there was not a commis- sioned officer unhurt to make head against them. Every officer in the ship, except two midshipmen, mere boys, was either killed or wounded. In fifteen minutes from the moment of the first broadside, the Chesapeake was in the hands of the enemy. Both ships, as Cooper remarks, were " charnel-houses." On board the Chesapeake were forty-eight killed and ninety-eight wounded ; on board the Shannon, twenty-three killed and fitty- six wounded. With regard to the words uttered by Captain Lawrence after he had received his mortal wound, different accounts have been given.. The popular version is, "Don't give up the ship." Cooper says the words were, " Don't strike the flag of my ship. " 1 have beeu positively assured by a venerable surgeon of the navy, who was in the cockpit when the hero was brought below, that he heard Captain Lawrence say, " Fight the ship till she sinks." Nothing is more probable than that he used all these expressions, and that " Don't give up the ship " obtained currency merely because it was the shortest and handiest. Lawrence lingered four days after the battle, receiving from the British officers the tenderest care, who also bestowed upon his remains the respect due to so brave a man. From Halifax, to which both ships sailed, his body was brought to New York, where it was followed to the grave by vast numbers of officers and civillians. The nation mourned his loss, and will forever honor his memory. 128 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. WAS BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MEAN? JEFFERSON DAVIS thinks he was. He is reported to have said, lately, that Dr. Franklin was "the incarnation of the New England character, hard, calculating, angular, unable to con- ceive any higher object than the accumulation of money." There are many other people who, though they honor the memory of Franklin, have received the impression that, in money matters, he was very close and saving. To correct this error, I will now briefly relate his pecuniary history, from im boyhood to his death, showing how he got his money, how much of it he got, and what he did with it. I will begin with the first pecuniary transaction in which lie is known to have been concerned, and this shall be given in his own words : " When I was a child of seven years old, my friends, on * holiday, filled my pockets with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children ; and being charmed with the sound of a whistle, that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my money for one" That was certainly not the act of a stingy, calculating boy. His next purchase, of which we have any knowledge, was made when he was about eleven years old ; and this time, I must confess, he made a much better bargain. The first book he could ever call his own was a copy of Pilgrim's Progress, which he read, and re-read, until he had got from it all that so young a person could understand. But being exceedingly fond of reading, he exchanged his Pilgrim's Progress for a set of little books, then much sold by peddlers, called "Burton's His- torical Collections," in forty paper-covered volumes, containing WAS BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MEAN? 129 nistory, travels, tales, wonders and curiosities; jmt the thing for a boy. As we do not know the market value of his Pil- grim's Progress, we cannot tell whether the poor peddler did well by him, or the contrary. But, it strikes me, that that is not the kind of barter in which a mean, grasping boy usually engages. His father being a poor soap-and-candle maker, with a dozen children or more to support or assist, and Benjamin being a printer's apprentice, he was more and more puzzled to gratify his love of knowledge. But, one day, he hit upon an expedient that brought in a little cash. By reading a vegetarian book, this hard, calculating Yankee lad had been led to think that people could live better without meat than with it, and that killing innocent animals for food was cruel and wicked. So he abstained from meat altogether for about two years. As this led to some inconvenience at his boarding-house, he made this cunning proposition to his master : " Give me one half the money you pay for my board, and I will board myself." The master consenting, the apprentice lived entirely upon such things as hominy, bread, rice and potatoes, and found that he could actually live upon half of the half. What did the cal- culating wretch do with the money ! Put it into his money- box? No ; he laid it all out in the improvement of his mind. When, at the age of seventeen, he lauded at Philadelphia, a runaway apprentice, he had one silver dollar, and one shilling in copper coin. It was a fine Sunday morning, as probably the reader remembers, and* he knew not a soul in the place. He asked the boatmen upon whose boat he had come down the Delaware, how much he had to pay. They answered, Nothing, because he had helped them row. Franklin, however, insisted upon their taking his shilling's worth of coppers, and forced the money upon them. An houi\ after, having bought three rolls for his breakfast, he ate one, and gave the othe; two to a poor woman and her child, who had been his fellow-pajsengers. These were small things, you may say ; but, remembei, he was a poor, ragged, dirty junaway, in a strange town, four hundred 9 130 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. miles from a friend, with three pence gone out of the only dollar he had in the world. Next year, when he went home to see his parents, with his pocket full of money, a new suit of clothes and a watch, one of his oldest Boston friends was so much pleased with Franklin's account of Philadelphia, that he determined to go back with him. On the journey Franklin discovered that his friend had become a slave to drink. He was sorely plagued and disgraced by him, and, at last, the young drunkard had spent all his money, and had no way of getting on except by Franklin's aid. This hard, calculating, mercenary youth did he seize the chance of shaking off a most troublesome and injurious travel- ling companion? Strange to relate, .he stuck to his old friend, shared his purse "with him till it was empty, and then began on some money which he had been entrusted with for another, and so got him to Philadelphia, where he still assisted him. It wa8 seven years before Franklin was able to pay all the debt incurred by him to aid this old friend ; for abandoning whom few would have blamad him. A year after, he was in a still worse difficulty from a similar cause. He went to London to buy types and a press with which to establish himself in business at Philadelphia, the Governor of Pennsylvania having promised to furnish the money. One of the passengers on the ship was a young friend of Franklin's, named James Ralph, with whom he had often studied, and of whom he was exceedingly fond. Ralph gave out that he, too, was proceeding to London to make arrangements for going into business for himself at Philadelphia. The young friends arrived Franklin nineteen, and Ralph a married man with two chil- dren. On reaching London, Franklin learned*, to his amaze- ment and dismay, that the Governor had deceived him, that nu money was to be expected from him, and that he must go to work and earn his living at his trade. No sooner had he learned this than James Ralph gave him another piece of stunning intelligence : namely, that he had run away from his family, and meant to settle in London a a poet and author ! Franklin had ten pounds in his pocket and knew a trade. Ralph had no money and knew no trade. They were both WAS BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MEAN? 131 strangers in a strange city. Now, in such circumstances, wh$ would a mean, calculating young man have done ? Reader, you know very well, without my telling you. What Franklin did was this : he shared his purse with his friend until his ten pounds were all gone ; and, having at once got work at his trade, he kept on dividing his wages with Ralph until he had advanced him thirty-six pounds, half a year's income, not a penny of which was ever repaid. And this he did, the cold- blooded wretch ! because he could not help loving his bril- liant, unprincipled comrade, though disapproving his conduct and sadly needing his money. Having returned to Philadelphia, he set up in business as a printer and editor, and, after a very severe effort, he got his business well established, and, at last, had the most profitable establishment of the kind in all America. During the most active part of his business life, he always found some time for the promotion of public objects ; he founded a most useful ind public-spirited club, a public library which still exists, and assisted in every worthy scheme. He was most generous to his poorer relations, hospitable to his fellow-citizens, and par- ticularly interested in the welfare of his journeymen, many of whom he set up in business. The most decisive proof, however, which he ever gave, that he did not overvalue money, was his retirement from a most profitable business for the purpose of having leisure to pursue his philosophical studies. He had been in business twenty years, and he Avas still in the prime of life forty-six years of age. Pie was making money faster than any other printer on this continent. But, being exceedingly desirous of spending the rest of his days in study and experiment, and having saved a moderate competency, he sold his establishment to his foreman on very easy terms, and withdrew. His estate, when he re- tired, was worth about a hundred thousand of our present greenback dollars. If he had been a lover of money, I am confident that he could and would have accumulated one of the largest fortunes in America. He had nothing to do but con- tinue in business, and take care of his investments, to roll up a prodigious estate. But not having the slightest taste for need- 132 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. less accumulation, he joyfully laid aside the cares of business, and spent the whole of the remainder of his life in the service of his country ; for he gave up his heart's desire of devoting his leisure to philosophy when his country needed him. Being in London when Captain Cook returned from his first voyage to the Pacific, he entered warmly into a beautiful scheme for sending a ship for the purpose of stocking the islands there with pigs, vegetables, and other useful animals and products. A hard, selfish man would have laughed such a project to scorn. In 1776, when he was appointed ambassador of the revolted colonies to the French king, the ocean swarmed with British cruisers, General Washington had lost New York, and the pros- pects of the Revolution were gloomy in the extreme. Dr. Franklin was an old man of seventy, and might justly have asked to be excused from a service so perilous and fatiguing. But he did not. He went. And, just before he sailed, he got together all the money he could raise about three thousand pounds and invested it in the loan recently announced by Congress. This he did at a moment when few men had a hearty faith in the success of the Revolution. This he did when he was going to a foreign country that might not receive him, from which he might be expelled, and he have no country to return to. There never was a more gallant and generous act done by an old man. In France he was as much the main stay of the cause of his country, as General Washington was at home. And who were the people, by whose restless vanity and all-clutching meanness his efforts were almost frustrated in Paris? Arthur Lee and William Lee, of Virginia, and Ralph Izard, of South Caroli ia ! Returning home after the war, he was elected President of Pennsylvania for three successive years, at a salary of .wo thousand pounds a year. But by this time he had become < on- vinced that offices of honor, such as the governorship r f a State, ought not to have any salary attached to them. He thought they should be filled by persons of independent inc< ne, willing to serve their fellow-citizens from benevolence, 01 for the honor of it. So thinking, he, at first, determined nc to receive any salary ; but this being objected to, he devoted th WAS BENJAMIN FBANKLIN MEAN? 133 whole of the salary for three years six thousand pounds to the furtherance of public objects. Part of it he gave to a college, and part was set aside for the improvement of the Schuylkill River. Never was an eminent man more thoughtful of the lowly people who were the companions of his poverty. Dr. Franklin, from the midst of the splendors of the French court, and when he was the most famous and admired person in Europe, forgot not his poor old sister, Jane, who was, in part, dependent upon his bounty. He gave her a house in Boston, and sent her, every September, the money to lay in her winter's fuel and pro- visions. He wrote her the kindest, wittiest, pleasantest letters. "Believe me, dear brother," she writes, "your writing to me gives me so much pleasure, that the great, the very great, pres- ents you have sent me give me but a secondary joy." How exceedingly absurd to call such a man "hard" and miserly, because he recommended people not to waste their money ! Let me tell you, reader, that if a man means to be liberal and generous, he must be economical. No people are so mean as the extravagant ; because, spending all they have upon themselves, they have nothing left for others. Benjamin Frank- lin was the most consistently generous man of whom I have any knowledge. 134 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. THE POET VIRGIL. IN a Broadway bookstore, this morning, 1 heard a school-boy ask for a Virgil. The clerk vanished into the distant recesses, and returned with seven editions of the poet, from which the young gentleman was requested to choose the one he desired. In the same store there were also two different translations of the works of Virgil into English. I suppose that here, on this continent of America, which was not discovered until Virgil had been dead fifteen hundred years, there could be found half a million copies of his poems. It is eighteen hundred and eighty-five years since he died ; but no day passes during the travelling season that does not bring to his grave, near Naples, some pilgrim from a distant land. Such is the magic of genius, or, rather, such is the lasting charm of a piece of literary work that is thoroughly well done. Virgil was born seventy years before the birth of Christ, at a village near Mantua, on the banks of the Mincio, in that Northern province of Italy, which the Italians wrested, not long ago, from the dominion of hated Austria. Who should possess the birthplace of Virgil was one of the questions which the late war in Europe happily and justly decided. His father was a man of very humble rank, as the fathers of great poets have usually been. The received tradition is that, early in life, his father entered the service of a peddler, who, to reward his fidelity, gave him his daughter in marriage, and settled him upon a small farm near Mantua. Of this union, and upon this farm, the poet was born. He was of a delicate constitution, and of a reflective, retiring cast of character, which induced his father to give him advantages of education not usually bestowed by Roman farmers upon their sons. It THE POET VIRGIL. 135 is probable that his father had prospered iu his vocation, and that he was a man such as we should expect the father of a great poet to be, a father who would live for his children, and find his happiness in theirs. When the lad had learned all the schools of his own neigh- borhood could teach him, he set out, as the custom then was, to find better instructors iu other cities. He made his way to Naples, two hundred and fifty miles from his home, where, at that time, many famous teachers practised their profession. The Romans were educated chiefly by means of the Greek language and Greek literature ; for, indeed, there was no other literature known to them, and none in existence, except that of the Hebrews, until they themselves had produced some great authors. Virgil learned grammar by studying Greek ; he learned mathematics from Greek treatises ; he learned his philosophy from the Greek Plato and Epicurus, and he culti- vated his poetical talent by a profound and loving study of the great poet of antiquity, the Greek Homer. It was as much a matter of course for a Roman youth of the higher classes to learn Greek, as it is among us for boys to learn French, and there were probably as many Greek tutors in Rome in Vir- gil's day, as there are French teachers "now in London or New York. It was a Greek who assisted the youthful Virgil to acquire that intimate knowledge of this language and its master-pieces, which his poems prove that he possessed. After some years spent in most assiduous and successful study at Naples, Virgil returned to his father's house near Mantua, visiting Rome on his way. At home he continued to study. It is extremely probable that he began early to try his hand at poetry, though none of his first essays have come down to us. It seems to me impossible that any man could have attained the purity and melody of Virgil's Eclogues, who had not written a multitude of verses before. Inheriting, at length, his father's estate, which, though small, was sufficient for a student's modest wants, he was in a position to devote most of his time to literature. But soon his little property was snatched from him. Augustus, to stimulate the zeal of his soldiers in the civil war which made him Emperor 136 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. of Kome. promised to divide among them a large tract of land in the n^rth of Italy. When this promise came to be fulfilled, Virgil's farm fell to the share of an officer of rank, who drove the young poet from his patrimony, just as a French colonel might drive the poet Tennyson from his cottage in the Isle of Wight, if ever Louis Napoleon should make a successful invasion of England. It so happened, fortunately for mankind, that one of Virgil's fellow-students, with whom he had been particularly intimate at Naples, was then in the public service, and performing some duty in the neighborhood. Virgil fled to him for advice, and under his patronage went to Rome, and laid his -case before Augustus. The emperor ordered the restoration of his farm, and the happy poet returned to take possession of it. He dis- covered, however, that an imperial order of that nature was not held in much respect by a victorious centurion at so great a distance from Rome. The officer in possession drove the poet away once more, and pursued him with such violence that he only saved his life by swimming a river. It cost him much pains, and required the interposition of powerful friends, before he could again enter into peaceful possession of his estate, without which, in all probability, he had never enjoyed that command of his time, and that tranquillity of mind which are necessary to the production of immortal works. Restored to his home and to his leisure, he spent the next three years in the composition of his Eclogues, a series of po'erns in imitation of the Greek pastorals, but which were far from being a mere imitation. Virgil's real delight in the tranquil pleasures of the country, and his antipathy to the scenes of violence and carnage of which he had been the witness, gave to many passages an essential originality, while the harmony of the verse was something wholly his own. The many allusions to recent events events as stirring to the Roman heart as those of our recent war are to us gave life and freshness to the poems. They had an immediate and most brilliant success ; they were recited in the theatre at Rome , they were quoted in every intellectual society. I have ever thought that these and other poems of Virgil may have been 39 THE POET VIRGIL. 137 among the causes of the long peace which Rome enjoyed under Augustus. In the thirty-third year of his age, crowned with the glory of this new fame, Virgil went to Rome, the capital of civiliza- tion. There the Emperor Augustus and his minister, Mecsenas, gave him cordial welcome, and bestowed such liberal gifts upon him that he was able to live thenceforth much at his ease, and to spend all the residue of his days in literary employments. The public honored him not less. On one occasion, when he was present at the theatre, some of his verses chanced to be recited, and the whole audience rose and cheered him, just as they were accustomed to salute the emperor upon his entrance. He made one noble use of his credit with Mecaeuas, in recom- mending to him another poet, Horace. Horace says, in one of his satires, addressed to Mecasnas : "It was not chance that brought us together. That best of men Virgil, long since, and, after him, Varius, told you who I was." Horace, therefore, in a certain sense, owed his fortune to Virgil ; for Mecaenas pre- sented the satirist with a house, and induced Augustus to assign him a piece of land, upon the income of which he lived sufficiently well. The contemplative Virgil, unlike his merry friend, Horace, did not enjoy the bustle and excitement of a great city. After a short residence at Rome he returned to Naples, which was then to Italy what Oxford now is to England, and there he composed his poems in praise of country employments and pleasures, which are' entitled the Georgics. In one of these Georgics (the third) there is a long passage descriptive of a cattle plague which had raged in the northern part of Italy, and driven off almost all the farmers. The poet says : ' We see the naked Alps and thin remains Of scattered cots and yet unpeopled plains, Once filled with grazing flocks, the shepherd's happy reigns. Here, from the vicious air and sickly skies, A plague did on the dumb creation rise. During the autumnal heats the infection grew, Tame cattle and the beasts of nature slew Poisoning the standing lakes and pools impure; 138 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. Nor was the foodful grass in fits, Is secure. Strange death ! for when the thU tty fire had drunk Their vital blood, and the dry nei -es were shrunk ; When the contracted limbs were c* imped, e'en then A waterish humor swelled and oozeu again, Converting into bane the kindly juice Ordained by nature for a better use, The victim ox, that was for altars prest, Trimmed with white ribbons, and with garlands drest, Sunk of himself without the god's command, Preventing the slow sacriflcer's hand." TV-is calls to mind the cattle plague which prevailed in Eng- land a year or two ago. Virgil, however, proceeds to say that the plague of which he speaks attacked dogs, horses, pigs, and even wild beasts. His description of a horse dying of this mysterious malady is exceedingly vigorous. I copy again from Drydeu's translation : " The victor horse, forgetful of his food, The palm renounces and abhors the flood. He paws the ground ; and on his hanging ears A doubtful sweat in clammy drops appears ; Parched is his hide, and rugged are his hairs. Such are the symptoms of the young disease ; But, in time's process, when his pains increase, He rolls his mournful eyes ; he deeply groans, With patient sobbing and with manly moans. He heaves for breath, which, from his lungs supplied, And fetched from far, distends his laboring side. To his rough palate his dry tongue succeeds, And very gore he from his nostrils bleeds. A drench of wine has with success been used, And through a horn the generous juice infused; Which, timely taken, ope'd his closing jaws, But if too late, the patient's death did cause; For the too vigorous dose too fiercely wrought, And added fury to the strength it brought. Eecruited iuto rage, he grinds his teeth In his own flesh, and feels approaching death." The poet proceeds to relate with equal power the dying agonies of an ox, seized with the same disease. He says, too, that the mighty fish of the sea drifted dead upon the shore, and that venomous snakes died in their holes. THE POET VIRGIL. 139 Seven years the poet is said to have expended in the composi- tion of the Georgics, and they could all be printed in about sevec columns of an ordinary newspaper. Tradition reports that he was in the habit of composing a few lines in the morning, and spending the rest of the day in polishing them. Campbell used to say that if a poet made one good line a week, he did very well ; but Moore thought that if a poet did his duty he could get a line done every day. Virgil seems to have accomplished about four lines a week, but then they have lasted eighteen hundred years, and will last eighteen hundred years more. These poems having raised the reputation of the poet to the highest point, he next undertook to relate in verse the fabled founding of Rome by .ZEueas, which is the work by which Virgil is chiefly known. It is a noble poem, the product of an ex- quisite genius and a sublime patience. There is in many of the lines such a happy blending of picturesque meaning and melo- dious words, that they remain fixed in the mind forever. Before he had put the last touches to this great work, and while he was travelling in Greece for the purpose of seeing the localities described in it, he was seized with mortal illness, of which he died before he reached home. His journey threw so much new light upon his subject that, in his distress at not being able to use it in perfecting his poem, he left orders for its destruction. Happily, these orders were not obeyed, and the poem was preserved to animate and instruct a hundred generations of men. Virgil died in his fifty-first year. His works, surviving the loss of almost everything pleasant and good in the dark ages, were among the causes of that revival of literature and science to which we owe the progress which the world has made since. I know not what would have become of the human mind in those dreary centuries of super- stition but for the antidote, always secretly working, of Virgil's romantic grandeur and pleasing pictures of happy life, anil Horace's chatty and amusing worldliness. 1-10 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGBAFH*. JAMES WATT. How much more marvellous is truth than fiction ! The story of Aladdin and his wonderful lamp is as extravagant a tale as the fancy of man has contrived ; but it is a tame and probable narrative compared with some of the facts of science and in- vention. Early in the spring of 1765, one hundred and three years ago, on a certain Sunday afternoon, a poor, sickly mechanic was tak- ing a walk in one of the public grounds of Glasgow. He was a mathematical instrument-maker, who kent a very small shop within the grounds of the Glasgow University, and derived & great part of his little income from repairing the philosophical apparatus of that famous institution. His brother mechanics were not very friendly toward him, because he had set up in business without having served a regular apprenticeship. In fact, but for the special favor of the professors of the Univer- sity, who let to him his little shop in its grounds, he could not have carried on his trade in Glasgow at all. Being thus a kind of interloper, his business was so limited that he could only draw from it, for his own maintenance, fourteen shillings a week, which is, in our currency, about three dollars and a half. He was in a brown study as he walked in Glasgow Green that Sunday afternoon. Ingenious mechanics will understand IMS case when we tell them that he had on hand at his shop a puz- zling job, and he was thinking how to overcome the difficulties which it presented. All at once, at a point in the road which the people of Glasgow still point out to travellers, the solution of the puzzle occurred to his mind. It flashed on him like lightning, and he walked home relieved and happy. JAMES WATT. 141 All this seems very simple and ordinary. The job was of no great consequence in a pecuniary point of view. It was merely the repairing of a working model of the steam-engine belong- ing to the University ; for doing which our mechanic received five pounds eleven shillings sterling. But in the very simplici- ty of the thing lies the marvel ; as in the case of Aladdin, who only had to rub his lamp a little, and lo ! a palace rose from the earth like an exhalation. The idea that occurred to that poor Scotch mechanic on Glasgow Green one hundred years ago is to-day, in Great Britain and Ireland alone, doing the work of four hundred millions of men ! That is to say, it enables the fifteen millions of adults residing in England, Ireland, and Scot- laud to do more work, to produce more commodities, than the entire adult population of the globe could do without it. Is there anything in the Arabian Nights more marvellous than that? The name of this modern Aladdin was James Watt. The lamp he rubbed was his own canny Scotch noddle. Ten thousand paiaces have sprung from the ground in consequence, and more will spring, until every honest man on earth will inhabit one ! That magic thought has clothed the feet of Scotch lassies with stockings, which before were bare, and enabled the poor of many lands to go comfortably dressed who before w r ere clad in rags. It is said to require three generations to make a gentleman. We sometimes find that it has taken three generations to pro- duce a genius. The grandfather of James Watt was a teacher of navigation, well skilled in mathematics, and a very ingenious, worthy man. The father of the great inventor was a ship- wright, noted for his skill and enterprise. His illustrious son, James, was a feeble, sickly child, and, therefore, much indulged, and not pressed to learn. But, from boyhood, he showed an aptitude for mechanics and natural philosophy which we always observe in the early life of inventors. His father's shops and ship-yards afforded the best school for such a youth, who soon had his own little chest of tools, his own work-bench and his own store of materials. It is recorded of him that, while still a child, he was fond of observing the action of steam from his mother's tea-kettle, wondering at the invisible force that lifted 142 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY". its lid. As he approached manhood, his father fell into misfor- tune, which obliged the youth to think of earning his own live- lihood. He made his way to London, where he worked a year in the shop of a mathematical-instrtiment-rnaker, and then, re- turning to Scotland, he established himself in business under the protection of the Glasgow University. The learned pro- fessors of that institution expected to find in him a competent workman only. They discovered, to their great surprise, that he was an accomplished and profound natural philosopher; will- ing, indeed, to learn from them, but able, also, to teach them. Such w r as his ardor in the pursuit of knowledge, that he learned the German language in order to be able to read one book upon mechanics ; and, a few years after, he learned the Italian for a similar object. He could turn his hand to anything. Without previously knowing anything about music or musical instru- ments, he made a very good church organ, and several guitars, violins and violoncellos, some of which are still preserved in Scotland as curiosities. The model of a steam-engine which was brought to his shop to repair, was a copy of the engines then used in pumping water out of mines, which had been invented about a century before. Steam-engines were then employed for no other purpose. They were cumbrous, clumsy machines, and were run at such an enormous expense for fuel, that they could not be applied to the ordinary purposes of manufacturing. A century before the Christian era the mighty power of steam had been observed, and some attempts had been made to turn it to account. But a great invention, as we have before remarked, is the growth of ages. Many ingenious men had labored to perfect this one, the greatest of all, and they had brought it on so far, that a single improvement alone was wanting to make it available. It was just so with Sir Isaac Newton's sublime discovery of the attrac- tion of gravitation. Previous philosophers had made discov- eries that only needed combining to produce the final truth, which, in a happy hour, flashed upon the mind of Newton. Day after day James Watt sat in his shop pondering his en- gine. He could not make it work to his satisfaction. It would make a few revolutions and then stop. If he blew the fire to a JAMES WATT. 143 more intense heat, the obstinate little thing Avould stop alto- gether. He talked it over to professors and students ; but no one suggested any solution of the difficulty. At length he thought he had detected the real nature of the defect of the steam-engine as then made. It was this : five-eighths of the whole amount of steam was wasted, at least five-eighths. He afterwards found that the waste was nearer seven-eighths than five. This was a great step ; but he was still very far from being able to apply a remedy. In the old steam-engine the steam rushed into the cylinder, did its work in driving the piston, and then had to condense in the cylinder, and run off in the form of water. The cylinder, being exposed to the air, was always cooling ; so that the new steam began to condense before it had done its work ; and hence the waste. On this principle there could be no rapidity. The steam-engine was as slow as it was strong, and too expensive for profitable use. " How can I keep that cylinder always hot, as hot as steam itself?" was the question which James Watt was revolving in his long Scotch head that Sunday afternoon. "If I do keep it hot, how can the steam condense at all ? And if the steam does not condense, how can the piston get back again?" EUREKA ! He had it ! The thought occurred to him that the steam, after doing its duty, might rush into another vessel, kept cool by jets of water, and thus be instantly condensed ; while the cylinder, surrounded by some non-conducting substance, could be kept at a uniform heat, equal to that of steam. The " condenser " was invented ! The steam-engine, as we now see it, is covered all over with the minor improvements of James Watt ; but his great invention that which makes the steam- engine universally available was that of condensing the steam in a vessel apart from the cylinder. He was certain of the practicability of his idea from the mo- ment of its birth. A few days after, one of his young friends, entering his room suddenly, found him sitting before the fire absorbed in thought, with a small tin vessel in his hand. His friend at once began to converse upon the great topic of the steam-engine, which, for some time, had been their only subject. 144 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. " You need not," said the inventor, "fash yourself any more about that, man ; I have now made an engine that shall not waste a particle of steam. It shall be all boiling hot; ay, and hot water injected if I please." He was in the highest spirits for many days. He found, in- deed, by repeated experiments, that he had put the finishing touch to the steam-engine. But what could a poor mechanic do with so magnificent a conception? The entire capital of James Watt, in 1765, was not sufficient to build one steam-engine of ten horse-power, still less to make the experiments necessary to complete his inven- tion. Watt, moreover, was curiously unfitted for the strife of business. Bold as he was in wrestling with the laws of nature, he was timid in dealing with men, self-distrustful, liable to fits of depression, easily abashed and discouraged. Neverthe- less, he continued his experiments until he had run in debt a thousand pounds, and could go no further. Then he formed a partnership with Dr. John Roebuck, a large manufacturer near Glasgow, who paid the debt of a thousand pounds, and advanced more money. But this enterprising man had the misfortune to lose his property. For ten years the steam-engine made little progress ; for James Watt, who had ventured to marry, was obliged to devote himself to surveying, canal-making, and gen- eral engineering, in order to maintain his family. But, in 1775, he found a partner worthy of him. This was that great man, Matthew Boulton, who, from being a journey- man button-maker at Birmingham, had become one of the lords of industry, the master of a vast manufactory of metal-ware, which employed hundreds of the most skilful workmen in Eng- land. Matthew Boulton, besides having a genius for business, was a man of great knowledge and great generosity of mind. He was a gentleman, a philosopher, a natural king of men. He paid the debts of James Watt, bought the rights of Dr. Roe- buck, supplied all the capital requisite for the manufacture of steam-engines, on condition of receiving two-thirds of the prof- its of the enterprise, if ever there should be any profits. Even with the aid of Boulton's great capital, and greater tal- ent, it was long before the business yielded much profit. Ex- JAMES WATT. 145 pensive law-suits to test the originality of Watt's improvements, troubled and retarded it. Ten or twelve years rolled away be- fore the business was well established and reasonably profitable. But, after that, the progress of the enterprise Avas wonderful. When Boswell visited the establishment, a few years later, he found seven hundred men at work. "I sell here," remarked Mr. Boulton, "what all the world- desires to have POWER." Boswell says : " I contemplated him as an iron chieftain ; and he seems to be the father of his tribe." James Watt lived to the age of eighty-three, dying in 1829. His last years were his happiest. Relieved of the anxieties of business, possessing an ample fortune, surrounded with affec- tionate children and friends, he passed his days in study and conversation, the delight of his circle. Sir Walter Scott held him in profound veneration. He used often to say that no achievements of the pen could ever equal in dignity and impor- tance the labors of such men as Watt and Wellington. We cannot agree with the great novelist in this opinion. James Watt did not.' He held the genius of poets, artists, and authors in the highest esteem, and declared that it was the teachings of the great Professor Black that made him what he was. There is no need of arguing the old question, " Which is the most worthy of honor, the man who writes things fit to be read, or the man who does things fit to be written?" for the great doer and the great writer are the two men in the world who honor one another most. We may add, in conclusion, that the little model of the old steam-engine, which Watt repaired in 1765, is still preserved in Glasgow, as well as the bill for five pounds eleven shillings, which he presented for payment. 10 146 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. POOR .JOHN FITCH. THE summer of 1787 was a very interesting one to the people of Philadelphia, then the capital of the United States. The great Convention was in session, endeavoring to form the con- stitution under which we now live. General Washington, who presided over its deliberations, was often seen going to the hall or returning from it, saluted as he passed by every good citizen ; and old Dr. Franklin, with his white locks and his enfeebled frame, leaning perhaps upon that black walking-stick which may now be seen in the Patent Office at Washington, used, every morning, to walk round from his house ill Market street to the place of meeting. The great men of the infant nation were there. The Convention sat with closed doors ; no report of its proceedings appeared in the newspapers ; but the hopes, the destiny bf the republic hung upon the deliberations of the thirty-nine men of which it was composed. On Wednesday afternoon, August 22, when the Convention broke up for the day, the members, instead of dispersing to their several homes, strolled in a body up Chestnut street to the Schuylkill river. A great number of citizens were going in the same direction. The banks of that picturesque and tranquil stream were lined with spectators. The eyes of the multitude were directed to a strange-looking craft that lay at anchor near the shore. At the first glance, it looked like a long, stout row-boat, with a large tea-kettle boiling and steaming in the middle of it. The oars, instead of lying in their usual place, were arranged in an upright row on each side of the boat, and were kept in that position by a framework of wood. The vessel had neither sails, masts, nor deck ; being simply an open boat, forty-five feet long and twelve feet wide. POOR JOHN FITCH. 14:7 which poor John Fitch and his few poor friends had bought for the purpose of showing an unbelieving world that a vessel could be propelled by steam against wind and tide. It was poor John Fitch, we repeat, who had devised and con- structed this odd-looking craft. In all the records of invention, there is no story more sad and affecting than his. Poor he Avas in many senses ; poor in purse, poor in appearance, poor in spirit. He was born poor, lived poor, and died poor. No one who knows his melancholy history can ever call him by any other name than poor John Fitch. He was rich only in genius, in faith, in love for his country, in desires to do her service, a kind of wealth that posterity honors, but which could not buy John Fitch a new coat, when his old one was so old that he blushed as the passing stranger glanced at him. If ever there was a true inventor, this man was one. He was one of those eager souls who would, literally, coin their own flesh to carry their point. He only uttered the obvious truth when he said, one day, in a crisis of his invention, that if he could get a hun- dred pounds by cutting off one of his legs, he would gladly give it to the knife. From his infancy, misfortune marked him for her own. He was born in Connecticut, in 1743. His father was a close, hard-working, hard-hearted farmer, who would not permit a child of his to pick an apple, or laugh, or speak loud on Sunday, but who begrudged them the means of instruction, and kept poor John so hard at work from his tenth 3 r ear as to stunt his growth. An incident occurred when he was still a very small boy, which, he used to say, was of a piece with all his career. One of his sisters, in the absence of their father, set on fire some bundles of flax which were in the kitchen. In her alarm she ran to the barn, leaving her little brother to escape as best he could. He, young as he was, fought the fire like a hero, seizing the burning bundles and stamping out the fire with won- derful resolution ; while his clothes and his hair were all ablaze. When he had quelled the flames, and while his apron and his hair were still smoking, and his hands tingling with the pain, an elder brother came in, and, supposing John to be the author of the mischief, fell upon him with great fury and beat him. 148 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. When their father returned, John related what had occuired. The churlish father neither reproved the elder brother noi thanked the younger for saving his house from destruction. "This," he once said, "seemed to forbode the future rewards I was to receive for my labor through life, which have generally corresponded exactly with that." Until his tenth year he went to a dame's school occasionally, where he learned to read and write ; but from that time forward he was kept hard at work, though he was so small and weak that he could only thrash out two bushels of wheat in a, day. His love of knowledge was most remarkable. Finding an old arithmetic in his father's house, he studied it in the evenings till he had mastered it. He heard one day, when he was eleven years old, of a wonderful book called Salmon's Geography, which, he was told, would give him information about the whole world. But, alas ! the price was ten shillings. After vainly entreating his father to buy it for him, he hit upon a plan for raising that enormous sum himself. There were some lands upon hiu father's farm, too high to be reached by the plough, which were not cultivated. His father consenting to let him plant potatoes there and to have the produce himself, provided he worked the laud only on holida3 r s, or after his regular work was done, he devoted his training days, his fourth of July, his evenings, as long as he could see, to the culture of his little patch. Several bushels of potatoes rewarded his labor, which, as it happened, brought him just ten shillings. A merchant of the neighbor- hood, who was going to New York, agreed to buy the book. He did so ; but now a new misfortune arose. The price of the book was twelve shillings instead often. The joy of the boy at possessing tho book was overcast by the consciousness of debt which he knew not how to discharge ; and, to add to his dis- tress, his mean and unfeeling father required him to pay him for the seed of his potatoes. Nevertheless, he studied his book with passion. He soon knew it almost by heart. At the same time, he learned surveying with so much success that he was soon able to earn enough to pay his little debts. When he was seventeen, his father gave him twenty shillings and his blessing, and he sallied forth to seek his fortune. POOR JOHN FITCH. 149 Firsl he tried the sea, but found it a hard service. Then he went apprentice to a clock-maker, a man even meaner than his father, who almost starved him, and who denied him every opportunity to learn his trade. At twenty-one he left this hard master, and set up himself as clock-cleaner and brass-smith. His whole capital was twenty shillings, borrowed from a young fellow who was courting his sister ; but to this his father, with uncommon liberality, added his consent to the young man's living one month at his house board free. He prospered. In two years he had saved fifty pounds. Then he incurred the greatest calamity known to human nature. He married a vixen. The woman, who was much older than himself, made his life one horrid broil. He was one of the mildest, kindest, most patient of men ; but, after enduring some months of this degrading anguish, after fre- quently warning his wife that if she did not restrain her temper he would leave her, he at last abandoned his home, his property, his wife, his infant son, and his unborn daughter. It was a terrible hour to him. His wife, who had always laughed at his threats, followed him a mile, crying and humbly begging him to try her once more. "But," he says, "my judgment in- formed me that it was my duty to go, notwithstanding the struggles of nature I had to contend with." Henceforth he was a wanderer. Trudging along the road, he offered himself as a farm-laborer ; but was refused on account of his slender and weakly frame. He tried to enlist as a soldier ; but could not for the same reason. He roamed the country, cleaning clocks from house to house. At length, after many wanderings, he reached Trenton, where lie lived a while on three pence a day, making brass buttons, and selling them about the country. Having obtained a few shillings of his OAVII, he invested them in the purchase of an old brass kettle, which he made up into buttons and sold to great advan- tage. He now enjoyed a few years of prosperity ; but the war of the revolution ruined his business, and he embarked in that of repairing muskets. He served awhile in the field during the war, holding the rank of lieutenant. Toward the close of the war, he set out for the far West, with 150 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. the intention of surveying lands. He was captured by the Indians, and he remained many months a prisoner. In 1785, we find him residing in Buck's County, Pennsylvania; and there it was that he conceived the idea, as he says, of "pro- pelling a conveyance without keeping a horse." Kow, at this time, John Fitch had never seen nor heard of a steam-engine! As he was limping home from church one day in April, 1785 (his rheumatism, caught among the Indians, giving him many a twinge), a neighbor drove rapidly by in a chaise drawn by a powerful horse. He had frequently observed and reflected upon the tremendous power of steam, and now the thought flashed through his mind : Could not the expansive power of steam be made to propel a carriage? For a week the idea haunted him day and night. He then concluded that such a force could be applied more conveniently to a vessel than to a carriage; and, from that hour, to the end of his days, John Fitch thought of little else than how to carry out his daring conception. He studied books ; he consulted men ; he formed a company. After two years of such labor and anxiety as only inventors know, he had got on so far as to finish his first steam- boat, and had invited the members of the Convention to come to the shores of the Schuylkill and see it tried. Those honorable gentlemen were not disappointed. Soon after the appointed time the boat was cast off, and did actually move by the power of steam alone. So far, the great experi- ment was successful. But the boat moved very slowly. The engine was much too small ; it was made by common black- smiths under the direction of John Fitch, and was a most clumsy, incomplete machine. Nevertheless, on that day, August 22, 1787, John Fitch did demonstrate, to the satisfac- tion of every beholder, that such a thing as a steamboat was possible. The next day, he had the consolation of receiving from the gentlemen of the Convention a note expressive of the pleasure the experiment had afforded them, and encouraging him to persevere in his efforts. He did persevere. We cannot begin to relate the obstacles he encountered. A considerable volume would scarcely afford the requisite space. Poor, ragged, and forlorn, POOR JOHN FITCH. jeered at, pitied as a madman, discouraged by the great, refused by the rich, he and his few friends kept on, until, in 1790, they had a steamboat running on the Delaware, which was the first steamboat ever constructed that answered the purpose of one. It ran, with the tide, eight miles an hour, and six miles against it. It made fourteen successful trips to Bur- lington,, which is seventeen miles from Philadelphia. It made eleven shorter trips. In all, this boat ran about two thousand miles. The newspapers of that summer contain twenty-three advertisements announcing the times of its departure, as well as numerous paragraphs attesting the practical success of the experiment. But it usually requires several generations to perfect a great invention. The steamboat was still very imperfect; it fre- quently got out of order and made no money. Poor John Fitch formed another company, and began another steamboat ; but the faith and the money of his coadjutors gave out before it was finished. He petitioned Congress for help. He sought the aid of State legislatures. He even went to France. All was in vain. No one believed the steamboat would ever pay. and few could see in this poor scarecrow, this pallid, gaunt, and ragged Yankee, one of the ablest natural mechanics that ever lived. He used to slink, in his dirt and rags, about Philadelphia, an object of compassion to some, and to others an object of derision and contempt. But start the darling topic of the steamboat, and the whole man was changed. Fire sparkled in his eye, eloquence flowed from his tongue. Rising to his full stature, and lifting his long, lean arm, he would exclaim : "You and I will not live to see the day, but the time will come when steamboats will be preferred to all other modes of conveyance ; when steamboats will ascend the western rivers from New Orleans to Wheeling ; when steamboats will cross the ocean ! Johnny Fitch will be forgotten, but other men will carry out his ideas, and grow rich and great upon them." Those who listened to such harangues as these would ex- change glances, as if to say, "He is a good fellow enough; what a pity he is mad ! " 152 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY.. At last poor John Fitch gave up the struggle. He frequently tried to dull his sufferings by drink. He removed to Kentucky, where, in 1798, he died by his own hand. He had been sick for a few days, and the doctor ordered opium pills. Instead of taking one each day, as ordered, he secretly saved them till he had twelve, which he swallowed all at once. His daughter, who was happily married, whom he tenderly loved, aud with whom he frequently corresponded, survived him, and she has living descendants. His son also became the father of a numerous family. BOBEET FULTON. ROBERT FULTON. WHEN John Fitch began to build his first steamboat at Phil- adelphia, there was living in that city an artist, twenty years of age, named Robert Fulton. We can still read, in the Philadel- phia Directory for 1785, the following line: "Robert Fulton, Miniature Painter, corner of Second and Walnut Streets." He was more than a miniature painter, though it was from that favorite branch of the art that he chiefly gained his liveli- hood. He painted portraits, landscapes, and allegorical pieces in the taste of that time. Such was his success in his profes- sion, that, at the age of twenty-one, when he had been but four years employed in. it, he was able to present his widowed mother with a farm of eighty-four acres, and to afford the expense of a voyage to Europe, with a view to improvement in his art, as well as the re-establishment of his health, which his excessive application had impaired. The farm, it is true, cost but four hundred dollars, since it was in the far west of Penn- sylvania ; but this does not detract from the merit of the action. It was a worthy beginning of an honorable career. Robert Fulton, born near Lancaster in Pennsylvania, in 1765, was the son of an Irish tailor, who came to this country in early life, prospered in business, and retired* to a large and productive farm in Lancaster county, the garden of Pennsyl- vania. The father of Benjamin West, who lived a few miles off, and the father of Robert Fulton, were old friends, and the boy consequently heard much of the fame and success of the painter who had left home, a poor unfriended youth, to become the favorite artist of George III. At school, Robert Fulton was a dull and troublesome boy. 154 PEOPLE'S BOOR OP BIOGRAPHY. Books were disgusting to him. He had the impudence to tell his teacher, one day, that his head was so full of original notions, that there was no vacant room in it for the contents of dusty books. But, out of school, he exhibited intelligence and talent. He drew well almost from his infancy ; and, as he grew older, he showed a remarkable aptitude for mechanics. The shops of Lancaster Avere his favorite places of resort. Being late at school one day, which was by no means an uncommon occur- rence, his master asked him the cause. He said he had been at a shop -near by pounding lead ; and he showed the result of his labors, in a very neatly shaped lead pencil, which, he said was the best pencil he had ever had. At thirteen, he assisted in celebrating the Fourth of July, by discharging sky-rockets made by himself on a plan of his own. During the revolution, Congress had a gunshop at Lancaster, which was haunted by the boy, who assisted the workmen by drawing plans of gun-stocks, and by suggesting methods of repairing broken muskets. There, too, he was frequently busy in attempting to construct an air-gun. It was in the summer of 1779, when he was fourteen years of age, that he conceived an idea which,. twenty-five years later, had important consequences. There was a heavy old flatboat, on a river in the neighborhood, which was much used by the boys in their fishing-excursions. It was propelled by means of poles. Being extremely fatigued, on one occasion, by poling this cumbrous craft against the stream, it occurred to the boy that, perhaps, paddle-wheels turned by a crank could be applied to the boat. Soon after, the experiment was tried with so much success that he and his companions never afterwards used the boat except with paddles. This boyish invention (which, thougtrnot now, was original with him) is supposed to have prepossessed his mind in favor of paddle-wheels for steam- boats. At seventeen, his father having died, this precocious youth established himself in Philadelphia as a miniature painter, and returned on his twenty-first birthday to his early home, with the means in his pocket of rendering his mother independent for life. That pious deed performed, he sailed for England, to ROBERT FULTON. 155 seek instruction in his art at the hands of his father's friend, Benjamin West. When he left America, poor John Fitch had not yet completed his first steamboat ; but his plans had been published, his company formed, and the boat begun. We may be absolutely certain that a young man like Fulton, \vith one of the best mechanical heads in the world, full of curiosity with regard to the mechanic ails from his childhood, must have well known what John Fitch was doing. The great painter received the sou of his father's friend with open arms, accepted him as a pupil, and lodged him at his house in London for several years. Fulton, however, never became a great artist. He was an excellent draughtsman, a good col- orist, and a diligent workman ; but he had not the artist's imagination or temperament. His mind was mechanical ; he loved to contrive, to invent, to construct ; and we find him, accordingly, withdrawing from art, and busying himself, more and more, with mechanics; until, at length, he adopted the profession of civil engineer. His last effort as an artist was the painting of a panorama, exhibited at Paris in 1797, which he afterwards sold in order to raise money to pursue his experi- ments with steam. Robert Fulton was never capable of claiming to be the in- ventor of the steamboat. It is, nevertheless, to his knowledge of mechanics, and to his resolution and perseverance, that the world is indebted for the final triumph of that invention. Recent investigations enable us to show the chain of events which led him to embark in the enterprise. His attention was first called to the subject in Philadelphia, by the operations of John Fitch, in 1785 and 1786. Next, fifteen years after, Fulton visited a steamboat in Scotland, which, though unsuccessful, was really propelled by the power of steam for short distances, at the rate of six miles an hour. To please the stranger, who showed an extreme curiosity to witness its operation, this boat was set in motion, and Fulton made drawings of the machinery. A year or two after, he was in France again, where he made the acquaintance of the gentleman who had in his possession the papers left in France by John Fitch, which contained full details of his plans for applying steam to the propulsion of vessels. 156 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. We have the testimony of this gentleman, that the papers and drawings of John Fitch remained in the possession of Robert Fulton for " several months." Aided thus by the knowledge and experience of previous inventors, enjoying the immense advantage of the improved steam-engine of James Watt, being himself an excellent mechanic and a very superior draughtsman, having the appearance and manners of a gentleman, and an extensive acquaintance with the leading men of his time, he began the execution of his task with advantages possessed by no previous experimenter in steamboats. But even these would not have availed if he had not had the good fortune to find a wealthy co-operator. Chancellor Living- ston, of New York, was then the American minister at the court of Napoleon. Besides being a gentleman of large estate, he was a man of public spirit, with a strong natural interest in practical improvements. Chancellor Livingston, to his immortal honor, became first the friend, then the patron, and finally the partner of Robert Fulton. In 1803 the first steamboat of Livingston and Fulton was built in France upon the Seine. When she was almost ready for the experimental trip, a misfortune befell her which would have dampened the ardor of a man less determined than Fulton. Rising one morning after a sleepless night, a messenger from the boat, with horror and despair written upon his countenance, burst into his presence, exclaiming : " O sir ! the boat has broken in pieces and gone to the bottom ! " For a moment Fulton was utterly overwhelmed. Never in his whole life, he used to say, was he so near despairing as then. Hastening to the river, he found, indeed, that the weight of the machinery had broken the framework of the vessel, and she lay on the bottom of the river, in plain sight, a mass of timber and iron. Instantlj', with his own hands, he began the work of raising her, and kept at it, without food or rest, for twenty-four hours, an exertion which permanently injured his health. His death in the prime of life, was, in all probability, remotely caused by the excitement, exposure, and toil of that terrible day and night. ROBERT FULTON. In a few weeks the boat, sixty-six feet long and eight wide, was rebuilt, and the submerged engine replaced in her. The National Institute of France and a great concourse of Parisians witnessed her trial trip in July, 1803. The result was encour- aging, but not brilliant. The boat moved slowly along the tran- quil Seine, amid the acclamations of the multitude ; but the quick eye of Fulton at once discerned that the machinery was defective and inadequate, and that, in order to give the inven- tion a fair trial, it was necessary to begin anew, to procure an engine far more powerful and a boat better adapted to the pur- pose. As Chancellor Livingston was about to return home, it was resolved that the next attempt should be made at New York ; and an engine for the purpose was ordered from the manufactory at Birmingham of Watt and Bolton. In September, 1807, the famous Clermont, one hundred and sixty tons, was completed. Monday, September the tenth, was the day appointed for a grand trial trip to Albany, and by noon a vast crowd had assembled on the wharf to witness the per- formance of what was popularly called " Fulton's Folly." Ful- ton himself declares that, at noon on that day, not thirty persons in the city had the slightest faith in the success of the steam- boat ; and that, as the boat was putting off, he heard many "sar- castic remarks." At one o'clock, however, she moved from the dock, vomiting smoke and sparks from her pine-wood fires, and casting up clouds of spray from her uncovered paddle-wheels. As her speed increased, the jeers of the incredulous were si- lenced, and soon the departing voyagers caught the sound of cheers. In a few minutes, however, the boat was observed to stop, which gave a momentary triumph to the scoffers. Fulton perceived that the paddles, being too long, took too much hold of the water, and he stopped the boat for the purpose of shortening them. This was soon done, and the boat resumed her voyage with increased speed, and kept on her course all that day, all the succeding night, and all the next morning, until at one o'clock on Tuesday she stopped at the seat of Chancellor Livingston, one hundred and ten miles from New York. There she remained till the next morning at nine, when she continued her voyage toward Albany, where she arrived at five in the after- 158 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. DOOII. Her running time was thirty- two hours, which is at the rate of nearly five miles an hour. Returning immediately to New York, she performed the distance in thirty hours ; exactly five miles an hour. The Clermont was immediately put upon the river as a packet- boat, and plied between New York and Albany until the close of navigation, being always crowded with passengers. En- larged during the winter, she resumed her trips in the spring of 1808, and continued to run with great success, and with profit to her owners. It was long, however, before the river boatmen were disposed to tolerate this new and terrible rival. At first, it is said, they fled in affright from the vicinity of the monster, fearing to be set on fire or run down by her. Afterwards, re gaining their courage, they made so many attempts to destroy her that the Legislature of the State passed a special act for her protection. Fulton devoted the rest of his life to the improvement of the steamboat. He lived to see the value of his labors universally recognized, and he acquired by them a considerable fortune. He died February 24th, 1815, aged fifty years, leaving a wife and four children, two of whom are still living in New York. He was able to leave his wife an income of nine thousand dollars a year, as well as five hundred dollars a year for each of his children till they were twelve years old, and a thousand dollars a year afterward till they were twenty-one. So, at least, runs his will, written a year before his death. His remains lie in Trinity Church-yard, in the city of New York. Robert Fulton was, in every respect, an honor to his country and his profession. Tall, handsome, and well-bred, he easily made friends, whose regard he retained by his sincerity, gen- erosity, and good-humor. His crowning virtue was that indom- itable resolution which enabled him to bear patiently the most cruel disappointments, and to hold calmly on his way till he had conquered a sublime success. ELI WHITNEY. 159 ELI WHITNEY. ONE day, in the fall of 1792, when General Washington was President of the United States, a- company of Georgia planters happened to be assembled at the house, near Savannah, of Mrs. Nathaniel Greene, widow of the famous General Greene, of the Revolution. Several of these planters had been officers under the command of the general, and they had called, naturally enough, to pay their respects to his widow. The conversation turned upon the depressed condition of the Southern States since the close of the war. The planters were generally in debt, their lands were mortgaged, their products afforded little profit, and many of the younger and more enter- prising people were moving away. The cause of this state of things, these planters agreed, was the difficulty of raising cotton with profit, owing to the great labor required in separating the fibres of the cotton from the seeds. Many of our readers, we presume, have never seen cotton growing, nor even a boll, or pod, of cotton. This pod, which is about as large as a hen's egg, bursts when it is ripe, and the cotton gushes out at the top in a beautiful white flock. If you examine this flock closely, you discover that it contains eight or ten large seeds, much resembling, in size and shape, the seeds of a lemon. The fibres of the cotton adhere so tightly to the seeds, that to get one pound of clean cotton, without wasting any, used to require a whole day's labor. It was this fact that rendered the raising of cotton so little profitable, and kept the Southern States from sharing in the prosperity enjoyed by the States of the North, after the close of the Revolutionary war. When the gentlemen had been conversing for some time, the 160 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. idea was started that perhaps this work could be done by a ma- chine. Mrs. Greene then remarked : "Gentlemen, apply to my young friend, Mr. Whitney; he can make anything." Few words have ever been spoken on this globe, that have had such important and memorable consequences as this simple observation of Mrs. Nathaniel Greene. Eli Whitney, of whom she spoke, was a young Massachusetts Yankee, who had come to Georgia to teach, and, having been taken sick, had been invited by this hospitable lady to reside in her house till he should recover. He was the son of a poor farmer, and had worked his way through college without assist- ance as Yankee boys often do. From early boyhood he had exhibited wonderful skill in mechanics, and in college he used to repair the philosophical apparatus with remarkable nicety, to the great admiration of professors and students. During his residence with Mrs. Greene he had made for her an ingenious tambour-frame, on a new principle, as well as many curious to} r s for her children. Hence her advice : "Apply to my young friend, Mr. Whitney; he can make anything." She now introduced Mr. Whitney to her friends, who de- scribed to him the difficulties under which they labored. He told them he had never seen a pod of cotton in his life. With- out giving them any promises, he resolved to procure some raw cotton forthwith, and see what he could do with it. Searching about the wharves of Savannah, he found, at length, some un- cleaned cotton, and taking home a bundle of it in his hands, he shut himself up in a room in the basement, and set to work to invent the machine required. All the winter he labored in his solitary cell. There were no proper tools to be hac in Savannah. He made his own tools. There was no wire. He made his own wire. The children, the servants, the visitors at the house, wondered what he could be doing in the basement all alone. But he said nothing, and kept on thinking, hammering, and tinkering, till, early in the spring of 1793, he had completed his work. Having set up the mys- terious machine in a shed, he invited a number of planters to come and witness its operation. Its success was complete. ELI WHITNEY. 161 Tiio gentlemen saw, with unbounded wonder and delight, that one man, with this young Yankee's engine, could clean as much cotton in one day as a man could clean by hand in a whole win- ter. The cotton grown on a large plantation could be separated from the seed in a few days, which before required the constant labor of a hundred hands for several months. Thus was the cotton-gin invented. The principle was so sim- ple that the wonder was that no one had thought, of it before. The cotton was put into a large trough, the bottom of which was formed of wires placed in parallel rows, so close together that the seed could not pass through. Under this trough saws revolved, the teeth of which thrust themselves between the wires and snatched the cotton through, leaving the seed behind, which ran out in a stream at one end of the trough. The simplicity of the cotton-gin had two effects, one good, the other bad. The good effect was, that in the course of a very few years it was introduced all over the cotton States, in- creased the value of all the cotton lands, doubled and trebled the production of cotton, and raised the Southern States from hopeless depression to the greatest prosperity. The effect was as lasting as it was sudden. In 1793 the whole export of cot- ton from the United States was ten thousand bales. In 1859 the export was four millions of bales. Men acquainted with the subject are of opinion that that single invention has been worth to the South one thousand millions of dollars. How much (Via the inventor gain by it? Not one dollar! Associating himself with a man of capital, he went to Connect- icut to set up a manufactory of cotton-gins. But the simplicity of the machine was such, that any good mechanic who saw it could make one ; and long before Whitney was ready to supply machines of his own making there were great numbers in oper- ation all over the cotton States. His patent proved to be no protection to him. If he brought a suit for its infringement, no Southern jury would give him a verdict. He struggled on against adverse influences for fifteen years. In 1808, when his patent expired, he gave up the contest and withdrew from the business, a poorer man than he was on the day when he went, with his handful of cotton-pods, into Mrs. Greene's basement. 11 162 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. Thousands of men were rich, who, but for his ingenuity and labor, would have remained poor to the end of their days. The levees of the Southern seaports were heaped high with cotton, which, but for him, would never have been grown. Fleets of cotton ships sailed the seas, which, but for him, would never have been built. He, the creator of so much wealth, returned to his native State, at the age of forty-two, to begin the world anew. But Eli Whitney was a thoroughbred Yankee, one of those unconquerable men, who, balked in one direction, try another, and keep on trj'ing till they succeed. He turned his attention to the improvement of fire-arms, particularly the old-fashioned musket. Having established a manufactory of fire-arms at New Haven, he prospered in business, and was enabled, at length, to gratify his domestic tastes by marrying the daughter of Judge Pierpont Edwards, with whom he lived in happiness the rest of his life. Some of the improvements which he invented are pre- served in the celebrated Springfield musket, with which our soldiers are now chiefly armed. It was he who began the improvements in fire-arms which Colt and many others have continued, and which have given the United States the best muskets, the best pistols, and the best cannon in the world. Eli Whitney died in January, 1826, in his sixtieth year. It is a curious fact that the same man should have supplied the South with the wealth that tempted it to rebel, and the United States with the weapons with which it enforced its just authority. AUDUBON. 163 AUDUBON. ONE of the happiest men, and one of the most interesting characters we have had in America, was John James Audubon, the celebrated painter and biographer of American birds. He was one of the few men whose pursuits were in perfect accord- ance with his tastes and his talents; and, besides this, he eii- joyed almost every other felicity which falls to the lot of a mortal. His father was a French admiral who, about the middle of the last century, emigrated to Louisiana, where he prospered, and reared a family. His distinguished son was born in 1780. While he was still a little boy, he showed a remarkable interest in the beautiful birds that flew about his father's sugar-planta- tion, particularly the mocking-bird, which attains its greatest perfection in that part of Louisiana. He soon had a considera- ble collection of living birds ; and he tells us that his first attempts to draw and paint were inspired by his desire to pre- serve a memento of the beautiful plumage of some of his birds that died. In delineating his feathered friends he displayed so much talent that, at the age of fourteen, his father took him to Paris, and placed him in the studio of the famous painter, David, where he neglected every other branch of art except the one in which he was destined to excel. David's forte was in painting battle-pieces ; but his pupil was never attracted to pictures of that kind, and he occupied himself almost exclusively in painting birds. At seventeen, he returned to Louisiana and resumed, with all his former ardor, his favorite study. "My father," he says, in one of his prefaces, "then made me a present of a magnificent farm in Pennsylvania, on the banks of the Schuylkill, where I married. The cares of a household. 164 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. the love which I bore my wife, and the birth of two children, did not diminish my passion for Ornithology. An invincible attraction drew me toward the ancient forests of the American continent, and many years rolled .away while I was far from my family." To facilitate his design of studying birds in their native woods, he removed his family to the village of Henderson, upon the banks of the Ohio, whence, for fifteen years, he made excur- sions into the forest with his portfolio, rifle, and game-bag. From the great lakes to the extremest point of Florida, from the Alleghanies to the prairies far beyond the Mississippi, through impenetrable forests, in cane-brakes almost impassable, and on the boundless prairies, he sought for new varieties of birds, copying them of the size of life, and measuring every part with the utmost nicety of mathematics. Up with the dawn, and rambling about all day, he was the happiest of men if he returned to his camp at evening carrying in his game-bag a new specimen with which to enrich his collection. He had no thought whatever of publishing his pictures. " It was no desire of glory," he assures us, " which led me into this exile, I wished only to enjoy nature." After fifteen years of such a life as this, he paid a visit to his relations in Philadelphia, carrying with him two hundred of his designs, the result of his laborious and perilous wanderings. Being obliged to leave Philadelphia for some weeks, he left these in a box at the house of one of his relations. On his re- turn, what were his horror and despair to discover that they were totally destroyed by mice ! "A poignant flame," he relates, "pierced my brain like an arrow of fire, and for several weeks I was prostrated with fever. At length, physical and moral strength awoke within me. Again I took my gun, my game-bag, and portfolio, and my pencils, and plunged once more into the depths of my forests. Three years passed before I had repaired the damage, and they were three years of happiness. To complete my work, I went every day farther from the abodes of men. Eighteen months more rolled away, and my object was accomplished." During his stay at Philadelphia, in 1824, Audubon became AUDUBON. 165 acquainted with Prince Lucien Bonaparte, who strongly urged the naturalist to publish his designs. This, however, was a work far too expensive to be undertaken in America alone. He proposed to issue several volumes of engravings colored and of life-size, with other volumes of printed descriptions. The. price of the work was fixed at a thousand dollars. Before he had obtained a single subscriber, he set his engravers to work and proceeded to enlist the cooperation of the wealthy men of England and France. He was received in Europe with great distinction, and obtained in all one hundred and seventy sub- scribers, of whom about eighty were Europeans. While the first volume was in course of preparation, he returned to Amer- ica, and spent another year in ranging the forests to add to his store. In 1830, the first volume of his wonderful work ap- peared, consisting of a hundred colored plates, and representing ninety-nine varieties of birds. The volume excited enthusiasm wherever it was exhibited. The king of France and the king of England inscribed their names at the head of his list of sub- scribers. The principal learned societies of London and Paris added Audubon to the number of their members, and the great naturalists, Cuvier, Humboldt, Wilson, and others, joined in a chorus of praise. The work, \vhich consists of four volumes of engravings and five of letter-press, was completed in 1839. For the later volumes he again passed three years in exploration, and, at one time, was enabled to study the birds on the coast of Florida in a vessel which the government of the United States had placed at his disposal. Returning to New York, he purchased a beautiful residence on the shores of the Hudson, near the city, where he prepared for the press an edition of his great work upon smaller paper, in seven volumes, which was completed in 1844. Many New Yorkers remember that about that time he ex- hibited in the city a wonderful collection of his original draw- ings, which contained several thousands of animals and birds, all of which he had studied in their native homes, all drawn of the size of life by his own hand, and all represented with thei* natural foliage around them. 166 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. He was now sixty-five years of age, but his natural vigor appeared to be in no degree abated. Parke Godwin, who knew him well at that time, described him as possessing all the sprightliness and vigor of a young man. He was tall, and remarkably well formed, and there was in his countenance a singular blending of innocence and animation. His head was exceedingly remarkable. "The forehead high," says Mr. God- win, "arched and unclouded ; the hairs of the brow prominent, particularly at the root of the nose, which was long and aqui- line ; chin prominent, and mouth characterized by energy and determination. The eyes were dark-grey, set deeply in the head, and as restless as the glance of an eagle." His manners were extremely gentle, and his conversation full of point and spirit. Still unsatisfied, he undertook in his old age a new work on the quadrupeds of America, for which he had gathered much material in his various journeys. Again he took to the woods, accompanied, however, now by his two sons, Victor and John, who had inherited much of his talent and zeal. Returning to his home on the banks of the Hudson, he pro- ceeded leisurely to prepare his gatherings for the press, assisted always by his sons and other friends. " Surrounded," he wrote, " by all the members of my dear family, enjoying the affection of numerous friends, who have never abandoned me, and pos- sessing a sufficient share of all that contributes to make life agreeable, I lift my grateful eyes toward the Supreme Being, and feel that I am happy." He did not live to complete his work upon the quadrupeds. Attacked by disease in his seventy-first year, which was the year 1851, he died so peacefully that it was more like going to sleep than death. His remains were buried in Trinity Ceme- tery, which adjoins his residence. Mr. Audubon left an autobiography, which, perhaps, may see the light. Besides his eminent talents as an artist, Audubon was a vigorous and picturesque writer. Some passages of his, descriptive of the habits of birds, are among the finest pieces of writing yet produced in America, and have been made familiar to the public through the medium of the school reading-books. MILTON. 167 MILTON. THE father of John Milton, the author of Paradise Lost, was precisely such a man as we should naturally expect the father of John Milton to be. He also was named John, and he was the son of a substantial English Catholic farmer, who disinherited him because he turned Protestant. Coming to London in quest of fortune, he set up in the business of notary and conveyancer, in which he gained a considerable fortune. The very spot in Broad Street, near Cheapside, where his house stood, in which he lived and worked, and in which the poet was born, is known and pointed out to strangers. Houses were not numbered then, but distinguished by signs. Over the door of a bookseller there would be a gilt Bible, perhaps ; over a baker's store a sheaf of wheat, and some men would mark their houses by a sign having no reference to their occupation. John Milton, scrivener, dis- tinguished his office and abode by putting up over the entrance a black spread eagle, the arms of his family. This thriving notary, besides being a man of reading and cul- ture, was a composer of music, and some of his compositions, which were published in his lifetime, have been found in musi- cal works of that day. We have reason to believe, too, that he was a man of liberal opinions both in politics and religion, equally opposed to the tyranny of kings and the intolerance of bishops. Of the mother of the poet we know two interesting facts. One is, that she kept the peace in her household ; and the other, that at the early age of thirty she had weak eyes. Of the five children of this couple, three survived childhood, Anne, John, and Christopher. Anne, who was twice married, transmitted a little of the family talent to her children, some of whom obtained some slight celebrity as writers in the reigu 168 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. of James II. But Christopher, who was seven years youngei than the poet, was a man of such slender understanding, and so wanting in spirit, as to adhere to the cause of Charles I. in the war which that mean, false king waged against the liberties of his countryman. All through the shameful reign of Charles II. he was a partisan of the king. James II. knighted him, and made hvm a judge, as a reward for his subserviency, and he was one of the servile judges who lost their places when James II. ran away to France, and made a vacancy on the throne for a man, William HI. John Milton owed the bent and nurture of his mind to his father. His father was his first instructor, particularly in music, and when the boy was ten years old, he provided for him a tutor of eminent qualifications. This good parent early discovered the prodigious genius of his son, and he made the culture of that genius the chief object of his existence. The poet was enabled, by his father's liberality, to pass the first thirty-one years of his life in gaining knowledge and cultivat- ing his faculties. Until he was thirty-one, John Milton was a student, and nothing but a student ; first, at home, at his father's side ; next at a great London grammar-school ; then at Cambridge University ; afterwards at his father's house in the country ; and finally in foreign countries. During all this long period of preparation he was a most diligent, earnest, and intense student. He was probably the best Latin scholar that ever lived who was not a native Roman of Cicero's day. At the same time, I rejoice to state, he was an excellent swordsman. If a bandit had attacked him during his Italian tour, he could have given a very good account of himself. This student, let me tell you, young gentlemen, was no dyspeptic spooney. It was during his residence in Italy that his literary ambition was born. From an early period of his youth he had been accustomed to write Latin poems, some of which he carried to Italy and showed to his learned friends there. They were struck with wonder that a man from distant England should have at- tained such mastery of the Latin language, and they were not less astonished that a Briton should be so excellent a poet. It was thej* hearty praise, he says in one of his letters, that first MILTON. 169 suggested to him the idea of devoting his life to literature. Then and there it was, he tells us, that he began to think that " by labor and intent study " he might, perhaps, produce something so written that posterity would not willingly let it die. A great Christian poem was the object to which he aspird. He desired to do for England what Homer had done for Greece, Virgil for Rome, Dante for Italy, and Camoens for Portugal. It was in Italy, too, that he saw those religious dramas, representing the temptation of Adam and Eve and its consequences, which are supposed to have given him the idea of his Paradise Lost. While he was indulging in these pleasing dreams under the deep blue of the Italian sky, the news came to him that civil war was about to break out in England. All the patriot and all the republican awoke within him. Just as many American cit- izens travelling in Europe in 1861 hastened to return home and take their part in their country's danger, so did this poet and scholar turn his steps homeward when he heard that hostilities were imminent between his countrymen and their perjured king. "I thought it dishonorable," said he, "that I should be travel- ling at ease for amusement, when my fellow-countrymen at home were fighting for liberty." Farewell, Poetry, for twenty years ! When Milton returned to his native land, after two years' absence, it was not at his father's house that he found a home. His brother Christopher, then a lawyer beginning practice, had established himself at Reading, a country town of more impor- tance then than now ; and their father had gone to live with him. Christopher Milton was already a declared royalist, and his house was no fit abode for the republican poet. John Milton preferred to reside in London, where he took a few pupils to prepare for the university, and spent his leisure in defending by his eloquent pen the cause of his oppressed country. These were his employments for many years, until Oliver Cromwell appointed him his Latin secretary. Milton was a thorough-going believer in Oliver Cromwell, and was proud to serve the ablest ruler that England ever had. He was extremely unfortunate, as poets usually are, in his relations with women. Until he was thirty-five he lived a bach 170 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. elor, and it had been better for him, perhaps, if he had remained such all his life. In his thirty-fifth year, just as the civil war was actually beginning, he went into the country, telling no one the object of the journey. A month after he returned home a married man, bringing his wife with him. She was a good enough country girl, the daughter of an old friend of Mil toil's father, but as unsuitable a wife for John Milton as any woman in England. She was rather stupid, very ignorant, fond of pleasure, accustomed to go to country balls and dance with gay young officers. Milton was a grave, austere student, absorbed in the weightiest public topics, and living only in his books and in his thoughts. The poor girl found his house so intolerably dull, that, after a short trial of it, she asked leave to go home for a short visit, and, being at home, she positively refused to go back. He was not less disgusted with her ; and his suffer- ings leading him to study the great questions of marriage and divorce, he came to the conclusion that divorce ought to be about as free and about as easy as marriage. He published divers pamphlets on this subject, the substance of which is this : that when man and wife, after a fair and full trial, find they cannot live together in peace, and both deliberately choose to separate, there ought to be no legal obstacle to their doing so ; provided always that proper provision be made for the support and education of the children. During the troubles of the civil war, his wife's family being driven from their home, he took them all into his house, with ats own aged father, and so they again lived together. They nad three daughters, who resembled their mother more than their father, and who loved him little more than she did. She died when the youngest of these children was an infant in arms. Three years after, he was married again, and in less than a year he was left again a widower. Six years later he married his third wife, who was twenty-eight years younger than himself, who survived him for the long period of fifty-five years. This last marriage was embittered by ceaseless contentions between his daughters and his w r ife, of which Milton lays the blame upon his daughters. He says his wife was good and kind to him in his blind old age, but that his daughters were undutiful and in- MILTON. 171 human, not only neglecting him and leaving him alone, but plotting with his maid-servant to cheat him in the marketing. During all this time of domestic trouble his labors were incessant. Besides his political writings, he wrote for the use of his pupils a short Latin Grammar, part of a History of Eng- land, and other school-books. When the people of England deposed and executed their king, it was Milton who came for- ward to defend that sublime act of justice, in a treatise of which the title was as follows : " The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates : proving that it is lawful, and hath been held so through all ages, for any who have the power to call to account a tyrant or wicked king, and, after due conviction, to depose and put him to death, if the ordinary magistrate have neglected or denied to do it." This powerful vindication of the king's execution, together with Milton's personal acquaintance with members of Crom- well's government, procured him the office of Latin secretary, which he held to the death of Cromwell. At that day, a great part of all diplomatic and other state papers were written in Latin, and it was Milton's duty to write such. It was a somewhat lucra- tive employment. The salary two hundred and ninety pounds sterling per annum was fully equal to the income of one of our cabinet ministers. Probably it was more. Oliver Crom- well was too able a ruler to scrimp the best Latin secretary that ever served a government. Able commanders, whether in public or in private life, always take good care of the interests and the honor, the feelings and the dignity, of those who serve them. Most zealously did John Milton serve the government of the Protector. Not confining himself to the routine of office duty, his pen was ever ready when great principles or good measures required a defender. So arduous were his labors of this nature, that his eyes, which began to fail him at thirty-five, gave out entirely ten years after. Before Milton had completed his forty- sixth year, he was totally and incurably blind. An assistant was granted him, and he retained his post until Cromwell died, though at a reduced salary. This reduced salary, however, he was to enjoy for life, and doubtless would have enjoyed for life, 172 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. if the government had remained unchanged. He was fifty-five years of age, blind and prematurely old, when the restoration of the monarchy, under Charles II., consigned him to private life, and gave him back to poetry. Now it was that he realized the dream of his early manhood, and wrote his great poem, the work of just five years. Milton lived seven years after the publication of Paradise Lost. He died in 1674, aged sixty-six years. His property, which amounted to fifteen hundred pounds sterling, became the subject of a lawsuit between the widow and the daughters of the poet. They had quarrelled over his dying bed, and they quarrelled over his freshly made grave. Milton was a man of small stature, slender make, delicate features, and pale complexion. He wore a suit of black. But for the manliness and vigor of his bearing, hi* appearance would have been feminine. He rose early , and loved an early walk in the fields, delighting in the birds, the flowers, and the sweet morning air. He was simple in his diet, yet loved a good dish, and was cheerful over his food. Great numbers of the "learned and noble, both native and foreign, visited him in his modest abode. During the last years of his life there was only one name in Great Britain more honored than his, and that was the august name of the Lord Protector, Oliver Crom- well, JOHN ADAMS. 173 JOHN ADAMS. PEOPLE are mistaken who suppose that we have in America no old families. We have perhaps as many as other countries, only the torrent of emigration, and the suddenness with which new fortunes are made and lost, conceal the fact from our obser- vation. The Adams family, for example, which descended from Thomas Adams, one of the first proprietors of Massachusetts, has gone on steadily increasing in wealth and numbers from 1620 to the present time, and the family estate still comprises the la^ids originally bought by the Adams who was grandfather to the second President of the United States. John Adams died worth one hundred thousand dollars. His son, John Quincy Adams, left, it is said, twice as much ; and his sou, Charles Francis Adams, late minister to London, is supposed to be worth two millions. John Adams was born October 19, 1735. His father, who was also named John, was a farmer in good circumstances ; and, fol- lowing the custom of such in Massachusetts, he resolved to bring up one of his sons to the ministry, and sent him to Harvard Col- lege. In those days distinction of rank was so universally rec- ognized that the students at Harvard or Yale were recorded and arranged according to the rank and dignity of their parents. I suppose the son of the governor would have taken precedence of all the rest, unless there chanced to be in the college a scion of the English aristocracy. John Adams, in a class of twenty- four, ranked fourteenth. On state occasions, when the class en- tered a room, he would have gone in fourteenth. His grandson tells us, that he would not have held even as high a rank as this, but that his mother's ancestors were persons of greater conse- quence than his father's. This custom of arranging the students 171 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. in accordance with the supposed social importance of their par- ents prevailed at Harvard until the year 1769, after which the alphabetical order was substituted. Upon leaving college, he did what almost all poor students did at that day, kept school for awhile before entering upon the studies preparatory to his profession. He tells us, in his diary, that on commencement day he attracted some attention by his speech, which led to his being appointed Latin master to the grammar school of Worcester, and that three weeks after, when he was not yet twenty years of age, a horse was sent for him and a man to attend him. " We made the journey," he says, " about sixty miles, in one day, and I entered on my office." When the time came for him finally to choose a profession, he discovered in his mind a decided repugnance to that of the min- istry. "I saw," he tells us, "such a spirit of dogmatism and bigotry m clergy and laity, that if I should be a priest I must take my side and pronounce as positively as any of them, or never get a Darish, or, getting it, must soon leave it. Very strong doubts arose in my mind whether I was made for a pulpit in such times, and I began to think of other professions. I perceived very clearly, as I thought, that the study of theology and the pursuit of it as a profession would involve me in endless altercations and make my life miserable, without any prospect of doing any good to my fellow-men." The truth was that he had ceased to believe some of the doc- trines of the orthodox church of New England, and had become what was then called a Deist, and what is now more politely termed a Unitarian ; to which faith he ever after adhered. His father had now done for him all that he could afford, and as it was a custom then far students and apprentices to pay a liberal fee to their instructors and masters, he was somewhat embarrassed in entering the profession of the law, which he had chosen. In his dilemma he went to one of the lawyers of Worcester, whose performances in court he had admired, stated his circumstances, and offered himself to him as his clerk and pupil. The lawyer replied, after considering the matter for a JOHN ADAMS. 175 few days, that he might board in his house for the sum allowed by the town, and that he should pay him a fee of a hundred dol- lars whenever it might be convenient, The young man jumped at this ofler and was soon established as school-master and law- student. In due time he was admitted to the bar, and, return- ing to his father's house, endeavored to set up in the practice of his profession. His father lived then at Braintree, a small and obscure town fourteen miles from Boston, where there was very little chance for a young lawyer. For some years his gains were small and his anxieties severe. It was not until after his father's death that his circumstances were alleviated, and he was enabled to marry. His marriage was one of the most fortunate ever con- tracted in this world ; for not only was the lady one of the most amiable and accomplished of women, but, being a member of a numerous and influential family, she brought to her husband a great increase of business. He was then twenty-nine years of age, full of energy and ambition, and gradually made his way to a profitable practice. The first office the future President ever held was that of road- master to the town in which he lived. He was next intrusted with three offices at once, namely, selectman, assessor, and overseer of the poor ; the duties of all of which he discharged to the satisfaction of his neighbors. It was during the Stamp-Act agitation of 1765 that he began to emerge from the obscurity of a country lawyer. One of the odious and tyrannical meas- ures of the royal government was to close all the courts in the colony, which put a sudden termination to the business of the lawyers. " I was," says Adams in his Diary, " but just getting into my gears, just getting under sail, and an embargo is laid upon the ship ! Thirty years of my life are passed in preparation for business. I have had poverty to struggle with ; envy and jeal- ousy and malice of enemies to encounter; no friends, or but few, to assist me ; so that I had groped in dark obscurity till of late, and had but just become known and gained a small de- gree of reputation, when this execrable project was set on foot 176 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. for my ruin, as well as that of America in general, and of Great Britain!" But, while he was indulging in these gloomy apprehensions, he was astonished to receive a letter from Boston, informing him that that town, by a unanimous vote, had appointed him one of its counsel to appear before the governor in support of the memorial praying that the courts be reopened. This meas- ure of closing the courts of law was not long persisted in ; but the honor conferred upon John Adams, by so important a place as Boston, brought him into increased prominence, and opened the way to more valuable business than had previously fallen to his share. It led soon to his removal to Boston, where he con- tinued to reside down to the period when he was called to the service of his country in the Eevolutionary war. One of the most honorable actions of his life was defending o the British soldiers who participated in what is called the " Bos- ton Massacre." An altercation having arisen between the sol- diers and some of the town's people, it ended in the soldiers firing upon the crowd, as they alleged, in self-defence. Being put upon their trial for murder, John Adams braved the oblo- quy of defending them. It was honorable to the people of Bos- ton that they should have recognized the right of those soldiers, odious as they were, to a fair trial, and respected the motives of their favorite in volunteering to defend them. When the first Congress was summoned to meet at Philadel- phia, John Adams was one of the five gentlemen elected to rep- resent the Colony of Massachusetts. It was sorely against his will and his interest that he accepted the appointment. In the debate which preceded the Declaration of Independence, he is said, by Mr. Jefferson, to have excelled all his colleagues. There was a boldness, decision, and fire about his speeches which carried conviction to many wavering minds. When the great measure was passed on the 2d of July, 1776, he went home, and wrote that celebrated letter to his wife : "The day is passed. The 2d of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated JOHN ADAMS. 177 as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illumina- tions, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward for evermore. "You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this declaration and support and de- feud these States. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction, even although we should rue it, which, I trust in God, we shall not." The reader will observe that he speaks of the second day of July as the one which posterity would commemorate. It was indeed on that day that the great decision was made by Con- gress ; but, as the Declaration of Independence was formally approved and signed on the fourth of July, that day has ever been observed as the birthday of the Republic. With his services in promoting the Declaration of Indepen- dence, the great part of Mr. Adams' life ended. He was, soon after, appointed to go abroad as one of the ambassadors repre- senting the infant nation at Paris ; but never was there a man less at home in a court, or less adapted by nature for a diplo- matist. He neither understood nor respected the people among whom he lived, and whom he was required to gratify and con- ciliate. ' At the same time he was curiously destitute of all that we call tact, while he was possessed with a vanity the most egre- gious that ever blinded a man .of real worth and ability. He offended the French ministry ; he perplexed Dr. Franklin, who was one of the greatest diplomatists that ever lived, as well as one of the most honest and simple ; he excited the ridicule of the French people. In a word, he was out of place in France, and rendered his country little service there and less honor. Returning home some time after the conclusion of peace, he was called once more from his farm, at Quincy, to serve as Vice- President under the new Constitution. This office he filled with 12 178 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. credit and dignity for eight years, at the expiration of which he succeeded General Washington in the presidency. The same qualities which made him a bad negotiator pre- vented his acquiring credit as the chief magistrate of the nation. He was a bad judge of men, and he was wedded to certain an- cient and unpopular ideas which prevented his retaining the con- fidence of the masses. He was a kind of republican tory, at a time when the feeling of the nation was setting powerfully in the opposite direction. At the same time, his vanity, his quickness of .temper, his total want of management, his blind trust in some men and his blind distrust of others, continually estranged from him those who would naturally have been his friends and sup- porters. After serving four years, he was whirled from his place by a tornado of democratic feeling. Not to be once re-elected was then considered as a disgrace, and Mr. Adams was, for many years, regarded as a man who had been tried in a high place and found wanting. His grand- son mentions that his letters, during the last year of his presi- dency, may be counted by thousands ; while those of the next year averaged less than two a week ! Gradually, however, as party passions subsided, the real and great merits of John Ad- ams were once more recognized, and his errors and foibles were first forgiven, and then forgotten. During the last twenty-six years of his life he lived upon the product of two or three farms which he possessed, one of which was that of his own father and grandfather. Toward the close of his life he gave up one of his forms to his son, John Quincy, on condition of receiving from him an annuity for the rest of his life. He lived to the great age ; of ninety years. He lived long enough to see his son President of the United States. He lived long enough to read the novels of Scott and Cooper, and the poetry of Byron. He lived long enough to hail the dawn of the Fourth of July, 1826. A few days before, a gentleman called upon him and asked him to give a toast, which should be presented at the Fourth of July banquet as coming from him. The old man said : " I will give you : INDEPENDENCE FOREVER ! " " Will you not add something to it? " asked his visitor. JOHN ADAMS. 179 "Not a word," was the reply. The toast was presented at the banquet, where it was received with deafening cheers ; and almost at that moment the soul of this great patriot passed away. Among the last words that could be gathered from his dying lips were these : " Thomas Jefferson still survives ! " But Thomas Jefferson did not survive. On the same Fourth of July, a few hours before, Jefferson also departed this life. Few events have ever occurred in the United States more thrill- ing to the people than the death, on the same anniversary of the nation's birth, of these two aged, venerable, and venerated pub- lic servants. The remains of John Adams and his wife repose, side by side, in a church of the town in which they lived. Beneath a bust of the President, by Horatio Greenough, may be read the follow- ing inscription, written by John Quiucy Adams : " Beneath these walls Are deposited the mortal remains of JOHN ADAMS, Son of John and Susannah (Boylston) Adams, Second President of the United States ; Born, 19 October, 1735. On the Fourth of July, 1776, He pledged his life, fortune, and sacred honor To the Independence of his country. On the third of September, 1783, He affixed his seal to the definitive treaty with Great Britain, Which acknowledged that independence And consummated the redemption of his pledge. On the Fourth of July, 1826, He was summoned To the Independence of Immortality, And to the judgment of his God. This house will bear witness to his piety ; This town, his birthplace, to his munificence; History, to his patriotism ; Posterity, to the depth and compass of his mind. At his side Sleeps till the trump shall sound, ABIGAIL, His beloved and only wife, Daughter of William and Elizabeth (Quincy) Smith; In every relation of life a pattern 180 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGKAPHY. Of filial, conjugal, maternal and social virtues. Born November the llth, 1744, Deceased 28 October, 1818, Aged 74. Married 25 October, 1764. During aii union of more than half a century They survived in harmony of sentiment, principle and affection. The tempests of civil commotion ; Meeting undaunted, and surmounting The terrors and trials of that revolution Which secured the freedom of their country, Improved the condition of their times, And brightened the prospects of futurity To the race of man upon earth. Pilgrim, From lives thus spent thy earthly duties learn; From fancy's dreams to active virtue turn ; Let freedom, friendship, faith, thy soul engage, And serve, like them, thy country and thy age.* ADAMS AT THE COURT OF GEORGE III. 183 JOHN ADAMS AND MRS. ADAMS AT THE COURT OF GEORGE III. THERE was excitement in the great world of London on the 1st of June, 1785 ; for on that day a minister representing the United States was to be presented, for the first time, to a king of England. And who should that minister be but John Adams, the man who had taken the lead in urging on the revolted colo- nies to declare themselves an independent nation ! The old palace of St. James was filled with ministers, am- bassadors, bishops, lords, and courtiers. When Mr. Adams en- tered the antechamber, attended by the master of ceremonies, all eyes were turned upon him. He was a stout, rather under- sized man, somewhat awkward in his gait and movements, with a remarkably short face and a vast expanse of bald crown. Large whiskers, in the English style, gave still greater breadth to his countenance. As he stood there in his court dress, his ample coat adorned with lace, his legs clad in silk stockings, and his shoes surmounted with silver buckles, he looked like an Eng- lish country gentleman, who had come up to court for the first time, and felt not quite at his ease. Some of the diplomatic corps, whom he had met in Holland and France, approached and conversed with him while he was waiting to be summoned to the king's closet. In a few minutes the secretary of state came to conduct him to the king. The royal closet was merely an ordinary parlor. The king was seated in an arm-chair at the end opposite the a oorj _ a portly gentleman, with a red face, white eyebrows and white hair, wearing upon his breast the star indicative of his rank. Upon entering the room, Mr. Adams bowed low to the king, then advancing to the middle of the room, he bowed a second time, and, upon reaching the immediate presence of the 182 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. king, he made a third deep reverence. This was the prescribed custom of the court at that day. The only persons present at the interview were the king, Mr. Adams, and the secretary of state, all of .whom were visibly embarrassed. It was, indeed, a scene without a parallel in the whole history of diplomacy. Mr. Adams was the -least moved of them all, though he after- wards confessed that he was much agitated, and spoke with a voice that was sometimes tremulous. He had no bitterness toward England. His enemies accused him even of a secret preference for the English constitution, and a certain tenderness for the king, of whom he had once been a loyal subject. Having completed the three reverences, he addressed the king in the following words : " SIR, ^ The United States of America have appointed me their minister plenipotentiary to your Majesty, and have directed me to deliver to your Majesty this letter which contains the evi- dence of it. It is in obedience to their express commands that I have the honor to assure your Majesty of their unanimous dis- position and desire to cultivate the most friendly and liberal in- tercourse between your Majesty's subjects and their citizens, and of their best wishes for your Majesty's health and happiness, and for that of your royal family. The appointment of a minister from the United States to your Majesty's court will form an epoch in the history of England and of America. I think my- self more fortunate than all my fellow-citizens in having the distinguished honor to be the first to stand in your Majesty's royal presence in a diplomatic character; and I shall esteem myself the happiest of men if I can be instrumental in recom- mending my country more and more to your Majesty's royal benevolence, and of restoring an entire esteem, confidence, and affection, or, in better words, the good old nature and the old good humor between people who, though separated by an ocean and under different governments, have the same language, a similar religion and kindred blood. " I beo 1 your Majesty's permission to add, that although I havo sometimes before been entrusted by my country, it was never in my whole life in a manner so agreeable to myself." ADAMS AT THE COURT OF GEORGE III. 183 The king seemed unprepared for a speech so pacific and com- plimentary. He listened to it with close attention and with evi- dent emotion. In pronouncing his reply, he frequently hesitated, and there was a tremor of emotion in his voice. He addressed Mr. Adams in the following terms : M SIR, The circumstances of this audience are so extraor- dinary, the language you have now held is so extremely proper, and the feelings you have discovered so justly adapted to the occasion, that I must say that I not only receive with pleasure the assurance of the friendly dispositions of the United States, but that I am very glad the choice has fallen upon you to be their minister. I wish you, sir, to believe, and that it may be understood in America, that I have done nothing in the late contest but what I thought myself indispensably bound to do by the duty which I owed to my people. I will be very frank with you. I was the last to consent to the separation ; but the sepa- ration having been made, and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to merit the friendship of the United States as an independent power ; the moment I see such sentiments and such language as yours pre- vail, and a disposition to give this country the preference, that moment I shall say, let the circumstances of language, religion, and blood have their natural and full effect." Except the remark about " giving this country the preference* that is, the preference over France in commercial privileges, this speech was worthy the king of a great country. It was spoiled by such a broad allusion to disputed questions, and such a man- ifestation of desire to gain a profit from " the circumstances of language, religion, and blood." When the speech was concluded, the king entered into con- versation with Mr. Adams. He asked him whether he had came last from France. Mr. Adams replied that he had. The king then assuming a familiar manner said, laughing : w There is an opinion among some people that you are not the most attached of all your countrymen to the manners of France." 184 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. This was touching Mr. Adams upon a tender point ; for, dur ing his long residence in France, he had been recognized as the leader of the anti-French party, and had come into disagreeable collision with the French ministry, and with Dr. Franklin, on that account. He thought the king's remark, as he tells us, "an indiscretion and a departure from dignity." He was deter- mined, however, not to deny the truth, and yet not allow the king to infer that he had any undue regard to England. So, throwing off as much of his gravity as he could, he said with a mixture of gayety and decision : " That opinion, sir, is not mistaken ; I must avow to your Majesty that I have no attachment but to my own country." The king instantly replied : " An honest man will never have any other." The king said something in an undertone to the secretary of state, and then turning toward Mr. Adams, bowed to him, which was the sign that the interview was to close. Mr. Adams retired in the usual manner ; that is, he bowed low, then step- ped backwards to the middle of the room, where he bowed again, and then stepped backward to the door, bowed once more, and backed out. The master of ceremonies took him in charge, and conducted him through long lines of servants to his car- riage, while the porters and under-porters, " roared out like thunder," as he tells us, "Mr. Adams' servants," "Mr. Adams' carriage." A few days after, the American minister was presented to tho queen, surrounded by her daughters and the ladies of her court. On this occasion, Mr. Adams indulged in a flight of eloquence which makes us smile when we remember that it was addressed to good, plain, simple Queen Charlotte. Our lady readers will, perhaps, be glad to read this curious effusion : " MADAM, Among the many circumstances which have ren- dered my mission to his majesty desirable to me, I have ever con- sidered it as a principal one, that I should have an opportunity of making my court to a great queen, whose royal virtues and tal- ents have ever been acknowledged and admired in America, as well as in all the nations of Europe, as an example to princesses ADAMS AT THE COUKT OF GEORGE III. 185 and the glory of her sex. Permit me, madam, to rocom- mend to your majesty's royal goodness a rising empire and an infant virgin world. Another Europe, madam, is rising in America. To a philosophical mind, like your majesty's, there cannot be a more pleasing contemplation than the prospect of doubling the human species, and augmenting, at the same time, their prosperity and happiness. It will in future ages be the glory of these kingdoms to have peopled that country, and to have sown there those seeds of science, of liberty, of virtue, and, permit me to add, madam, of piety, which alone constitute the prosperity of nations and the happiness of the human race. " After venturing upon such high insinuations to your Maj- esty, it seems to be descending too far to ask, as I do, your Majesty's royal indulgence to a person who is indeed unqualified for courts, and who owes his elevation to this distinguished honor of standing before your Majesty, not to any circumstan- ces of illustrious birth, fortune, or abilities, but merely to an ardent devotion to his native country, and some little industry and perseverance in her service." To this lofty oration the good little queen replied in these words only : "I thank you, sir, for your civilities to me and my family, and am glad to see you in this country." The queen then entered into conversation with Mr. Adams, and all the royal family spoke to him with marked friendliness. He soon found, however, that all this civility of the court meant very little. He was not able to induce the British gov- ernment to give up the western ports nor enter into just com- mercial arrangements. Several years elapsed before England showed any disposition to treat with the new republic on terms of equality and justice. A few days after John Adams had been presented to George HI. and Queen Charlotte, his wife and daughter were obliged, by the established etiquette, to take part in a similar ceremony. Mr. Adams had an advantage over almost all the revolution- PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. aiy fathers in possessing a wife who was fully his equal in understanding. The wives of Washington and Franklin were most estimable ladies ; but they had no intellectual tastes, and would hardly have held their ground in a conversation upou literature or science. Mrs. Adams, however, was really a very superior woman. Besides having an ample share of Yankee sense and shrewdness, besides being an excellent manager and house-keeper, she was fond of books, possessed considerable knowledge, and wrote letters quite as sprightly and entertaining, and much more sensible and instructive, than those of Madame de Sevigne or Lady Mary Wortlej^ Montague, who are so fa- mous for their letters. When we read her excellent epistles, we can hardly believe, what is nevertheless true, that she was born and bred in a country parsonage in New England, and never went to school one day in her life. She owed her excel- lent education wholly to her parents and relations, and to her own remarkable quickness of mind. ' And now, in June, 1785, after having filled with grace and dignity the various stations to which her husband's advancement had successively called her, she was to represent her country- women at the court of the King of England, where, recently her grandson, Charles Francis Adams, has represented the people of the United States, and baffled, as best he could, the intrigues of domestic treason and foreign enmity. When ladies are going to court, the question of costume assumes an awful importance. To approach the presence of majesty becomingly, it is supposed necessary to dress in the most splendid and costly attire that taste can devise and money procure ; and, what adds to the burthen, no lady can appear twice at court in the same dress. Ladies of high rank usually attend in a blaze of diamonds, and clad in the rarest silks and laces. Mrs. Adams, the daughter of a country minister and the wife of a Boston lawyer, was unblessed with diamonds or laces, and* was resolved not to shine in hired jewelry or bor- rowed plumes. Calling to her aid one of the court mantua- makers, she ordered her to prepare for her an elegant dress, but just as devoid of ornament as the custom of the court would ADAMS AT THE COURT OF GEORGE III. 187 permit. She wished merely to avoid being disagreeably con- spicuous either for the plainness or the splendor of her attire. Accordingly, on the morning of the great day, she wore a dress of white lutestring (plain, thick silk), profusely trimmed with white crape, and festooned with lilac ribbons and white imitation lace. In those days, hoops were as fashionable as they are now ; but the hoop skirt, undulating to the figur.e, was not then known. Mrs. Adams, like all the court dames on that occasion, wore a veritable hoop, made of wood, and placed near the bottom of the skirt ; so that a lady in full dress resembled a round Chinese pavilion ; and this the more as the waist was high up near the arm-pits. A train three yards in length, caught up into a ribbon at the left side, added to the stateliness of her appearance. She wore on her wrists large lace cuffs and ruffles. Her hair, elaborately dressed in the lofty fashion of the day, was surmounted by an extensive lace cap, with two long lappels hanging behind, and two white plumes nodding overhead. Pearl ear-rings, a pearl necklace, and two pearl pins in her hair, completed what she called her "rigging." If this was the plainest dress allowed at court, what must the most splendid have been? When Mrs. Adams had finished her toilet, and while her daughter was still under the hands of the hair-dresser, she sat down and began a long letter to her sister in America, in which she related the great events of the day down to the moment of their leaving for the palace, intending to finish the story on her return. We may infer from this that she was not seriously flustered at the prospect of an interview with royalty. Soon after one o'clock both ladies were ready. The young lady, like her mother, was dressed in white silk, but differently trimmed ; and, instead of a dress cap, she wore upon her head a kind of hat adorned with three large feathers, and, instead of pearls, she had upon her hair a wreath of flowers, and a bunch of flowers upon her bosom. Thus equipped, the two ladies, as Mrs. Adams thought, presented a very creditable appearance. Upon arriving at the palace, they were conducted through several rooms, all lined with spectators, to the Queen's Drawing Room, an apartment not unlike, in size and general appearance, 188 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. the well-known East Eoora in the President's house at Wash- ington. Here they found a large and brilliant company as- sembled. There were courtiers and other noblemen in mag- nificent costume, wearing orders and ribbons, and glittering with gems. There were young ladies, daughters of noblemen, who were to be presented to the royal family for the first time ; these were dressed in white and flowers, and wore no jewelry. There were their mothers in gorgeous dress and all ablaze with jewels. There were ambassadors clad in the sumptuousness of continental courts, their breasts covered with orders and medals. There, also, were John Adams and his secretary of legation, in their plain court dress, with their swords at their sides. As the moment approached for the entrance of the royal family, the company arranged themselves along the sides of the room, leaving an open space in the middle. A door at the end of the apartment opened, and the king entered, followed by the queen and two of her daughters, each attended by a lady who carried her train. At a levee in Washington, the President takes his stand, and all the company file past him, each indi- vidual shaking hands with him ; he, as a rule, not speaking to anyone. Even this simple ceremony is very fatiguing. Far more laborious is the task of the King of England on public days. On this occasion, the king, on entering the room, turned to the right, the queen and princesses to the left, and both made the complete circuit of the apartment, holding a short conver- sation in a low tbwe with almost every individual present. A master of ceremonies went before the king to announce the names of the company. We need hardly say, that no one pre- sumes to shake hands with a king. As there were two hundred persons present, it required four mortal hours for the king and queen to get round the room ; during which every one remained silent except when addressed by king, queen, or princess. All were standing ; to sit down in the presence of a monarch were a breach of etiquette of the most unheard of atrocity. At length the king approached the American ladies. "Mrs. Adams," said the lord in waiting. The lady thus announced took off the glove of her right ADAMS AT THE COURT OF GEORGE III. 189 hand ; but the king, according to the usage, kissed her left cheek. The following profound and interesting conversation took place between the king and Mrs. Adams. The King. " Have you taken a walk to-day ? " Mrs. Adams. (Half inclined to tell his majesty that she had been busy all the morning getting ready to go to court) "No, sir." The King. "Why, don't you love walking?" Mrs. Adams. "I am rather indolent, sir, in that respect." The king then bowed, and passed on. The ladies remained standing two hours longer, when the queen and princesses drew near. The queen, a plain little body, dressed in purple and silver, appeared embarrassed when the name of Mrs. Adams was announced to her. " Have you got into your new house ? " she asked ; " and pray how do you like the situation of it ? " Mrs. Adams satisfied the queen on these points, and the queen resumed her progress. The princess royal followed, who asked Mrs. Adams whether she was not tired ; and further re- marked, that it was a very full drawing-room that day. Next came the Princess Augusta, who asked Mrs. Adams whether she had ever been in England before. " Yes." " How long ago ? " Mrs. Adams answered the question, and was again left to her- self. She was much pleased with the easy and cordial manners of these young ladies. They were very pretty, she says, and were both dressed in " black and silver silk, with a silver net- ting upon their coat, and their heads full of diamond pins." As to the other ladies present, she declares that most of them were "very plain, ill-shaped, and ugly." Nor did she conceive a very high opinion of the intellectual calibre of his gracious Majesty, George III. In truth, Mrs. Adams was the farthest possible from being dazzled either by the court or the nobility of England. In France, she wrote, you sometimes find people of the highest rank extremely polite and well-bred. If they are proud, they know, at least, how to hide it. But in England she found ladies of title very arrogant, ignorant, shallow, and vulgar, full 190 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. of a ridiculous dislike of "their better-behaved neighbors," the French. Our readers will relish a few sentences from a letter written by Mrs. Adams when she had been six weeks in London : "I would recommend to this nation a little more liberality and discernment ; their contracted sentiments lead them to des- pise all other nations. ... I give America the preference over all these old European nations. In the cultivation of the arts and improvement in manufactures they greatly excel us ; but we have native genius, capacity, and ingenuity equal to all their improvements, and much more general knowledge diffused among us. You can scarcely form an idea how much superior our common people, as they are termed, are to those of the same rank in this country. Neither have we that servility of man- ners which the distinction between nobility and citizens gives to the people of this country. We tremble not either at the sight or name of majesty. I own that I never felt myself in a more contemptible situation than when I stood four hours together for a gracious smile from majesty, a witness to the anxious solicitude of those around me for the same mighty boon." Mrs. Adams, it appears, was not a favorite at the English court. The queen was never more than barely civil to her, and Mrs. Adams had no great liking for the queen. A dislike is apt to be mutual. This plain-spoken, republican lady, whom rank and magnificence could not dazzle, who calmly surveyed and coolly judged the little great of the world in which she lived, was out of place at court. We have since had American ladies at the palace of St. James who were more welcome there, because they were less mindful of what was due to the princi- ples and institutions of their own country. INAUGURATION OF JOHN ADAMS. 191 INAUGURATION OF JOHN ADAMS. PRESIDENT WASHINGTON had announced his intention to retire. The withdrawal of that august and commanding name threw the great prize' open to competition, and all the fierce passions of party were enlisted in the strife. The Federal candidates were Adams and Pinckney ; the Republican, Jeffer- son and Burr. After a very animated contest, John Adams was elected to the presidency by a majority of one electoral vote ; and Jefferson, having received next to the highest num- ber, was elected vice-president. Neither party, therefore, had won a complete triumph ; for, though the Federalists elected their president, the Republicans were partially consoled by placing their favorite in the second office. It devolved upon Mr. Adams, as vice-president, sitting in the chair of the Senate, to declare the result of the election. On that morning (February 8, 1797) his gifted wife wrote to him from their farm in Massachusetts : "My thoughts and my meditations are with you, though per- sonally absent ; and my petitions to Heaven are, that the things which make for peace may not be hidden from your eyes. My feelings are not those of pride and ostentation upon the occa- sion. They are solemnized by a sense of the obligations, the important trusts and numerous duties connected .with it. That you may be enabled to discharge them with honor to yourself, with justice and impartiality to your country, and with satisfac- tion to this great people, -shall be the daily prayer of your "A. A." If we may judge from the diary of Mr. Adams, his vanity 192 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. was a good deal elated by his elevation to the presidency, aa he quotes in it several of the flattering opinions expressed in his hearing upon the occasion, or to his friends. Here is one short paragraph from his diary, written about the time when the result of the election was known: "Giles [Member of Congress] says, 'the point is settled. The vice-president will be president. He is, undoubtedly, chosen. The old man will make a good president too.' (There's for you.) 'But we shall have to check him a little now and then. That will be all.' Thus Mr. Giles." There are several entries of this kind, showing that the presi- dent-elect was fully alive to the honor conferred upon him. A few days after announcing the result of the election to the Senate, Mr. Adams vacated the chair which he had filled for eight years, and pronounced a speech of farewell to the body over which he had presided. General Washington, meanwhile, was joyfully anticipating his release from the anxieties and toils of office. On the day before his retirement he wrote to his old friend, General Knox : " To the wearied traveller who sees a resting-place, and is bending his body to lean thereon, I now compare myself. . . . Although the prospect of retirement is most grateful to my soul, and I have not a wish to mix again in the great world, or to par- take in its politics ; yet I am not without my regrets at parting with (perhaps never more to meet) the few intimates whom I lose, and among these, be assured, you are one. . . . The remainder of my life which, in the course of nature, cannot be long will be occupied in rural amusements; and though I shall seclude myself as much as possible from the noisy and bustling world, none would more than myself be regaled by the company of those I esteem at Mount Vernon, more than twenty miles from which, after I arrive there, it is not likelj' that I shall ever be." On the last day of his official life he gave a parting dinner INAUGURATION OF JOHN ADAMS. 193 to his associates and most intimate friends. The president- elect, the vice-president-elect, the foreign ministers, the bishop of the Episcopal Church, arid other noted personages, were present on this interesting occasion. The guests, we are told, were very merry during the repast; until, the cloth being re moved, the general filled his glass, and gave the following toast : " Ladies and Gentlemen : This is the last time I shall drink your health as a public man ; I do it with sincerity, wishing you all possible happiness." The mirth of the company instantly ceased, and the wife of the British minister, Mr. Irving records, was so much affected that tears streamed down her cheeks. On the morning of the 4th of March, a great multitude gathered about the hall in Philadelphia, in which Congress sat, and the chamber of the House of Representatives was so crowded that many members resigned their chairs to ladies. At eleven o'clock, Mr. Jefferson reached the Senate chamber, and, having been sworn into office, occupied the chair of the Senate for a moment, and then marched at the head of that body to the chamber of the House, where places had been reserved for them. A few minutes after, loud cheers were heard without, and soon the noble form of the retiring president was descried. Instantly the whole of the vast assembly rose to their feet, and saluted him with the most enthusiastic cheers, acclamations, and the waving of handkerchiefs. On this last public appear- ance of Washington, the warmth of his welcome seemed to show that his popularity had been in no degree lessened by the partisan violence to which he had been subjected during the whole of his second term. Washington bowed to the people with his usual grace, and took the seat assigned him on the speaker's platform. Mr. Adams entered next. The audience rose to receive him also, and cheered him most cordially, but not with the enthusi- asm which had marked the greeting of Washington. On this occasion, if on no other, the retiring president was a more im- portant and valued personage than the one just coming into power. After the oath hid been taken, Mr. Adams advanced 13 194. PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. and pronounced his inaugural address, in which, while making the usual announcement of his own purposes and principles, he pronounced an eulogium upon his predecessor, " who," said he, "by a long course of great actions, regulated by prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, conducting a people in- spired with the same virtues, and animated with the same ardent patriotism and love of liberty, to independence and peace, to increasing wealth and unexampled prosperity, has merited the gratitude of his fellow-citizens, commanded the highest praises of foreign nations, and secured immortal glory with posterity." The great audience soon after dispersed, and the rest of tho day was passed in festivity. We have a highly interesting account of the occasion in a letter which Mr. Adams wrote tho next day to his wife, which is characteristic of the man, and reveals something both of his strength and his weakness : "Your dearest friend," wrote the president, "never had a more trying day than yesterday. A solemn scene it was, in- deed ; and it was made more affecting to me by the presence of the general, whose countenance was as serene and unclouded as the day. He seemed to me to enjoy a triumph over me. Methought I heard him say: 'Ay! I am fairly out, and yoi fairly in ! See which of us will be happiest ! ' "When the ceremony was over he came and made me a visit, and cordially congratulated me, and wished my adminis- tration might be happy, successful, and honorable. " In the chamber of the House of Representatives was a mul- titude as great as the space could contain, and I believe scarcely a dry eye but Washington's. The sight of the sun setting full- orbed, and another rising, though less splendid, was a novelty. Chief-Justice Ellsworth administered the oath, and with great energy. Judges Gushing, Wilson, and Iredell were present. Many ladies. I had not slept well the night before, and did not sleep well the night after. I was unwell, and did not know whether I should get through or not. I did, however. How the business was received, I know not, only I have been told that Mason, the treaty-publisher, said we should lose INAUGURATION OF JOHN ADAMS. 195 nothing by the change, for he never heard such a speech in public in his life. " All agree that, taken altogether, it was the sublimest thing ever exhibited in America." Such was the peaceful and auspicious beginning of the stormy administration of John Adams. 196 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. IN the autumn of the year 1833, at the town of Winchester, in Illinois, there was to be a great auction sale of property, which drew to the place a large concourse of people from the neighboring country. When the sale was about to begin, the auctioneer was still unprovided with a clerk to enter the goods as they were sold, and he looked about for a person to perform that indispensable labor. At that moment he noticed on the out- skirts of the crowd a pale, short, sickly-looking young man, with his coat upon his arm, apparently about nineteen, a stranger in the vicinity, who looked as though he might be able to write and keep accounts well enough for the purpose. He hailed him and offered him the place of clerk, at two dollars a day. It so happened that this young man was in very pressing need of employment, for he had recently arrived in the State, and having walked into Winchester that morning with all his worldly effects upon his person, including a few cents in his pocket, and but a few, he was anxious how he should get through the week. He had not a friend within a thousand miles of the spot, and his entire property would not have brought under the hammer five dollars. He accepted the clerkship, and mounted to his place near the auctioneer. As the sale went on, he exhibited an aptitude for the duties he had undertaken. His entries were made with promptitude and correctness, and in his intercourse with the buyers and with the crowd he showed that mixture of urbanity and familiarity which the western people like. His repartees vere ready, if a little rough, and he kept everybody in good hu- mor. The sale lasted three days, and when it was over he had six dollars in his pocket, and had gained the warm good-will of STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 197 the people of Winchester. Some of the leading men, thinking it would be a pity for so valuable a youth to trudge on any fur- ther in quest of fortune, and still a greater pity for Winchester to lose him, bestirred themselves in his behalf, and secured his appointment as teacher to the winter school, which he gladly accepted. Stephen A. Douglas was the name of this popular young man , and thus it was that he began his career in Illinois, which he afterwards represented in Congress for so many years and with so much distinction. His father was a respectable physician, practising in Rutland Count} 7 , Vermont, and there Stephen was born, in 1813. When the boy was two mouths old, Dr. Douglas, while holding him in his arms, dropped dead from apoplexy, and his widow, inheriting little from her husband, went to live upon a farm of which she was half owner. Douglas, therefore, began life as most of the eminent men of America had begun it, by hoeing corn, chopping wood, and "doing chores" upon a farm, attend- ing the district school during the winter. He was a reading, o o o ' ambitious boy, not disposed to spend his days in manual labor. There seemed, however, no other destiny in store for him, since his mother could not then afford to continue his education. At fifteen he apprenticed himself to a carpenter, worked at the trade two years, and was then obliged to abandon it from a fail- ure of his health. I am not surprised to learn that Douglas used to say that the happiest days of his life were those spent in the carpenter's shop. His speeches show that he had a mathemati- cal head ; and he had a decided turn for constructing and plan- ning. No doubt there was an excellent carpenter lost to the country when he took off his apron. From his seventeenth year to his twentieth he was enabled, by his mother's aid, to attend academies and study law, in the States of Vermont and New York ; and it was early in the year 1833 that he turned his steps westward in search of fortune. Starting with a considerable sum of money in his pocket, a hundred dollars or so, all went well with him until he reached Cleveland, in Ohio, where he fell sick, and was detained almost all the summer. When he recovered he pushed on, with his 198 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. purse sadly reduced, to Cincinnati, and so on to St. Louis, and round to Jacksonville, in Illinois, which he reached with thirty- seven and a half cents in his pocket. He appears to have been hard to please in the matter of a residence. Seeing no opening for a young man at Jacksonville, he walked on to Winchester, sixteen miles distant, and arrived, as we have seen, all but pen- niless, with his coat on his arm. There, I suppose, he must have stopped from the failure of his supplies. The accident of his catching the eye of the auctioneer supplied him with a capi- tal upon which to begin his life there, and the favor of the people did the rest. School-master Douglas was successful with his school. He had forty pupils that winter, who paicl him three dollars each per quarter ; and he had leisure in the evenings to continue his legal studies, and on Saturdays to conduct petty cases before justices of the peace. He did so well that, early in the spring (March, 1834), when he had taught his school just three mouths, he gave it up, opened an office, and began the practice of the law. He was then twenty-one years of age. There was some- thing about this young lawyer that was extremely pleasing to western people, and he appears to have instantly obtained wide celebrity at the bar ; for before he had been practising f> year, and before he was twenty-two years old, the legislature of the State elected him attorney-general. Next year he was himself a member of the legislature, the youngest man in either house, - and two years after, President Van Buren appointed him to the profitable office of Register of the Land Office at Springfield, where Abraham Lincoln, that very spring, had established him- self as a lawyer. Such rapid and unbroken success was remarkable, and was itself a cause of further triumph. The next event, however, in his public life was a failure ; but that failure did more for him, as a politician, than any ordinary success could have done. Before he had attained the legal age twenty-five he was nominated for member of Congress in the most populous district of Illi- nois, nay, the most populous one in the whole- country, there being in it nearly forty thousand voters. Douglas, accord ing to the western fashion, mounted the stump, and spoke daily STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 199 to multitudes of people. Seldom has any district been more thoroughly canvassed, and seldom have the minds of men been more inflamed with party zeal. Douglas lost his election by five votes ; but when it was known that enough votes had been rejected because his name was spelled upon the tickets with double s at the end of it, every one felt that his failure was a triumph. In 1840 there was another signal defeat of the Democratic party, which to him, personally, was a splendid success. Every one who is old enough remembers the presidential election of that year, when General Harrison and Mr. Van Buren were the candidates, and log cabins were built in every town, and much bad cider was drunk in them to the success of " Tippecanoe and Tyler too." Every State in the Union, except two or three, gave its vote for General Harrison. Illinois remained true to the Democratic party, and this was chiefly due to the wonderful exertions of Stephen A. Douglas, then but twenty-seven years of age. For seven months he gave himself wholly up to the business of canvassing the State, in the course of which he made two hundred and thirteen speeches. It was the policy of An- drew Jackson, adopted and continued by Martin Van Buren, that was on trial during that summer of excitement. The young orator supported that policy without reserve. Illinois, then an agricultural State almost exclusively, had suffered from the finan- cial policy of the government as much as the eastern States, but it had recovered faster, and the young orator dwelt chiefly upon the good and great things done by General Jackson. It was admitted by friend and opponent that it was the "Little Giant" that kept Illinois from joining the movement that swept the other States irresistibly away. Nor was it his free and easy style of oratory alone that held the State to its old allegiance. Douglas, as before observed, had a mathematical head. He was a great manager and contriver I have sometimes thought that if he had had a military educa- tion, and had had a chance to develop his talents by active ser- vice, he would have been a good, and perhaps a great general. He possessed three qualities of a general, a power of attach- 200 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. ing men to his person, a rare organizing faculty, and plenty of audacity. His position in Illinois was now such as placed any of its political honors within his easy reach. After serving a short time as its secretary of state, he was appointed judge of its Supreme Court, in which capacity he served three years, and was then, against his will, nominated for representative in Congress. Elected to Congress by the small majority of four hundred, he was re-elected by a majority of nineteen hundred, again re- elected by a majority of three thousand, and at about the same time, he was elected a senator of the United States. March 4th, 1847, being then thirty-six years of age, he took his seat in the Senate, and continued to represent Illinois in that body to the close of his life. His career in Congress presents a strange mixture of good and evil. I believe that he was an incorruptible man, though no one ever had more or better chances to gam money unlawfully. Once, when he was confined to his room by an abscess, he was waited upon by a millionnaire, who offered to give him a deed for two and a half millions of acres of land, now worth twenty millions of dollars, if he would merely give up a certain docu- ment. "] jumped for my crutches," Douglas used to say in telling the story ; " he ran from the room, and I gave him a parting blow upon the head.** In these days, when there is so much corruption in politic?, and so many rings among politicians and others, it is a pleasure to read a story like this. At the same time, he was a remarkably expert and successful manager. If any man could get a bill through Congress, he could. He did not care much to shine as a speaker, and, in- deed, he did not excel as a speaker in Congress. What he prided himself upon was his skill and success in getting a trouble- some measure passed, and in effecting this, be was quite willing that others should have all the glory of openly advocating it. He has been known to spend two years in engineering a bill, devoting most of his time to it, and yet never once speaking STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 201 upon it. This was the case with the long series of measures which resulted in the Illinois Central Railroad. His faults were great and lamentable. Like so many other public men who spend their winters in Washington, he lived too freely and drank too much. If he was a skilful politician ; he was sometimes an unscrupulous one, and supported measures for party reasons, which he ought to have opposed for humane and patriotic ones. He said himself that President Polk com- mitted the gigantic crime of " precipitating the country into the Mexican war to avoid the ruin of the Democratic party," and knowing this, he supported him in it. His rapid and uniform success as a politician inflamed his ambition, and he made push after push for the presidency, and finally permitted his party to be divided rather than postpone his hopes. He was in too much of a hurry to be president. I have been much interested lately in reading his own account of the celebrated scene in Chicago, when he, who had been the favorite of Illinois for twenty years, was hooted for four or five hours for having procured the repeal of the Missouri Compro- mise. On his way home from Washington he received letters from friends, warning him that if he appeared in Chicago he would be killed. He went, nevertheless, and soon announced his intention to address his fellow-citizens in front of a well- known public hall. "When the day arrived," said he, "the flags were hung at half-mast on the shipping in the harbor, and for several hours before the time appointed all the church-bells in the city were tolled, at which signal the mob assembled in a force of about ten thousand. I had forty or fifty men who pretended tq be with me privately, but not half a dozen were so openly ; they were all afraid. At the appointed hour I repaired to the meet- ing and went upon the stand, and was greeted by that unearthly yell taught and practised in the Know-Nothing lodges, a howl no man can imitate. I stood and looked at the mob until the howling ceased. When they ceased I commenced by saying : " ' I appear before you to-night for the purpose of vindicating the provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.' " Before the sentence was ended the howl began again. When PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. it ceased I would begin, and as soon as I commenced it was re- newed. At times I appealed to their pride, as the champions of free speech, for a hearing; the howling was renewed; at other times I would denounce them as a set of cowards who came armed with bowie-knives and pistols to put down one man, unarmed, afraid to hear the truth spoken, lest there might be some honest men amongst them who would be con- vinced. At one time I got a hearing for ten or fifteen minutes, and was evidently making an impression upon the crowd, when there marched in from the outside a body of three or four hun- dred men with red shirts, dressed as sailors, 'and thoroughly armed, who moved through the crowd immediately in front of the stand, and then peremptorily ordered me to leave it. I stood and looked at them until they ceased yelling, and then denounced them and put them at defiance, and dared them to shoot at an unarmed man. The pistols began to fire all around the outside of the crowd, evidently into the air ; eggs and stones were throws at the stand, several of them hitting men that were near me, and for several hours this wild confusion and fury continued. The wonder is that amid that vast excited crowd no one was so far excited or maddened as to fire a ball at me. The stand was crowded with my enemies, reporters, and newspaper men, and this was undoubtedly my best protection. I stood upon the front of the stand, in the midst of that confusion, from eight o'clock in the evening until a quarter past twelve at night, when I suddenly drew my watch from my pocket and looked at it, in front of the crowd, and in a distinct tone of voice said, at an interval of silence, 'It is now Sunday morning, I'll go to church, and you may go to hell ! ' and I retired amidst the up- roar, got into my carriage, and rode to iny hotel. The crowd followed the carriage, and came near throwing it off the bridge into the river as we crossed ; they had seized it for that purpose, and lifted it, but the driver whipped his horses violently, and dashed through and over them, and went to the Tremont House, where I retired to my room. The mob, at least five thousand, followed, and commenced their howls in Lake Street, fronting my room. The landlord begged me to leave the house, fearing they would burn it up, whereupon I raised my window, walked STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 203 out on the balcony, took a good look at them, and told them that the day would come when they would hear me, and then bade them good-night." It is impossible not to feel some admiration for such nerve as this. The time did come when the people heard him. During the last years of his life he regained much of his former popu- larity ; and when, on the breaking out of the rebellion in 1861, he gave his hand to Abraham Lincoln, and engaged to stand by him in his efforts to save the country, all his errors were instant- ly forgiven. But his days were numbered. During his hercu- lean labors of the previous year he had sustained himself by deep draughts of whiskey ; and his constitution gave way at the very time when a new and nobler career opened up before him. Douglas grew stout as he advanced in life. When I saw him first, he was standing on the balcony of the Metropolitan Hotel in New York, with his hands in his pockets, a cigar in his mouth, a battered soft hat on his head, and his large face as red as fire. He was the very picture of a western bar-room politician. But when afterwards I saw him nicely dressed, in the Senate Cham- ber, bustling about among the members, with his papers in his hand, he looked like a gentleman and a man of business. 204 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. NICHOLAS COPERNICUS. COPERNICUS, the son of a Prussian surgeon, was born in 1473, ten years before the birth of Luther, and thirteen years before the discovery of America. Great men appear to come in groups. About the same time were born the man who revolutionized science, the man who reformed religion, the man who added another continent to the known world, and the man who in- vented printing. So, in later times, Watt, the improver of the steam-engine, Hargrave and Arkwright, the inventors of the spinning machinery, began their experiments almost in the same year. Of the early years of Copernicus, we only know that he studied his father's profession of medicine, and that he exhib- ited a singular love of mathematics, which led him naturally to the study of astronomy. Our word, mathematics, is derived from a Greek word which signifies knowledge; implying that the truths of mathematics are certainties, while the results of other inquiries are question- able ; indicating, also, that mathematics is the basis of all the sciences, geography, astronomy, chemistry, and even of his- tory and politics. From its difficulty, as well as from its impor- tance, it has some claim to be considered as knowledge, par excellence. It is the key to knowledge and the test of knowl- edge ; so that nothing in science can be considered established, till it is demonstrated mathematically. Carlyle says that the best indication in a boy of a superior understanding is a turn for mathematics. When a boy in ad- dition to a decided mathematical gift, possesses also a natural dexterity in handling tools, and an inclination to observe nature, NICHOLAS COPEENICUS. 205 there is ground for believing that, if properly aided, he will become a man of science. We were led to these remarks by observing that the four men of modern times who did most to increase the sum of knowl- edge Copernicus, Columbus, Galileo, and Newton were all natural mathematicians and owed their discoveries directly to mathematics. All of them, also, possessed that manual dexter- ity, and that love of observing nature of which we have spoken. They were alike in other respects ; all of them were endowed with an amazing patience. All of them were men of childlike simplicity of character. All of them were good citizens, as well as sublime geniuses. All of them, but Columbus, perhaps, were even sound men of business, prudent and successful in the management of their private affairs. In the days of Copernicus, when all books were in manuscript, and a book cost as much as a house, if a man had a thirst for knowledge, he had to go to some one who possessed knowledge, and get it from his mouth. When Copernicus, at the age of twenty-three, had graduated as a doctor of medicine, and when he had learned all of mathematics and astronomy which his na- tive country could teach him, he was attracted by the great fame of an Italian mathematician, named Regiomontanus. Fired with enthusiasm, he could not sit down at home and quietly practise the healing art. Nothing could content him but a pil- grimage to Rome, to sit at the feet of this learned professor ; and, in order to have the means of living there, he became pro- ficient in drawing and painting. The journey across the Alps was long, perilous, and expensive. He arrived in safety, how- ever, and w r as cordially received by the great man, who freely imparted to him all his stores of knowledge, and admitted him to his friendship. At Rome he won all hearts by the gentleness of his manners, and his ardor in the pursuit of knowledge. He was appointed, ere long, to a professorship of mathematics, in which he ac- quired so much distinction that his fame reached his native land. He had an uncle who was bishop of a German diocese. This good man, hearing such great things o c his nephew, procured 206 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. for him the office of cauon in his bishopric, the income of which was sufficient to maintain a scholar, while the duties were so light as to leave him the use of most of his time. Returning to Germany, he found his claim to the canonry disputed, and he was involved in a most vexatious litigation. But Coperni- cus, like Newton and like all strong men, was tenacious of his rights, and he bore himself in this affair with such a happy mixture of firmness and prudence, that he conquered all oppo- sition, and entered into the peaceful possession of a place which enabled him to spend his life in the study of nature. He now divided his time into three equal parts. One third he devoted to his ecclesiastical duties ; one third to giving med- ical advice to the poor gratuitously ; and one third to study. Occasionally, however, he was called upon to manage the finan- cial affairs of the diocese, and to defend it against the turbulent and unscrupulous German nobility. In discharging these du- ties, he displayed wonderful skill, courage, and constancy. He had a surprising power in allaying animosities, and in carrying his point against powerful opposition. He reminds us, in these particulars, of our own good-tempered and sagacious Franklin. His heart, however, was in the study of astronomy. Having mastered all that previous astronomers had learned and conjec- tured, he was more and more dissatisfied with their explanations of the celestial phenomena. The prevailing opinion, that the Bun revolved round the earth, seemed to be supported by the words of the Bible, which expressly declared that at the com- mand of Joshua, the sun stood still. This was, for a century or more, a great stumbling-block in the path of science. But, by degrees, the grand truth disclosed itself to the mind of Co- pernicus, that the sun was the centre of our planetary system, around which all the planets moved. At first, this sublime truth was only a dim conjecture ; and it was not till after more than thirty j T ears of patient, laborious calculation, that he felt himself in a position to reveal his system to the world. But that was a great and dangerous difficulty for a canou of the church. He managed it, however, with a curious blending of boldness and caution. Surrounded with priests of every order, of whom he had been, at many a crisis, the valiant and NICHOLAS COPERNICUS. 207 skilful champion, and by whom he was held in the highest es- teem, he began by communicating his discoveries to them in conversation, explaining away objections, and enlisting in be- half of his system, their pride as members of his own body. For years he delayed the publication of his work, until priests, abbots, bishops, and cardinals joined in urging him to let it appear. Still he held it back, fearing to be caught in the toils of the Inquisition. At length, a young professor of mathemat- ics visited Copernicus in the disguise of a student, and having learned the substance of his discoveries, published an account of them in a pamphlet. As this pamphlet excited no opposition or controversy, he was emboldened to publish his work. He was now as audacious as he had before seemed timid ; for he dedicated his book to no less a personage than the Pope him- self. In his dedication, he sought to disarm opposition by anticipating it. "Should there be," he said, " any babblers, who, ignorant of all mathematics, presume to judge of these things on account of some passage of Scripture wrested, to their own purpose, and dare to blame and cavil at my work, I will not scruple to hold their judgment in contempt." He assured his Holiness that his discoveries tended " to the honor of relig- ion, and to the prosperity of the ecclesiastical republic over which your Holiness presides." At the same time, he was known to be an opponent of the new doctrines of Luther. In his own diocese, the abuses which Luther denounced were probably not formidable, and Coperni- cus regarded him with honest aversion, as a disturber of the peace of the church. Copernicus, moreover, was a man consti- tutionally opposed to all violent measures and la'nguage, such as Luther delighted in. It may be, too, that he manifested more zeal against Luther than he otherwise would, with a view to se- cure the reception of his own heresies in science. These measures succeeded. His work was received with gen- eral applause, and no one scented heresy in it. This is the more remarkable since, a century after, the Inquisition pursued with the utmost severity, those who merely reasserted what Coper- nicus had published with perfect impunity. But times had changed in the sixteenth century, when the rapid progress of 208 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. Protestantism had roused the Inquisition to a new and deadly activity. Nevertheless, it was chiefly owing to the prudent management of Copernicus that he escaped the censures of the church. He lived just long enough to see and touch his book. One of his pupils had superintended the printing of it in a distant town, and sent the first copy to the author, then seventy years of age. A few days before its arrival Copernicus had been stricken with paralysis, which deprived him of memory and almost of understanding. A few hours before he breathed his last the volume reached his house, and it was placed in the hands of the dying philosopher. He revived a little, looked at the book, seemed (so the bystanders thought) to know what it was ; but, after regarding it a moment, he relapsed into a state of insensibility, and died a few hours after. Like a mother who loses her own life in giving life to another, he died after only once caressing his darling, the fruit of a lifetime's travail. The house in which he lived, studied, wrote, and died is still standing at Allensteiu. The holes which he made in the wall of his chamber, for the more convenient observation of the heav- ens, are still shown, as well as the remains of a hydraulic ma- chine which he invented for supplying a neighboring town with water. As a citizen, he was full of public spirit and benevo- lence, discharging the common duties of life with as much fidelity as though such duties were his only employment. We take pleasure in repeating this fact, because there are those who think that the possession of superior talents exempts a man from ordinary obligations. The truly great have never thought so. Men truly great, have always been greatly good. CHATJNCEY JEROME. CHAUNCEY JEROME. EIGHTY years ago, a good family clock cost from seventy- five to one hundred and fifty dollars, and the cheapest clocks made were twenty-five dollars each. These last were small clocks hung to a nail in the wall, and were wound up by pulling a string. At that time the State of Connecticut already took the load in the business of clock-making, and we find it men- tioned, as a great wonder, that, in 1804, three hundred and fifty clocks were made in Connecticut. The business was done in a very simple and primitive manner. A man would get a few clocks finished, then strap four or five on a horse's back, and go off into an adjacent county to sell them, offering them from door to door. At a later date, some makers got on so far as to employ one or more agents to travel for them. At the present time, Connecticut makes six hundred thousand clocks per annum, and sells most of them at less than five dol- lars each. Before the war, some makers sold their cheapest clocks, wholesale, at fifty cents each, their good clocks at two dollars, and their best at about four. The marvellous cheap- ness and excellence of these time-keepers have spread them over the whole earth. Go where you will, in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America, and you will be -pretty sure to come upon Yankee clocks. To England they go by the shipload. Germany, France, Russia, Spain, Italy, all take large quantities. Many have been sent to China, and to the East Indies. At Jerusa- lem, Connecticut clocks tick on many a shelf, and travellers have found them far up the Nile, in Guinea, at the Cape of Good Hope, and in all the accessible places of South America. The founder of this branch of manufacture was Chauncey Jerome, born at Canaan, Connecticut, in 1793. He it was who 14 210 PEOPLE'S BOOR OF BIOGRAPHY. invented the cheap brass clock, as now made. He it was who invented the ingenious machinery by the use of which those clocks can be manufactured for a tenth of the sum for which they could be produced b}^ hand. He it was who first sent Yankee clocks to foreign countries. He it was who first made these clocks at anything like the present rate of speed or on anything like the present scale. During the fifty years that he has been in the business, he has superintended the manufacture of perhaps, ten millions of clocks, and he has brought the machinery for mak- ing them to such a point that six men cau make the wheels for one thousand clocks in ten hours ! Sad is the lot of inventors, and sad it must generally be ; for the man who has ideas seldom has much talent for business. Chauncey Jerome, the creator of this great branch of American manufacture, which has enriched his native State, is now, at the age of seventy-three, far from his home, without property, and working for wages. I saw him, the other day, near Chicago, with his honorable gray hairs, and his still more honorable white apron, earning his living by faithful labor for others, after hav- ing had hundreds of men in factories of his own. Nor does hus empire. Nevertheless, he was the heir to the throne ; and when he had attained the age of sixteen the empress looked about among the courts of Europe to find him a wife. She first solicited for him the hand of the Princess Amelia, the youngest sister of Frederick the Great; but Frederick valued his sister too much to consign her to a court so corrupt and debauched as that of Russia. Politely refusing the alliance, he suggested his relation, the Princess Sophia, then aged four- teen. Elizabeth approved this choice, demanded the hand of the young princess, and obtained without difficulty the consent of her parents. It was, indeed, considered a splendid match for the daughter of a German prince. On arriving at Moscow, in her fifteenth year, she was presented to her future husband, and, it is said, conceived for him so profound a disgust that she fell sick, and was unable to reappear in public for several weeks. She submitted, however, to her fate, and, after being bap- tized into the Greek church under the name of Catherine, she was married to the imperial prince, he being seventeen years of age, and she sixteen. Seldom has there been a more ill- assorted union. Catherine was born to command ; Peter was born to serve. She was a young lady of wit, information, and good-breeding ; he knew no pleasures except those which he could enjoy in common with the besotted officers of the Impe- rial guard. During the first years of her marriage, living a secluded life, she devoted herself to reading and study. Many years after- wards, when she was in correspondence with Voltaire, she assured that celebrated author that it was to his works she owed the cultivation of her mind. "I can assure you," she wrote to him once, "that since the year 1746, when I became mistress of my own time, I have been under the greatest obligations to you. Before that period I read nothing but romances ; but by chance your works fell 404: PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. into my hands, and ever since I have not ceased to read them , and I have desired no books which were not as well written aa yours, or as instructive. But where can I find such? I return continually to the creator of my taste, as to my dearest amuse- ment. Assuredly, sir, if I have any knowledge, it is to you that I owe it. I am reading, at present, your essay upon gen- eral history, and I should like to learn every page of it by heart." Besides reading the works of Voltaire, she learned the Rus- sian language, which is the most difficult of the European tongues. At the same time, her public conduct, as the Impe- rial princess, presented the strongest possible contrast to that of her husband. He affected to despise Russian manners ; she affected to prefer them. He was a violent drunkard ; her con- duct was irreproachable. He took no care to conciliate the good will either of the nobles or of the people ; she, on the contrary, was affable to all, both high and low, and preserved the dignity proper to her rank and destiny. While he, there- fore, remained in his original insignificance, she ever grew in importance and popularity. For nine years their marriage was unfruitful, but at the end of that time she gave birth to a prince, who was afterwards the Emperor Paul, and perished by assassination. Five years after, their second child was born, a daughter, who lived but two years. Seventeen years after her marriage with Peter, the Empress Elizabeth died, leaving her husband the heir to the throne. It now appeared that the unfortunate Peter, who was then wholly governed by one of his mistresses, had resolved to repu- diate his wife as an adulteress, and to place upon the throne the companion of his debaucheries. Many authors assert that Catherine had been indeed false to her husband ; but, upon con- sidering all the facts in the case, I find the probabilities tend strongly toward her exculpation, and the best authorities agree in believing that Peter was the veritable father of Catherine's children. Aware of the intention of her husband, Catherine and her adherents resolved to prevent its execution by setting aside Peter himself. VOLTAIRE AND CATHERINE OF RUSSIA. 405 Unpopular with the army, of which he disdained even to wear the uniform ; unpopular with the nation, because he was an idolater of Frederick the Great, it was not difficult for an able and popular princess to defeat his purpose and seat herself upon his throne. On the decisive day, when Peter was drunk in a chateau, twenty-four miles from St. Petersburg, Catherine appeared in the capitol, went to the Church of Notre Dame, and was there, with the consent of the Archbishop, proclaimed Empress of Russia. The people in the streets saluted her as their empress. She mounted a horse, clad in the uniform of the Imperial Guard, placed herself at the head of a body of troops, and invested the chateau in which her husband was residing. He yielded without an effort. Having abdicated the throne, he was confined as a prisoner in a neighboring castle, where, a few days after, he died. It is commonly supposed that he was murdered, but this is not certain. Having attained the supreme authority, it cannot be denied that, upon the whple, Catherine II. used it for the advantage and glory of Russia. One of her first acts was to recall from Siberia a great number of exiles, and to restore to their honors and rank many persons who had been unjustly deprived of them by her predecessor. She enriched all those who had taken a leading part in raising her to the throne. She pub- lished severe edicts against the corruption of the public function- aries. One of her first acts after her coronation was to abolish torture throughout the empire. Soon she began to establish institutions of learning. She invited foreigners to the country, especially those who were skilful in agriculture. She founded a great number of cities, and embellished others. She opened a direct overland commerce with China, and negotiated valuable commercial treaties with England, France, and Austria. She established a simple code of laws for the empire, which is still the basis of the interior government of the country. She en- abled the serfs to purchase their freedom, and to bu}' portions of land. She caused canals to be dug, created new fleets, and sent out expeditions of discovery. She was one of the first monarchs of Europe to introduce the practice of vaccination ; to conquer the superstitious prejudices of the people, she caused 4:06 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. herself to be vaccinated. It was Catherine who created the Russian Academy of Arts and Sciences, and set on foot a kind of geological survey of the empire. She established libraries. After the death of Voltaire, she bought all his books and manu- scripts, and they are still to be found in St. Petersburg. She sent gifts of money, as well as friendly appreciative letters, to the philosophers and literary men of other countries. She raised the celebrated equestrian statue of Peter the Great. She watched with intelligent care the education of her grandchil- dren. Her letter* to Voltaire, which I have before me at this moment, are sprightly, witty, graceful, and wise. "TOLERANCE," says she, in one of them, "is established among us. It is part of the fundamental law of the empire ; no one in Russia can be persecuted for opinion's sake. We have, it is true, some fanatics who, from want of being persecuted, burn themselves ; and if the fanatics in other countries would do as much, it would be no great harm ; the world would be all the quieter for it, and honest men would not be molested for their religion. These, sir, are the sentiments which we owe to the founder of this city (Peter the Great) , whom both of us admire." She was not less successful in war than in peace. Under her reign immense provinces were added to Russia, and the fleets of Russia gained their first victories. I shall not relate the scandals which appear in so many books respecting this illustrious woman. The common belief is, that she had a new lover about every three months, who was then dismissed with gifts and pensions. One author informs us that she expended in this way, during her reign, a sum of moiie}' equal, in our present currency, to two hundred millions of dol- lars. Lovers she may have had ; but when I read her pleasant, innocent, and high-bred letters to the great men of her time, and when I run over the catalogue of the immense and solid benefits which she bestowed upon her country. I find it impos- sible to believe that she ever abandoned herself to systematic debauchery. The Count Segur, who resided for some time at her court, gives us this description of her person and manners : VOLTAIRE AND CATHERINE OF RUSSIA. 407 "Majestic in public, pleasant and even familiar in society, ner gravity was agreeable and her gayety decent. With an elevated soul, she showed but little imagination, and her con- versation was only brilliant except when she spoke of history and politics. Then her character gave importance to her words. It was the imposing queen, as well as the amiable friend, who spoke. The majesty of her brow, and the carriage of her head, as well as the loftiness of her glance and the dignity of her demeanor, appeared to increase her stature, although she was not tall. Her nose was aquiline, her eyes were blue, with black eyebrows, and the expression of her countenance was exceedingly sweet and attractive. In old age, to conceal the increasing magnitude of her body, she wore flowing robes and large sleeves, similar to the ancient costume of the Russian ladies. The whiteness and brilliancy of her complexion she preserved to the close of her life. Inconstant in her passions, but not in her friendships, she governed Russia on principles fixed and unchangeable. She never abandoned a friend, nor gave up a project." She died in November, 1796, aged sixty-seven, in the thirty- fourth year of her reign, and was succeeded on the throne by her son, Paul I. 408 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGFAPHY. CONFUCIUS. THE writings of Confucius are the Chinese Bible. Three hundred and sixty millions of the human race derive their spiritual nourishment from them, and venerate their author as the wisest and best of men. During the last few years, the life and works of this Chinese sage have been much studied in France, and a translation of his principal work is about to appear, executed by one of the best Chinese scholars in Europe. This author has also given to the French public a more minute and correct account of the life of Confucius than any previously published ; so that we have now the means of understanding something of the man and of his doctrines. The name of Confucius, as near as we can express it by English letters, was Koung-Fou-Tseu, which is said to mean Reverend Master Tseu. If the syllables are pronounced in the French manner, they sound something like Confucius, and probably suggested that name. The sage was born five hundred and fifty-one years before the Christian era, and the Chinese authors are unanimous in saying that he was descended from an emperor who reigned over China four thousand four hundred years ago. They do not state, however, the precise rank or condition of his family at the time of his birth ; but relate that when the boy was three years of age he lost his father, and that his mother devoted herself to perpetual widow- hood in order to live only for the child, which, she said, God had given her in answer to her prayers. The same writers vaunt the filial piety of the boy, which in China is considered chief among the virtues. They tell us that he avoided the noisy sports of his young friends, and gave himself to the prac- CONFUCIUS. 409 tice of religious rules, the meaning of which he early strove to discover. One author observes : " To hear the infant Confucius converse on morals and charity gave the impression that heaven had engraven upon his heart the holy principles of antiquity." . In his seventh year his mother sent him to a public school, where he was so well instructed that the name of his school - master is honored in China to this day. In a short time, we are told, he so much surpassed his school-mates that his teacher called upon him to assist him in giving instruction. This high honor, says a Chinese writer, instead of making him proud, only contributed to excite in him the sentiment of modesty, which he knew he must possess in order to preserve the friendship of his comrades. At the age of seventeen he was admitted to the rank of man- darin, and received the appointment of inspector of the grain market. In this humble position, it is stated, he performed his duties with the most scrupulous exactness, and even wished to reform the abuses which his predecessors had allowed to creep in. The better to carry out these reforms, he studied all the details of the buying and selling of grain. In his nineteenth year his mother chose for him a wife, the descendant of a noble family, who a year later gave him a son, the only fruit of their union. While he was still a very young man, he was raised to the important office of inspector-general of agriculture. In this high post, the Chinese authors assure us, he acquitted himself with so much zeal and wisdom, that the fields of his province, from being abandoned and uncultivated, became fertile and flourishing, and where lately was seen nothing but idleness and misery, industry and abundance reigned. The renown of so virtuous an officer could not be confined to his native province, but spread all over the empire, and won the admiration of princes and nobles. But just as he was about to be promoted to the highest dig- nities of the empire, his mother, in the flower of her age, sud- denly died. Immediately, in accordance with the ancient traditions, he resigned his office, and resolved to pay all the 410 lEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. honors to his mother's memory which the most rigorous of the old customs demanded. After conveying the body to the sum- mit of a mountain, where the ashes of his father reposed, he secluded himself from society, and passed three whole years in mourning the irreparable loss which he had sustained his only relief being the study of philosophy. " This act of piety," says one of his Chinese biographers, "made such an impression upon the people, that it revived among them the funeral customs for- merly practised, and perpetuated them to our day, that is to say, during twenty-four centuries, through all the revolutions, political and religious, which we have experienced." When the three years were accomplished, he deposited his mourning garments upon the tomb of his mother, and, resuming his intercourse with his fellow-men, consecrated all his leisure to meditation upon the means of regenerating the Chinese peo- ple, a task to which, it is said, he had before devoted his life. His first and chief endeavor was to perfect himself in wisdom and virtue, and to this end he both studied and travelled. Hearing of a famous lute-player in another province, who could both calm and excite the passions of man, he went to him and became one of his pupils. We have also an account of a visit which he paid to a celebrated philosopher, of whom he asked to be instructed in his doctrine. The philosopher received him coldly, and reproached him for occupying himself too much with the men of ancient times, long since returned to dust. He is reported to have addressed Confucius thus : " The men of whom you speak so much are dead and gone ; their bodies and their bones were long ago consumed. Nothing remains of them except their maxims. When a wise man finds himself in favorable circumstances, he mounts upon a chariot, by which I mean, he is advanced to honorable posts. When the times are unfavorable to him, he does the best he can. I have heard say that a skilful merchant conceals his wealth with care and goes about pretending poverty. So the wise man. the man of finished virtue, loves to cany upon his countenance the ap- pearance of stupidity. Renounce pride, and the multitude of your desires lay aside these fine garments, and the ambitious CONFUCIUS. schemes which occupy your mind ; for they will avail you nc th- ing. This is all I can tell you." To these remarks Confucius listened with an appearance of respect, but when his disciples (for he already had disciples) asked him what he thought of this philosopher, he answered : " I know that the birds fly in the air ; that the fish swim ; that the quadrupeds run. Those which run can be caught with traps ; those which swim, with the line ; those which fly, with an arrow. As to the dragon, that soars to heaven, borne by the winds and clouds. I know not how we can catch him. I have to-day seen this philosopher : he is like the dragon." Returning to his native country after his journey in search of wisdom, he entered seriously upon the great work of his life, which was to record all that he had himself learned and thought, O 7 as well as all which he considered worthy of preservation in the works of the ancients. His object was to gather and to arrange the whole wisdom of his country so that it could be convenient- ly communicated to his people and their descendants forever. To this labor he devoted all the leisure of the rest of his life, and h( produced a series of works upon which the soul of China has ever since subsisted, and which do really contain a very pure and exalted system of morals. Toward the fiftieth year of his age he was appointed by one of the kings of China to an office which we should call that of prime minister. In this post, we are assured, he reformed the numerous abuses which existed in every branch of the govern- ment, and he was rewarded at length by being appointed the supreme judge. The people, it is said, blessed his wisdom and his justice, and he was held in the highest honor, as well by the nobility as by the husbandmen. A great crowd of disciples gathered about him, who assisted him in the composition and the multiplication of his works. While he was upon a journey for the purpose of making some new researches, he learned the death of his wife, and the new? plunged him into the deepest melancholy. Upon his return home, he called his disciples to him, and told them that the days which remained to him of life were counted, and that he had 4:12 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHT. not an instant to lose if he would finish the work which he had undertaken. In his seventy-third year, that work was accomplished. Once more he assembled his disciples, and ordered them to set up an altar. When the altar was ready, he solemnly placed upon it the whole of his writings, and then, prostrating himself upon the ground, he remained there a considerable time, designing to thank the Supreme Being for having so far favored him that he had been able to reconstruct the literature of his country, and leave it for the instruction of posterity and the glory of the empire. Some days after this ceremony, Confucius, in another inter- view with his disciples, told them that he was conversing with them for the last time, and mentioned to each the career which he thought most suitable to him. His strength lessened from day to day. He employed his last hours in making some slight corrections in his manuscripts, to render them more worthy of posterity. He sank at length into a lethargy, in which he re- mained seven days, and then passed a way without pain, aged seventy-three years. The careful manner in which the Chinese record their history enables us to place considerable confidence in the truth of their statements with regard to this great man. The outline which I have given probably bears a resemblance to the truth ; but, even if the biographies 6f Confucius are fabulous, his works re- main to attest by their kindliness of tone, their high morality, and their excellent sense, that Confucius is worthy to rank with the wisest of the ancient teachers of man. From his only son have descended a numerous posterity, who constitute a separate and honorable order in the empire, and enjoy peculiar privileges. A traveller, who visited China in 1671, computed that there were eleven thousand male descend- ants of Confucius then living, most of whom were of the seventy- fourth generation. The writings of this great man are, as I have before remarked, the Bible of the Chinese. They are even more than that. Every man in China who aspires f;o the public service, or who receives a liberal education, derives his mental culture chiefly from thorn. CONFUCIUS. and the candidate for public honors undergoes a strict oxamina tion in them. In every city of the empire there is as teast one temple dedicated to Confucius, upon the altar of wkic\i, fruit, wine, and flowers are placed, and sweet-smelling gurns are burned, while verses are chanted in his honor. Every intelli- gent person must desire to know something of the works of a man who holds this high place in the affections and in the edu- cational system of one-third of the human race. His works are five in number. The first treats of what we should call Moral Philosophy ; the second contains the History of China, and a statement of its political and religious institu- tions ; the third, called the "Book of Verses," maybe styled the psalm and hymn book of the Chinese ; the fourth is the lit- urgy or prayer-book; the fifth, which is entitled Spring and Autumn, contains the history of the native province of Confu- cius. It must not be supposed,' however, that Confucius claims these works as his own. "The doctrine," he says, " which I try to teach is only that which our ancestors taught, and which they have transmitted to us. I have added nothing to them, and taken nothing from them. I transmit them in my turn in their original purity. They are unchangeable. Heaven itself is their author. I am, with regard to them, only what a farmer is to the seed which he sows : he casts it on the ground, such as it is ; he waters it, and gives it all his pains. That is all that he can do : the rest is not in his power." Nevertheless, we are assured by Chinese scholars that Con- fucius did suppress many extravagances in the ancient writings, and gave to the whole system of Chinese morality and philoso- phy an original cast. Confucius does not clearly teach the existence of one Supreme Being, nor does he attempt to explain the origin of things, nor does he teach the immortality of the soul. He says, neverthe- less, that there exists a "Supreme Reason," the source of all things, and especially the source of the reason of man. "The holy man," says Confucius, "the wise man, establishes his doc- trine in accordance with this ' Supreme Reason ;' he has a pene- trating, efficacious virtue, by which he puts himself in harmony 4:14 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. with it." "The heaven and the earth," he says, "had a begin- ning ; and- if that can be said of them, how much more truly of man ! After there was a heaven and an earth, all material things were formed ; male and female appeared, man and woman." In accordance with the traditions of all our race, Confucius says that " man was originally happy and pure, and that through his own fault he lost his happiness and purity." He also teaches that, "by his own endeavors, man can recover his lost happiness jind virtue." His fundamental principle is this : Man has received from Heaven, along with his physical existence, a principle of moral life, which it is his duty to cultivate and develop to the utmost, in order to arrive at a perfect conformity to the celestial and di- vine Reason. This is man's business on earth ; and the object of Confucius was to aid his countrymen in accomplishing it. "Every man," he says, "knows what is right, or may know it, and the law of rectitude is so binding on us that we ought not to de- part from it in a single point, for a single moment, by so much as the thickness of a hair." "The foundation of all good," he repeats a hundred times, "is the virtue of individual men. With this everything begins, and for this every good institution works." Every man who aspires to direct the actions of others should begin, says Confucius, by perfecting himself, and it is only in this way that a man can co-operate with the Supreme Reason, and put himself in harmony with the universe. The only men in the world, he says, who know themselves and their duties to their fellow-men, are those in whom virtue is sovereign, and who are constantly seeking it as the sovereign good. The principal virtues, according to Confucius, are five in num- ber : Humanity, Justice, Order, Sincerity, and Integrity ; and of these, humanity, the love of our kind, is thei^first and funda- mental one. Humanity is that universal charity and benevo- lence which is no respecter of persons, but embraces the whole human race. This virtue, he explains, is not opposed to the punishment of the guilty, but permits us to have recourse to war only after having exhausted all the means of conciliation. It includes justice, conformity to the ancient usages, and perfect sincerity and good faith in all our dealings with one another. It CONFUCIUS. 415 is a part of it to respect public opinion ; but it does not oblige us to conform to public opinion in everything. "There are cases," he adds, "in which a man must go directly contrary to public opinion ; and no one should comply with the customs of his country except so far as they are right." "Man," says Con- fucius, " is a being made to live in society ; but there can be no society without government, no government without subordina- tion, no subordination without superiority ; and legitimate su- periority can only be derived either from age or merit. The father and mother naturally rule their children ; the elder, the younger ; and, in the State, those men naturally rule who have a commanding mind, and know how to win the affections of their fellow-men." This high prerogative belongs to but few of the human race, and it 'consists wholly in a superior humanity. "To have more humanity than others is to be moi'e of a man than they, and gives one a right to command ! " Again and again Confucius says, " humanity is the foundation of all virtue, and is itself the first and noblest of the virtues." He dwells much upon the loveliness and necessity of perfect sincerity. " It is this alone," he says, "which gives value to our actions and constitutes their merit ; without it, that which ap- pears virtue is only hypocrisy ; which, however it may shine and dazzle the beholder, is only a transient flame which the breath of the lightest passion instantly extinguishes." Of all the forms of humanity, the one which Confucius con- siders most important is filial piety. He calls it "the queen of all the virtues, the source of instruction, the eternal law of Heaven, the justice of the earth, the support of authority, the chief bond of society, and the test of all merit." Man, he assures us, is the noblest being in the universe, and filial piety is the grandest thing in man. It comprehends three great classes of duties : those which we owe to our parents ; those which are due to the government ; and those which are due to the Supreme Reason. It is as binding upon the emperor as upon the lowest of his sub- jects. rt We owe to our prince," says Confucius, " the love which we have for our mother and the respect we feel for our father, because he is both the father and the mother of his sub- jects. It is filial piety also which obliges man to honor and 416 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. serve the celestial power, and this is to be done by the acquisi- tion of virtue." "But," says the sage, "however great may be the love and obedience of a son toward his father, or a subject toward his king, it never ought to degenerate into servility; for there is a HIGHER LAW than that of cither a father or a king, the law of the Supreme Reason." "Man," says Confucius, "is a being apart, in whom are united the qualities of all the other beings. He is the universe in miniature ; endowed with intelligence and liberty, capable of improvement and social life, he can discern, compare, and act for a definite end, and can select the means necessary to arrive at that end. He can perfect himself or deprave himself, accord- ing to the good or bad use which he makes of his liberty. He knows what is wrong and what is right ; he knows that he has duties to perform toward Heaven, himself, and his fellow-man. If he acquits himself of these different duties, he is virtuous, and worthy of reward ; if he neglects them, he is guilty, and de- serves punishment." He divides men into five classes with regard to their moral worth. The first and most numerous class comprehends the great mass of mankind, who are commendable for no particular excel- lence, who speak only for the sake of speaking, without consid- ering whether they speak well or ill, or whether they ought to speak at all ; who act only by instinct and routine ; who have an understanding, like other men, but an understanding which does not go beyond the eyes, ears, and mouth. These are " the Vulgar." The second class is composed of those who are instructed in science, in literature, and in the arts ; who propose to them- selves distinct objects, and know the different means by which they can be obtained ; who, without having penetrated deeply into things, know enough of them to give instruction to others, and to live a life conformed to the established forms and usages. This class of men he styles "the Educated." The third class are they who, in their words, their actions, and in the general conduct of their lives never depart from the line of strict rectitude ; who do right because it is right ; whose CONFUCIUS. 417 passions are subdued ; who attach themselves to nothing ; who are always the same, both hi adversity and prosperity ; who speak when they ought to speak, and are silent when they ought to be silent, having firmness enough not to conceal their senti- ments when it is proper to utter them, though they should lose thereby their fortunes or their lives ; who despise no one, nor prefer themselves to others ; who are not content to derive their knowledge from ordinary sources, but push their investigations to the fountain-head, so as to free their knowledge from all mix- ture of error; not discouraged when they fail, nor proud when they succeed. These are "the Philosophers." The fourth class consists of men who never depart from the just medium, who have fixed rules of conduct and manners from which they never depart j who fulfil with perfect exactness and a constancy always equal the least of their duties ; who re- press their passions and watch over all their words and acts ; who fear neither -labor nor pain in bringing back to their duty those who have wandered from it, in instructing the ignorant, and in rendering to all men any services in their power without distinction of poor or rich, expecting no reward, and not even asking the gratitude of those whom they have served. These ire " the Virtuous." The fifth class is composed of the few men who, besides being virtuous, are endowed by nature with extraordinary and beau- tiful gifts ; who are lovely in their persons and manners as in their conduct ; who have acquired by long practice the habit of fulfilling, without any effort and even with joy, all the duties which nature and morality impose ; who bless every creature within their reach, and, like heaven and earth, never discontinue their beneficent labors, but go on their course imperturbable and unvarying, like the sun and moon. These men, precious, but few in number, are "the Perfect." "Marriage," says Confucius, "is the proper condition of man, and the means by which he fulfils his destiny upon earth. Man is the head, he should command ; woman is the subject, she ought to obey. Husband and wife should be like heaven and earth, which concur equally in the production and support of all things. Mutual tenderness, mutual confidence, mutual respect, 27 418 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY purity, and propriety should be the base of their conduct." He permits divorce for any one of seven reasons : " When a woman cannot live in peace with her father-in-law or mother-in-law ; when she cannot bear children ; when she is unfaithful ; when, by the utterance of calumnies or indiscreet words, she disturbs the peace of the house ; when her husband has for her an uncon- querable repugnance ; when she is an inveterate scold ; when she steals anything from her husband's house ; " in any of these cases her husband may put her away. " Government," he says, " is only an extension of the paternal authority, and the great object of government is the promotion of that private virtue which is the great source of all happiness and good." " Nowhere," says a Chinese scholar, "are the rights and duties of kings and peoples taught in a manner so elevated and reasonable as in the writings of the Chinese philosopher, who everywhere maintains that the welfare of the people is the Supreme Law." Toward the close of his life, one of his disciples asked him if there was not some one maxim which would guide a man aright in all circumstances, and which could be regarded as the essence or summary of all morals. The sage said there was, and gave it thus : " DO TO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE OTHERS DO TO YOU." Such are some of the leading ideas and opinions of Confucius. If any one should ask why the Chinese, who have for twenty- four centuries possessed his writings, should be no better thau they are, I would reply by asking another question : Why are we no bettor, who have enjoyed more numerous and pvrer lights? THE TWO CATO8. 4:19 THE TWO CATOS. IN the history of Rome we find eleven persons of some note who are called Cato, two of whom were men of very great em- inence. The word Cato, however, was only a surname, derived from a Latin word which signifies ivise, and which, being ap- plied to the founder of the family, was adopted by his descend- ants for many generations. The first and greatest of the Catos was really named Marcus Porcius, and to distinguish him from his descendants, he is sometimes called Cato the First, or the Ancient, sometimes Cato Major, but, most commonly, Cato the Censor, from the title of the office in which he was most distin- guished. It is especially necessary not to confound this ancient Cato with his grandson, Cato "the Philosopher," who put an end to his own existence after the death of his commander, Pompey, and who is the hero of Addison's "Tragedy of Cato." Cato the Censor was born two hundred and thirty-two years before Christ. While confessing that his ancestors were of no rank in the State, he boasts that his grandfather had five horses killed under him in battle, and that his father was also a brave and excellent soldier. Having inherited from his father a farm and some slaves, he labored with them in cultivating his land, and lived so frugally and austerely as to attract the notice and win the respect of his neighbors. When he was seventeen years of age, Hannibal was in Italy with his triumphant army, threat- ening Rome itself, and young Cato joined the forces, who, under the prudent command of Fabius, were opposing and tiring out the impetuous Carthaginians. In the army he distinguished himself as much by the severity of his manners as by his valor in battle. He always marched on foot, carried his own arms, and was attended but by one servant laden with provisions. Hia 420 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. usual drink was water, and he assisted his servant in the prepa ration of their food. When he had served his country in the field for five years, and Italy was no longer trodden by a hostile foot, he went back to his farm and engaged once more in the labors of agriculture. He was accustomed to conciliate the dis- putes of his neighbors, and to plead their causes without reward in the country courts, and was frequently successful, either as an arbiter or as an advocate, in bringing troublesome litigations to a happy conclusion. Near Cato's farm-house there was the mansion of a powerful young nobleman, named Valerius Flaccus, a man of much be- nevolence, and a noted patron of obscure genius. This noble- man often heard his servants speak of a farmer in the vicinity who used to go to the little country towns and defend the causes of the poor ; who labored upon his farm in a coarse frock in winter, and naked in summer, and who sat down with his slaves and ate the same kind of bread and drank the same wine as they did. Various witty sayings of Cato were also reported to Valerius Flaccus, which further excited his curiosity ; and at length he invited Cato to dinner. The acquaintance thus begun ripened into an intimate friendship, and Valerius strongly urged Cato to go to Rome and apply himself to politics. This advice was taken, and Cato went to the capital, and adopted what we should call the profession of a lawyer. He pleaded causes be- fore the public tribunals, in which he won great distinction, and was soon drawn into public life. During the later wars with Hannibal he served as an officer under Fabius, won great dis- tinction in battle, and lived on terms of friendship with the general in command. Being once sent as questor to Scipio, who was organizing a Roman army in Sicily for the invasion of Af- rica, he dared to rebuke that able and popular general for his extravagance. He said to Scipio : " It is not the waste of the public money which is the greatest evil, but the consequences of that expense in corrupting the an- cient simplicity of the soldiers, who, when they have more money than they need, are sure to spend it in luxury and riot." Scipio haughtily replied that he had no need of an exact and frugal treasurer in his camp, because his country expected THE TWO CATOS. 421 of him an account of services performed, not of money ex- pended. Upon receiving this reply, Cato returned to Rome, and loudly complained to the Senate of Scipio's gayety and profusion. "He walks about," said Cato, "in his cloak and slippers, and lets his soldiers do as they like. He passes his time in wrest- ling rings and theatres, as though he had been sent out to exhibit games and shows, not to make war." Commissioners were despatched to Scipio's army to inquire into the truth of these charges, but Scipio succeeded in con- vincing them that he understood his business better than Cato, and sent them home satisfied with his conduct. Before he was forty years of age Cato was elected to the consulship, the highest office in the State, and his associate con- sul was that very Valerius Flaccus who had recommended him to try his fortune at the capital. As consul, he commanded Roman armies, added conquests to the empire, and, returning from a successful campaign in Spain, was rewarded with a tri- umph. Twelve years later we find him in the office of Censor, and again associated with Valerius Flaccus. In this office he waged ceaseless war upon the luxury of the rich, by imposing' heavy taxes upon costly apparel, carriages, ornaments, and utensils. He cut off the supply of water from those who had fountains and ponds in their gardens, and in every way flattered the poor by making himself odious to the rich. Instead, how- ever, of relating the actions of Cato, it will be more interesting to give some specimens of his sayings. When the Romans were clamoring, at a time of scarcity, for a distribution of corn at the public expense, he began a speech in opposition to it thus : "It is hard, fellow-citizens, to address the stomach, because it has no ears." Rebuking the Romans for their luxury, he said : " It is diffi- cult to save a city from ruin where a fish brings a higher price than an ox." Pointing to a man who had squandered an estate near the sea, he pretended to admire him, saying : "What the sea could not swallow without great difficulty, this man has gulped down with perfect ease." 4:22 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. Being rebuked for not visiting a king who was visiting Rome, he said : " I look upon a king as a creature that feeds upon human flesh, and of all the kings that have been so much cried up, I find none to be compared with Epaminondas, Pericles, or Themistocles." The following is one of his most famous sayings : " Wise men learn more from fools than fools learn from wise men ; for the wise avoid Jhe errors of fools, but fools do not profit by the example of the wise." "I do not like," he said once, "a soldier who moves his hands when he marches, and his feet when he fights, and who snores louder in bed than he shouts in battle." His friendship being sought by an epicure, he replied : " No ; I cannot live with a man whose palate is more sensitive than his heart." He said once that in the whole of his life he had never re- pented but of three things : " first, trusting a woman with a secret ; second, going by sea when he might have gone by land ; third, passing a day without having his will in his possession." To a debauched old man he said : " Old age has deformities enough of its own ; do not add to it the deformity of vice." One of his sayings has exposed him to just censure ; " A master of a family should sell off his old oxen, and all his cattle that are of a delicate frame, all his sheep that are not hardy ; he should sell his old wagons, and his old implements ; he should sell such of his slaves as are old and infirm, and everything else that is old and useless." Alluding to this passage, the amiable Plutarch becomes properly indignant, and says : " For my own part, I would not sell even an old ox that had labored for me ; much less would I remove, for the sake of a little money, a man, grown old in my service, from his usual place and diet ; for to him, poor man, it would be as bad as banishment, since he could be of no more use to the buyer than he was to the seller." The truth about Cato appears to be that he was more vain of his virtue than virtuous. He was a most extravagant and shameless boaster, and had more talent to utter fine sayings than to perform actions truly praiseworthy. He tells us him- THE TWO CATOS. 423 self that the senate, in difficult and dangerous times, used to cast their eyes upon him as passengers do upon the pilot in a storm. And he once spoke of some blunderers in this way : "They are excusable ; they are not Catos." In his old age he became exceedingly avaricious, and gained a large fortune by methods which were legal, but not very honorable. He even uttered this sentiment : " That man truly wonderful and godlike, and fit to be registered in the lists of glory, is he by whose account-books it shall appear, after his death, that he had more than doubled what he had received from his ancestors." He retained his bodily strength to a very great age. When he was past eighty years he called one morning upon a man who had formerly been his secretary, and asked him whether he had yet provided a husband for his daughter. "I have not," was the reply; "nor shall I without consulting my best friend." " Why, then," said Cato, " I have found out a very fit husband for her, if she can put up with an old man who, in other re- spects, is a very good match for her." " I leave the disposal of her," said the father, " entirely to you. She is under your protection, and depends wholly upon your bounty." "Then," said Cato, "I will be your son-in-law." The astonished parent gave his consent, and Cato announced his intention to his son, who. was himself a married man. "Why, what have I done," said the son, "that I should have a mother-in-law put upon me ? " "I am only desirous," replied Cato, "of having more such sons as you, and leaving more such citizens to my country." By this wife, who was little more than a girl, he actually had a son, who himself became consul of Rome, and was the father of the other famous Cato, the enemy of Csesar. It was Cato who urged the Romans never to cease warring upon Carthage until it was totally destroyed. For many years, it is said, he never spoke in the senate on any subject whatever, without concluding his speech thus : "And my opinion is, that Carthage should be destroyed." 424 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. The leader of the opposite party in the senate concluded every speech by saying : "And my opinion is, that Carthage should be left standing.** Cato, it appears, had an ill-favored countenance ; so, at least, his enemies said, one of whom wrote upon him the following epigram : " With eyes so gray and hair so red, With tusks so sharp and keen, Thou'lt fright the shades when thou art dead, And hell won't let thee in." Cato, called the Philosopher, who is sometimes styled Cato of Utica, because it was at Utica that he killed himself, was born ninety-five years before Christ, and showed in his youth the austerity of character which had distinguished his illustrious ancestor. Like all Romans of rank, he served in the army, and won considerable renown in suppressing the insurrection of the slaves, which was excited and led by the gladiator Spar- tacus. Like the ancient Cato, he disdained the luxuries usually enjoyed by officers of rank. He refused the rewards for his valor offered him by his commander, and appeared upon the march in a dress which differed little from that of a - private. When the liberties of Rome were threatened by Csesar, he took service under Pompey ; and after his general was slain, and Ceesar was master of Rome, he thought it unbecoming a Roman citizen to continue to live. He carried out his suicidal inten- tion with singular calmness and resolution. After supping cheerfully with several of his friends, he went into his room, where he embraced his son with such unusual tenderness as to awaken the suspicion that he intended to terminate his life. He lay down upon his bed and read for a while Plato's Dialogue upon the Immortality of the Soul. When he had finished read- ing, he looked round, and observed that his sword had been taken away. He called for it ; and when his son and friends rushed into the room in tears, Cato cried out : " How long is it since I have lost my senses, and my son is become my keeper? Brave and generous son, why do you not THE TWO CATOS. 425 bind your father's hands, that when Caesar comes he may find me unable to defend myself? Do you imagine that without a sword I cannot end my life? Cannot I destroy myself by holding my breath for some moments, or by striking my head against the wall ? " His son made no reply, but retired weeping, and the sword was at length sent in to him by a slave. "Now," said Cato, as he drew it, "I am my own master." When he found himself alone, he again took up his book, and when he had once more read the dialogue, he lay down and slept. Toward the dawn of day he took his sword and pressed the point into his body a little below the chest, inflicting an extensive, but, as it appeared, not fatal wound. As he fell he overturned a table, the ^oise of which gave the alarm. He was found insensible, welter.ng in his blood, with his bowels pro- truding from the wound. While the surgeon was replacing the uncut bowels, Cato recovered his consciousness, thrust the surgeon from him, tore out his bowels with his hands, and immediately expired. Thus perished Cato, miscalled the Philosopher, in the forty-eiffhth year of his age. 426 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. PETER THE GREAT. ABOUT the year 1683, a young man named Francis Le Fort, a native of Switzerland, found himself, after many adventures, in the city of Moscow, in the military service of Russia. He was a highly educated person, spoke several languages, was well versed in military science, and possessed the accomplish- ments of a gentleman and a soldier. He was, in truth, an eminently civilized, humane, and virtuous man. There were then living in one of the palaces of Moscow two boys, one thirteen years old, the other eleven, who had been recently crowned joint Emperors of Russia, and were living under the regency of their sister, the Princess Sophia, awaiting the time when they should be old enough to reign. Ivan (or John) was the name of the elder of these boys, and the younger was named Peter, now universally known as Peter the Great. The true heir to the throne was Ivan ; but he was half an idiot, and it was deemed best to associate with him his younger brother, a lad of excellent promise. The education, however, of this boy, Peter, the destined monarch of a prodigious empire, was almost totally neglected. Russia did not much value knowledge at that time, but Peter was even more ignorant than was usual with Russian boys of high rank, for his sister Sophia, an ambitious and bad woman, purposely kept him in ignorance, that she might the more easily retain an ascendency over him, and over Russia through him. Notwithstanding this, he had picked up a little knowledge, since he had that sure sign of intellect which we call curiosity. He was a great asker of questions, fond of looking on while work was doing, and of trying his own hand at it. While he was thus living in retirement, a boy czar, passing PETER THE GREAT. 427 his time in amusements suited to his age, he noticed the young officer, Le Fort, who was frequently on duty about the imperial palaces. The appearance and manners of Le Fort were as pleasing as his character was superior, and the young emperor was so strongly attracted by him that he caused him to be attached to his own household, and became his inseparable com- panion. The favorite of a monarch usually becomes such, and usually retains his influence, by flattering his master's worst propensities. Le Fort, on the contrary, won the confidence of Peter, and kept it, by being his true friend, by instructing his ignorance, awakening his nobler ambition, and restraining his evil passions. He told the young czar of courts that were not barbarous ; of kings who lived for their country's good ; of nations where knowledge and the arts were held in honor ; of peoples who were polite and humane. He showed him that Russia was be- hind all the Christian countries of Europe in civilization, and assured him that the greatness of a country does not consist either in the extent of its territory or the number of its people. He taught him something of history, the rudiments of science, the elements of language ; but, above all, he lifted him up high out of the depths of Russian pride and exclusiveness, and showed him the inferiority of his country in all that constitutes the true glory of a nation. He formed a class of fifty young Russian nobles into a kind of military school, and they all studied, drilled, and played together. The seed sown by Cap- tain Le Fort fell into ground prepared to receive it. Both the father and the grandfather of Peter had desired and endeavored to raise Russia in the scale of civilization, and this boy inherited from them the same desire, with better means of carrying it into effect. The Princess Sophia, meanwhile, governed the empire with absolute sway. She understood nothing of what was going on in the palace of the young czars. Seeing them drilling and sporting with their youthful companions, under the direction of a young foreigner, a person of no importance, she thought they were merely amusing themselves. She supposed, too, that when they had outgrown these boyish games, the vigorous and 428 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. ignorant Peter would abandon himself to the brutal vices so common, at that day, in the courts of kings, and leave the caro of governing Russia to her. Six years passed. Peter was a young man of seventeen. Not free from the vices of his age and country, he had never- theless become, by the aid of Francis Le Fort, an intelligent, inquiring, and, upon the whole, estimable prince, and truly intent to employ his power in improving his country. A trifling incident now revealed to him the ambition of his sister Sophia, and induced him to assert, sooner than he otherwise would, the rights of his birth. Peter's mother, anxious to preserve him from an irregular life, caused him to be married at the age of seventeen, and the Princess Sophia appeared at the wedding wearing the insignia of absolute power. Not the young czar only, but all his friends, marked the presumption of the regent, and measures were promptly concerted between them to termi- nate the regency, and shut up the ambitious lady in a convent. Le Fort was the czar's chief adviser, and he was aided by other foreigners, as well as by the party in Russia who were most disposed to reform. The struggle was severe, but short. Sophia had her ad- herents among the militia, the priesthood, and the nobility ; but nothing availed against the energy, the talents, and the popu- larity of the youthful Peter. In October, 1789, when he was little more than seventeen, he entered Moscow in triumph, with his brother at his side ; and Sophia was consigned to a convent, where she spent many years in intriguing to regain her liberty and power. Russia had then two emperors in name, but only one in reality. Ivan, conscious of his inability to rule, gave up all authority to Peter ; and Peter, on his part, treated Ivan with the utmost kindness and respect, until his brother's early death left him sole sovereign of the empire. Le Fort was raised by his grateful pupil to the highest dignities which a subject can fill, and he continued the chief and most trusted counsellor of Peter as long as he lived. Russian historians agree that he made a noble use of his power. In all the czar's good designs PETER THE GREAT. 4:29 he was a powerful and wise co-operator, without ever abetting him in his violence and severity. Peter reigned over Russia thirty-six years. During the first few years of his reign he devoted his chief attention to gaining knowledge, and to maturing the vast plans which he had con- ceived for the regeneration of his empire. When he began to rule in earnest, his first care was to create a regular army, which should take the place of a turbulent and undisciplined militia, that had often plunged the country into anarchy. This was a work of many years ; but he accomplished it at last ; and when the militia rose in revolt against his measures, he was able, not merely to subdue, but to disband them forever. He next turned his attention to the creation of a navy. His father, in pursuance of the same design, had" caused one ship to be built for him in Holland ; but that one ship, the whole navy of Russia, had been burnt, and in all the empire there were but two men capable of navigating a ship. Peter sought out these two men, one of whom proved to be a man of great ability ; and him the czar promoted to the post of chief constructor. Workmen were brought from Holland ; a navy yard was established ; and soon the first vessel was launched. It so happened that Peter was one of those persons who are easily made sea-sick, and he had also inherited a morbid dread of the ocean. But, as it was a principle with him to do himself everything that he required of others, he made a sea voyage in the first of his ships that was finished, in the course of which he completely overcame these weaknesses, and became a very tolerable navigator. By the time he had his army and fleet in readiness he had use for them in a war with the Turks, in which he experienced many disasters. This man, however, was one of those whom disasters instruct, but never dishearten ; and as S9ou as he had made an advantageous peace, he was more eager than ever to carry on the work of reform. Fifty intelligent young noblemen he sent to study in foreign countries ; and, at length, he resolved to go himself to Holland, England, and Italy, to acquire a better knowledge of the mechanic arts. He was twenty-five years of age ; tall, strongly built, of fresh complexion, and of very easy, familiar manners, though in his 430 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. mieii and bearing "ever}' inch a king." Le Fort, his old tutor, and now his Lord High Admiral, accompanied him. The czar, on this occasion, travelled incognito, passing as a mere member of a grand embassy, which was composed of three ambassadors (Le Fort was one of them), four chief secretaries, twelve gen- tlemen, six pages, one company of the imperial guards, fifty in number, and several servants ; the whole cortege numbering two hundred and fifteen persons. In this company the czar was nothing but an attache, and was attended only by one valet, one footman, and a dwarf with whom he used to amuse himself. I need not dwell upon this memorable journey of a year and a half. Who does not know that the czar labored with his own hands at Amsterdam as a ship carpenter, and that he travelled over half of Europe, visiting workshops, factories, hospitals, and everything which could instruct a monarch of such a country as Russia was in 1697? He practised but one vice on this journey : he drank too much wine at dinner. His regular allowance of wine was two bottles, and he often went beyond even that enormous quantity. One day, after a dinner of unusual excess, he fell into a dispute with Admiral Le Fort, and was so transported with fury, that he rushed upon him sword in hand. Le Fort, with admirable self-possession, bared his bosom to the stroke, and stood motionless to receive it. The czar, drunk as he was, was recalled to himself by this action, put up his sword, and, as soon as he was a little sobered, publicly asked Le Fort's pardon for his violence. "I am trying," said he, "to reform my country, and I am not yet able to reform myself." While he was pursuing his studies in Italy, he was suddenly called home by the news that the militia and the old tories of Russia, incited thereto by Sophia and the more superstitious of the priests, had risen in revolt. He seized the occasion to break up the system. He executed, it is said, not less than fifteen hundred of the conspirators, and his authority was never again disputed, nor his labors interrupted by civil commotion. The greatest of all his difficulties, from the beginning to the end of his reign, was to reconcile his subjects to innovation, PETER THE GREAT. 431 and make them hearty co-operators with him in civilizing the country. In Russia, as in every country on earth, there were two parties : those who wish things to remain as they are, and those who favor improvements. The former venerate the past, and believe in the wisdom of forefathers ; the latter press hope-- fully on toward the future, and think the people of to-day are wiser and better than the people of a hundred years ago. These two parties are called by different names in different ages, but they always exist. They have been styled, in this country, whigs and tories, democrats and federalists, radicals and con- servatives. Peter the Great was the most decided radical that ever ruled a country, and he had against him a large number of the higher priests and the elderly noblemen, as well as a great multitude of the ignorant arid superstitious. There was a good deal of fun in the composition of this illus- tiious patriot, and he turned it to good use sometimes in throwing lidicule upon the ancient usages. One cold day, in the winter of 1703, he invited all his court and nobility to attend the wedding of one of his buffoons ; and he was very particular that the old fogies of the empire should be present. He gave notice that this wedding was to be celebrated according to the "usages of our ancestors," and that every one must come dressed in the manner of the sixteenth century. Accordingly, all the guests appeared in long, flowing, Asiatic robes of the ancient Russians, to the merriment of the whole court. It was an ancient custom that on a wedding-day no fire should be kindled in the house ; and, therefore, the palace was as cold as mortal flesh could bear. " Our ancestors " drank only brandy, and so on this day not a drop of any milder liquor was allowed. All the barbarous and indecent customs formerly in vogue at weddings were revived for this occasion, and when any one objected or complained, the czar would reply, laughing : " Our ancestors did so ! Are not the ancient customs always the best?" This ridiculous fete, it is said, had much to do in bringing the old usages into discredit, and reconciling timid people to the new ways introduced by the czar. This great monarch died in 1725, aged fifty-three years. To 432 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. the last days of his existence he toiled for his country. He had a violent temper ; he was too fond of the pleasures of the table; and, on some occasions, he was more severe in his pun- ishments than Avould now be permitted or necessary. I have, however, the decided impression that the accounts we have of this feature of his reign are exaggerated, and that he was a better man than we have been taught to believe. The Russian language being the most difficult and unattractive one spoken in Europe, no competent person has ever yet studied the history of Russia in its sources ; and the little w r e know of it comes to us distorted or diluted through writers who never read a Russian book nor trod Russian soil. I advise readers to regard the so- called Histories of Russia with a good deal of incredulity, especially the chapters which represent Peter the Great as a bloody and cruel tyrant. CHARLES XII. 433 CHARLES XII. CHAHLES XII., born in 1682, was a boy of fifteen, when the ileath of his father made him King of Sweden. His mother had died some years before. According to the ancient laws of the kingdom, he had a right to reign at the age of fifteen ; but his father; who was a very self-willed and despotic monarch, ordered in his will that he should not exercise authority until he was eighteen, and that until then his grandmother should be the regent. Charles was a soldier almost from his infancy. At seven he could ride the most spirited horse, and, during all his boyhood, he took pleasure in those violent out-of-door exercises which harden and strengthen the constitution. He was exceedingly obstinate, and, like most obstinate people, was sometimes led by the nose. For example : He would not learn Latin ; but when he was artfully told that the King of Denmark and the King of Poland knew that language well, he threw himself into the study of it with great energy, and became a very good scholar. Having read a Latin life of Alexander, some one asked him what he thought of that conqueror. "I think," said he, "that I should like to resemble him." "But," said his tutor, "Alexander lived only thirty-two years." " Ah," replied the prince ; " and is not that enough when one has conquered kingdoms ? " When his father heard of this reply, he said : M Here is a boy who will make a better king than I am, and who will go farther even than Gustavus the Great." One day he stood looking at a map of a province of Hungary which had recently been wrested from the Emperor of Austria 28 434: PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. by the Turks! At the bottom of this map some satirical person had written in French the well-known words of Job : " The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away : blessed be the name of the Lord." Now, this was a pretty good joke in French, because the French word for Lord is Seigneur, and it was common at that time to call the Sultan of Turkey the " Grand Seigneur. " Next to this map hung one of Livonia, a province conquered by Sweden a hundred years before. At the bottom of this map the young prince wrote : " God gave it me ; the Devil shall not get it away." After the death of his father, concealing whatever resentment he may have felt at being left under the tutelage of a grand- mother, he passed all his time in hunting, in martial exercises, and in reviewing the troops. One day, when his father had been dead six months, and he was not quite sixteen years of age, he was observed to ride home from a grand review in a very thoughtful mood, and one of his nobles asked him what was the subject of his revery. " I am thinking," replied the boy-king, " that I feel myself worthy to command those brave soldiers, and that I do not like that either they or I should receive orders from a woman." The courtier to whom this was said jumped at the opportu- nity to make his fortune. He urged the king to terminate his minority, and offered his services in making the arrangements necessary. The king consenting, it was not difficult to gain over the ministers, the nobles, and the officers of the army. Without bloodshed or any kind of disturbance the revolution was accomplished, and in three days after the forming of the plan the regent was consigned to private life, and Charles XII. was the reigning King of Sweden. At the ceremony of the coronation, a few weeks after, just as the archbishop was about to place the crown upon the royal head, Charles took it out of his hands, and placed it himself upon his head. The adroit courtier who had aided him in getting the crown he ennobled and made him his prime minister. No one, it appears, expected much of this youthful monarch. He had no vices, it is true ; he neither drank, nor gormandized. CHARLES XII. 435 nor gambled. A Spartan soldier was not more temperate, nor more hardy, nor more chaste than he. But he was haughty, re- served, and obstinate, and seemed to care for nothing but hunt- ing and the drilling of his troops. The ambassadors residing at his court wrote home to their masters that this new king was stupid, and was not likely ever to be formidable to his neigh- bors. His own subjects, seeing that he did nothing but hunt and attend parades, considered him inferior to his ancestors. Old Dr. Franklin used to say that if a man makes a sheep of himself, the wolves will eat him. Not less true is it, that if a man is generally supposed to be a sheep, wolves will be very likely to try and eat him. Three kings, neighbors and allies of Charles, hearing on all hands that the young king was a fool, and knowing that he was only a boy in years, concluded that it would be an excellent time to satisfy some ancient grudges against Sweden, and to wrest a few provinces from its territory. The King of Den- mark was one of these good neighbors and allies ; another was the King of Poland ; the third and most powerful was Peter the Great, Czar of all the Russias. Under various pretexts, these three kings were manning ships or raising troops for the same object, the spoliation of the heritage of Sweden's youthful king. Sweden was alarmed. Her old generals were dead, her armies were unused to war, and her king was thought to be a boy, ignorant, self-willed, and incapable. The council met to con- sider the situation, the king presiding. The aged councillors advised that efforts should be made to divert or postpone the storm by negotiation. When the old men had spoken, the king rose and said : " Gentlemen, I have resolved never to make an unjust war, but never to finish a just one except by the destruction of my enemies. My resolution is taken. The first who declares him- self, I shall go and attack, and when I have conquered him, I hope to make the others a little afraid of me." There was something in the manner of the king which in 436 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. spired confidence, and the councillois departed to enter with spirit into the preparations of war. The kingdom was instantly put upon a war footing. The king laid aside his gay costumes and wore only the uniform of a Swedish general. The luxuries of the table were banished from his abode, and he partook only of soldier's fare. Submitting himself to the strictest discipline, he imposed the same upon his troops, and soon he had an army of soldiers in the highest state of efficiency. It is said that from this time to the end of his life he never tasted wine, nor indulged in any kind of vicious pleasure whatever. He was a soldier, and nothing but a soldier. Two years passed after the first alarm before the storm burst. The year 1700 came in, which was the eighteenth year of the life of Charles XII. As he was out bear-hunting one day in the spring of that year, the news was brought to him that Den- mark had begun the war by invading his province of Livonia. He was ready. Having previously provided for that antici- pated invasion, he harried an army on board a fleet, and struck at once for the heart of Denmark, Copenhagen. Not many days elapsed after the interruption of his bear-hunt, before he had a fleet blockading the port of Copenhagen, and an army thundering at its gates. " What is that whistling noise I hear overhead ? " asked the king, as he was disembarking on the Danish shore. "It is the musket-balls, sire," said an officer. " Good ! " said the king ; " that shall be my music hence- forth." Such were the rapidity and success of the king, that in six weeks after landing on Danish soil the war was ended, and a treaty concluded which conceded to the King of Sweden every- thing he asked. Meanwhile, the King of Poland was besieging Riga (which was then a Swedish city) , and the czar was leading a host of a hundred thousand undisciplined barbarians against the young conqueror. Charles left the defence of Riga to a valiant old Swedish general, who succeeded in holding it, and marched himself to meet the czar with twenty thousand troops. Nevei was victory more sudden, more easy, or more complete than that CHARLES XII. 437 which these twenty thousand Swedes won over the great mob of Russians led by Peter. The czar escaped with but forty thousand men. From that defeat the military greatness of Russia was born. " I know well," said the czar, as he was in retreat, w that these Swedes will beat us for a long time ; but, at last, they will teach us how to conquer." And so it proved ; for, from that day, Peter began the mighty work of drilling his half-savage hordes into soldiers, a work which is still going on, though great progress has been made in it. The Russian people attributed their defeat to sorcery and witchcraft, and we have still the prayer which was addressed to St. Nicholas on this occasion in all their churches. It was as follows : "O thouwho art our perpetual consoler in all our adversities, great Saint Nicholas, infinitely powerful by what sin have we offended thee in our sacrifices, our homage, our salutations, our penances, that thou hast abandoned us ? We implore thy assist- ance against these terrible, insolent, enraged, frightful, uncon- querable destroyers ; and yet, like lions and bears robbed of their young, they have attacked, terrified, wounded, killed by thousands, us who are thy people. As this could not have happened except by enchantment and sorcery, we pray thee, O great St. Nicholas, to be our champion and our standard-bearer, to deliver us from this crowd of sorcerers, and to drive them from our frontiers with the recompense due to them." Charles had no sooner scattered the Russian hosts than ho turned his attention to Poland. Partly by artifice and partly by victories, he, at length, dethroned the King of Poland, and caused to be elected in his stead Stanislas, a young gentleman to whom he had chanced to take a fancy. These things, how- ever, were not done in a campaign. From the time of his leaving Sweden, in May, 1700, to the complete subjection of Poland, was a period of seven years ; during which Charles and his men lived upon the country and saved vast sums of money. If Charles had then gone home, as his generals advised and 438 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. his troops desired, he might have lived in peace, and raised his country to a high rank among the powers of Europe. Puffed up by a long series of easy victories, he believed all things pos- sible to him ; so he had resolved to do to the czar what he had done to the Polish king, drive him from his throne. But all this time Peter had been creating an army. Deep in the wil- dernesses of Ukraine, the Swedish troops, weakened by hunger, fatigue and disease, encountered the trained soldiers of the czar. The Russians were more than victorious. The Swedish army was utterly destroyed, and the king, badly wounded, was com- pelled to fly, with a handful of followers, and seek refuge in Turkey. He lost in a day the fruits of seven years of victory, troops, treasures, glory, all were gone, and he himself was a fugitive and a beggar. No subsequent efforts could restore his fortunes. For two years he remained in Turkey, half prisoner, half guest. All his enemies rose upon him. The King of Poland regained his throne, Denmark invaded his dominions, and the czar prepared for new victories. Escaping, at length, Charles returned to Sweden, and was carrying on the war against his enemies, when a chance shot terminated his career. This occurred in Decem- ber, 1718, when he was but thirty-six years of age. He was laying siege, at the time, to one of the Danish strongholds, and, going his rounds one evening at nine, he leaned over an angle of a battery, when a ball, weighing half a pound, entered his temple, and he fell dead upon the parapet. One of his officers said, as he threw a cloak over the body : " The play is over ; let us go to supper." The Swedes, happily delivered from this terrible scourge, hastened to make peace with all their enemies, and elected as their queen the sister of Charles XII., whom they compelled to renounce all right to bequeath the crown to her issue. The Swedes had had enough of arbitrary power ; and they succeeded in controlling the power of their kings to such a degree that their monarchy was, for the next seventy years, the most lim- ited in Europe. MAZEPPA. MAZEPPA. IN the year 1706, when Charles XII., King of Sweden, still in the full tide of successful warfare, had led his victorious troops into the heart of Kussia, he received secret overtures from the Governor of Ukraine, a province in the south-eastern part of Europe. Ukraine belonged to Russia, though it still enjoyed the right of electing its prince, subject to the confirma- tion of the czar. Its inhabitants were warlike and semi- barbarous, who were subject to the czar in little more than name ; nor to their own elected prince did they render any more obedience than a Tartar tribe usually pays to its chief. The Ukraine prince, who met the young King of Sweden in the forest on the banks of the Desna, engaged to furnish the king with thirty thousand troops, provisions for the Swedish army, and a large amount of treasure, the accumulation of thirty years, on condition that, at the end of the war against the czar, Ukraine should be an independent State. Charles accepted the condition, and the treaty was concluded. The name of this powerful Ukraine chief was Ivan Stepano- vitch Mazeppa. Civilized Europe first learned his name, and something of his strange history, through Voltaire, who heard the particulars from one of Charles' officers, and gave them to the public in his celebrated Life of Charles XII. Lord Byron, struck with the romantic story, as related by Voltaire, made it the subject of a poem, and it has since been performed as a drama in all countries. But for the chance meeting in London, in 1726, of Voltaire and one of the mad King of Sweden's followers, the name of Mazeppa, in all probability, had never been known beyond the confines of Russia. Mazeppa was fifty- two years of age when he first met Charles XII. The romantic 440 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. events which form the subject of Byron's poem took pla<} when he was a youthful page at the court of the King of Poland, and it is quite likely (as Byron supposes) that he related them him- self to the King of Sweden. Mazeppa, though he ruled a barbarous people, was not him- self a barbarian. He was born in 1644, in Poland; and was therefore not a born subject of the czar. He was descended, however, from a noble Russian family, which was transported to Poland by a chance of war fifty years before Mazeppa was born. His grandfather, a colonel in the Russian army, was carried away captive in 1597 by the Poles, with all his family, and was roasted alive in the belly of a copper bull, according to a pleasant custom of the country. His family remained in Poland, and flourished ; so that the grandson of the roasted colonel vvas well educated in a Jesuit college, and was trans- ferred thence to the court of the king, where he served as page. Voltaire says he had only a "tincture of literature" (quelque teinture des belles-lettres}, but more recent French authorities aver that he was as familiar with Latin as with Polish, and that, he was a really accomplished man in literature. All agree, however, that he was one of the most handsome, well-formed, graceful, fascinating pages that ever adorned a court, skilled, too, in all martial arts and exercises, and inured to hardship and fatigue. Thus endowed, he was naturally a favorite with the ladies of the court, and he passed much of his time in what were then styled "gallant intrigues," but which we call by a much more correct and descriptive name. Among those to whom he was attached was a Polish nobleman's young and lovely wife, whose "Asiatic eye " Byron describes in a passage that has been a thousand times quoted : " All love, half languor and half fire, Like saints that at the stake expire, And lift their raptured looks on high, As though it were a joy to die." The injured husband, having surprised these lawless lovers, Wreaked upon Mazeppa a vengeance at once terrible and unique MAZEPPA. Having caused him to be stripped naked, he had him smeared with tar from head to foot, and then rolled in down ; or, as we should say, he had him tarred and feathered. This part of the penalty both Voltaire and Byron omit. As far as I know, Ma- zeppa was the first man recorded in history who suffered this ignominious punishment, which many people suppose to be an American invention. The enraged Pole next ordered a wild horse to be brought, " a Tartar of the Ukraine breed," upon which Mazeppa was bound, and the horse was let go : " Away ! away my breath was gone I saw not where he hurried on. 'Twas scarcely yet the break of day, And on he foamed away ! away ! " To speak in plain prose, this horse, having been bred in Ukraine, fled toward that province, and galloped about two hundred miles with Mazeppa before he dropped dead under his burthen. Mazeppa, too, became insensible, just as a troop of wolves seemed about to close in and devour both horse and rider. When he returned to consciousness, he found himself stretched upon a coarse bed in a woodman's cottage, waited upon by the woodman's daughter, whom Byron, of course, represents to have been one of the loveliest of her sex : " A slender girl, long-haired and tall." Attended by this beautiful Cossack girl and her respectable parents Mazeppa soon regained his health, and won every heart by his gayety, courage, and dexterity. Joining the Cossack army, he advanced rapidly, until he became the most popular and powerful of the Cossack chiefs. Tradition reports that he made his way to chieftainship by acts of treachery and cruelty, destroying the men by whose aid he had begun to climb. This, however, is mere tradition, and it comes to us through his enemies, the Russians. Elected, at length, Governor of Ukraine, his election was confirmed by the czar, Peter the Great, and he repaired, some time after, to the court of that fiery potentate. Peter, whom Mazeppa, with his troops, had ably served in the conquest of the Crimea, received him with great consideration. 442 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. decorated him with orders, and admitted him at length to per. feet intimacy. One day (so the story goes) when Mazeppa was dining with the czar at Moscow, and the irascible Peter had drunk too much wine,- as he did every day, the conversa- tion turned upon the affairs of Ukraine, in the course of which the czar said he meant to send an army there, and formally annex the province to Russia. Supposing Mazeppa to be in heart and soul a Russian, he was surprised to observe that this announcement of a cherished purpose was unpleasing to him. Mazeppa, it is said, proceeded from gentle remonstrance to em- phatic and even menacing objection. He reminded the czar that the essential independence of Ukraine was secured b}- treaties, and he declared that if an attempt should ever be made to deprive the Cossacks of their ancient liberties, he, their governor, would know how to defend them. At this the czar flew into one of his tearing passions. Start- ing up from his seat, he rushed upon Mazeppa, seized him by the beard, and tore out a handful of his mustache. Mazeppa, indignant as he was, was still sufficiently master of himself not to offer resistance to the infuriate monarch. Peter thought no more of the affair, but Mazeppa cherished in his heart a deep and active resentment, which he bore back with him to his province. Before many years had elapsed, Charles XII. came thundering through that part of Europe, his darling object being the dethronement of the czar, and Mazeppa thought he saw in that young conqueror, who had never yet been defeated, the means of securing the independence of his. country and the gratification of his vengeance. His offers were, promptly ac- cepted. He soon after met the King of Sweden, and they became fast friends. The Russian historians, in their endeavors to blacken the char- acter of Mazeppa, relate this anecdote, which Voltaire borrows from them. Having concluded his treaty with Charles XII., he invited a number of chiefs to his house to bring them over to consent to the alliance. When they were all drunk, Mazeppa easily got them to swear upon the gospels that they would fur- nish men and food to the King of Sweden. At the end of the debauch, the chiefs carried away all the silver vessels and MAZETPA. 443 portable furniture of the room. Mazeppa's butler ran after them, and took the liberty to remark that their conduct was not in accordance with the gospels upon which they had just sworn. The servants also came up and attempted to recover their master's property. The Cossack chiefs marched back in a body to complain to Mazeppa of this unheard-of affront, and demanded that the offending butler should be delivered up to them. Mazeppa, say the Russians, had the unspeakable baseness to surrender his faithful servant, whereupon the chiefs divided themselves into two parties, and tossed the poor butler back and forth like a ball, till they were tired, when one of them drove his knife through his heart. Having cast in his lot with Charles XII., Mazeppa shared his fate. The czar utterly defeated the rash young king, who was compelled to seek refuge in Turkey, with Mazeppa and a few faithful followers. Turkey, being then submissive to the czar, the fugitives soon found that their refuge was a prison. The czar peremptorily demanded the surrender of Mazeppa, whom he claimed as his vassal. While the Turkish government was hesitating whether or not to comply with this haughty demand, Mazeppa died, as it is supposed, by his own hand. Charles XII. was faithful to his ally to the last, and did all that was possible, in his situation, to protect him from the czar's ven- geance. Mazeppa died at Bender, in Turkey (now in Russia), in 1709, aged sixty-five. 444 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. DEATH OF LOUIS XIV. How much easier it is to die well than it is to live well I And how absurd it is to judge of a person's character by the way in which he spends the closing hours of his life ! Some very great sinners have died in the most edifying manner, while some of the most eminently virtuous persons that have ever given a good example to their species have started back in affright at the approach of their last hour, and died in gloom. Such were my reflections the other day, upon reading in an old French book an account of the death of Louis XIV., who was King of France from 1643 to 1715, a period of seventy- two years. He had been proud, arrogant, selfish, licentious, extravagant, and cruel. He had wasted his kingdom in unjust wars and profuse living ; he had driven from their homes and country the best of his subjects, the Huguenots ; he had in- stalled his mistresses at court, and raised their children to the rank of legitimate princes ; and the only palliation of bis crimes was that he had been allowed to grow up in the greatest igno- rance. Yet he died as calmly as a saint. It was August 9, 1715, the seventy-seventh year of the king's life. Debilitated by age and disease, the king on that day en- joyed for the last time the pleasures of the chase, but was obliged to follow the stag in a kind of gig, which he drove him- self. Two days after, which was Sunday, he held his council as usual, and afterwards walked in the garden. He came in exhausted, and he never again was out of doors alive. During the next few days he grew daily weaker, and, at length, took to his bed ; where, however, he continued to transact business with his ministers every day. A grand review had been ordered for the 23d of August, at which the king was so desirous of pre- DEATH OF LOUIS XIV. 445 siding, that he caused a bed to be prepared, upon which he meant to lie and witness the evolutions of the troops. Finding that he could not support the fatigue, it was necessary for him to select some one to represent him. He passed by all the legitimate princes, and named for this duty his illegitimate son, the Due de Maine. On the 25th of August, at seven in the evening, as the musicians of the court were assembling in the saloon where the king was reclining, for the usual evening concert, he became suddenly worse, and the doctors in attendance were summoned. They pronounced him near his end, and advised that the ex- treme unction should be administered to him. The musicians were dismissed, and the priests were sent for, who received the king's confession, gave him absolution, and administered the communion to him. This ceremony being concluded at eleven in the evening, the king called to his bedside the Due d'Or- leans, his nephew (great grandfather of Louis Philippe, the last king of the French), by whom the kingdom was to be ruled during the minority of the heir to the throne, the king's grandson, a boy of five and a half years. He recommended the young king to his protecting care, and said : " If he should not live, you will be the master, and the crown will belong to you. I have made the dispositions which I deemed wisest ; but as no one can foresee everything, if there is anything not ordered for the best, let it be changed." The next day, having summoned around him the cardinals and priests, whose advice he had been most accustomed to fol- low in all affairs relating to the church, he said to them : "I die in the faith of, and in submission to, the church. I am not learned in the matters which trouble its peace ; I have merely followed your counsels. Having done only what you advised, if I have done ill, you will answer for it before God, whom I call to witness." The priests replied by the usual fulsome eulogiums upon his conduct, in the expulsion of the protestants and the persecution of the Jansenists (the Calvinists of Catholicism) ; " for," says the author before me, "he was destined to be praised to the last moment of his life." 446 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. Soon after, the dying monarch caused to be brought to his bedside the infant heir to the crown, known afterwards as Louis XV., a worse man than Louis XIV., and almost as bad a king. The words uttered by the king to him, on this occasion, were afterwards engraved, framed, and hung np in the royal bed- room, above the place where the young king knelt to say his prayers. They remained there during the whole reign of Louis XV., which lasted fifty-nine years. They were as follows : "My dear child, you are going immediately to be the mon- arch of a great kingdom. What I recommend to you, above all, is, never to forget the obligations under which you rest to God. Bear in mind that to him you owe all that you are. "Try to preserve the peace with your neighbors. "I have loved war too much. Do not imitate me in that, any more than in my too great expenditures. " Take counsel in all things. Try hard to know what is the best course, and follow it always. "Relieve your people from their privations as soon as you can, and do for them what I have been so unhappy as not to be able, to do. "Never forget what you owe to Madame de Veutadour" (his governess). Then, turning toward Madame de Ventadour, he said : " For my part, madame, I am very sorry to be no longer in a condition to testify my gratitude to you." Speaking again to the little prince, and kissing him twice, he said : " With my whole heart, my dear child, I give you my blessing." At this moment the king was so deeply moved that the Duch- ess de Ventadour thought it best to draw the prince away, and took him out of the room. The king then addressed a few words to each of his children and grandchildren, and to each of his principal servants, thanking them for their fidelity, and ask- ing them to be as faithful to his grandson as they had been to him. In the afternoon of the same day he called arouiid his bedside all the lords of his court, and addressed them thus : w Gentlemen, I ask your pardon for the bad example I have DEATH OF LOUIS XIV. given you. I have a great deal to thank you for in the manner in which you have served me, as well as for the attachment and fidelity you have shown me. I am very sorry not to have done for you all that I could have wished. I ask for my grandson the same application and fidelity that you have had for me. I hope you will all strive to live in union, and if any one departs from this course, that you will endeavor to bring him back to it. I feel that I am too much agitated, and that I move you also. Pray, forgive me. Farewell, gentlemen. I count upon your thinking of me sometimes." The next day, being still in perfect possession of his faculties, he passed some time in burning papers, and he gave orders that, after his death, his heart should be placed in the chapel of the Jesuits, opposite to the spot where had been deposited the heart of his father, Louis XIII. He surprised the court by occasion- ally speaking of his grandson as "the young king" and by say- ing, M when I was king," as though his reign had already ended. To his mistress, or, rather, to his wife (for he had secretly married her some time before) , he said : "I have always heard say that dying is difficult. I am ueai my last hour, yet I do not find it so painful to give up life." The lady replied, that only those persons found death appall- ing who were attached to the world, or who had committed wrongs. The king said : " As a human being, I have wronged no one ; and as to the injuries I have done my kingdom, I hope in the mercy of God. I have made a full confession, and my confessor assures me that I may confidently trust in God for forgiveness ; and such is my trust." Seeing two of his servants crying at the foot of his bed, he said : . " Why do you weep ? Did you think I should live forever ? My age ought to have prepared you for my death." Then, turning to his wife, Madame de Maintenon, he added : " What consoles me at leaving you, is the hope that we shall rejoin one another in eternity." She made no reply to this ; but, as she turned to leave the room, a few moments after, she was overheard to say to herself- 448 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGKAPHY. " What a rendezvous he gives me ! This man has never loved anybody but himself." Madame de Maintenon, in fact, was thoroughly tired of hei exacting old lover, and naturally shrank from the fearful pros- pect of spending an eternity with him. A quack doctor, who pretended to have an "elixir" that would do anything except raise the dead, was allowed to give the dying king a dose or two of his compound. The first dose appeared to revive him, but only for a moment. As he was about to take the second, he said : "For life or for death, just as it pleases God ! " From the time the king had taken to his bed, the courtiers paid more and more attention to the Due d'Orleans, who would be the ruler of France the moment the breath was out of the old king's body. He had apartments in the palace in which the king lay dying, and it was said at the time that the state of the king's health could be ascertained by the number of persons that paid their court to the future regent. If the king drooped, the apartments of the Due d'Orleans were thronged with court- iers ; if the king revived, it was the king's chamber and ante- chambers that were crowded. One day, when the king was so much better that it was thought he would recover, the Due d'Orleans was left almost alone ; but the next day, when the king, was very much worse, his apartments were overflowing with people from morning till night. On the last day of August it was evident that the king could not survive many hours. Once more the priests gathered around his bed, and said the prayers appointed for the dying. The king made the responses with a strong voice, and, recog- nizing one of the cardinals, he said to him : "These are the last favors of the church." In his dying struggles, he said many times : " My God, come to my aid ; make haste to succor me 1 " On Sunday morning, September 1st, at a quarter past eight, the king breathed his last, and the whole, crowd of courtiers gathered round the new dispenser of favors, the regent of the kingdom. All France breathed more freely, when it was re- lieved from the incubus of this proud, ignorant, and superstitious DEATH OF LOUIS XIV. 449 monarch. Powerful as he had been while living, his will was totally disregarded after his death, and his body was borne to the tomb amid the unconcealed joy of the people. If any one wishes to know what a barbarism the institution of monarchy is, let him study the reign and character of Louis XIV., with- out, however, attaching the slightest importance to his tranquil and pious death. I recommend this study especially to those who have been reading lately the glorification of monarchy contained in Mr. Carlyle's Life of Frederick II., King of Prussia. 29 450 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. JOHN LAW. JOHN LAW, born in 1671, the son of an Edinburgh goldsmith, made, perhaps, as much noise and stir in this worM as any man that ever lived in it. His father, dying when the boy was four- teen, left him an independent fortune, into possession of which he came when he was twenty-one. He was a young man of extraordinary beauty, grace, and agility. Manly exercises had nobly developed his frame, his mind had been nurtured in the best schools of his country, and his manners formed in the higher circles of Edinburgh. Handsome, accomplished, and rich, his knowledge was more showy than sound, and his morals were French rather than Scotch. A goldsmith, in old times, was also a money-changer and broker. Young Law was early accustomed to hear money ques- tions discussed among his father's friends, and was observed to take an interest in such subjects unusual in a youth. He could talk very fluently about the currency ; and when, soon after com- ing of age, he was living a gay life in London, the subject uni- versally talked of was the scheme of establishing the institution now known as the Bank of England. From these causes, as well as from the original bent of his mind, the favorite theme of thought and conversation with him was finance. Neverthe- less, he knew little about the matter. He was a quick, cool calculator, much better fitted to shine at the card-table than in the treasury of a nation. While living the life of a man of fashion in London he killed a gentleman in a duel, for which he was tried as a murderer and sentenced to death. He was pardoned by the king, and went upon the continent. Roaming about among the capitals of Eu- rope, extravagant and licentious, he soon wasted his fortune, and JOHN LAW. 451 resorted to gambling to repair it. High play was then the reign- ing pleasure of society in every country in Europe. Louis XIV. was not displeased when he heard that the Portuguese Ambassa- dor had won eighteen hundred thousand francs of his niece in a single night. High play, he thought, became a princess of the royal house of France, and he was willing Europe should know on what a scale of grandeur gambling was done at his court. John Law, cool, adroit, calculating, found the careless nobles of the time an easy prey. A stout footman preceded him to the houses of his antagonists, carrying two heavy bags of gold, and the servant usually had a heavier load to carry home than the one he brought. In the course of a few years, besides living like a prince, he could produce in ready money a sum equal in our currency to a million dollars. Indeed, such was his success, that he was suspected of cheating, and, at last, few ventured to play with him. Tired of this wandering existence, he returned to Scotland, where he renewed his former studies in finance, upon which he published a treatise, entitled " Considerations upon Money and Commerce." Paper money was his favorite branch of financial science. He proposed the establishment of a Bank of Scotland, the credit of which should be founded upon the landed estates of its stockholders, which estates should be pledged to the re- demption of its notes. His idea was, that since money is of no value in itself, but only a representative of value, paper money is as good as gold, provided you can only make people think so. The canny Scotch people, however, did not fancy the scheme, and Law resumed his vagabond life. Toward the close of the reign of Louis XIV. he came to Paris, where he won such enormous sums at the game then called "pharao," that the lieutenant of police ordered him to leave the city, alleging for a reason that he " understood the game he had introduced too well." He obeyed the order, but not before he had made an ineffaceable impression upon the mind of the Due d 'Orleans, nephew of the old king, and about to be regent of the kingdom. Law's brilliant and shallow talk upon finance, aided by the graceful wickedness of his life, captivated the ignorant, rash, and dissolute prince. The Due 452 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. d'Orleans was not in favor with the king, and he could not save Law from expulsion ; but he retained the conviction that if there was a man in the world who understood the science of mouej^, that man was John Law. The extravagant old king died in 1715, leaving the finances of the kingdom in inconceivable disorder, a thousand times worse than the finances of the United States at the close of the revolu- tionary war. An anecdote of the last year of Louis XIV. will show to what miserable expedients the king's ministers were reduced. The king wished to give one more of his great festivals at Versailles, and ordered his minister of finance to provide the money, four millions of francs. The treasury was empty, and the credit of the government was gone. A royal bond of one hundred francs was worth thirty-five francs. One day, when the minister was pacing his ante-chamber, considering how he should raise the sum required, he perceived, through an open door, two of his servants looking over the papers on his desk. An idea darted into his mind. He drew up the scheme of a grand lottery, which he pretended was designed to pay oflTa cer- tain description of bonds. This scheme, half written out, he left upon his desk, and remained absent for a considerable time. His two lackeys were, as he supposed, employed by stock- jobbers to discover the intentions of the government with regard to the issue and redemption of its bonds. They did their work, and at once the bonds began to rise in price, and went up in a few days from thirty-five to eighty-five. When they had reached the price last named and were in active demand, the minister issued and slipped upon the market new bonds enough to furnish him with the needful four millions of francs. The trick was soon discovered, and the bonds dropped to twenty-eight. The last loan negotiated by Louis XIV. was effected at the rate of four hundred for one hundred, the government binding itself to pay four hundred francs for every one hundred received. Such were some of the evils arising from having a pompous old fool at the head of a great nation. When the king died, there was not merely an immense pub- lic debt, but that debt was iu a condition of perfect chaos. Louis JOHN LAW. 453 XIV. ha.d raued money in every conceivable way, and on all conceivable terms. He had sold annuities for one life, for two lives, for three lives, and in perpetuity. He had issued every kind of bond and promissory note which the ingenuity of his minister could devise, or the reluctance of lenders demand. There had been a very large annual deficit for fifteen successive years, which had been made up by selling offices and borrowing money. When the regent took the reins of power, he found, 1. An almost incalculable debt ; 2. Eight hundred millions of francs then due ; 3. An empty treasury. Almost every one in Paris, from princes to lackeys, who had any property at all, held the royal paper, then worth one-fourth its apparent value. What was to be done? They tried the wildest expedients. The coin was adulterated ; new bonds, similar to those we call " preferred," were issued; men, enriched by speculating upon the necessities of the government, were squeezed until they gave up their millions. If a man was very rich, and not a nobleman, it was enough ; the Bastile, the pillory, and confiscation ex- tracted from him the wherewith to supply the regent's drunken orgies, the extravagance of his mistresses, and the pay of his troops. Servants accused their masters of possessing a secret hoard, and were rewarded for their perfidy with one-half of it. Rich men, trying to escape from the kingdom with their prop- erty, were hunted down and brought back to prison and to ruin. Once they seized fourteen kegs of gold coin, hidden in fourteen pipes of wine, just as the wagons were crossing the line into Holland. One great capitalist escaped from the kingdom dis- guised as a hay-peddler, with his money hidden in his hay. The whole number of persons arrested on the charge of having more money than they wanted, was six thousand ; the number con- demned and fined was four thousand four hundred and ten, and the amount of money wrung from them was four hundred mil- lions of francs. In the midst of the consternation caused by this system of plunder, John Law, then aged forty-five years, appeared upon the scene, and soon renewed his intercourse with the regent. He told that ignorant and profligate prince that such violent measures could but aggravate the distress of the kingdom, and 454 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. still more impoverish the government. His impeturbable calm, the fluency of his discourse, the unbounded confidence he had in his own ideas, completely fascinated the Due d'Orleans, who, at length, gave up to his management the disordered finances of France. All the violent measures were suspended ; the rich men breathed freely again ; the adulteration of the coin was stopped, and nothing more was heard of the scheme, advocated by many, of a formal national bankruptcy. A bank was Law's first scheme, capital, six millions of francs, in shares of five thousand francs each ; the shares to be paid for in four instalments, one-fourth in coin, and three- fourths in royal bonds at their par value ! The regent sent an order throughout the kingdom requiring all tax-gatherers to re- ceive the notes of the bank in payment of all sums due the gov- ernment. To the bank was soon added a company, called the " Company of the West," designed to settle and trade with the French province of Louisiana. Shares in this company also were purchasable with the same royal bonds at their par value, with the addition of a small percentage in coin or bank notes. A " Guinea Company " was also started, for trading with the coast of Africa, shares in which could be bought, in part, with the king's depreciated paper at the value named upon its face. Those schemes having been launched, the next thing was to impose upon the credulity, and inflame the avarice of, the pub- lic. A large engraving was posted about Paris, exhibiting a number of Louisiana Indians running to meet a group of French- men with manifestations of joy and respect, and holding out to them pieces of gold. Underneath the picture was printed the following : "You see in this country mountains filled with gold, silver, copper, lead, and quicksilver. As these metals are very com- mon, and as the savages have no suspicion of their value, they barter pieces of gold and silver for European merchandise, such as knives, breast-pins, small mirrors, or even a little brandy." Another picture appealed to pious souls. It represented a crowd of naked savages on their knees before two Jesuit mis- sionaries, with these explanatory words : JOHN LAW. 455 "Indian idolaters imploring Christian baptism." By these and other arts John Law wrought upon the igno- rance and cupidity of the French people. Other companies were started, all upon the principle of taking a large part of the price of the shares in the depreciated paper of the government. That paper, as the mania increased, rose in value until it went far above par, and gold was actually at a discount ! From the princes of the blood royal to the washerwomen on the quays, the entire people seemed to abandon themselves to speculating in shares and bonds. Readers remember the stock-jobbing and gold speculations in New York during the last two years of the war. Such scenes, and some far more exciting, occurred in Paris while John Law was managing the finances of France. In the Wall Street, of the city, a short, narrow lane, the crowd was so dense that it was difficult to move about. Dukes and foot- men, capitalists and shop-boys, ladies of the court and servant- maids, jostled one another in their eagerness to buy the favorite share of the moment. The provinces poured into Paris tens of thousands of people eager to join in the maddening game, and the mania spread at last to all the countries of Europe. Kings and princes of distant lands bought shares in Law's delusive schemes, and in London the mania raged almost as violently as at Paris. Money was borrowed in Paris at the rate of a quarter per cent, per quarter of an hour, the lender keeping his eyes upon his watch. Desk-room was let in the vicinity of the share- market for fifty francs a day. Shares, bonds, and coin changed in value fifty times in a morning. So popular was the magician who had conjured up this state of things, that large sums were given for places where he could be seen in passing, and it was a distinction to be able to say, "I have seen John Law." A poor old cobbler, who had a little shop in the street thus suddenly invested with so much importance, cleared two hundred francs a day by letting chairs and desks, and selling pens and paper. Men made fortunes in a few days. People who were lackeys one week kept lackeys the next. Law's own coachman came to him one day and addressed him thus : "I am going to leave you, sir. Here are two young men, 4:56 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. both of whom, I answer for it, are excellent coachmen. Take your choice, and I will keep the other myself." This madness raged in Europe eight months, during which people thought the age of gold had come ; for, while hundreds of thousands appeared to gain, very few seemed to lose. The constant rise in price of shares and royal paper appeared to enrich everybody, and ruin nobody. The reaction, I need not say, was terrific. When first the sus- picion arose that all these fine fortunes were founded upon paper of fictitious value, it spread with alarming rapidity. By various adroit manoeuvres Law checked the progress of distrust, but he could only check it. The rush to "realize " grew in volume and intensity from day to day, until it became a universal panic. Paper in all its varieties fell almost to nothing, and no man reckoned anything of value except gold, silver, and real estate. Probably one hundred thousand persons in Europe were totally ruined, and a million more suffered losses. The French laugh at everything. Some wag at this time posted up the following : " Monday, I bought some shares, Tuesday, I gained ray millions, Wednesday, I re-furnished my house, Thursday, I set up a carriage, Friday, I went to a ball, And Saturday to the poor-house." John Law himself was ruined. Of all the large fortune which he had brought into France, he saved but a few thousand francs. The public indignation drove him from the post of minister, and compelled him to leave the country. He again wandered from capital to capital, supporting "himself by gambling, and died at Venice in 1729, aged fifty-eight years. GENERAL HENRY KNOX. 457 GENERAL HENRY KNOX. A CONSPICUOUS and important character, in his day, was Henry Knox, the first secretary of war of the United States under the present constitution. Born in Boston, in 1750, of Scotch-Irish parents, we catch our first glimpse of him as a boy attending the Boston Common Schools and attracting the notice of the townsmen by his handsome countenance and agreeable manners. John Adams speaks of him, in his Autobiography, as a youth whose pleasing demeanor and intelligent mind had won his regard several years before the revolutionary war. In those days the, bo} r s who resided at the North-End of Boston were in perpetual feud with those who lived at the South- End, and many a contest occurred between them on Saturday afternoons. Young Knox was of a frame so robust and power- ful, and of a spirit so undaunted and adventurous, that he became a kind of boy-generalissimo of the South-End. As a young man, too, he was still distinguished for his physical beauty and strength. It is related of him, by an early writer, that, on one occasion, in Boston, when a heavy vehicle employed in a procession broke down, young Knox placed his shoulder under the axle and carried it for some distance through the crowd. At the usual age he was apprenticed to a book- seller, and in due time had a bookstore of his own in Boston, which grew to be one of the most extensive in the province. The winning manners of the young bookseller attracted to his shop both the professors of the neighboring university and the young ladies of the city, who have always been noted for their love of reading. From the first hour of the differences between Massachusetts and the mother country, he took the side of his native land, and 458 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. was one of the earliest promoters and members of the Boston military companies, which, during the revolutionary war, fur- nished so many valuable officers to the patriot army. He belonged to an artillery company, as well as to a battalion of Grenadiers, which was greatly renowned at the time for the excellence of its discipline. To the Boston of that day it was what the Seventh Regiment now is to New York. Having access to books, the young man made a considerable collection of military works, which he not only read himself, but distrib- uted among his fellow-soldiers. No young man of his day, perhaps, contributed more to the cultivation of a military spirit and to the accumulation of military knowledge, among the young men of Boston, than Henry Knox. Far, however, was he from supposing, when he first went out to drill upon Boston Common, that the first use he would make of his military science would be to contend in "arms against the troops of his king. Among the young ladies who came to his store to buy books was the beautiful daughter of a high official under the royal government. She was pleased with the handsome young book- seller, who, in his turn, was completely captivated by her. The parents of the young lady, being in full sympathy with the Tory administration, placed such obstacles in the way of the union of these young people, that their marriage was at last effected by an expedient that differed little from a downright elopement. Her friends, it is said, regarded her as a disgraced woman, since she had allied herself with a man who adhered to a cause which, they thought, implied social as well as moral degradation. Mrs. Knox may sometimes have smiled at the recollection of this when, as the wife of a cabinet minister and distinguished general, she was a centre of attraction in the most refined and elegant circle at the seat of government. The war began. A continental army gathered around Boston, and the first conflict between it and the British troops had occurred. On a fine morning in June, 1775, a few days before the battle of Bunker Hill, Henry Knox, being then twenty-five years of age, shut his shop for the last time, and prepared to join the forces under General Washington. The GENEKAL HENRY KNOX. 459 British commander had issued an order that no one should take arms out of the city. Being resolved, however, to take his sword with him, his wife concealed it in her garments, and the two walked together out of the city, and succeeded in escaping *;he observation of the British outposts. Before another week had elapsed, Mrs. Knox was safe in the country, and her hus- band was assisting to defend Bunker Hill, as a volunteer aide- de-camp to the general in command. His services just then were of the greatest value, since he was one of the very few men in camp who had informed themselves respecting the mode of constructing field-works. He also understood the handling of artillery. Washington's attention was soon drawn to him, and he was immediately employed in the construction of the system of works by which Boston was gradually enclosed, and its gar- rison at length compelled to put to sea. We find him, next, elected to the command of a company of artillery, not only by the unanimous vote of the men, but with the cordial consent of its former captain, who felt himself too old for active service. Being thus in command of an artillery company, his first care was to get artillery for it, a task of considerable difficulty in a country destitute of the means of making cannon. The first exploit, which drew upon him the attention and the applause of the whole army, was his getting a supply of cannon from Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain. In the dead of winter he travelled through the wilderness to this celebrated fort, and there prepared a long train of sleds and gathered a drove of oxen. He returned to camp in 1776, with fifty pieces of ordnance on sleds, all drawn by oxen, and thus furnished the means of arming the field-works which he had assisted to con- struct. Great was the joy of the army upon the arrival of this train, and Captain Knox was the lion of the hour. John Adams mentions, in his diary, being taken to see the pieces, and he evidently felt all the value of the acquisition, as well as the gallantry of his young friend to whom it was due. When the British troops had abandoned Boston, and New York became the scene of warfare, Captain Knox performed similar services in defending the new position. During the operations on Long Island and the subsequent retreat from New 400 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. York, he commanded all the artillery of the army, and was one of the very last officers to leave the city. He remained, indeed, so long as to be left in the rear of the British troops, and he escaped being taken prisoner only by going to the river, seizing a boat, and rowing along the shore as far as Harlem. His comrades had given him up for lost. When he came into view he was welcomed with cheers, and General Washington gave him an old-fashioned embrace. He had one excellent quality of an artillery officer, a voice of stentorian power. When General Washington crossed the Delaware, Colonel Knox, it is said, was of the greatest assistance from the fact that his orders could be heard from one side of the river to the other. He continued to serve, with zeal and ability, during the whole war. He was known in the army as one of General Washington's special adherents and partisans, and the com- mander-in-chief, on more than one occasion, interposed his authority in behalf of General Knox. When, for example, it was proposed to place the artillery in command of a French general, Washington gave so high a character, as an artillerist, to General Knox, that the scheme was frustrated. Mr. Adams relates an incident which shows that Knox was equally solicitous for the reputation of his chief. " The news of my appointment to France," says Mr. Adams, "was whispered about, and General Knox came up to dine with me at Braintree. The design of his visit was, as I soon per- ceived, to sound me in relation to General Washington. He asked me what ray opinion of him was. I answered, with the utmost 'frankness, that I thought him a perfectly honest man, with an amiable and excellent heart, and the most important character at that time among us ; for he was the centre of our Union. He asked the question, he said, because, as I was going to Europe, it was of importance that the general's character should be supported in other countries. I replied, that he might be perfectly at his ease on the subject, for he might depend upon it that, both from principle and affection, public and private, I should do my utmost to support his character at all times and in all places, unless something should happen very greatly to alter my opinion of him." GENERAL HENRY KNOX. 461 To sum lip the services of General Knox in the Revolution, it is only necessary to say that, at every important engagement and during every important operation, directed by the com- mander-in-chief in person, General Knox performed, perfectly to his general's satisfaction, the duties devolving upon the chief of artillery. From the siege of Boston, where he not only directed but provided the artillery, to the siege of Yorktown, where, said Washington, " the resources of his genius supplied the defect of means," Knox was always present, active, and skilful. The war over, he was ordered to the command of West Point, and it was he who directed the disbandment of the troops. He has the credit, as he once had the discredit, of suggesting the Society of the Cincinnati, and the first outline of its organization is still preserved in his own handwriting. Upon the evacuation of New York, he rode by Washington's side when he entered and took possession of the city ; and at the celebrated farewell interview between the general and his officers, Knox was the first man whom Washington embraced. A few years later, when Washington came to the presidency, General Knox was named by him to the secretaryship of war, a post which he held for four years. The reader is aware that, during the first term of General Washington's administra- tion, the two parties were formed which have ever since, under different names, contended for the ascendency. General Knox was a Federalist, and, as such, shared the odium attached to a party not in harmony with the instincts of the people. Retiring from office in 1795, he removed to Maine, then an outlying province of Massachusetts, where he engaged extensively in business. It appears he was unsuccessful, for in one of Mr. Jefferson's letters of 1799, he says : "General Knox has become bankrupt for four hundred thousand dollars, and has resigned his military commission. He took in General Lincoln for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which breaks him. Colonel Jackson, also, sunk with him." The cause of this misfortune, or, at least, one of the causes, appears to have been an exces- sive profusion in living and general expenditure. He died in 1806, aged fifty-six years. 462 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY". DANIEL WEBSTER'S MARRIED LIFE. DANIEL WEBSTER was twice married. It is of his first wife, who was the mother of all his children, that I write to-day. In colonial times the clergy were the aristocracy of New England. Their incomes were indeed exceedingly small, com- pared with those of our day ; but, as they were generally men of learning, virtue, and politeness, and as all the people were religiously disposed, they were held in the highest respect, and exercised great influence. Small as their revenues were (sel- dom more than five hundred dollars a year), they generally lived in very good style, and, in many instances, accumulated property. Their salaries were increased by the bountiful gifts of the people, and they usually had a piece of land sufficient for the keeping of a cow and a horse, and for the raising of their vegetables. Besides this, all the minister's family assisted in its support ; the sons tilled the garden and took care of the ani- mals ; the daughters assisted their mother in spinning the wool for the clothing of the household. Peter Parley, whose father was a New England clergyman of the olden time, mentions in his "Recollections," that for fifty years the salary of his father averaged three hundred dollars a year, upon which, with the assistance of a few acres of land, he reared a family of eight children, sent two sons to college, and left at his death tw> thousand dollars in money. The family of the clergyman was expected to be, and usually was, the model family of the parish. The children generally had the benefit of their father's instruction, as well as access to his little library ; and, if his daughters did not learn French nor play the piano, they had the benefit of hearing intelligent con DANIEL WEBSTER'S MARRIED LIFE. 463 versation and of associating with the best minds of their native village. Grace Fletcher, the wife of Daniel Webster, was the daughter of Elijah Fletcher, a clergyman of New Hampshire, where she was born in the year 1781. Though her father died at the early age of thirty-nine, when Grace was but five years of age, he is still remembered in New Hampshire for his zeal and generosity. He was particularly noted for his patronage of young students, many of whom he prepared for college. After his death his widow married the minister of Salisbury, New Hampshire, the town in which Daniel Webster was born, in which he grew up to manhood, and in which he first established himself in the practice of the law. Thus it was that she became acquainted with her future husband. Daniel Webster was only one year older than herself. They attended the same church ; they went to school together ; they met one another at their neighbors' houses ; and this early intimacy ripened at length into a warmer and deeper attachment. Notwithstanding his extraordinary talents, and the warmth of his temperament, Daniel Webster did not marry until he was twenty-six years of age. Few young men have had a harder struggle with poverty, and no one ever bore poverty more cheerfully. After practising law awhile near his father's house in Salisbury, he removed, in 1808, to Portsmouth, which was then the largest and wealthiest town in New Hampshire, as well as its only seaport. A lady, who lived then in the town, has recorded, in the most agreeable manner, her recollections of the great orator at that period. She was the minister's daughter. It was a custom in those days for strangers to be shown into the minister's pew. One Sunday her sister returned from church, and said that there had been a remarkable person in the pew with her, who had riveted her attention, and that she was sure he had a most marked character for good or for evil. At that time Webster was exceedingly slender, and his face was very sallow ; but his noble and spacious forehead, his bright eyes deep set in his head, and the luxuriant locks of his black hair, together with the intelligent and amiable expression of his countenance, ren- dered his appearance striking in the extreme. In a few days 464 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. the stranger was at home in the minister's family, and there soon formed a circle round him of which he was the life and soul ' f l well remember," says this lady, "one afternoon, that he came in when the elders of the family were absent. He sat down by the window, and, as now and then an inhabitant of the town passed through the street, his fancy was caught by their appearance and his imagination excited, and he improvised the most humorous imaginary histories about them, which would have furnished a rich treasure for Dickens, could he have been the delighted listener instead of the young girl for whose amusement this wealth of invention was expended." Another of his Portsmouth friends used to say that there never was such an actor lost to the stage as he would have made, had he chosen to turn his talents in that direction. The young lawyer prospered well in this New Hampshire town, and he was soon in the receipt of an income which for that day was considerable. In June, 1809, about a year after his arrival, he suddenly left Portsmouth, without having said a word to his friends of his destination. They conjectured, however, that he had gone to Salisbury to visit his family. He returned in a week or two, but did not return alone. In truth, he had gone home to be married, and he brought back his wife with him. She was a lady most gentle in her manners, and of a winning, unobtrusive character, who immediately made all her husband's friends her own. The lady quoted above gives so pleasant a description of their home and character, that I will quote a few sentences from it : "Mrs. Webster's mind was naturally of a high order, and whatever was the degree of culture she received, it fitted her to be the chosen companion and the trusted friend of her gifted husband. She was never elated, never thrown off the balance of her habitual composure by the singular early success of her husband, and the applause constantly following him. It was her striking peculiarity that she was always equal to all occasions ; that she appeared with the same quiet dignity and composed self-possession in the drawing-room in Washington, as in her own quiet parlor. It w?s only when an unexpected burst of DANIEL WEBSTER'S MARRIED LIFE. 465 applause followed some noble effort of her husband that the quickened pulse sent the blood to her heart, and the tears started to her eyes. Uniting with great . sweetness of dis- position, unaffected, frank, and winning manners, no one could approach her without wishing to know her, and no one could know her well without loving her. When Mr. Webster brought this interesting companion to Portsmouth, the circle that gath ered around them became more intimate, and was held by more powerful attractions. There certainly never was a more charm- ing room than the low-roofed simple parlor, where, relieved from the cares of business, in the full gayety of his disposition, he gave himself up to relaxation." In due time a daughter was born to them, the little Grace Webster who was so wonderfully precocious and agreeable. Unhappily, she inherited her mother's delicate constitution, and she died in childhood. Three times in his life, it is said, Daniel Webster wept convulsively. One of these occasions was when he laid upon the bed this darling girl, who had died in his arms, and turned away from the sight of her lifeless body. All the four children of Mrs. Webster, except her son Fletcher, appear to have inherited their mother's weakness. Charles, a lovely child, both in mind and in person, died in infancy. Her daughter Julia, who lived to marry the son of a distinguished family in Boston, died in her thirtieth year. Ed- ward, her third son, served as major in the Mexican war, and died in Mexico, aged twenty-eight. Fletcher, the most robust of her children, commanded a regiment of the Army of the Potomac, and fell in one of its disastrous conflicts. Beyond the general impressions of her friends, we know little of the life of this estimable woman. She lived retired from the public gaze, and the incidents of her life were of that domestic and ordinary nature which are seldom recorded. In this dearth of information, the reader will certainly be interested in reading one of her letters to her husband, written soon after the death of their little son Charles. It shows her affectionate nature, and is expressed with all the tender eloquence of a bereaved but resigned mother. The following is the letter : 46C PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. " I Lave a great desire to write to you, my beloved husband , but I doubt if I can write legibly. I have just received your letter in answer to William, which told you that dear little Charley was no more. I have dreaded the hour which should destroy your hopes, but trust you will not let this event afflict you too much, and that we both shall be able to resign him without a murmur, happy in the reflection that he has returned to his heavenly Father pure as I received him. It was an inexpressible consolation to me, when I contemplated him in his sickness, that he had not one regret for the past, nor one dread for the future ; he was patient as a lamb during all his sufferings, and they were at last so great, I was happy when they Were ended. " I shall always reflect on his brief life with mournful pleasure, and, I hope, remember with gratitude all the joy he gave me; and it has been great. And oh ! how fondly did I flatter my- self it would be lasting. " ' It was but yesterday, my child, thy 'little heart beat high ; And I had scorned the warning voice that told me thou must die. " Dear little Charles ! He sleeps alone under St. Paul's. Oh, do not, my dear husband, talk of your own final abode; that is a subject I never can dwell on for a moment. With you here, my dear, I can never be desolate ! Oh, may Heaven in its mercy long preserve you ! And that we may ever wisely im- prove every event, and yet rejoice together in this life, prays your ever affectionate G. W." Mrs. Webster lived but forty -six years. In December, 1827, Mr. Webster, being then a member of Congress, started with his wife for the city of Washington. She had been suffering for some time from a tumor, of a somewhat unusual character, which had much lowered the tone of her system. On reach- ing New York she was so sick that her husband left her there and proceeded to Washington alone. Having little hope of her recovery, he had serious thoughts of resigning his seat, in order to devote himself exclusively to the care of his wife, especially as he thought it probable that she would linger for many DANIEL WEBSTER'S MARRIED LIFE. 467 mouths. But he had scarcely reached Washington when ho was summoned back to New York by the intelligence that her disease had taken a dangerous turn. He watched at her bed- side for three weeks, during which her strength insensibly lessened and her flesh wasted away, though she suffered little pain. I have before me four little notes which the afflicted husband wrote on the day of her death, which tell the story of her departure in an affecting manner : "MONDAY MORNING, January 21st. "DEAR BROTHER, Mrs. Webster still lives, but is evidently near her end. We did not expect her continuance yesterday from hour to hour. Yours, affectionately, D. W." This was written at daylight in the morning. At nine o'clock, he wrote to an old friend : "Mrs. Webster still lives, but cannot possibly remain long with us. We expected her decease yesterday from hour to hour." At half-past two that afternoon he wrote : "DEAR BROTHER, Poor Grace has gone to Heaven. She has now just breathed her last breath. I shall go with her forthwith to Boston, and, on receipt of this, I hope you will come there if you can. I shall stay there some days. May God bless you and yours." At the some hour he wrote the following note to the lady quoted above : " MY DEAR ELIZA, The scene is ended, and Mrs. Webster is gone to God. She has just breathed her last breath. How she died, with what cheerfulness and submission, with what hopes and what happiness, how kindly she remembered her friends, and how often and how affectionately she spoke of you, I hope soon to be able to tell you ; till then, adieti." 468 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. Her husband mourned her departure sincerely and long. And well he might, for she was his guardian angel. After her death he was drawn more and more into politics, and gave way at length to an ambition for political place and distinction, which lessened his usefulness, impaired his dignity, and embittered his closing years. Upon the summit of a commanding hill, in Marshfield, which overlooks the ocean, is the spot prepared by Daniel Webster for the burial-place of his family. There his own remains repose, and there, also, those of three of his children. There, too, he erected a marble column to the memory of their mother, which hears the following inscription : " GRACE WEBSTER. WIFE OF DANIEL WEBSTER: BORN JANUARY THE 16TH, 1781; DIED JANUAHV -iBS. 2lni, 1628. " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 469 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. IN the British West Indies, near that Danish group which, they say, Mr. Seward desires to purchase for the United States, there is a circular island containing about twenty square miles, named Nevis. It now contains a population of eleven thousand, and produces for export every year about a hundred thousand dollars' worth of sugar. This island has a governor, and a legislature of fifteen members ; it has five parishes, and a public revenue about as large as the salary of our president. To this island, a Scotchman named Hamilton emigrated about the year 1747, and established himself in business as a merchant. He married there a lady of French descent, the daughter of a phy- sician. The fruit of this union was a bo}*, who lived to be the celebrated Alexander Hamilton, of American history. The mother of this distinguished man had a short and unhap- py life. Her first husband was a Dane, a man of wealth, with whom she lived miserably, and from whom she was finally divorced. Soon after her marriage with the father of Alexander Hamilton, he became a bankrupt, and saved scarcely anything from the wreck of his estate. While Alexander was still a young child, she died, but not before she had made an indelible impression upon the character and memory of her son. His mother dead, and his father a poor and dependent man, the boy was taken home by some relations of his mother who lived upon one of the adjacent Danish islands, where he learned the French language, and became an eager reader of books in both French and English. In his twelfth year he was a merchant's clerk or apprentice, a situation little to his taste, but the duties of which he discharged with perfect fidelity. At that early day, as at the present time, it was customary 470. PEOPLE'S BOOK OP BIOGRAPHY. for the West Indians to send their children to school in New York and Philadelphia. One of the earliest letters of Hamilton that we possess, is one written by him when he was twelve years of age to a boy of his acquaintance who had gone away to be educated in New York. "To confess my weakness, Ned," he wrote, "my ambition is prevalent ; so that I contemn the grovelling condition of a clerk, or the like, to which my fortune condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station. I am confident, Ned, that my youth excludes me from any hopes of immediate preferment, nor do I desire it ; but I mean to prepare the wa} r for futurity. I am no philosopher, you see, and may be justly said to build castles in the air ; my folly makes me ashamed, and beg you will conceal it ; yet, Neddy, we have seen such schemes successful when the pro- jector is constant. I shall conclude by saying, I wish there was a war." This was a curious passage to come from the pen of a mer- chant's boy in a little island of the sea, at a period so early as 1769. Certainly there was small chance of " preferment " for him in the West Indies, nor did there seem any likelihood of his transfer to a more promising scene. For three years he served in the counting-house, and acquired therein something of that knowledge of figures and that aptitude for finance which he afterwards turned to so good an account. . An accident, as it seems, decided his destiny. When he was fifteen years of age he had the opportunity of witnessing one of those terrific hurricanes which occasionally sweep over the islands of the Caribbean Sea, prostrating in their course the works of man and the trees of the forest. He wrote a descrip- tion of this storm, which was published in a newspaper, and handed about in the group as a great wonder for so young a writer. His engaging manners, also, had made him many friends, who, it appears, were all of one opinion, that so valu- able a mind ought not to remain uncultivated. Accordingly, he was sent to New York for education. On his arrival, he was placed in a school at Elizabethtown, in New Jersey, a place where many families of distinction then resided, whose acquaint- ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 4Tl aiice he formed, and who were afterwards of use to him. In a few months he entered the college in New York which was then called King's College, but is now known as Columbia ; where, besides pursuing the usual course, he attended lectures upon anatomy, with the intention of becoming a physician. At college he was distinguished in the debating society, and he wrote comic poems, ridiculing the Tory editors of the day. It was while still a student of the college that he made his first public address to the citizens of New York. His son tells us that he was then accustomed to walk several hours each day under the shade of some noble trees which stood in Batteau Street (now called Dey Street) talking to himself, or deeply meditating upon the mighty events transpiring about him. This strange habit attracted the attention of those who lived near, to whom he was only known as " the young West Indian," and some of them engaged him in conversation, and thus discovered the vigor and maturity of his mind. A great political meeting was to be held in the city, to which all the Whigs were looking forward with eager expectation, and his new friends, who had been struck with his patriotic sentiments,, urged him to address this meeting. At first he recoiled from the ordeal ; but, as the meeting went on, and several important points remained un- touched by the speakers, he took courage, and presented him- self to the people. His son says, in his biography of Ham- ilton : . " The novelty of the attempt, his youthful countenance, his slender and diminutive form, awakened curiosity and arrested attention. Overawed by the scene before him, he at first hesi- tated and faltered ; but as he proceeded almost unconsciously to utter his accustomed reflections, his mind warmed with the theme, his energies were recovered ; and, after a discussion, clear, cogent, and novel, of the great principles involved in the controversy, he depicted in glowing colors, the long-continued and long-endured oppressions of the mother country ; he in- sisted on the duty of resistant, pointed to the means and cer- tainty of success, and described the waves of the rebellion sparkling with fire and washing back on the shores of England the wrecks of her power, her wealth, and her glory. The so 472 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. breathless silence ceased as he closed ; and the whispered mur- mur, 'It is a collegian it is a collegian ! ' was lost in loud expressions of wonder and applause at the extraordinary elo- quence of the young stranger. " He was then but seventeen years of age, and yet from that time to the end of his life he could be considered a public man. While still in college, he was one of a military company who used to drill in a part of the city very near where Harper's book- store now stands. The company were called " Hearts of Oak," and it was this youthful band which removed the cannon from the Battery, under the fire of a British man-of-war, that killed several citizens and one of Hamilton's own comrades. This was the first conflict of arms which took place in the State of New York. At nineteen he was captain of artillery, and em- ployed part of his last remittance from home in equipping his company. The most important event in this part of his life was his at- tracting the notice of General Washington. Soon after the retreat from New York, when the American army occupied the upper part of Manhattan Island, Hamilton was employed in constructing an earthwork. Washington noticed the alert and vigorous young officer, and marked the intelligence and skill which he was displaying in the erection of his fort. The gen- eral entered into conversation with him, invited him to head- quarters, and thus began a friendship with him which, with the exception of one brief interval, terminated only with the general's life. During the terrible New Jersey campaign, Hamilton's artillerymen did excellent service in the rear of the army, checking the advance of the British ; and by the time the battle of Trenton turned the tide of ill-fortune, the company was reduced to twenty-five men. Ere long, General Washington invited Captain Hamilton to accept a position on his staff, which Hamilton did, to his lasting regret. His quick and ardent mind fretted under the caution and delay necessitated by General Washington's position ; nor did he relish writing despatches, when other men were perform- ing service in the field. This impatience and discontent led ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 473 finally to a rupture between General Washington and his aide- de-camp, the particulars of which Hamilton himself has related. "Two days ago," he wrote, in 1781, "the general and I passed each other on the stairs ; he told me he wanted to speak with me ; I answered that I would wait upon him immediately. I went below and delivered Mr. Tilghman a letter to be sent to the commissary, containing an order of a pressing and interest- ing nature. Returning to the general, I was stopped on the way by the Marquis de la Fayette, and we conversed together about a minute, on a matter of business. He can testify how impatient I was to get back, and that I left him in a manner which, but for our intimacy, would have been more than abrupt. Instead of finding the general, as is usual, in his room, I met him at the head of the stairs, where, accosting me in an angry voice, 'Colonel Hamilton,' said he, 'you have kept me waiting at the head of the stairs these ten minutes ; I must tell you, sir, you treat me with disrespect.' I replied, without petulancy, but with decision, ' I am not conscious of it, sir, but since you have thought it necessary to tell me so, we part.' ' Very well, sir,' said he, 'if it be your choice,' or something to that effect, and we separated. I sincerely believe my absence, which gave so much umbrage, did not last two minutes. In less than an hour after, Mr. Tilghman came to me in the general's name, assuring me of his confidence in my ability, integrity, useful- ness, etc., and of his desire, in a candid conversation, to heal a difference which could not have happened but in a moment of passion. I requested Mr. Tilghman to tell him, first, that I had taken my resolution in a manner not to be revoked." The truth was that Hamilton was burning for active service, and was glad of an excuse for retiring from a position which was little more attractive to him than that of a clerk. His de- sires were soon gratified. During the revolutionary war he was so lucky as to win the hand and heart of one of the daughters of General Schuyler, the head of one of the most distinguished and powerful families in the State of New York ; and it was this fortunate marriage which first gave to his position in America something of con- sistence and stability. Retiring from the triumph of Yorktown, 474 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. in which he bore a gallant part, and \von the admiration ot both the French and the American armies, he abandoned his former intention of becoming a doctor, and began the study of the law at Albany, where he was admitted to the bar. He settled iu New York, where he soon shared with Aaron Burr the cream of the New York practice, but was speedily called away to the service of the public. In the convention which formed our present constitution he was one of the youngest, and yet one of the most influential members. When Washington came to the presidency, one of his first acts was to name the young West Indian then but thirty-three years of age to the most difficult post in his administration, that of secretary of the treasury. From this position, after four years of service, he was compelled to retire, because the salary would not support his family. Albert Gallatin, who became secretary of the treasury twenty years after, said that Alexander Hamilton had so regulated the business of the office, as to make it a sinecure for his successors; and, I have been informed, that as late as 1860, the business continued to be done upon the plans and methods established by Hamilton at the beginning of the gov- ernment. He returned to the practice of his profession in New York, where, for many years, he shone without a peer, and with only one rival, the man to whom he owed his death. Ill the year 1804, in his forty-seventh year, he fell at Weehawken. in a duel with Aaron Burr. Both in public and in private life Hamilton exhibited shining virtues, and committed, as I think, deplorable errors. His chief fault, as a private citizen, was licentiousness, to which he appears to have been grossly addicted. As a public man, he was what we should now call an extreme conservative. He thought the British government the best possible government, and he strove in all ways to make the American government like it. No faith had Alexander Hamilton in the capacity of the American people, or any people, to govern themselves. This, however, was only an error of the understanding ; for a purer patriotism than his never burned in the breast of a human being. FA.YBTTB. 4:75 LA FAYETTE. IN the year 1730 there appeared in Paris a little volume entitled, "Philosophic Letters," which proved to be one of the most influential books produced in modern times. It was written by Voltaire, who was then thirty-six years of age, and contained the results of his observations upon the English nation, in which he had resided for two years. Paris was then as far from London, for all practicable purposes, as New York now is from Calcutta ; so that when Voltaire told his countrymen of the freedom that prevailed in England, of the tolerance given to the religious sects, of the honors paid to untitled merit, of Newton, buried in Westminster Abbey with almost regal pomp, of Addison, Secretary of State, and Swift, familiar with prime ministers, and of the general liberty, happiness, and abundance of the kingdom, France listened in wonder as to a new revelation. The work was, of course, immediately placed under the ban by the French government, and the author exiled, which only gave it increased currency and deeper influence. This was the beginning of the movement which produced, at length, the French Revolution of 1787, and which will continue until France is blessed with a free and constitutional govern- ment. It began in the higher classes of the people, for at that day not more than one-third of the French could read at all ; and a much smaller fraction could read such a work as the "Philosophic Letters," and the books which it called forth. Republicanism was fashionable in the drawing-rooms of Paris for many years before the mass of the people knew what the word meant. Among the young noblemen who were early smitten in the 476 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. midst of a despotism with the love of liberty was the Marquis de La Fayette, born in 1757. Few families in Europe could boast a greater antiquity than his. A century before the dis- covery of America, we find the La Fayettes spoken of as an " ancient house ; " and in every generation, at least, one member of the family had distinguished himself by his services to his king. This young man, coming upon the stage of life when republican ideas were teeming in every cultivated mind, em- braced them with all the ardor of youth and intelligence. At sixteen he refused a high post in the household of one of the princes of the blood, and accepted a commission in the army. At the age of seventeen he was married to the daughter of a duke, whose dowry added a considerable fortune to his own ample possessions. She was an exceedingly lovely woman, and tenderly attached to her husband, and he was as fond of her as such a boy could be. The American Revolution broke out. In common with all the high-born republicans of his time, his heart warmly es- poused the cause of the revolted colonies, and he immediately conceived the project of going to America and fighting under her banner. He was scarcely nineteen years of age when he sought a secret interview with Silas Deane, the American envoy, and offered his services to the Congress. Mr. Deane, it appears, objected to his youth. " When," says he, " I presented to the envoy my boyish face, I spoke more of my ardor in the cause than of my experience ; but I dwelt much upon the effect my departure would excite in France, and he signed our mutual agreement." His intention was Concealed from his family and from all his friends, except two or three confidants. While he was making preparations for his departure, most distressing and alarming news came from America, the retreat from Long Island, the loss of New York, the battle of White Plains, and the retreat through New Jersey. The American forces, it was said, reduced to a disheartened band of three thousand militia, were pursued by a triumphant army of thirty-three thousand English and Hessians. The credit of the colonies at Paris sunk to the lowest ebb, and some of the Americans themselves confessed to LA FAYETTE. 477 La Fayette that they were discouraged, and persuaded him to abandon his project. He said to Mr. Deane : " Until now, sir, you have only seen ray ardor in your cause, and that may not prove at present wholly useless. I shall purchase a ship to carry out your officers. We must feel con- fidence in the future ; and it is especially in the hour of danger that I wish to share your fortune." He proceeded at once with all possible secrecy to raise the money and to purchase and arm a ship. While the ship was getting ready, in order the better to conceal his intention, he made a journey to England, which had previously been ar- ranged by his family. He was presented to the British king, against whom he was going to fight ; he danced at the house of the minister who had the department of the colonies ; he visited Lord Rawdon, afterwards distinguished in the Revolutionary struggle ; he saw at the opera Sir Henry Clinton, whom he next saw on the battle-field of Moumouth ; and he breakfasted with Lord Shelburne, a friend of the colonies. "While I concealed my intentions," he tells us, "I openly avowed my sentiments. I often defended the Americans. I rejoiced at their success at Trenton ; and it was my spirit of opposition that obtained for me an invitation to breakfast with Lord Shelburne." On his return to France his project was discovered and his departure forbidden by the king. He sailed, however, in May, 1777, cheered by his countrymen, and secretly approved by the government itself. On arriving at Philadelphia, he sent to Congress a remarkably brief epistle to the following effect : w After my sacrifices, I have the right to ask two favors : one is, to serve at my own expense ; the other, to begin to serve as a volunteer." Congress immediately named him a major-general of the American army, and he at once reported himself to General Washington. His services at the Brandywine, where he was badly wounded ; in Virginia, where he held an important com- mand ; at Monmouth, where he led the attack, are sufficiently well known. When he had been in America about fifteen mouths, the news came of the impending declaration of war 478 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. between France and England. He then wrote to Congress that, so long as he had believed himself free, he had gladly fought under the American flag; but that his own country being at war, he owed to it the homage of his services, and he desired their permission to return home. He hoped, however, to come back to America ; and assured them that, wherever he went, he should be a zealous friend of the United States. Congress gave him leave of absence, voted him a sword, and wrote a letter on his behalf to the King of France. w We recommend this noble young man," said the letter of Congress, "to the favor of your Majesty, because we have seen him wise in council, brave in battle, and patient under the fatigues of war." He was received in France with great distinction, which he amusingly describes : w When I went to court, which had hitherto only written for me orders for my arrest, I was presented to the ministers. I was interrogated, complimented, and exiled to the hotel where my wife was residing. Some days after, I wrote to the king to acknowledge my fault. I received in reply a light reprimand and the colonelcy of the Royal Dragoons. Con- sulted by all the ministers, and, what was much better, embraced by all the women, I had at Versailles the favor of the king, and celebrity at Paris." In the midst of- his popularity he thought always of America, and often wished that the cost of the banquets bestowed upon him could be poured into the treasury of Congress. His favorite project at that time was the invasion of England, Paul Jones to command the fleet and himself the army. When this scheme was given up he joined all his influence to that of Franklin to induce the French government to send to America a powerful fleet and a considerable army. When he had secured the promise of this valuable aid, he returned to America and served again in the armies of the young republic. The success of the United States so confirmed him in his attachment to republican institutions, that he remained their devoted adherent and advocate as long as he lived. LA FAYETTE. 479 "May this revolution," said he once to Congress, "serve as a lesson to oppressors, and as an example to the oppressed." And in one of his letters from the United States occurs this sentence : " I have always thought that a king was at least a useless being ; viewed from this side of the ocean, a king cuts a poor figure indeed." By the time he had left America, at the close of the war, he had expended in the service of Congress seven hundred thou- sand francs, a free gift to the cause of liberty. One of the most pleasing circumstances of La Fayette's resi- dence in America was the affectionate friendship which existed between himself and General Washington. He looked up to Washington as to a father as well as a chief, and Washington regarded him with a tenderness truly paternal. La Fayette named his eldest son George Washington, and never omitted any opportunity to testify his love and veneration for the illus- trious American. Franklin, too, was much attached to the youthful enthusiast, and privately wrote to General Washing- ton, asking him, for the sake of the young and anxious wife of the Marquis, not to expose his life except in an important and decisive engagement. In the diary of the celebrated William Wilberforce, who visited Paris soon after the peace, there is an interesting passage descriptive of La Fayette's demeanor at the French court : " He seemed to be the representative of the democracy in the very presence of the monarch, the tribune intruding with his veto within the chamber of the patrician order. His own establishment was formed upon the English model, and, amidst the gayety and ease of Fontainebleau, he assumed an air of re- publican austerity. When the fine ladies of the court would attempt to drag him to the card-table, he shrugged his shoulders w r ith an air of affected contempt for the customs and amuse- ments of the old regime. Meanwhile, the deference which this champion of the new state of things received, above all from the ladies of the court, intimated clearly the disturbance of the social atmosphere, and presaged the coming tempest." From the close of the American war for independence, to the 480 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. beginning of the French Revolution, a period of six years elapsed, during which France suffered much from the exhaustion of her resources in aiding the Americans. La Fayette lived at Paris, openly professing republicanism, which was then the surest passport to the favor both of the people and of the court. The Queen of France herself favored the republican party, though without understanding its objects or tendencies. La Fayette naturally became the organ and spokesman of those who desired a reform in the government. He recommended, even in the palace of the king, the restoration of civil rights to the Protestants ; the suppression of the heavy and odious tax upon salt; the reform of the criminal courts; and he denounced the waste of the public money upon princes and court fa vorites. The Assembly of the Notables convened in 1787, to consider the state of the kingdom. La Fayette was its most conspicuous and trusted member, and it was he who demanded a convoca- tion of the representatives of all the departments of France, for the purpose of devising a permanent remedy for the evils under which France was suffering. " What, sir," said one of the royal princes to La Fayette, '' do you really demand the assembling of a general congress of France ? " " Yes, my lord," replied La Fayette, w and more than that." Despite the opposition of the court, this memorable congress met at Paris in 1789, and La Fayette represented in it the nobility of his province. It was he who presented the K Decla- ration of Rights," drawn upon the model of those with which he had been familiar in America, and it was finally adopted. It was he, also, who made the ministers of the crown responsible for their acts, and for the consequences of their acts. When this National Assembly was declared permanent, La Fayette was elected its vice-president, and it was in that char- acter that, after the taking of the Bastile, he went to the scene, at the head of a deputation of sixty members, to congratulate the people upon their triumph. The next day, a city-guard was organized to preserve the peace of Paris, and the question arose in the Assembly who should command it. The president rose LA FAYETTE. 481 and pointed to the bust of La Fayette, presented by the State of Virginia to the city of Paris. The hint was sufficient, and La Fayette was elected to the post by acclamation. He called his citizen soldiers by the name of National Guard, and he dis- tinguished them by a tri-colored cockade, and all Paris imme- diately fluttered with tri-colored ribbons and badges. "This cockade," said La Fayette, as he presented one to the National Assembly, "will make the tour of the world." ' From the time of his acceptance of the command of the National Guard, the career of La Fayette changed its character, and the change became more and more marked as the revolu- tion proceeded. Hitherto, he had been chiefly employed in rousing the sentiment of liberty in the minds of his country- men ; but now that the flame threatened to become a dangerous conflagration, it devolved upon him to stay its ravages. It was a task beyond human strength, but he most gallantly attempted it. On some occasions he rescued with his own hands the vic- tims of the popular fury, and arrested the cockaded assassins who would have destroyed them. But even his great popularity was ineffectual to prevent the massacre of innocent citizens, and more than once, overwhelmed with grief and disgust, he threat- ened to throw up his command. On that celebrated day when sixty thousand of the people ot Paris poured in a tumultuous flood into the park of Versailles, and surrounded the palace of the king, La Fayette was com- pelled to join the throng, in order; if possible, to control its movements. He arrived in the evening, and spent the whole night in posting the National Guard about the palace, and tak- ing measures to secure the safety of the royal family. At the dawn of day he threw himself upon the bed for a few minutes' repose. Suddenly, the alarm was sounded. Some infuriated men had broken into the palace, killed two of the king's body- guard, and rushed into the bedchamber of the queen, a minute or two after she had escaped from it. La Fayette ran to the scene, followed by some of the National Guard, and found all the royal family assembled in the king's chamber, trembling for their lives. Beneath the windows of the apartment was a roar- ing sea of upturned faces, scarcely kept back by a thin line of 31 482 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGEAPHY. National Guards. La Fayette stepped out upon the balcony, and tried to address the crowd, but could not make himself heard. He then led out upon the balcony the beautiful queen, Marie Antoinette, and kissed her hand ; then seizing one of the body-guard, embraced him, and placed his own cockade upon the soldier's hat. At once, the temper of the multitude was changed, and the cry burst forth : " Long live the general ! Long live the queen ! Long Jive the body-guards ! " ' It was immediately announced that the king would go w T ith the people to Paris ; which, had the effect of completely allaying their passions. During the long march of ten miles, La Fayette rode close to the door of the king's carriage, and thus conducted him, in the midst of the tramping crowd, in safety to the Tuileries. When the royal family was once more secure within its walls, one of the ladies, the daughter of the late king, threw herself in the arms of La Fayette, exclaiming : "General, you have saved us." From this moment dates the decline of La Fayette's popularity ; and his actions, moderate and wise, continually lessened it. He demanded, as a member of the National Assembly, that persons accused of treason should be fairly tried by a jury, and .he exerted all his power, while giving a constitution to his country, to preserve the monarchy. To appease the suspicious of the people that the king med- itated a flight from Paris, he declared that he would answer with his head for the king's remaining. When, therefore, in June, 1791, the king and queen made their blundering attempt to escape, La Fayette was immediately suspected of having secretly aided it. Dantou cried out at the Jacobin club : " We must have the person of the king, or the head of the commanding general ! " It was in vain that, after the king's return, he ceased to pay him royal honors ; nothing could remove the suspicious of the people. Indeed, he still openly a,d vised the preservation of the monarchy, and, when a mob demanded the suppression of the royal power, and threatened violence to the National Guard, the general, after warning them to disperse, ordered the troops to LA FAYETTE. 483 lire, ail action which totally destroyed his popularity and influ- ence. Soon after, he resigned his commission and his seat in the Assembly, and withdrew to one of his country-seats. He was not long allowed to remain in seclusion. The allied dynasties of Europe, justly alarmed at the course of events in Paris, threatened the new republic with war. * La Fayette was appointed to command one of the three armies gathered to de- fend the frontiers. While he was disciplining his troops, and preparing to defend the country, he kept an anxious eye upon Paris, and saw with ever-increasing alarm the prevalence of the savage element in the national politics. In 1792, he had the boldness to write a letter to the National Assembly, demanding the suppression of the clubs, and the restoration of the king to the place and power assigned him by the constitution. Learning, soon after, the new outiages put upon the king, he suddenly left his army and appeared at the bar of the Assembly, accompanied by a single aide-de-camp ; there he renewed his demands, amid the applause of the moderate members ; but a member of the opposite party adroitly asked : "Is the enemy conquered? Is the country delivered, since General La Fayette is in Paris?" "No," replied he, "the country is not delivered ; the situation is unchanged ; and, nevertheless, the general of one of our armies is in Paris." After a stormy debate, the Assembly declared that he had violated the constitution in making himself the organ of an army legally incapable of deliberating, and had rendered himself amenable to the minister of war for leaving his post without permission. Repulsed thus by the Assembly, coldly received at court, and rejected by the National Guard, he returned to his army despairing of' the country. There he made one more attempt to save the king by inducing him to come to his camp and fight for his throne. This project being rejected, and the author of it denounced by Robespierre, his bust publicly burned in Paris, and the medal -formerly voted him broken by the hand of the executioner, he deemed it necessary to seek an asylum in a neutral country. Having provided for the safety of his army, he -crossed the frontiers, in August, 1792, accompanied by 484 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGKAPHY. twenty-one persons, all of whom on passing an Austrian post were taken prisoners, and La Fayette was thrown into a dun- geon. His noble wife, who had been for fifteen months a pris- oner in Paris, hastened, after her release, to share her husband's captivity. For five years, in spite of the remonstrances of England, America, and the friends of liberty everywhere, La Fayette remained a prisoner. To every demand for his liberation, the Austrian government replied, with its usual stupidity, that the liberty of La Fayette was incompatible with the safety of the governments of Europe. He owed his liberation, at length, to General Bonaparte, and it required all his great authority to procure it. When La Fayette was presented to Napoleon to thank him for his interference, the First Consul said to him : " I don't know what the devil you have done to the Austriaus ; but it cost them a mighty struggle to let you go." La Fayette voted publicly against making Napoleon consul for life, and against the establishment of the empire. Notwith- standing this, Napoleon and he remained very good friends. The emperor said of him one day : " Everybody in France is corrected of his extreme ideas of liberty except one man, and that man is La Fayette. You see him now tranquil : very well ; if he had an opportunity to serve his chimeras, he would reappear upon the scene more ardent than ever." Upon his return to France he was granted the pension belong- ing to the military rank he had held under the republic, and he recovered a competent estate from the property of his wife. Napoleon also gave a military commission to his son, George Washington, and when the Bourbons were restored, La Fayette received an indemnity of four hundred and fifty thousand francs. Napoleon's remark proved correct. La Fayette, though he spent most of the evening of his life in directing the cultivation of his estates, was always present at every crisis in the aifairs of France to plead the cause of constitutional liberty. He made a fine remark once in its defence, when taunted with the horrors of the French Revolution : LA FAYETTE. 485 "The tyranny of 1793," he said, "was no more a republic (ban the massacre of St. Bartholomew was a religion." His visit to America, in 1824, is well remembered. He was the guest of the nation, and Congress, in recompense of his expenditures during the Revolutionary War, made him a grant of two hundred thousand dollars and an extensive tract of land. It was La Fayette who, in 1830, was chiefly instrumental in plac- ing a constitutional monarch upon the throne of France. The last words he ever spoke in public were uttered in behalf of the French refugees who had fled from France for offences merely political ; and the last words he ever wrote recommended the abolition of slavery. He died May 19, 1834, aged seventy- seven. His son, George Washington, always the friend of liberty, like his father, died in 1849. Two grandsons of La Fayette are still living in France, both of whom have been in public life. 486 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. BOLIVAR. THE reader perhaps has sometimes asked himself why the fertile countries of South America advance so slowly in wealth and population. In all that continent, which is considerably larger than North America, there are but seventeen millions of inhabitants, while North America contains almost exactly twice that number. Brazil, for example, which is about as large as the United States, and was settled sooner, contains but seven millions of people, and nowhere exhibits anything like the pros- perity which has marked every period of our own history. The principal reasons of this difference are three in number. In the first place, nature herself in South America interposes mighty obstacles to the purposes of man. Vast plains exist, which, in the rainy season, are covered with luxuriant verdure, and in the dry season assume the appearance of a desert. The forests, owing to the fertility of the soil under a tropical sun, are so dense and tangled as almost to baffle the efforts of the pioneer to remove them. The principal rivers, which are the largest in the world, are more like flowing seas than navigable streams. The Plata, for example, is one hundred and thirty miles wide at its mouth, and is full of strong, irregular currents. The Amazon, too, which is four thousand miles in length, and navigable for one-half that distance, is, in many places, so wide that the navigator has to sail by the compass* The mountains, also, are precipitous and difficult of access, and contain thirty active volcanoes. All nature, in fact, is on a prodigious scale, and the very richness of the soil is frequently an injury rather than a help to man.' In the next place, the Spanish and Portuguese, who settled this continent, drawn thither bj" the lust of gold, were little BOLIVAR. 487 calculated to wrestle with the obstacles which nature placed in their path. Lastly, the Spanish and Portuguese governments, narrow, bigoted, ignorant, and tyrannical, for three centuries cramped the energies of the people, and oppressed them by nerciless exactions. " Three hundred years ago," said Henry Clay, iu his great speech upon the emancipation of South America, "upon the ruins of the thrones of Montezuma and the Incas of Peru, Spain erected the most stupendous system of colonial despotism that the world has ever seen, the most vigorous, the most exclu- sive. The great principle and object of this system has been to render one of the largest portions of the world exclusively subservient, iu all its faculties, to the interests of an inconsider- able spot in Europe. To effectuate this aim of her policy, she locked up Spanish America from all the rest of the world, and prohibited, under the severest penalties, any foreigner from entering any part of it. To keep the natives themselves igno- rant of each other, and of the strength and resources of the several parts of her American possessions, she next prohibited the inhabitants of one viceroyalty or government from visit- ing those of another; so that the inhabitants of Mexico, for example, were not allowed to enter the viceroyalty of New Granada. The agriculture of those vast regions was so regu- lated and restrained as to prevent all collision with the agricul- ture of the peninsula. Where nature, by the character and composition of the soil, had commanded, the abominable system of Spain has forbidden, the growth of certain articles. Thus the olive and the vine, to which Spanish America is so well adapted, are prohibited, wherever their culture can interfere with the olive and the vine of the peninsula. The commerce of the country, in the direction and objects of the exports and imports, is also subjected to the narrow and selfish views of Spain, and fettered by the odious spirit of monopoly. She has sought, by scattering discord among the several castes of her American population, and, by a debasing course of education, to perpetuate her oppression. Whatever concerns public law, or the science of government, all writings upon political economy, or that tend to give vigor, and freedom, and expansion, to the 488 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. intellect, are prohibited. A main feature in her policy is that which constantly elevates the European and depresses the American character. Out of upwards of seven hundred and fifty viceroys and captains general whom she has appointed since the conquest of America, about eighteen only have been from the body of the American population." If any reader supposes that the orator exaggerated, I point him to the Island of Cuba, which Spain still oppresses, and where almost every feature of the odious tyranny so vigorously portrayed by Mr. Clay still exists. That Spain does not still bear sway in the finest provinces of South America is chiefly due to the heroism and virtue of one man, Simon Bolivar, the founder and first president of the States, one of which bears his name. He was born at Caraccas, in Venezuela, in 1783, of a family rich enough to afford him the most costly advantages of education. When a young man, he travelled extensively in the United States and in Europe, and learned to speak with ease, and write with ability, five languages, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and English. Returning home, he gave the first proof of an enlightened mind by freeing the negro slaves employed upon his estate. The example of the United States, in throwing off the yoke of the mother country, produced the most powerful impression upon the oppressed Creoles in South America. During the boyhood and youth of Bolivar, his fellow-citizens rose four times in revolt against the Spaniards, and four times their efforts were frustrated, and the rising flame of freedom quenched in patriot blood. Instead of mitigating the oppression of the people, the Spanish government bore more heavily upon them, until, in 1811, the people of Venezuela attempted, for the fifth time, to throw off the yoke. Bolivar was then twenty-eight years of age. Entering the patriot army with the rank of colonel, he shared the misfortunes of General Miranda, and again saw his country drenched in blood. The Spanish general waged a war of extermination. The very malefactors in the prisons were organized into guerilla bands, and let loose upon a defenceless people, and their places in the dungeons were filled with the most respectable and virtuous of the land. The BOLIVAR. 489 cry of despair reached Bolivar in his exile at Carthageua. He reappeared iu his native land, raised again the standard of revolt, called his fellow-citizens around him, and was soon in a position to wage effective war against the public enemy. The Spanish commander, exasperated by this new revolt, resolved upon the most desperate measures, which he delayed not to execute. The campaign of 1813 was one of the most terrible that ever desolated a Christian country. Cities were given up to pillage and conflagration. The wives and daughters of the patriot soldiers were abandoned to the brutality of the Spanish troops. Prisoners of war were mercilessly put to death, aud hundreds of citizens were executed for the crime of wishing well to their country. Bolivar, then commaiider-in-chief of the patriot forces, was compelled to issue au order, declaring that no quarter should be given to any Spanish captive. Such brilliant successes, however, were won by him over the Spanish troops, that, in January, 1814, he could report to the Congress of Venezuela that no Spanish army polluted its soil. He re- signed his commission, following the example of Washington ; but the congress insisted upon his retaining it until the con- federated republics had expelled the foe. The Spaniard was not yet defeated. The campaign of 1814 was disastrous to the cause of liberty in the adjacent countries, and Bolivar alone, among the distinguished men, maintained a firm countenance, and urged his countrymen to persevere. Spain now made prodigious efforts. In the spring of 1815, a fleet of fifty ships arrived, which attacked and captured the principal seaports, while the new Spanish army ravaged the interior. During these two terrible years, more than six hundred patriot officers and citizens were banished or put to death, and Bolivar himself was compelled to fly, and take refuge, under the British flag, in the Island of Jamaica. But his great soul was still uuconquered. The next year, at the head of three hundred men, "equal," as he said, "in cour- age and in patriotism, as they were in number, to the soldiers of Leonidas," he appeared once more in his native land. Again the Republicans flocked to his standard. The campaigns of 1817 and 1818 were triumphant for the patriots, especially that 400 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. of the latter year. The career of Bolivar, henceforth, was one of almost unbroken victory; and, after four years of terrible warfare, the Spanish government was compelled to treat for peace, and to concede the independence of the United Repub- lics. Again Bolivar resigned his commission as general and dictator. In his address to Congress, he said : "I am the child of camps. Battles have borne me to the chief magistracy, and the fortune of war has sustained me in it ; but a power like that which has been confided to me is danger- ous in a republican government. I prefer the title of Soldier to that of Liberator; and, in descending from the presidential chair, I aspire only to merit the title of good citizen." Spain renewed the war, and Bolivar was called again to the supreme command. Three more bloody campaigns were neces- sary before the Spaniards were wholly and finally expelled from the soil of Colombia, by which name the confederated republics were called. In 1825, Bolivar once more abdicated the dicta- torship. An equestrian statue having been decreed him by the corporation of his native city, he declined the honor, saying : "Wait till after my death, that you may judge me without prejudice, and accord to me then, such honors as you may deem suitable ; but never rear monuments to a man as long as he is alive. He can change, he can betray. You will never have this reproach to make to me ; but wait a little longer." Unfortunately, the Creoles of South America, after they had expelled the oppressor, were not able to form a stable and sat- isfactory government. The ambition of some men, and the weakness of others, made the young republics the scene of con- fusion, and, sometimes, of civil war ; and Bolivar was compelled again to accept the supreme authority. It was the great design of his policy to unite all the republics, both of South and North America, into a kind of league, offensive and defensive, with a Supreme Court, which' should decide such questions as are usually decided by war. Like General Washington, Bolivar was less popular as a civil ruler than he had been as a commander of armies. Disgusted at length by the calumnies with which he was assailed, he not BOLIVAR. 491 only resigned the presidency, but determined to leave his country. He addressed to his fellow-citizens a farewell letter : "The presence of a fortunate soldier," said he, "however dis- interested he may be, is always dangerous in a state just set free. I am tired of hearing it incessantly repeated that I wish to make myself emperor, and to raise again the throne of the Incas. Everywhere s my actions are misrepresented. It is enough. I have paid my debt to my country and to humanity. I have given my blood, my health, my fortune, to the cause of liberty, and as long as it was in peril I was devoted to' its de- fence ; but now that America is no . longer, torn by war, nor polluted with the presence of an armed foe, I withdraw, that my presence may not be an obstacle to the happiness of my fellow- citizens. The welfare of my country would alone reconcile me to the hard necessity of a perpetual exile, far from the land which gave me birth. Receive, then, my adieus, as a new proof of my ardent patriotism and the particular love which I cherish for the people of Colombia." He sold his estate, and .was preparing to embark for Jamaica, whence he intended to sail for Europe, when he received a letter from the government, giving him the title of " First Citizen of Colombia," and settling upon him a pension of thirty thousand dollars a year. Before it could be known whether he would accept these offers, he was seized with a fever, of which he died, in December, 1830, in the forty-eighth year of his age. His friends did not doubt that his life was shortened by the fatigues of war and the mortifications of later years. Every- thing we know of this brave and virtuous man tends to justify the title conferred upon him by his countrymen, of the Wash- ington of South America. If he was less successful in peace than in war, it was because his fellow-citizens, debased by three centuries of oppression, did not possess the knowledge and virtue requisite for the founding of a free, just, and stable government. Washington, too, would have failed, if he had not been seconded by able and disinterested men, and supported by a people long accustomed to revere and obey the laws them- selves had made- 49? PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. GARIBALDI. Ix these modern clays there have appeared so many bogua "patriots," so many revolutionists by trade, that most people have a distrust of the whole tribe. If there is one character that is more thoroughly contemptible than any other, it is a needy, idle man, who goes about the world beguiling honest men and laborious women of their wages under pretence of "setting up the standard of rebellion" somewhere, or delivering some country from w the yoke of the oppressor ; " getting good, simple people into trouble and danger, while they live in luxury at a very safe distance from the scene of conflict, and receive "ovations" from the windows of splendid hotels. Joseph Garibaldi is no such person. He is a true patriot and hero of the old Roman type ; simple in his tastes, frugal in his habits, grand in his aims, and ever present in the van of his followers at the crisis of the fight. I know this man from the testimony of those who have lived with him, marched with him, fought with him, starved with him, feasted with him, seen him in repose and in action, at his cottage home and in kings' palaces ; and that testimony is, that he is a great, grand, strong, pure, affectionate old hero, whose heart is set on seeing his darling Italy free, independent, and happy. He came of a family of Italian sailors. Both his father and his grandfather commanded small vessels of their own, trading between Nice and other ports of the Mediterranean ; 'but when Garibaldi was a boy his father suffered heavy losses, which com- pelled him to sell his vessel and spend the rest of his life in navigating the ships of others. His mother, as he always says, was a \vomanofthe noblest character, who loved her son almost GARIBALDI. 493 to excess, and awoke in him those affections "which finally con- centrated in a devoted and all-absorbing love of country. As a boy he was chiefly remarkable for an extreme tenderness of feeling. When he was a very little boy he happened, in play- ing with a grasshopper, to break one of its legs, which afflicted him to such a degree that he could not go on with his play. He went to his room, where he remained for several hours mourning over the irreparable injury he had done the poor insect. But this excessive tenderness did not proceed from weakness of character. Not long after, while playing on the banks of one of those wide and deep ditches which they have in Italy for irrigating the fields, he saw a poor washerwoman, who had fallen into the ditch, strug- gling for her life, and in imminent danger of drowning. He sprang to her assistance, and, young as he was, he actually suc- ceeded in getting the woman out. He has, to this day, a lively recollection of the ecstasy which he experienced upon seeing her safe on the bank. In aifairs of this nature, calling for the sud- den risk of one life for the preservation of another, he has never hesitated, nor even so much as thought of his own danger till the danger was over. Far as he is from being a boasting man. he says this himself in his modest way. When he was about fourteen, his father took him on board his vessel, on one of his trips to Genoa, and put him at school in that city. The school, it seems, was a very dull one, the teach- ers being totally unable to interest the boys in their studies ; and this active lad suffered intolerably from the confinement and tedium. He and several of his companions resolved to escape. Garibaldi understanding well the management of a sail-boat, they got possession of one, put some provisions on board, and set sail for the open sea. But a treacherous abbe, to whom the se- cret had been confided, betra} r ed them, and informed Garibaldi's father, who jumped into a swift boat and made all sail in pur- suit, and soon overtook them. They all returned to school crestfallen. At the usual age he was apprenticed to a captain, and began his career as a cabin-boy. "How beautiful," he once wrote, "appeared to my ardent eyes the bark in which I was to navigate the Mediterranean 494 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. when I stepped on board as a sailor for the first time ! . Her lofty sides, her slender masts, rising so gracefully and so high above, and the bust of Our Lady which adorned the bow, all remain as distinctly painted on my memory at the present day (thirty-six years after) as in the happy hour when I became one of her crew. How gracefully moved the sailors ! With what pleasure I ventured into the forecastle to listen to their popular songs, sung by harmonious choirs ! They sang of love until I Vas transported. They endeavored to excite themselves to pa- triotism by singing of Italy. But who, in those days, had ever taught them how to be patriots and Italians ? " The commander of this vessel was a perfect sailor,- and under him Garibaldi acquired much of that nautical skill for which he was afterwards noted. His own father, too, with whom he af tcrwards sailed, was an excellent seaman. Garibaldi can now construct, rig, navigate, and fight any sailing ship of any magni- tude. On one of his voyages at this period of his life he was left sick at Constantinople, and, war breaking out, he was de- tained there a long time. When all his money was spent, the physician who had attended him procured him the post of tutor in a family, and he taught three boys for several months. "In times of trouble," he says, " I have never been disheartened in all my life, and I have always found persons disposed to assist me." Such men gallant, open-hearted, kind, and honest do find friends wherever they go, and friends that do not desert them in their hours of need. He was a sailor in the Mediterranean until he was twenty eight years of age, as handsome, agile, and athletic a young fellow as ever sang a song on a forecastle. It was while voyag- ing among the beautiful ports of Italy that he acquired his ardent love of his country, and solemnly dedicated his life to her service. A comrade having let him into the secrets of a society of patriots, he eagerly joined them, and thought that the deliv erauce of Italy was at hand. Miserable mistake ! The plot was revealed, and Garibaldi fled in the disguise of a peasant. It was then that the since famous name of Joseph Garibaldi was first printed in a newspaper ; but it was in a decree which de- Blared his life forfeited, and set a price upon his head ! GARIBALDI. 495 He saw Italy no more for fourteen years. During that period he lived in South America, where he had almost every kind of adventure that a man can have and live. Having reached Rio Janeiro, he first attempted the business of a merchant, and failed. Soon he became involved in one of those wars between Republicans and Absolutists which desolated the countries of South America for so many years. He fought on sea and on land. He was wounded and shipwrecked. He commanded fleets and regiments. He was victorious and defeated. Once, being taken prisoner, he was cruelly beaten with a club,^heu hung by his hands to a beam for two hours ; during which he suffered the anguish of a hundred deaths, and, when cut down, fell helpless to the earth. In intervals of peace he was a drover, farmer, dealer in horses, and commander of trading-vessels. Once, when in a melancholy mood, after seeing sixteen of his most beloved Italian comrades perish by shipwreck, he thought to relieve his sadness by marrying. He caught sight in a window of a graceful female form. He knew not who she was, nor to what family she belonged ; but something told him that she was the destined woman. A friend introduced him that very day, and, ere many weeks had rolled by, he was her husband. In many a rough campaign she marched by his side ; on many a voyage she shared his cabin ; and she died, at last, of fatigue and exposure in Italy, leaving three children to mourn her loss. The great, soft-hearted Garibaldi has ever since reproached him- self bitterly for having taken her away from her safe and happy home to share the lot of a soldier of liberty. Over her dead body, he says, he. prayed for forgiveness for the sin of taking her from home. She, however, had never repined, but really seemed to enjoy the life of battle and adventure which her hus- band led. Fourteen years of such work as this brought Garibaldi to the memorable year 1848, when all Europe was astir once more, and generous minds indulged the hope that the time had come for the deliverance of nations from their oppressors. Garibaldi and his Italian friends, exiles like himself, sailed for Nice, and gave themselves again to their country. During all the long series of events, beginning soon after the flight of Louis Phil- 496 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. ippe, and ending with the perjury and usurpation of Louis Napoleon, Garibaldi bore an important and sometimes a con- spicuous and controlling part. His experience in South Amer- ica was the best possible preparation for the kind of warfare suited to Italy. When the successful villany of Louis Napole- on had ruined the cause of Italian independence, Garibaldi was one of the hundreds of brave men who sought an asylum in the United States. At midsummer, in 1850, he reached New York, where, of coujpe, he was at once solicited to make an exhibition of him- self, or, as we say, " accept an ovation." He modestly asked to be excused. Such an exhibition, he said, was not necessary, and could not help the cause ; nor would the American people, he thought, esteem him the less because he veiled his sorrows in privacy. All he asked was to be allowed to earn his living by honest labor, and remain under the protection of the American flag until the time should come for renewing the attempt which treason had frustrated only for a time. From being a general in command of an army, Garibaldi became a Staten-Island cau- dle-maker, and soon resumed his old calling of mariner. For three years he commanded vessels sailing from American ports, and made one voyage as far as Peru. He had left his children at Nice in the care of his mother. Returning to New York from a voyage, he received the intelli- gence that his mother was no more, and that his children were ' without a protector. He w r as allowed to return to his native land. To the little property left by his parents he added a con- siderable sum earned in commerce here, and he was able to buy a farm in a small, rocky island Caprera. on the coast of Sardinia. To this island (which is only five miles long and three wide) he removed his little family in 1856, and invited several other pardoned exiles to join him. Some of them ac- cepting his invitation, they despatched a schooner to New York to bring to them the improved implements with which their residence in the United States had made them acquainted. This vessel, so precious to the little band, was lost, and the colony was broken up. Garibaldi, however, remained, and was resid- GAEIBALDI. 497 mg there, farming and fishing, when the war between Austria and Sardinia called him once more to the field. Before he again saw Caprera, what wonderful events trans- pired ! The bloody tyrant of Naples driven from his throne ! Sicily delivered from oppression ! Nine millions of subjects added to the dominions of a constitutional king, Victor Eman- uel ! All Italy one nation, excepting alone the dominions of the Pope and the province of Veuetia ! This was Garibaldi's work. It was the magic of his name, the fire of his patriotism, a,ud his genius for command, that wrought these marvels. The grateful king desired to bestow upon him some splendid reward ; which Garibaldi firmly refusing, the king prepared for hi^n a pleasing surprise at his rocky home. After an absence of h'eurly two years, Garibaldi returned to Caprera in, Novem- ber, i860, to spend the winter in repose. When he approached his hcrt-e, he saw no object that he could recognize. His rough and tangled farm had been changed, as if by enchantment, into elegant groimdb, with roads, paths, lawns, gardens, shrubbery, and avenues. His cottage was gone, and in its place stood a villa, replete with every convenience within and without. As he walked from room to room, wondering what magician had worked this transformation, he observed a full-length portrait of King Victor Emanuel, which explained the mystery. When last this great man spoke to his countrymen, this is what he said to them : " The canker, the ruin of our Italy, has always been personal ambitions and they are so still. It is personal ambitions which blind the Pope-king, and urge him to oppose this national move- ment, so great, so noble, so pure yes, so pure that it is unique in the history of the world. It is the Pope-king who retards the moment of the complete liberation of Italy. The only obstacle, the true obstacle, is this. " I am a Christian, and I speak to Christians I am a good Christian, and I speak to good Christians. I love and venerate the religion of Christ, because Christ came into the world to de- liver humanity from slavery, for which God has not created it. But the Pope, who wishes all men to be slaves, -who demands. 32 496 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. of the powerful of the earth, fetters and chains for Italians, the Pope-king does not know Christ : he lies to his religion. w Among the Indians two geniuses are recognized and adored, that of good, and that of evil. Well, the Genius of Evil for Italy is the Pope-king. Let no one misunderstand my words let no one confound Popery with Christianity the Religion of Liberty with the avaricious and sanguinary Politics of Slavery. " Repeat that. Repeat it. It is your duty. "You who are here, you, the educated and cultivated por- tion of the citizenship, you have the duty to educate the peo- ple. Educate them to be Christian educate them to be Italian. Education gives liberty education gives to the peo- ple the means and the power to secure and defend their own independence. " On a strong and wholesome education of the people depend the liberty and greatness of Italy. " Viva Victor Emanuel I Viva Italia ! Viva Christianity ! " These words were uttered in the streets of Naples in 1860, but they constituted part of the Garibaldi programme for ISfifi. The other part of it was Venetia. LOED PALMERSTON. 499 LORD PALMERSTON. IT is reported of Lord Palmerston, the late prime minister of England, that whenever he engaged a new cook, he used to say to him: " I wish you to prepare what is called a good table for my guests ; but for me, there must always be a leg of mutton and an apple-pie." This remark partly explains how it came to pass that a man nearly eighty-two years of age could perform the duties of chief ruler of an empire containing three hundred millions of people. An English prime minister is as much the ruler of the British empire as the President is of the United States ; for, although everything is done in the queen's name, and every document of any importance requires her signature, still this is mere form ; all the work is done by the minister, and he is far more responsible to parliament than to the sovereign. Besides performing the duties of minister, he also sits in parliament, where he has to defend his policy against the attacks of an eager and able opposition. Parliament assembles every after- noon at four o'clock, and often sits very late. It is not uncom- mon for the session to continue until two or three in the morning, and sometimes the sitting is prolonged until after sunrise. From the heat and excitement of parliament, the minister goes home, and, at ten the next morning, he is at his office in Downing Street to transact business. A life like this Lord Palmerston led for fifty-seven year's, supporting the animal man on such fare as roast mutton and apple pie. He could not have done it on turtle and venison, still less on our American hot bread, buckwheat cakes, and 500 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOG11APHY. fried meat. He took plenty of exercise too. When he was past seventy, he thought no more of a thirty-mile gallop of an afternoon, than a New York merchant does of walking home from Broad Street to Union Square. Often, when parliament was expected to sit late, he would dismiss his carriage, and, coming out of the house after midnight, would walk home alone, a distance of two miles, and " do " the distance in thirty minutes. There never was a brisker old gentleman. In the hunting season he usually went into the country, where he would follow the hounds as vigorously and as long as the youngest buck of them all. I delight to mention these things, for there is nothing our keen business men more need to be reminded of than the necessity of taking care of the animal part of their nature. If a man wishes to keep a clear head, a good temper, a sound digestion, let him take a hint from Lord Palmerston, Commo- dore Vanderbilt, and Dr. Spring. It is not necessary to have a five-hundred-guinea hunter or a twenty-thousand-dollar trotting horse, or any horse at all. A game of ball, or a ramble with the children, will answer every purpose. I saw Lord Palmerston in the House of Commons twenty years ago. That House presents a scene exceedingly different from an American legislative body, every memKer of which has a comfortable arm-chair, and a desk at which he writes his letters, his editorials, his pamphlets, or his speeches. In the House of Commons, the members sit on benches or settees ; the ministerial members on one side, and the opposition members on the other ; each division facing one another, and separated by a broad isle. The benches are arranged in long rows, each a little higher than the one before it, so that the members on the back seats can see over the heads of those in front. Every member sits with his hat on, which he removes only when he rises to speak, or when he has occasion to walk across the floor. The spectator in the gallery, therefore, looks down on a moving sea of black hat-crowns, instead of the distinguished counte- nances which he is anxious to examine. The gallery was then a small pen, at the back of the house, high up near the ceiling. It would hold about one hundred persons ; and no one could LORD PALMERSTON. 501 get admittance except upon the written order of a member; and a member could only grant one of these orders each even- ing. This was a great plague to the American minister, to whom Americans in London apply for these orders, and who could seldom get as many as- were wanted. Some of our free and easy countrymen would plant themselves in the passage by which members enter the house, and there accost the first good- natured looking gentleman who passed along, and ask him for an order, which he would generally get. I saw O'Connell stopped for this purpose. He took a card from his pocket, and his remarkably broad-brimmed hat from his head, and wrote the order on the crown. O'Connell at that time, with his round, red face, and his large-skirted brown coat, looked the very picture of an Irish farmer, come to town to sell his crop of potatoes. Lord Palmerston spoke that evening. He was then sixty years of age, and looked thirty-eight. His figure was rather slight and extremely elegant. There was nothing of the bluff, round, beer-drinking Briton in his appearance, and he was in- variably dressed with care, even to dandyism ; which, I suppose, was the reason why he was called "Old Cupid." In this particular, he presented a contrast to his colleague, Lord John Russell, who, being very short, and having on clothes much too large for him, looked like a boy who had just put on his first frock-coat, which a prudent mother had insisted should allow for his growth. In the House of Commons there is seldom heard what we call oratory, no vehemence, no flights of rhetoric, no sweeping gestures, no appeals to the feelings. The members simply converse together. That is to say, they speak in the tone and manner of conversation. If any one should get up in the House of Commons and try to show off his oratorical powers, he wpuld very soon be informed, by coughs and satirical outcries, that he had brought his wares to the wrong market. Lord Palmerston was asked a question respect- ing a treaty with Portugal, with regard to the duty on wines. He rose, took off his hat, spoke ten minutes in a low tone, gave the information sought, made a little joke inaudible in the 502 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. gallery, at which the members laughed, then resumed his seat and put on his hat. One great secret of his power was, that he could always make the house laugh. He had a quiet, homely way of joking, which no British audience could resist. Many of his comic illustrations were drawn from the "ring," all the slang and science of which he knew. I have no doubt that if he had been attacked in one of his midnight walks, by three unarmed men, not prize-fighters, he would have been able to knock down the first assailant, damage the second, and put to flight the third. I remember, in one of his speeches, a passage like this : " Gentlemen on the other side remind me of another sort of encounter familiar to us all. Tom Spring, hard pressed, cries out, ' You strike too Jiighf Bob Clinch changes his tactics; whereupon Tom roars, ' You strike too low!'' I have the same ill luck : Let me strike high or low, I cannot please honorablo members opposite." If a party of Englishmen were afloat on a raft in the middle of the ocean, and no ship in sight, they could hardly help laughing at a comparison of that kind. Palmerston could always turn the laugh upon his opponents by some such rough joke, couched in the language of gentlemen. He made a capital hit in 1853, when the cholera was ravaging the continent, and was expected to break out in England in the following spring. The situation, in fact, was precisely what it was in 1867 ; every one in Great Britain and America was fearful of the coming epidemic. In these circumstances, the clergy of Scotland united in petitioning the government to appoint a day of fasting and prayer, in order to avert the dreaded visitation. Lord Palmerston refused to grant the petition. He told the clergy of Scotland that the world was governed by natural laws, ordained of God, which must be obeyed ; and that, therefore, it was useless to pray against the cholera while the Scottish towns were reeking with the filth which was the natural cause and nourishment of cholera. He advised them to go to work and purify those towns, especially the dwellings of the poor. Hia LOED PALMERSTON. 503 words were so appropriate to our circumstances at all times that we will quote them : "Lord Palmerston would therefore suggest that the best course which the people of this country can pursue to deserve that the further progress .of the cholera should be stayed, will be to employ the interval that will elapse between the present time and the beginning of next spring, in planning and executing measures by which those portions of their towns and cities which are inhabited by the poorest classes, and which, from the nature of things, must most need purification and improvement, may be freed from those causes and sources of contagion which, if allowed to remain, will infallibly breed pestilence, and be fruitful in death, in spite of all the prayers and fastings of a united but inactive people." The common sense of the people sustained him in this bold and wise reply. It is greatly to be hoped that we also may be wise enough, " between the present time and the beginning of next spring," to act upon Lord Palmerston's suggestion. What a prodigious sum of experience lies buried in the grave of this old minister! Born in 1784, just as the American revolution had closed, he could remember the later phases of the French revolution, which grew out of ours. He was at school with Lord Byron. When, as a young man of twenty-one, he entered parliament, Napoleon had not yet reached the summit of his career. As secretary of war, he assisted to conduct the vast military operations which ended in the battle of Waterloo, and the final overthrow of Napoleon. He served four British sovereigns, and terminated his career by holding, for six years, the highest post a subject can reach. At the time of his death he was still the most popular man in England. He was very far, indeed, from being a great man ; but he was an exceedingly skilful politician. No man knew better than he when to resist public opinion and when to yield to it. He owed his long success in public life chiefly to this. 504 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. LOUIS PHILIPPE IN THE UNITED STATES. Louis XIII., King of France, was a married man twenty- three years before children were born to him. During the last five years of his life he became the father of two princes, the elder of whom succeeded him on the throne as Louis XIV. From Louis XIV. were descended Louis XV., Louis XVI., Louis XVII., Louis XVIII., and Charles X. There is also somewhere in Europe an elderly gentleman, who, by virtue of his descent from the same king, considers himself entitled to reign over France, and would immediately place himself on the throne if he could. His title, I believe, if he ever -reigns, will be Henry V. The younger son of Louis XIII., created Duke of Orleans, was also the progenitor of a line of princes, the eldest son al- ways inheriting the same title. Thus, during the last two hun- dred years, the royal family of France has consisted of two branches, called respectively the reigning branch and the Orleans branch, both of which were descended directly from the great king, Henry IV., who was the father of Louis XIII. These Orleans princes became, in the course of four or five generations, immensely rich, the richest family in France, if not in Europe. One Duke of Orleans gave away in charity every year, a quarter of a million francs ; two others were the scandal of Christendom for extravagance and debauchery, and still their estates increased. It happened, curiously enough, that a virtuous Duke of Orleans usually had a very dissolute jon, and a dissolute duke a virtuous son, so that what one squan- dered the next heir made up by economy. Philippe, brother of Louis XIV., was tolerably steady ; his son, Philippe, Regent of France, was one of the most shameless roues, gluttons, and LOUIS PHILIPPE. 505 wine-bibbers that ever lived ; his sou, Louis, was a downright devotee and bigot ; his son, Louis Philippe, was not what we should call a moral man, but he was very moral for the France of that clay, exceedingly charitable, and a most liberal patron of art and literature; his son, Louis Philippe Joseph, was that notorious debauchee and pretended democrat who figured in the first years of the French revolution as "Egalite." Despite his renunciation of his rank and title, despite his having voted for the execution of the king, he, too, became a victim of the guil- lotine. The reader remembers, perhaps, the scene at the execution of this man. He was carried on a cart past his own palace, through a dense crowd of people who hooted him as ho went by. He replied to the vociferations of the mob with gestures of impatient contempt. On the scaffold the executioners at- tempted to pull off his long and handsome riding boots, which were tight to his legs. "No, no," said he, "you will get them off more easily after- wards. Make haste ! make haste ! " These were the last words of the Duke of Orleans. By his death his eldest son, according to the ancient laws of France, became the possessor of his title and of his enormous estates. That son was Louis Philippe, then aged twenty years, destined one day to reign over the French people. As his father had been dissolute, it was the turn of the new Duke of Orleans to be virtuous ; and so he was. But where was the young prince when his father made the remark concerning his tight boots just quoted? The same de- cree which condemned that father to death confiscated his estates, declared his children enemies of France, and offered a reward for the arrest of the eldest, who alone was free. Long before, he had disappeared from view, and scarcely a soul in Europe, knew the place of his retreat. On the day of the execution of the Duke of Orleans, a young man called M. Chabaud-Latour sat in a room of a boarding school in Switzerland, teaching geography and arithmetic to successive classes of boys. He had been recommended to the principal of the school by a French nobleman, and had been employed for 506 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. several months in the school as a teacher. When the newa reached this sequestered place of the execution of the Duke of Orleans, the young teacher learned that he was fatherless, fol M. Chabaud-Latour was no other than the duke's eldest son. Admonished soon after of the necessity of removing further from France, he resigned his place, and left the school, bearing with him a certificate of good conduct. Not a person in the establishment suspected that he was any other than M. Chabaud- Latour, a virtuous youth, willing to earn an honest livelihood by labor. From this point I shall follow mainly the narrative of his ad- ventures as given by King Louis Philippe to the American Min- ister at his court, the late Lewis Cass. Secretly supplied with money by old friends of his family, he changed his name to Corby, and made an extensive tour in Swe- den and Norway, away from the turmoil of European politics, going as far as the most northern point of Europe. Once, and once only, he heard his ancestral name pronounced. Having spent a day in the country with the family at whose house he boarded (in Christiana, Norway), just as they were about to summon their vehicles to return to the town, a young man of the party cried out in French : " The carriage of the Duke of Orleans ! " Penetrated with alarm, the prince had self-control enough not to betray any agitation, and, seeing that the young man did not look at him, he ventured to inquire in a careless tone, why he had called the Duke of Orleans' carriage, and what relations he had with the duke. "None," replied the youth ; "but when I was at Paris, when- ever we came from the opera, I heard repeated from all quarters, 'The carriage of the Duke of Orleans.' I have been more than once stunned with the noise, and I just took it into my head to make the same exclamation," The prince, as may be imagined, was much relieved by this explanation. After an extensive tour in Lapland he- returned to Denmark, where he received an important message from his mother. She bformed him that the French Directory had engaged to restore LOUIS PHILIPPE. 507 her property and release her two younger sons from piison, pro- vided she would induce her oldest son to go to the United States, where, if they chose, his brothers could join him. Certain that he would comply with the condition, she concluded her letter with these words : w May the prospect of relieving the sufferings of your poor mother, of rendering the situation of your brothers less painful, and of contributing to give quiet to your country, recompense your generosity." He began his reply with this sentence : "When my dear mother shall receive this letter her orders will have been executed, and I shall have sailed for the United States." Passing for a Dane, the prince went to Hamburg, and applied to the captain of an American ship for passage to Philadelphia for himself and a servant. The captain strongly objected to taking the servant, who, he said, would be of no use on the voyage, and would certainly run away as soon as he reached America. It was only after much persuasion that the captain could be induced to take him. Having secured this point, the prince next asked to be allowed to reside on board the ship until it sailed. The captain gave a reluctant consent, and the prince, glad of so safe a hiding-place, went on board. September 24, 17&6, the ship sailed, and after an agreeable voyage of twenty-seven days, cast anchor before Philadelphia. Before saying good-by to the honest captain, the prince told him who he was. The captain informed the prince, in return, that he had conceived a very unfavorable impression of him ; and) after puzzling a good deal over the matter, had come to the con- clusion that he was a gambler who had cheated at cards, and was obliged to fly. The prince found lodgings in Philadelphia, in Walnut Street, between Fourth and Fifth Streets, at the house of a clergyman, and there he lived while awaiting the arrival of his brothers. They had a passage of ninety-three days, but arrived safely at length, and the three brothers, after so long and eventful a sep- aration, had a joyful meeting. As there was now no occasion for concealment, the princes, although they claimed no rank on PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. account of their birth, mingled in the society of Philadelphia without disguise. President Washington entertained them often, and invited them to visit him at Mount Veruon. They were present at the inauguration of John Adams, when General Wash- ington laid aside, and his successor assumed, the cares of state. Of all those scenes, of the persons he knew, and the places he visited, King Louis Philippe retained the most distinct recollec- tion forty years after, mentioning to General Cass a large num- ber of familiar Philadelphia names. From Philadelphia the three princes set out in the spring of 1797, for an extensive tour in the South and West. On their way to Mount Vernon they passed through the forest which then grew on the site of the city of Washington. At Mount Vernon they spent several days. The king told General Cass that Washington was rather silent and reserved, extremely me- thodical in laying out his time, and careful not to waste it. He allowed all his guests complete liberty. After breakfast every one rode, hunted, fished, rambled, read, or wrote, just as he pleased until dinner-time brought them all together again, when each related the adventures of the day. The host provided lib- erally the means of enjoyment, and left everybody free to select his own pastime. "How did you sleep, general?" asked the Duke of Orleans one morning of the master of the house. "I always sleep well," replied General Washington, "for I never wrote a word in my life which I had afterwards cause to regret. " G Before the departure of the princes, General Washington prepared for them with his own hands a plan or map of their western journey, furnished them with letters of introduction to gentlemen on the route, and gave them instruction in the art of travelling through the wilderness, which no man living under- stood better than he. Nor were these young men ill-prepared for such a journey. Their education had been superintended by the celebrated Madame de Genlis, who accustomed them to hardship, had them instructed in carpentry, surgery, and medi- cine, caused them tc be taught to swim, ride, march, camp out, and live on the scantiest fare. While still in the enjoyment of LOUIS PHILIPPE. '509 his rank at home, the duke had saved a poor man from drowii- iug, and received in reward a crown of oak leaves. She had them taught, also, to keep accounts ; and the king told General Cass that he still possessed, in 1835, a book containing an exact account of all the expenditures of the party during their resi- dence in the United States. The journey lasted all the summer. The princes rode on horseback, carrying all their baggage in their saddle-bags, and camping in the woods when there was no house near. There was one period during which they camped out for fourteen suc- cessive nights. The king remembered the incidents of this long tour, and even the names of the landlords who entertained him, as though it had been a recent excursion. He related that at Winchester, in the Valley of the Shenaudoah, a democratic inn- keeper turned them out of his house because (one of them being sick) they asked the privilege of eating by themselves. "If you are too good," roared this despotic democrat, "to eat at the same table with my other guests, you are too good to eat in my house. Begone ! " Despite the instant apology of the Duke of Orleans, the land- lord insisted on their going, and they were- compelled to seek other quarters. Another landlord, whose hotel was a log-cabin of one room, was very urgent for them to buy land in the neighborhood, and was totally unable to comprehend what their object could be in travelling so far, if they did not intend to settle. It was in vain they explained to him that they merely wished to see the coun- try. He let them know very plainly that he looked upon them as little better than fools, and seemed to pity them as persons unfit to manage their own affairs. In another log-tavern of a single apartment, wherein the guests slept on the floor, and the landlord and his wife on the only bedstead, the duke overheard the landlord, in the night, saying to his wife what a pity it was that three such promising young men should be roaming about the country without object, instead of buying land in that set- tlement and establishing themselves respectably. At another tavern the duke remonstrated with the landlady for not attend- ing to their wants. She replied that there was a show in the 33 510 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. village, the first show ever seen in that country, and she was not going to stay at home herself, nor require any one else to stay, to wait on anybody ; not she, indeed ! After journeying as far west as Nashville, they returned by way of Niagara Falls, and reached Philadelphia brown, robust, and penniless. So poor were they, for a time, that they could not remove from Philadelphia during the prevalence of the yel- low fever. When they received remittances, they resided for a while at New York, where they became well acquainted with Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, John Jay, Governor Clinton, and others , whom tho king well remembered. JULIUS CJBSAB. 511 JULIUS C^SAR. Louis NAPOLEON not long: ago gave the world the first volume of a Life of Julius Caesar, the obvious design of which is to justify his own conduct in seizing the throne of France. The subject was well chosen for his purpose, but he should have pub- lished it in another man's name, for no one much regards what an accused person has to say in his own defence. It is better for a criminal to employ a skilful advocate than to plead his own cause. We must own, however, that there are points of re- semblance both between Caesar and the first Napoleon, and be- tween Augustus, his successor, and Napoleon III. Caius Julius Caesar, born July 12th, one hundred years be- fore Christ, owed his first popularity among the people of Rome to the fact that, though born to noble rank, he joined the party opposed to the ancient aristocracy. He courted the people by giving them gladiatorial shows and public banquets, in which he wasted his estate and involved himself in enormous debts. Ad- vanced, at an early age, to public office, and holding a seat in the Senate, he employed his power and cast his vote on the pop- ular side, and was held in great esteem by the people before he had dazzled them by victories in the field. Nature appeared not to have formed him for a warrior ; for, in early life, he was eiender and of weakly constitution, and seemed chiefly to desire distinction as an orator and political leader. Napoleon, also, was of so diminutive a figure, so pale, thin, and insignificant looking, that, one day, in presenting himself in uniform to the lad} 7 - whom he was courting, she burst into the most immoder- ate laughter at the ludicrous contrast between his appearance and his martial costume. Napoleon, too, began his career as a 512 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. radical republican, and served first in the armies of the Re- public. Caesar was thirty -six years of age before he had commanded an army. His military career lasted eighteen years, during which he conquered part of Spain, the whole of France, a large portion of Germany, and made two incursions into Great Brit- ain. As a general, he strikingly resembles Napoleon, especially in the astonishing rapidity of his movements, and in his tact in securing the confidence, the homage, the enthusiastic devotion of his troops. His tactics in war, and his policy after triumph, were precisely those of Napoleon. When, by swift marches, by skilful and unexpected concentrations of force, he had over- whelmed and paralyzed the enemy, and the conquered country lay before him despairing and utterly helpless, then he was ac- customed to conquer anew by clemency, by offering peace on terms unexpectedly favorable, by heaping honors and bounties on the phiefs. There never was a greater general. After the closest study of the campaigns of both, we should be inclined to accord to Caesar and Napoleon equal rank as soldiers, but for the fact that Napoleon was Caesar's pupil. At college, Napo- leon studied Caesar's tactics, and in the field he applied them to modern circumstances, methods, and weapons. Caesar was his master in. every thing ; but it is only a giant that can tread in a giant's footsteps. Only a man of genius can be truly the pupil of a man of genius. After more than ten years of conquest, Caesar, the idol of his soldiers and of the Roman people, was still regarded with jeal- ous hatred by the aristrocratic faction at Rome, the head of which was Pompey, a great soldier, but a weak, vain, ambitious man. This faction, at length, drove from the Senate and from the city Caesar's leading friends, who fled toward the camp of their chief. " The die is cast," exclaimed Caesar. He led his veteran legions across the Rubicon, and made open war upon Pompey. Two short, swift, and masterly campaigns sufficed for the total destruction of his enemies, and Pompey himself was slain, and his head brought to Caesar. The victor was as element in this new triumph as he had been when warring against the G ermans and the Gauls. The chiefs of the aristocratic party JULIUS C^SAK. 513 were promptly pardoned, and many of them were placed in high commands. Brutus, who had served under Caesar, and who had sided with Pompey, was one of those whom Caesar for- gave, and .advanced to the governorship of a province. Of all the host who had been in arms against him, not one man was executed, nor the estate of one man confiscated, the aim of the conqueror being to restore peace to his distracted country, that he might at once begin the execution -of his still vaster designs. Julius Caesar, at the age of forty-seven, was master of the greater part of the Roman world. The ancient forms of repub- lican government were carefully preserved ; but not the less was the whole power of the state wielded by one man. He appeared to desire to use his power for the good of the country. He built temples, established new military posts, sent forth colo- nies, restored the cities injured in the civil wars, corrected the calendar, projected a survey of the empire, and a codification of the laws. But he was not satisfied with these peaceful con- quests. He seemed, as Plutarch remarks, as jealous of his old renown as though that renown belonged to another man, and he burned for new triumphs, so dazzling that they should cast into the shade all his previous achievements. Aiming at nothing less than the subjection of the world to his imperial sway, he pre- pared to transport his legions to the remotest frontiers of the empire, and saw, in prospect, the whole earth under Roman laws and institutions, governed by Roman lieutenants, all owning al- legiance to the central .power himself. This was Napoleon's error too. Napoleon appeared entirely great until he assumed the trivialities of the imperial dignity, and pretended to give away kingdoms. It is the error natural to men whose talents are immense, and whose souls are little. In the plenitude of his power, Caesar became haughty, irrita- ble, harsh toward the nobles, impatient of contradiction, rest- less. He needlessly wounded the self-love of those who served him, an error he had never committed when he was climbing to the throne of the world, an error which truly great men never knowingly commit. In the midst of the execution of his gigantic schemes, a conspiracy was formed against him, which aimed at his life. Of the men engaged in it, all but Brutus 514 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGKAPHY. seem to have been actuated by personal and petty motives. Some of them were offended that an old comrade should have attained such a height above them. Some had grudges to avenge, and others hoped to rise upon the ruins of his power. Brutus alone appears to have thought that the death of the des- pot would restore to Rome its ancient liberty, and it was his name that gave something of dignity to the plot. The spring of the year forty-four, B. C., arrived. Rome was all astir with the departing legions and the noise of the dicta- tor's mighty schemes. Csesar still walked the streets of Rome unattended, and had no guard about his house, nor any escort when he went to the senate-house. Rumors were industriously circulated that he meant to assume the title of king a name of horror to the Romans. True he had thrice refused the prof- fered crown, in the sight of the people ; but many imagined, and Brutus among them, that he had refused it as a woman often refuses the thing she covets most, refused it that it might be the more strenuously thrust upon him. On the morning of the ides (the 15th) of March, Coesar en- tered the senate-house. The Senate rose, as usual, to do him honor. He took his usual seat. Oil the pretence of asking the recall of a man whom he had banished, the conspirators gath- ered round his chair. He gave them, at length, a positive de- nial, and, as they continued then.' importunities, he grew angry. One of the men then seized the collar of his robe and drew it off his shoulders, which was the preconcerted signal of attack. Another, with nerveless hand, struck at his neck with his sword, inflicting a slight wound. Csesar, astonished, laid his hand upon his sword, and said : " Villain ! Casca ! what do you mean ? " At once the whole party drew their swords, and Caesar saw himself hedged about with bristling points. He stood at bay, with his drawn sword, and defended himself as became him, until Brutus thrust his sword into his groin. Then, it is said, he uttered the memorable words : "Thou, too, Brutus!" JULIUS CAESAR. 515 and, dropping the point of his sword, gave up the struggle, and fell pierced with twenty-three wounds. Fifteen years of civil war followed the assassination of Julius Caesar. At the time of his death, his nephew, Octavius, a youth of nineteen, was travelling with his tutor. No one sup- posed that this young man would so much as dare to come to Rome to claim his uncle's private estate. He boldly appeared, however, and joined in the strife for the slain emperor's power. Some of his rivals he overcame by management and flattery ; others were destroyed by their own vices ; some he overthrew in battle ; and, at length, assuming the title of Augustus, he wielded the whole authority of Caesar, and ruled the vast Ro- man empire peacefully and ably for forty years. He, too, re- spected and preserved the ancient forms of the republic. Un- der him a body called the Senate still held its sessions, and men styled consuls were elected. But Augustus was, in fact, abso- lute sovereign of the civilized world. This is the man with whom Louis Napoleon desires to be compared. Like him, he is called the nephew of his imperial predecessor ; but Caesar had only adopted the father of Octa- vius as his relative, and upon Louis Napoleon's kinship with Nap'oleon doubts have been cast. Augustus won his throne by a strange mixture of cruelty, cunning, and audacity. Louis Napoleon's throne was gained by craft more than by courage ; it was founded in perjury and blood. He will, perhaps, en- deavor to show, by and by, that France could be saved from anarchy only by destroying its liberty. So, doubtless, Julius Cresar reasoned, and so the first Napoleon. The answer is simple : they never tried to save order and lib- erty. They attempted only the easier task of concentrating all power in their own hands. Theirs was the small ambition of founding a dynasty, and not the grand ambition of regenerat- ing a country. With all their amazing gifts, history pronounces them little men, because they employed their gifts for an object beneath a great man, their own glory. To my mind, poor Charles Goodyear, battling with India- rubber, carrying his pot of lime up Broadway to Greenwich village, wrestling with his material for ten years till he had sub- 516 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. ducd it to a thousand useful purposes, is a more august figure, than any of the Csesars or either Napoleon. Nevertheless, while the majority of mankind are sunk in ignorance and super- stition, Ceesars and Napoleons are inevitable. As a choice of evils, they are sometimes even to be desired. The school-mas- ter and the newspaper, good books and enlightened men will gradually render them, first unnecessary and then impos- sible. PRESIDENT MADISON'S MARRIED LIFE. 517 PRESIDENT MADISON'S MARRIED LIFE. DOROTHY PAYNE, who was the wife of President Madison, was the daughter of a Virginia planter, though she was not her- self born in Virginia. It was while her parents were on a visit to some friends in North Carolina, in 1769, that her mother gave birth to the infant who was destined to have so remarkable and distinguished a career. Soon after this event, Mr. and Mrs. Payne, having conscientious scruples with regard to the holding of slaves, set theirs free, joined the Quakers, gave up their plan- tation, and removed to Phila "'elphia. Their daughter, Dorothy, was brought up in 'the strict tenets and sober habits of the Friends, and, when she was twenty years of age, married a young lawyer, of that persuasion, named Todd. Three years after, her husband died, leaving her the mother of a son, with little provision for their future maintenance. At this time her mother was also a widow, and was living in Philadelphia in such narrow circumstances that she was com- pelled to add to her little income by taking boarders. Mrs. Todd went to reside with her mother, and assisted her in the care of her house. She was one of the most beautiful young women in Philadelphia. I have before me a portrait, taken of her in early life, which fully justifies her reputation for beauty. Her figure was nobly proportioned, and her face had the robust charms of a fresh and vigorous country girl. After her hus- band's death she laid aside the prim garments and the serious demeanor of the Quakers, and gave free play to the natural gay- ety of her disposition. Indeed, she formally ceased to be a Quakeress, and attended the more fashionable Episcopal Church. Dolly Todd, as she was then called, had considerable celebrity PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. in Philadelphia, both for the charms of her person and the live- liness of her conversation. Among her mother's boarders at this time were several mem- bers of Congress, to whom, of course, the young widow made herself as agreeable as she could. Aaron Burr, then a senator of the United States, was one of these boarders, and James Madison, a member of the House of Representatives from Vir- ginia, was another. Mr. Madison was considered by the ladies as a confirmed old bachelor, since he had attained the age of forty-three without having yielded to the allurements of the sex. He was the last man in the world, as his friends thought, to be captivated by a dashing young widow. Of all the public men who have figured in public life in the United States he was the most studious and thoughtful. The eldest son of a rich Virginia planter, he was yet so devoted to the acquisition of knowledge that, for months together at Princeton College, he allowed himself but three hours' sleep out of the twenty-four, an excess which injured his health for all the rest of his life. He appeared to live wholly in the world of ideas. Daniel Webster reckoned him the ablest expounder of the constitution, and Thomas Jefferson pronounced him the best head in Virginia. Without being a brilliant ora- tor, he was an excellent argumentative speaker, and always con- ciliated the feelings of his opponents by the gentleness of his demeanor and the courtesy of his language. His bearing and address were remarkably simple and modest. He was always dressed in a suit of black, and looked more like a quiet student, busy only with his thoughts and his books, than a statesman of a young republic. One trait of character alone seemed to fit him for the companionship of Dolly Todd. He was a merry man, with a keen relish for every kind of innocent fun, and told a story extremely well. Aaron Burr in his old age (so one. of his friends told me) used to boast that he "made the match" between James Madi- son and Mrs. Todd. However that may be, they were married in 1794, when Mr. Madison was forty-three, and Mrs. Todd twenty-five. Her little son, aged five years, never had a rival in his mother's affections, since no children blessed their union, PRESIDENT MADISON'S MARRIED LIFE. 519 A few years after the marriage, when Thomas Jefferson came to the presidency, Mr. Madison was appointed secretary of state, an office which he continued to hold for eight years, during which Mrs. Madison was the centre of a brilliant circle of society in Washington. The gossips of the day were of opinion that her influence over her husband was greater than it should have been, and that it was sometimes her voice which decided appointments and influenced measures. In 1809 Mr. Madison became the President of the United States, and his vivacious and beautiful wife enjoyed, for the next eight years, a splendid theatre for the exhibition of her charms. It was during her husband's second term that the interesting event of her life occurred. In August, 1814, the news came to Washington that a British army had lauded on the coast, within a hundred miles of the capital. A few days later the president and his cabinet were flying toward Virginia, while Mrs. Madi- son sat at a window of the presidential mansion, listening to the distant thunder of cannon on the disastrous field of Bladensburg. She held a telescope in her hands, with which she looked anx- iously down the road by which her husband was expected to return ; but she could see nothing but squads of militia wander- ing about without purpose or command. At the door of the house a carriage stood, filled with plate and papers, ready to leave at an instant's warning. The Mayor of Washington visited her in the course of that terrible afternoon, and advised her to leave the city ; but she calmly refused, and said she would not leave her abode without the president's orders. A messenger from him at length arrived, bearing a note, written hurriedly with a lead-pencil, telling her to fly. Among the precious articles in the White House was the fine portrait of Washington taken by Stewart from life. She seized a carving-knife from the table, cut the picture out of its frame, rolled it up, hurried with it into the carriage, and .drove away. At Georgetown, two miles from the city, she met the president and cabinet, who were assembled on the banks of the Potomac about to cross. There was but one little boat on the shore, in which only three persons at a time could trust themselves. The president assigned to Mrs. Madison nine cavalrymen, and di- 520 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. rected her to meet him on the following day at a certain tavern sixteen miles from Georgetown. In the dusk of the evening she began her march, accompanied by two or three ladies, while the president and his companions were rowed across the river. When the British officers entered the president's house that evening, they found tfce dinner-table spread for forty guests, the president having invited a large dinner-party for that day. The wine was cooling on the sideboard ; the plates were warming by the fire ; the knives, forks, and spoons were arranged upon the snowy table-cloth. In the kitchen, joints of meat were roasting on spits before the fire ; saucepans full of vegetables were steam- ing upon the range, and everything was in a state of forward- ness for a substantial banquet. The officers sat down to the table, devoured the dinner, and concluded the entertainment by setting fire to the house. It was a terrible night. The capitol was burned, the treasury building, the president's house, all the principal public buildings, and the navy yard. It was not until the evening of the following day that Mrs. Madison, in the midst of a violent storm of thunder, wind, and rain, approached the tavern to which the president had directed her. He had not yet arrived, and the landlady, terrified by the events around her, had barred the doors, and refused to admit the drenched and exhausted ladies. The troopers were obliged to force an entrance. Two hours later, the President of the United States reached the house, wet, hungry, and fatigued. The landlady could provide them with nothing but some bread and cold meat ; after partaking of which they retired to a mis- erable bed, not without fears that the next morning would find them prisoners of the British general. It happened, however, that the English troops retired even more rapidly than they had advanced, and in a few days the president and his wife returned to Washington, which was still smoking from the recent confla- gration. They found the best lodgings they could, and the government was soon performing its accustomed duties. We have a pleasing glimpse of Mrs. Madison, in an old num- ber of the "National Intelligencer," in which the editor describes the scene at the president's house on the evening when the newa of peace arrived, in February, 1815 : 87 PRESIDENT MADISON'S MARRIED LIFE. '521 ''Late in the afternoon came thundering down Pennsylvania A. venue a coach and four foaming steeds, in which was the bearer of the good news. Cheers followed the carriage as it sped its way to the residence of the president. Soon after nightfall, members of Congress and others deeply interested in the event presented themselves at the president's house, the doors of which stood open. When the writer of this entered the drawing-room at about eight o'clock, it was crowded to its full capacity, Mrs. Madison (the president being with the cabinet) doing the honors of the occasion. And what a happy scene it was ! Among the members present were gentlemen of opposite politics, but lately arrayed against one another in continual conflict and fierce de- bate, now with elated spirits thanking God, and with softened hearts cordially felicitating one another upon the joyful intelli- gence which (should the terms of the treaty prove acceptable) should re-establish peace. But the most conspicuous object in the room, the observed of alt observers, was Mrs. Madison her- self, then in the meridian of life and queenly beauty. She was in her person, for the moment, the representative of the feelings of him who was in grave consultation with his official advisers. No one could doubt, who beheld the radiance of joy which lighted up her countenance and diffused its beams around, that all un- certainty was at an end, and that the government of the country had, in very truth (to use an expression of Mr. Adams on a very different occasion) , ' passed from gloom to glory,' With a grace all her own, to her visitors she reciprocated heartfelt con- gratulations upon the glorious and happy change in the aspect of public affairs ; dispensing with liberal hand to every indi- vidual in the large assembly the proverbial hospitalities of that house." From 1817 to 1836, when her husband died, .she lived in retirement at Mr. Madison's seat in Virginia, dispensing a lib- eral hospitality, and cheering her husband's life by her gayety and humor. Her last years were spent in the city of Washing- ton. She retained much of* her beauty and vivacious grace to her eightieth year, and was much courted by the frequenters of the capital. She died in the year 1849, aged eighty-two. 522 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. JOHN A. SUTTER, AND THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA. PEOPLE often say what they would do if they should f lid a gold mine ; evidently supposing that a man who finds a gold mine is made rich of course. But this, it appears, is. not al- ways the case. Neither the man who discovered gold in Cali- fornia, nor the man upon whose land it was discovered, have been benefited by it. On the contrary, the discovery ruined them both, and both are to-day poor men. John A. Sutter, the son of Swiss parents, was born in 1803, at Baden, where he was reared and expensively educated. In early life he obtained a commission in the French army, in which he rose to the rank of captain, and remained in the ser- vice until he was thirty years of age. A number of his Swiss friends and relations, in 1833, formed a company with a view to emigration to some part of the United States suited to wine- growing ; and they selected Captain Sutter to go to America and choose a location for the colony. He arrived in New York, upon this errand, in July, 1834. Proceeding to the State of Missouri, he chose a place for the colony in a region unpopulated, if, indeed, it had been explored, and he was making preparations for the coming of his friends, when a sad mishap frustrated the enterprise. Captain Sutter brought with him a considerable capital, with which he was to begin a settlement, erect buildings, and get a piece of land under cultivation. Unfortunately, a steamboat, loaded with implements and stores, timber and other materials, for the pro- jected establishment, was sunk in the Mississippi river, and proved a total loss. Being thus compelled to postpone the scheme of colonization, and being of an adventurous turn of mind, he made a tour in New Mexico. There he met some JOHN A. SUTTER. 523 hunters and trappers who had visited Upper California, and they gave him such a captivating description of that beautiful and romantic country, that he determined to go thither himself. In March, 1838, he joined a party of the American Fur Com- pany, and travelled with them to the Rocky Mountains ; and thence, with six mounted men, he crossed the range and made his way to Fort Vancouver, in Oregon, As there was no mode of getting down the coast to California, he took passage in a vessel bound to the Sandwich Islands. At Honolulu he waited five months, during which not a single vessel sailed for San Francisco. He then accepted a situation as supercargo in a vessel which was to land stores at Sitka, an island which forms part- of what was till recently Russian America, but which, I presume, will soon rejoice in another name. From Sitka the vessel proceeded along the coast, and was driven into the port of San Francisco in distress. Captain Sutter announced his intention to remain in the country to the Mexican governor, from whom he obtained a grant of land. After many adventures and tantalizing delays, he landed a schooner-load of effects on the Sacramento river, near the site of the present city of Sacramento, and there began to build the stockade afterwards so famous as Sutter's Fort. He was then thirty-six years of age, .and had been in America five years. His colony consisted of six white men, adventurers from various parts of the world, and eight Indians. 'In the fol- lowing year eight more white men straggled in and joined him, so that the population of the district consisted of fourteen white men, eight friendly Indians, and some hundreds of roving sav- ages. Every season, however, brought in a few recruits. The colony prospered. Besides cultivating the soil, Captain Sutter and his comrades sent hides to San Francisco, for exporta- tion to the United States, and the port became a depot of furs purchased from the wandering trappers and hunters. The land granted to Captain Sutter consisted of eleven square leagues, and he named his settlement New Helvetia. Many a worn and starving band of emigrants from the United States were relieved and entertained at Captain Sutter's. One example of this hospitality tells a terrible story of the sufferings 524 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. endured at that day in crossing the plains. A man came in one morning and reported that his comrades were some miles dis- tant in the desert country, dying of starvation. Sutter instantly loaded a few ef his best mules with provisions, and despatched them to the relief of the perishing band, under the guidance of two Indians. The starving party was so large that the supplies were insufficient. After consuming the provisions, they killed the mules and ate them ; then they killed the two Indians and devoured them ; and even after that, when some of their own number fell exhausted, they ate them. This is almost too much for belief. I relate it upon the authority of Mr. Edward E. Dunbar, President of the Travellers' Club of this city, who had the story from Captain Sutter himself, and who has recently published a work upon the discovery of gold in California, from which most of these particulars are derived. The war with Mexico ended in our acquisition of California. As early as March, 1847, the flag of the United States floated over San Francisco, and troops of the United States garrisoned the town. In 1848 Captain Sutter was the owner of eleven leagues of land, upon which he had erected various costly improvements. He had a flour-mill, supplied by a mill-race three miles long, which had cost twenty-five thousand dollars. He had expended ten thousand dollars in the erection of a saw-mill. One 'thou- sand acres of his land were verdant with young wheat. He owned eight thousand cattle, two thousand horses and mules, two thousand sheep, and one thousand hogs. Besides possess- ing all this property, he had been appointed alcalde of the dis- trict by Commodore Stockton, and Indian agent by General Kearney. He was monarch of all he surveyed, and was held in high respect, both by his colonists and by the United States officers stationed in the Territory. This was his position on the day gold was discovered on his land. One of the men in his employment was James W. Marshall, a native of New Jersey, who, after long wanderings on the Pacific coast, had enlisted under Colonel Fremont, in the California battalion, from which, at the close of the war, he was honorably discharged. As he was an excellent mechanic, JOHIS T A. SUTTER. 525 he obtained employment from Captain Sutter. It was he who superintended the building of the saw-mill just mentioned, which was situated at a point forty miles east of Slitter's fort. In January, 1848, the mill being nearly complete, they had begun to saw timber, Marshall still being the superintendent. In the evening of February 2, 1848, James Marshall sud- denly rode into the fort, his horse foaming, and both horse and rider spattered all over with mud. The man was laboring under wild excitement. Meeting Captain Sutter, he asked to be conducted to a room where they could converse alone. The astonished Sutter complied with his desire, and they entered a secluded apartment. Marshall closed the door, and asked Captain Sutter if he was certain they were safe from intrusion, and begged him to lock the door. The honest Sutter began to think the man was mad , and was a little alarmed at the idea of being locked in with a maniac. He assured Marshall that they were safe from interruption. Satisfied, at length, upon this point, he took from his pocket a pouch, from which he poured upon ' the table half a thimble-full of yellow grains of metal, with the exclamation that he thought they were gold. " Where did you get it ? " asked Captain Sutter. Marshall replied, that, early that morning, the water being shut off from the mill-race, as usual, he noticed, in passing along, shining particles scattered about on the bottom. He picked up several, and, finding them to be metal, the thought had burst upon his mind that they might be gold. Having gathered about an ounce of them, he had mounted his horse and ridden forty miles to impart the momentous secret to his employer, and bring the yellow substance to some scientific test. Captain Sutter was at first disposed to laugh at his excited friend. Among his stores, however, he happened to have a bottle of aqua-fortis, and the action of this powerful acid upon the yellow particles at once proved them to be pure gold ! The excitement of this moment can be imagined. Marshall proposed that Captain Suiter should immediately mount and ride back with him to the saw-mill ; but, as it was raining hard, the night dark, and the mill forty miles distant, Captain 526 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. Sutter preferred to wait till daylight. Marshall, however could not be restrained. He set out immediately on his return. At the dawn of day, Sutter started ; and, when he was withiu ten miles of the saw-mill, he saw before him, coming out of some bushes, a dark object which he took to be a grisly bear, but which proved to be James Marshall ! "What are you doing here?" asked Sutter. Marshall replied that he had been to the saw-mill, but was so impatient to see the captain, that he had walked back ten miles to meet him. They went on together to the, mill, and found all the laborers picking up the shining particles from the bottom of the race. Captain Sutter did not relish the prospect. He soon satisfied himself that gold, in considerable quantities, existed in the neighborhood, but as the harvest was coming on, and some of his improvements were unfinished, he feared lest his men should leave him in the lurch, and all go to gold- digging. Calling his men around him, he explained his situa- tion, and they agreed to keep the matter a secret for six weeks, when the harvest would be gathered. But such a secret cannot be kept. A teamster, going from the mill to the fort, and wishing something to drink, went to a store and asked for a bottle of whiskey. As the teamster's credit was not high in the country, the store-keeper intimated that whiskey was a cash article. The man said he had plenty of money, and imme- diately showed some grains of the precious metal which he had brought from the saw-mill. The store-keeper, having satisfied himself that the yellow particles were indeed gold, supplied the whiskey, at the same time begging the man to tell where he had got it. The teamster, at first, refused to reveal the secret, but the whiskey soon unloosed his tongue, and he related the whole story. The rush that followed is well known. All California hurried to the spot. Sutter's harvest was never gathered. His oxen, hogs, and sheep were stolen by hurigry men and devoured. No hands could be procured to run the mills. His lands were squatted upon and dug over, and he wasted his remaining substance in fruitless litigation to recover it. 15 VALENTINE MOTT. 527 ON that Saturday morning, when the news of the assassina- tion of President Lincoln struck horror and dismay to the minds of the people of New York, Dr. Valentine Mott, the most emi- nent surgeon America has produced, was seated in his dressing- room under the hands of his barber. He had reached the age of eighty years, but was still hale and vigorous. Though re- tired from practice, he was occasionally induced to perform an operation, and his hand appeared to have lost little of its steadi- ness or skill. Four times during the last winter he had oper- ated for rigidity of the lower jaw ; he had used the knife that very week, and was under an engagement to remove an en- larged cancer of the breast. The doctor was an unusually handsome old gentleman, of erect and finely developed frame, his countenance wejl defined and healthy-looking, and his hair as white as snow. As he appeared in the streets, clad in his suit of spotless black, his linen as snowy as his hair, he looked the very picture of that character which is so much admired, "a gentleman of the old school." It has been a custom with barbers, from time immemorial, to discourse Avith their patrons of the news of the day. The barber of Dr. Mott at once began to speak of the awful news of that morning. The doctor, who had heard nothing of it, was over- whelmed with the intelligence. He turned as pale as death. Rising from his chair, he staggered to an adjoining room in search of his wife. "My dear, "'said he, "I have received such a shock, President Lincoln has been murdered." Having uttered these words, he sat down, still deadly pale, and so feeble that he could scarcely keep his seat. He was soon seized with acute pains in the back, and appeared to be overtaken, PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. all at once, with the weakness usually attached to fourscore. From that time, he continued to grow feebler every hour, and, after lingering ten days, breathed his last, a victim of the same blow that robbed the nation of its chief. Dr. Mott was .born at Glen Cove, on Long Island, in 1785, only fifteen months after the final ratification of the treaty which acknowledged the independence of the United States ; so that he was almost as old as the nation. His father, Henry Mott, was also a physician, an old New York practitioner, who died at the age of eisrhtv-thrce. After the usual course of medical <_? *~~> * study at Columbia College, he obtained his degree in his twenty- first year, and sailed for Europe to continue his studies. At that time, owing to the severity of the laws against body-snatch- ing, and the intense hostility of the people to the dissection of the dead, it was impossible in New York to procure the requisite means of studying the human frame. Bodies were occasionally obtained from the prisons and almshouses, but even these were granted reluctantly, and, at that day, they were very few in number. Hence the necessity which compelled a } r ouug man, ambitious to rise high in his profession, to repair to the medical schools of Paris, London, and Edinburgh. Dr. Mott spent three years abroad, and faithfully improved his time. A surgeon, however, like a poet, is born, not made. That firmness and dexterity of hand, that boldness and resolu- tion, that perfect eyesight, that strength of muscle, that calmness of nerve, and power of enduring a long drain upon the vitality, which are requisite in great surgical operations, are nature's own gift. Study may make a man a physician, but no man can be a great surgeon unless he is born for that vocation . In the hospitals of Europe, while still little more than a youth, Dr. Mott gave evidence of possessing the surgeon's peculiar organi- zation. He performed several leading operations with so much success, that he returned home famous, and was at once ap- pointed Professor of Surgery in Columbia College. From that time to the da}' of his death, a period of fifty-six years, he was a Professor of Surgery in New York. He was the first teacher of his art in this country to deliver bedside lectures to students, a method extremely disagreeable to the patient whose dis- VALENTINE MOTT. 529 eased body furnishes the subject of the lecture, but highly beneficial to the students. He used to tell a story of the desperate risks that had to be incurred, fifty years ago, in getting bodies for dissection. To be merely found in possession of a human limb subjected a student to a long term of imprisonment ; and such was the fury of the people against dissection, that, if a man escaped the severity of the law, he would be likely to incur a worse fate at the hands of a mob. Nevertheless, one dark night, in 1815, Dr. Mott and a number of his students braved all the terrors of the law and of the mob in their efforts to procure a winter's supply of "subjects." Dressed in the coarse and well-worn clothes of a laborer, he mounted a cart, and drove alone to a bury ing-ground some distance out of town. A baud of students had been at work within the enclosure, and, by the time the cart arived, they were ready with the load designed for it. Eleven bodies were quickly placed in the cart, and covered over in such a way as to lead passers-by to suppose that it was loaded with country produce. That done, the young men van- ished into the night, leaving their professor to drive his cart to the college in Barclay street. In the dead of night he drove down Broadway, and reached the college unchallenged, where the band of students were ready to receive him. The load was promptly transferred to the dissecting-room, and the cart re- turned to its owner. To a late period of his life he was accustomed, before per- forming an important operation, to experiment upon the dead body. A story is told of his readiness in the lecture-room. A mother brought into the amphitheatre, one morning, an ex- tremely dirty, sickly, miserable-looking child, for the purpose of having a tumor removed. He exhibited the tumor to the class, but informed the mother that he could not operate upon the child without the consent of her husband. One of the stu- dents, in his eagerness to examine the tumor, jumped over into the little enclosure designed for the operator and his patients. Dr. Mott, observing this intrusion, turned to the student, and him, 'vith the most innocent expression of countenance : 530 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. " Are you the father of this child ? " Thunders of applause and laughter greeted this ingenious rebuke, during which the intru- der returned to his place crestfallen. His coolness in the very crisis of an operation was very re- markable. If he had occasion for another instrument, he never took it without a courteous bow and word to the assistant who handed it to him. There was never the slightest appearance of haste, tremor, anxiety, or excitement. He went calmly on, from the first incision to the last ligature, his touch always sure, and his judgment clear. He cut firmly and boldly, yet with a certain gentleness, too, that reduced the patient's sufferings to the minimum, and greatly facilitated the healing of the wounds. There was no chloroform, it must be remembered, during the first forty years of his practice, to keep the patient still and un- conscious under the knife. The surgeon had to endure at every moment the consciousness that he was inflicting agony, and hear the shrieks of the sufferer lying bound upon the table, or held by strong men in the chair. The first honors of surgery are awarded to those who are the first to perform difficult operations. Judged by this standard, Dr. Mott is entitled to the first rank among the surgeons of the world. In his thirty-third year, he placed a ligature around arteries within two inches of the heart, an operation sufficient of itself to place him at the summit of his profession. In 1828, he performed what is universally allowed to be the most difficult feat ever attempted in surgery. A clergyman was afflicted with an enormous tumor in the neck, in which were embedded and twisted many of the great arteries. In removing this tumor, it was necessary to take out entire one of the collar-bones, to lay bare the membrane enclosing the lungs, to dissect around arteries displaced by the tumor -and embedded in it, to apply forty ligatures, and remove an immense mass of diseased matter. All this was done without the aid of chloroform. The patient survived the operation, and is now living, and discharging the duties of his profession. Dr. Mott was the first to operate sue- ' cessfully for immovability of the lower jaw, and the first to entirely remove the lower jaw. He was the first to succeed in sewing up a slit in a large vein ; and he did this in some cases VALENTINE MOTT. 531 where a portion of the vein had been sliced away, an opera- tion of inconceivable delicacy. He once cut away two inches of the deep jugular vein, which was embedded in a tumor, and tied both ends of it. In the course of his long professional life he tied the carotid artery forty-six times ; performed the opera- tion for stone one hundred and sixty -five times ; and amputated nearly a thousand limbs. Sir Astley Cooper truly remarked : " Dr. Mott has performed more of the great operations than any man living, or that ever did live." A great surgeon is frequently tempted, by the mere love of his art, to perform an operation not strictly necessary. Dr. Mott held this practice in abhorrence. He used to relate an anecdote of his last visit to Paris, which shows that some sur- geons are not so scrupulous. A celebrated Paris surgeon asked him one day if he would like to see him perform his original operation. "Nothing would give me more pleasure," replied Dr. Mott. The Frenchman mused a moment, and then said : "However, now I think of it, there is no patient in the hospital who has that malady. No matter, my dear friend, there is a poor devil in Ward No. , who is of no use to himself or any- body else ; and if you'll come to-morrow, I'll operate beautifully on him." It need not be said that Dr. Mott declined to witness the perpetration of a crime so atrocious. The venerable doctor was an ardent patriot. At the begin- ning of the rebellion he gave a curious reply to a friend who asked him what he thought would be its result. "Sir," said he, "I grant you that the body politic has been severely lacerated, and I doubt not that the wound will heal eventually ; but it will be by the second intention. There will always be a scar to mark the union of the dissevered parts." He was one of the eminent men commissioned by the govern- ment to examine the prisoners of war whom Jefferson Davis had starved and tortured at Andersonville, Salisbury, and Belle Isle. On his return, he was asked whether the newspaper reports of their condition were exaggerated. " My dear boy," he exclaimed , with horror depicted on hi? countenance, "you can form no idea of the poor, shrivelled, wasted victims. In the whole course of my surgical experience, '532 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. not excepting the most painful operations on deformed limbs, 1 have never suffered so much in my life at the sight of anything, I care not what it is. It unnerved me. I felt sick." This, remember, was the testimony of a man who, for a period of sixty-five years, had been in the constant habit of witnessing human suffering in every form ; who had lived in the hospitals of the great cities ; and who was a gentleman of unimpeachable veracity. ANDREW JACKSON'S ROMANTIC MARRIAGE. 533 ANDREW JACKSON'S ROMANTIC MARRIAGE, RACHEL DONELSON was the maiden name of General Jack- son's wife. She was born in Virginia, in the year 1767, and lived in Virginia until she was eleven years of age. Her father, Colonel John Donelson, was a planter and land surveyor, who possessed considerable wealth in land, cattle, and slaves. He was one of those hardy pioneers who were never content unless they were living away out in the woods, beyond the verge of civilization. Accordingly, in 1779, we find him near the head- waters of the Tennessee River, with all his family, bound for the western parts of Tennessee, with a river voyage of two thousand miles before him. Seldom has a little girl of eleven years shared in so periloua an adventure. The party started in the depth of a severe win- ter, and battled for two months with the ice before it had fairly begun the descent of the Tennessee. But, in the spring, accorn panied by a considerable fleet of boats, the craft occupied by John Donelson and his family floated down the winding stream more rapidly. Many misfortunes befell them. Sometimes a boat would get aground and remain immovable till its whole cargo was landed. Sometimes a boat was dashed against a projecting point and stink. One man died of his frozen, feet ; two children were born. On board one boat-, containing twenty-eight persons, the small-pox raged. As this boat always sailed at a certain distance behind the rest, it was attacked by Indians, who captured it, killed all the men, and carried off the women and children. The Indians caught the small-pox, of which some hundreds died in the course of the season. But during this voyage, which lasted several months, no mis- fortune befell the boat of Colonel Donelson ; and he and his 38 534 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. family, including his daughter Rachel, arrived safely at the site of the present city of Nashville, near which he selected his land, built his log house, and established himself. Never has a set- tlement been so infested with hostile Indians as this. When Rachel Donelson, with her sisters and young friends, went blackberrying, a guard of young men, with their rifles loaded and cocked, stood guard over the surrounding thickets while the girls picked the fruit. It was not safe for a man to stoop over a spring to drink unless some one else was on the watch with his rifle in his arms ; and when half a dozen men stood together, in conversation, they turned their backs to each other, all facing different ways, to watch for a lurking savage. So the Donelsons lived for eight years, and gathered about them more negroes, more cattle, and more horses than any other household in the settlement. During one of the long winters, when a great tide of emigration had reduced the stock of corn, and threatened the neighborhood with famine, Colonel Donelson moved to Kentucky with all his family and dependents, and there lived until the corn crop at Nashville was gathered. Ra- chel, by this time, had grown to be a beautiful and vigorous young lady, well skilled in all the arts of the back-woods, and a remarkably bold and graceful rider. She was a plump little damsel, with the blackest hair and eyes, and of a very cheerful and friendly disposition. During the temporary residence of her father in Kentucky she gave her hand and heart to one Lewis Robards, and her father returned to Nashville without her. Colonel Donelson soon after, while in the woods surveying far from his home, fell by the hand of au assassin. He was found pierced by bullets ; but whether they were fired by red savages or by white was never known. To comfort her mother in her loneliness, Rachel and her husband came to Nashville and lived with her, intending, as soon as the Indians were sub- dued, to occupy a farm of their own. In the year 1788, Andrew Jackson, a young lawyer from North Carolina, arrived at Nashville to enter vpon the practice of his profession, and went to board with Mrs. Donelson. He soon discovered that Mrs Rachel Robards lived most unhappily ANDREW JACKSON'S ROMANTIC MARRIAGE. 535 with her husband, who was a man of violent temper and most jealous disposition. Young Jackson had not long resided in the family before Mr. Robards began to be jealous of him, and many violent scenes took place between them. The jealous Robards at length abandoned his wife, and went off to his old home in Kentucky, leaving Jackson master of the field. A rumor soon after reached the place that Robards had pro- cured a divorce from his wife in the legislature of Virginia ; soon after which Andrew Jackson and Rachel Douelson were married. The rumor proved to be false, and they lived together for two years before a divorce was really granted, at the end of which time they were married again. This marriage, though so inauspiciously begun, was an_ eminently happy one, although, out of doors, it caused the irascible Jackson a great deal of trouble. The peculiar circumstances attending the marriage caused many calumnies to be uttered and printed respecting Mrs. Jackson, and some of the bitterest quarrels which the general ever had, had their origin in them. At home, however, he was one of the happiest of men. His wife was an excellent manager of a household and a kind mis- tress of slaves. She had a remarkable memory, and delighted to relate anecdotes and tales of the early settlement of the country. Daniel Boone had been one of her father's friends, and she used to recount his adventures and escapes. Her abode was a seat of hospitality, and she well knew how to make her guests feel at home. It used to be said in Tennessee that sho could not write ; but, as I have had the pleasure of reading nine letters in her own handwriting, one of which was eight pages long, I presume I have a right to deny the imputation. It must be confessed, however, that the spelling was exceed- ingly bad, and that the writing was so much worse as to be nearly illegible. If she was ignorant of books, she was most learned in the lore of the forest, the dairy, the kitchen, and the farm. I remember walking about a remarkably fine spring that gushed from the earth near where her dairy stood, and hearing one of her colored servants say that there was nothing upon the estate which she valued so much as that spring. She grew to be a stout woman, which made her appear 53G PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. shorter than she really was. Her husband, on the contrary, was remarkably tall and slender ; so that when they danced a reel together, which they often did, with all the vigor of the olden time, the spectacle was extremely curious. It was a great grief to both husband and wife that they had no children, and it was to supply this want in their household that they adopted one of Mrs. Donelson's nephews, and named him Andrew Jackson. This boy was the delight of them both as long as they lived. Colonel Benton, who knew Mrs. Jackson well and long, has recorded his opinion of her in the following forcible lan- guage : "A more exemplary woman in all the relations of life wife, friend, neighbor, relation, mistress of slaves never lived, and never presented a more quiet, cheerful, and admirable manage- ment of her household. She had the general's own warm heart, frank manners, and admirable temper ; and no two persons could have been better suited to each other, lived more happily together, or made a house more attractive to visitors. No bash- ful youth or plain old man, whose modesty sat them down at the lower end of the table, could escape her cordial attention, any more than the titled gentlemen at her right and left. Young per- sons were her delight, and she always had her house filled with them, all calling her affectionately 'Aunt Rachel.'" In the homely fashion of the time, she used to join her hus- band and guests in smoking a pipe after dinner and in the evening. There are now living many persons who well remem- ber seeing her smoking by her fireside a long reed pipe. When General Jackson went forth to fight in the war of 1812, he was still living in a log house'of four rooms ; and this house is now standing on his beautiful farm ten miles from Nashville. I used to wonder, when walking about it, how it was possible for Mrs. Jackson to accommodate so many guests as we know she did. But a hospitable house, like a Third- Avenue car, is never full, and in that mild climate the young men could sleep on the piazza or in the corn-crib, content if their mothers and sisters had the shelter of the house. It was not until long after the general's return from the wars that he built, or could afford ANDREW JACKSON'S -ROMANTIC MARRIAGE. 637 to build, the large brick mansion which he named the "Hermit- age." The visitor may still see in that commodious house the bed on which this happy pair slept and died, the furniture they used, and the pictures upon which they were accustomed to look. In the hall of the second story there is still preserved the huge chest in which Mrs. Jackson used to stow away the woollen clothes of the family in the summer, to keep them from the moths. Around the house are the remains of the fine gar- den of which she used to be so proud, and, a little beyond, are the cabins of the hundred and fifty slaves to whom she was more a mother than a mistress. A few weeks after the battle of New Orleans, when her hus- band was in the first flush of his triumph, this plain planter's wife floated down the Mississippi to New Orleans to visit her husband and to accompany him home. She had never seen a city before, for Nashville, at that day, was little more than a village. The elegant ladies of New Orleans were exceedingly pleased to observe that GeneralJackson, though he was himself one of the most graceful and polite of gentlemen, seemed to- tally unconscious of the homely bearing, the country manners, and awkward dress of his wife. In all companies and on all occasions he showed her every possible mark of respect. The ladies gathered about her and presented her with all sorts of showy knick-knacks and jewelry, and one of them undertook the task of selecting suitable clothes for her. She frankly con- fessed that she knew nothing about such things, and was willing to wear anything that the ladies thought proper. Much as she enjoyed her visit, I am sure she was glad enough to return to her old home on the banks of the Cumberland and resume her oversight of the dairy and the plantation. Soon after the peace, a remarkable change came over the spirit of this excellent woman. Parson Blackburn, as the gen- eral always called him, was a favorite preacher in that part of Tennessee, and his sermons made so powerful an impression upon Mrs. Jackson that she joined the Presbyterian Church, and was ever after devotedly religious. The general himself was almost persuaded to follow her example. He did not, how- ever ; but he testified his sympathy with his wife's feelings by 538 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. building a church for her a curious little brick edifice 'on his own farm ; the smallest church, I suppose, in the United States. Of all the churches I ever saw, this is the plainest and simplest in its construction. It looks like a very small school - house ; it has no steeple, no portico, and but one door; and the interior, which contains forty little pews, is unpainted, and tho floor is of brick. On Sundays, the congregation consisted chiefly of the general, his family, and half a dozen neighbors, with as many negroes as the house would hold, and could see through the windows. It was just after the completion of this church that General Jackson made his famous reply to a young man who objected to the doctrine of future punishment. "I thank God," said this youth, "I have too much good sense to believe there is such a place as hell." "Well, sir," said General Jackson, "/thank God there is such a place." " Why, general," asked the young man, "what do you want with such a place of torment as hell ? " To which the general replied, as quick as lightning : * To put such rascals as you are in, that oppose and vilify the Christian religion." The young man said no more, and soon after found it con- venient to take his leave. Mrs. Jackson did not live to see her husband President of the United States, though she lived long enough to know that he was elected to that office. When the news was brought to her of her husband's election, in December, 1828, she quietly said : w Well, for Mr. Jackson's sake " (she always called him Mr. Jackson), " I am glad ; for my own part, I never wished it." The people of Nashville, proud of the success of their favor- ite, resolved to celebrate the event by a great banquet on the 22d of December, the anniversary of the day on which the general had first defeated the British below New Orleans ; and some of the ladies of Nashville were secretly preparing a mag- nificent wardrobe for the future mistress .of the White House. Six days before the day appointed for the celebration, Mrs. Jackson, while busied about her household affairs in the kitcheu ANDREW JACKSON'S ROMANTIC MARRIAGE. 539 of the Hermitage, suddenly shrieked, placed her hands upon her heart, sank upon a chair, and fell forward into the arms of one of her servants. She was carried to her bed, where, for the space of sixty hours, she suffered extreme agony, during the whole of which her husband never left her side for ten minutes. Then she appeared much better, and recovered the use of her tongue. This was only two days before the day of the festival, and the first use she made of her recovered speech was, to implore her exhausted husband to go to another room and sleep, so as to recruit his strength for the banquet. He would not leave her, however, but lay down upon a sofa and slept a little. The evening of the 22d she appeared to be so much better that the general consented, after much persuasion, to sleep in the next room, and leave his wife in the care of the doctor and two of his most trusted servants. At nine o'clock he bade her good -night, went into the next room, and took off his coat, preparatory to lying down. "When he had been gone five minutes from her room, Mrs. Jackson, who was sitting up, suddenly gave a long, loud, inarticulate cry, which was immediately followed by the death-rattle in her throat. By the time her husband had reached her side she had breathed her last. " Bleed her," cried the general. But no blood flowed from her arm. "Try the temple, doctor." A drop or two of blood stained her cap, but no more followed. Still, it was long before he would believe her dead, and when there could no longer be any doubt, and they were preparing a table upon which to lay her out, he cried, with a choking voice : " Spread four blankets upon it ; for if she does come to she will lie so hard upon the table." All night long he sat in the room, occasionally looking into her face, and feeling if there was any pulsation in her heart. The next morning, when one of his friends arrived just before daylight, he was nearly speechless and utterly inconsolable, looking twenty years older. There was no banquet that day in Nashville. On the morn 540 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. ing of the funeral, the grounds were crowded with people, who saw, with emotion, the poor old general supported to the grave between two of his old friends, scarcely able to stand. The remains were interred in the garden of the Hermitage, in a tomb which the general had recently completed. The tablet which covers her dust contains the following inscription : "Here lie the remains of Mrs. Rachel Jackson, wife of Pres- ident Jackson, who died the 22d of December, 1828, aged 61. Her face was fair, her person pleasing, her temper amiable, her heart kind ; she delighted in relieving the wants of her fellow- creatures, and cultivated that divine pleasure by the most liberal and unpretending methods ; to the poor she was a benefactor ; to the rich an example ; to the wretched a comforter ; to the prosperous an ornament ; her piety went hand in hand with her benevolence, and she thanked her Creator for being permitted to do good. A being so gentle and so virtuous, slander might wound but not dishonor. Even death, when he tore her from the arms of her husband, could but transport her to the bosom of her God." Andrew Jackson was never the same man again. During his presidency, he never used the phrase: w By the Eternal," nor any other language which could be considered profane. He mourned his wife until he himself rejoined her in the tomb he had prepared for them both. MARCUS AT7RELITJS. 541 THE WISEST OF THE PAGANS. MARCUS AUEELIUS, AND SOME OF HIS THOUGHTS. THIS man, the sixteenth of the Roman Emperors, born A. D. 121, has been greatly glorified in modern times by anti- Christian authors. "Behold," say they, "this virtuous Pagan ! What Christian has ever been more pure, more just, more magnanimous, more modest than he? If such virtue as his can be attained by the unassisted efforts of man, what need is there of miraculous revelation? ". Voltaire, and other writers of his age, never lose an opportunity of extoll- ing in this manner the virtuous Marcus Aurelius. He is a standing subject with them. Of late years, his reign has been the subject of particular investigation in Europe, and to the scanty information furnished by his biographers, much knowledge has been added by those patient and learned men who study the inscriptions, medals, and coins of antiquity. His character, however, bears investigation well, and the more we know of him the more we can respect him. He was not born heir to the imperial throne, but was the son of private persons of patrician rank, who were related to the Emperor Adrian. His father dying when he was only a child, he was adopted by his grandfather, and this brought him into nearer intimacy with the Emperor, who became warmly attached to him, greatly admiring his good-nature, his docility, and his artless candor. His early education appears to have been conducted with equal care and wisdom. "To the gods," he says, "I am indebted for having had 542 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. ' good grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good teach- ers, good associates, good kinsmen and friends, nearly every- thing good." He thanks the gods, also, that he was not hurried into any offence against either of these persons, that his youth was passed in purity and peace, and that he was subjected to a ruler and father, who showed him that it was possible for a man to live in a palace without wanting either guards or a splendid attire. And especially he thanks the gods for the excellent teachers that were given him, from whom he says he received clear and correct instruction how to live according to nature. There has recently been discovered, in the library of the Vatican, a familiar correspondence between this studious and affectionate youth, and one of his teachers. He wrote to his teacher as lovingly as a young man writes to his sweetheart. " How do you think," he says, in one of the letters, " that I can study when I know that you are suffering ? " And again : " I love you more than any one else loves you ; more than you love yourself. I could only compare my tender- ness for you with that of your daughter, and I am afraid that mine surpasses hers. Your letter has been forme a treasure of affection, a springing fountain of goodness, a warming fire of love. It has lifted my soul to such a degree of joy, that my words are incapable of uttering it." He tells his teacher, elsewhere, that he passes many hours of the night in study ; and he makes just such remarks on the books he reads, upon the lectures he hears, and upon the lessons he takes, as a student might of the present day. He speaks thus, for example, of one of the most noted Greek teachers of oratory : " Three days ago, I heard Polemon declaim. Do you wish to know what I think of him ? Well, this ia my answer : I compare MARCUS A UR ELI US. 543 him to a farmer well skilled and experienced, who asks nothing of his farm but corn and grapes. Doubtless, he has happy vintages and abundant harvests ; but you seek in vain upon his domain for the beautiful fig-tree or the sweet rose ; in vain you wish to repose under the shade of a noble tree. All is useful, nothing is agree- able ; and we can but coldly praise that which has not charmed us. You will think my judgment rash, perhaps, considering the splen- did reputation of the orator ; but it is to you that I am writing, my master, and I know that my rashness does not displease you." We learn from these pleasant letters, also, that he was a merry lad, as Avell as a studious one. He tells his teacher an incident of one of his rides : " I was on horseback," he says, "and had gone some distance on the road. All at once we perceived directly before us a numerous flock of sheep. It was a solitary place ; two shepherds, four dogs, nothing- else. One of the shepherds said to the other, as we rode up, ' Let us take care ; these people look to me like the greatest thieves in the world.' I heard the remark, and, spurring my horse vigorously, I dashed into the flock. The frightened sheep scattered and fled, pell-mell. The shepherd hurled his crook at me, and it came near hitting the horse- man who rode behind me. We started off as quick as pos- sible, and the poor man, who expected to lose his flock, lost nothing but his crook." These passages give us a lively and pleasing idea of the innocent youth of this excellent man, who appears to have enjoyed every advantage of education which the Roman world afforded, and to have improved his opportunities of education to the utmost. He seems to have been a natural lover of wisdom from his youth up. In those days, persons who wished to be, or to be thought, philosophers, wore a particular kind of dress, and lived austerely, prac- tices which may have suggested the peculiar costume and 544- rigorous discipline of the Catholic orders. As early as his twelfth year, Marcus Aurelius assumed the philosopher's mantle, ate coarse bread, and delighted to sleep upon the bare ground. His mother, fearing for his health, which really suffered from his austerities, had great difficulty in persuading him to lie at night upon some skins of animals. At fifteen he was betrothed to the daughter of JElius Csesar, then heir to the throne ; and from this time, young as he was, he was conspicuously favored and employed by the Emperor Adrian, and he shone in the view of mankind as the gifted and fortunate youth whom the Emperor delighted to honor. When he was seventeen, the event occurred which made him an important personage in the Empire. The heir to the imperial throne suddenly died, leaving a son who gave no promise of ever possessing either the ability or the virtue requisite for governing a great Empire. In these circum- stances the aged Adrian adopted as his heir and successor the noble Antoninus, who afterward reigned so gloriously over the Empire and over himself; but Antoninus was adopted on condition that he should adopt, as his heirs and successors, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, the lattei being the son of that ^Elius Caesar who had just died. A few months after, Adrian himself died. Antoninus succeeded him, and during the whole of his reign Marcus Aurelius lived with him on terms of the closest intimacy, and shared with him the cares and duties of administration. On the death of Antoninus,. Marcus Aurelius and the indolent and sensual Lucius Verus succeeded ; but the weight of empire was borne by Marcus alone. Including the period when he was the most trusted counsellor of Adrian, we may say that, for forty years, his was the ruling influence in the Empire. The history of Marcus Aurelius, during this long period MARCUS AURELIUS. 545 of time, is the history of the great Roman Empire, which then embraced the civilized world ; and that history canuot, of course, be related here. I can say, however, that he displayed, in his high place, great talents and great virtues. He improved the administration of justice ; he was prompt in relieving private and public distress. Holding war in dread and abhorrence, he appears never to have engaged in any, except to defend his Empire against attack or conspir- acy. He originated a system of educating indigent young men of noble birth, which evidently gave rise to our modern military academies. He was clement and forgiving, even to a fault. On one occasion, when they brought him the head of a nobleman who had led a formidable revolt, he rejected the foul offering with horror and disgust, and refused to admit into his presence the men who had slain him. He wrote to the Senate with regard to the accomplices of this man : " Shed no blood. Recall those who have been banished, and restore to their owners the estates which have been confiscated. Would to the gods that I could recall also those who are in the tomb ! Nothing is less worthy of a sovereign than to avenge his personal injuries. Accord, then, a full pardon to the son of the guilty man, to his son-in-law, to his wife. And why speak of par- don? They are not criminals. Let them live in security, in the tranquil possession of their patrimony ; let them be rich, and free to go where they wish ; let them carry into every country testimo- nials of my goodness, and proofs of yours. Procure this glory to my reign, that on the occasion of a revolt aimed at the throne itself, the only rebels who died fell upon the field of battle ! " These are noble sentiments, and they accord with the gen- eral character of the man and his government. History records but one similar instance. His forbearance and mag- nanimity have been equalled only by the people of the 546 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. United States, who suppressed the most stupendous rebellion ever seen, and freely forgave every one who had taken part in it. There is a blot upon the fame of this great ruler. During his reign, the innocent and harmless Christians continued to be persecuted. He regarded the Christians as disturbers of the peace, foolish, fanatical, obstinate, and worthy of death, if they refused to abandon their religion. He regarded them, in fact, as the people of Christian coun- tries would now regard a body of men who should denounce the Christian religion, and spend their utmost strength in subverting it. Great pecuniary interests, let us remember, were involved in the support of paganism ; mul- titudes of people gaining subsistence and honor by serving the altars, by providing animals for the sacrifice, by the manufacture of images and other religious objects, just as among us vast numbers of persons gain their livelihood by serving the church. Marcus Aurelius, with all his wisdom and tolerance, sympathized with those of his subjects who thought that the spread of Christianity would deprive them of their means of living, and he allowed Christians to be tortured and put to death in considerable numbers. Voltaire denies this, and apparently with perfect sincerity ; but recent investigation establishes it beyond a doubt. The emperor, in fact, appears to have been ignorant, and, I think, unjus- tifiably ignorant, of the men stigmatized as Christians, and of the religion they were willing to die for. "A man," he says, "ought always to be ready to die; but this readiness should come from a man's own judgment. not from mere obstinacy, as with Christians, but consider- ately and with dignity, and in a way to persuade another, without tragic show." When he was born, Christianity had existed in the world MARCUS AURELIUS. 547 one hundred and twenty-one years ; and when he died, A. D. 180, it had already outlived savage persecutions, and had its adherents in all the more civilized parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia. This Emperor, with Christians all around him, appears never to have thought it worth while to inquire personally into their character, conduct, or doctrine. Judging from his writings, as well as from his conduct in allowing Chris- tians to be tortured and put to death, I should say that his ignorance of Christianity was complete, and that whatever he knew, or guessed, of man's duty, origin, and destiny, he had reached without assistance from it. Perhaps readers may feel some curiosity to know the opinions of this great Pagan on some of the subjects most interesting to man, and I have consequently gone over his celebrated Thoughts, and selected a few of them as specimens. The Emperor, it seems, was in the habit of jotting down his reflections as they occurred to him, whether he was residing peacefully in his palace, or whether he was living in camp, reducing to subjection a revolted province. These thoughts have come down to us in a manuscript now in the Vatican Library at Rome. They were written in the Greek language, and were first printed, with a Latin translation, in 1570. Since that time, they have been translated into many other languages, and they are justly regarded as one of the most precious relics of antiquity. "If a man die, shall he live again?" Upon this question, the most interesting of all others to man, the emperor thought much, but, apparently, without being able to satisfy himself. He weighs the reasons for and against immortality. He imagines an objector to the doctrine of immortality asking, "If souls continue to exist for ever, how does the air contain them?" 548 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. He answers the objection thus : " But how does the earth contain the bodies of those who have been buried from times so remote ? For as the dissolution of bodies makes room for other dead bodies, so the souls which are removed into the air, after subsisting for some time, are transmuted and diffused, and assume a fiery nature by being received into the seminal intelligence of the universe, and in this way make room for the fresh souls which come to dwell there." "This," he continues, " is the answer which a mail might give on the hypothesis of souls continuing to exist. But we must not only think of the number of bodies which are thus buried, but also of the number of animals which are daily eaten by us and the other animals. For what a number is consumed, and thus in a manner buried in the bodies of those who feed on them ! And, nevertheless, this earth receives them." He concludes, therefore, that there is room in the universe for all the souls which have ever existed, and ever shall exist ; but this does not suffice to convince him of immor- tality. In another place, discoursing upon death, he asks whether death is a " dispersion, or a resolution into atoms, or annihilation." One of two things, he thinks, it must be : extinction or change. "How can it be," he asks, "that the gods, after having arranged all things well and benevolently for mankind, have overlooked this alone : that good men, when they^have once died, should never exist again, but should be com- pletely extinguished? But if this is so, be assured that, if it ought to have been otherwise, the gods would have done it. But because it is not so, if in fact it is not so, be thou convinced that it ought not to have been so." It is pretty evident from such passages, first, that Marcus A.urelius did not know whether man is immortal or not; MARCUS AURELIUS. 549 and, secondly, that he was inclined to think he is not. He was equally in the dark respecting the First Great Cause. "There is one light of the sun," he says, "though it is distributed over walls, mountains, and other things* infinite. There is one common substance, though it is distributed among countless bodies which have their several qualities. There is one SOUL, though it is distributed among infinite natures and individuals. There is one intelligent soul, though it seems to be divided." Again he says, " To those who ask, where hast thou seen the gods, or how dost thou comprehend that they exist, and so worshippest them ? I answer, that neither have I seen my own soul, and yet I honor it. Thus, then, with respect to the gods ; from what I constantly experience of their power, I comprehend that they exist, and I venerate them." This appears tolerably decisive; but I should suppose, from other passages, that the Emperor was far from having a clear belief in the existence of a supreme intelligence. The following sentences are full of interest : " Either there is a fatal necessity and invincible order, or a kind providence, or a confusion without a purpose, and without a director. If, then, there is an invincible neces- sity, why dost thou resist? But if there is a providence which allows itself to be propitiated, make thyself worthy of the help of the divinity. But if there is a confusion without a governor, be content that in such a tempest thou hast in thyself a certain ruling intelligence. And even if the tem- pest carry thee away, let it carry away the poor flesh, the breath, everything else ; for the intelligence, at least, it will not carry away." This appears to have been a favorite thought of the Em- peror, for he repeats it more clearly and sharply, thus : " Either it is a well-arranged universe, or a chaos huddled 550 PEOPLE S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. together, but still a universe. But can a certain order subsist in thee, and disorder in the All? And this, too, when all things are so separated and diffused and sympa- thetic." lie has a curious remark upon the manner in which rnen ought to pray. "A prayer of the Athenians: 'Rain, rain, O dear Zeus, clown on the ploughed fields of the Athenians, and on the plains.' In truth, we ought not to pray at all, or we ought to pray in this simple and noble fashion." So much for this noble heathen's idea of the Deity. It does not amount to much. When, however, he speaks of man's duties to his fellow, his words are often pregnant with suggestive wisdom. The following sentences might be profitably uttered by every one at the beginning of every day : "If thou workest at that which is before thee, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract thee, but keeping thy divine part pure as if thou shouldst be bound to give it back imme- diately; if thou holdest to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with thy present activity according to nature, and with heroic truth in every word and sound which thou utterest, 'thou wilt live happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this." This is indeed an exceedingly fine passage, full of val- uable meaning, and one which only a great soul could have uttered. The following is in keeping with it : " Everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to thee, O Universe ! Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee. Everything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature ; from thee ace all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return." MARCUS AURELIUS. 551 To these fine passages I will add a few striking sentences, gathered here and there in his writings : " Observe how ephemeral and worthless human beings are, and what was yesterday a little mucus, to-morrow will be a mummy or ashes. Pass, then, through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature that produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew " " Be like the promontory against which the waves continu- ally break, but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it." " If it is not right, do not do it ; if it is not true, do not say it." " No longer talk about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such." " Imagine every man who is grieved at anything or dis- contented, to be like a pig which is sacrificed, and kicks and screams." " When thou art offended at any man's fault, forthwith turn to thyself, and reflect in what like manner thou dost err thyself." " Suppose any man should despise thee, let him look to that himself. But /will look to this, that I be not discov- ered doing or saying anything deserving of contempt." " In the gymnastic exercises, suppose that a man has torn thee with his nails, and by dashing against thy head has in- flicted a wound. Well, we neither show any signs of vexation, nor are we offended, nor do we suspect him afterwards, as a treacherous fellow; and yet we are on our guard against him; not, however, as an enemy, nor yet with suspicion, but we quietly get out of his way. Something like this let thy behavior be in the other parts of life ; let us overlook many things in those who are like antagonists in the gymna- 35 552 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. shim. For it. is in our power, as I said, to get out of the way, and to have no suspicion or hatred." " Keep thyself simple, good, pure, serious, free from affectation, a friend of justice, a worshipper of the gods, kind, affectionate, strenuous in all proper acts ; strive to continue to be such as philosophy wished to make thee. Reverence the gods and help men. Short is life. There is only one fruit of this terrene life, a pious disposition and social acts." Such are some of the thoughts of the famous Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Upon such topics as the immor- tality of the soul, the supreme power of the universe, the nature of death, he knew simply nothing ; all was dream and conjecture with him. But when he speaks of the duty of man to his neighbor and to himself, matters within the compass of human reason, he is often eminently wise. Marcus Aurelius died A. D. 180, aged sixty-nine years, of which he had reigned nearly twenty. He was mourned throughout the whole of the Roman Empire, which lost in him its noblest citizen. Of all those equestrian bronze statues erected to the memory of Roman Emperors, but one has been spared by the destructive tooth of time and the avidity of men. It is that of Marcus Aurelius. ARISTOTLE. 553 ARISTOTLE. HIS KNOWLEDGE AND HIS IGNORANCE. " IT is difficult," says Mr. Lewes, the author of an excel- lent work upon the science of the ancients, " to speak of Aristotle without exaggeration, he is felt to be so mighty, and is known to be so wrong." He appears to have possessed the whole of the knowledge which man had accumulated from the creation to his time ; but, along with that knowledge, he imbibed many of those errors which are inseparable from knowledge acquired before the true methods of investigation had been discovered. Hence the remark quoted : " He is felt to be so mighty, and is known to be so wrong." Mr. Lewes makes another remark concerning Aristotle which I think is exceedingly fine : " It is the glory of science to be constantly progressive. After the lapse of a century, the greatest teacher, on reappearing among men, would have to assume the attitude of a learner. The very seed sown by himself would have sprung up into a forest to obscure the view. But he who rejoices in the grandeur of the forest, must not forget by whom the seeds were sown. His heritors, we are richer, but not greater than he." This is a just and beautiful passage. There is not an intelligent boy or girl in a well-conducted school who could not set Aristotle right on a thousand points of science, who would not laugh at many of his mistakes ; and yet it is not 554 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. less true, that he was one .of the greatest intellects that has ever appeared among men. It is strange how little we know of the personal history of so great a man. The chief biographer of Aristotle, and the one whom alt the others copy, was not born until nearly six hundred years after the philosopher was dead. We pos- sess, therefore, only an outline of his life, and the statements even of that are not certain. On the coast of northern Greece there was a small seaport town, called Stagira ; and there Aristotle was born, three hundred and eighty-four years before the birth of Christ. It is from the name of his birthplace that he is frequently called " the Stagirite." His father was a renowned physi- cian, who practised his profession at the court of the king of Macedon, Amyntas the Second, the father of Philip, and the grandfather of Alexander the Great. While yet a boy, he accompanied his father to the residence of the king, and there attracted the regard of Philip, the future monarch. When he was seventeen years of age his father died, and left him a large fortune. Some of his biographers state that he squandered his wealth, and was obliged to sell drugs for a livelihood. This, however, is improbable and incredible ; for he is known to have collected in the early part of his life a valuable library. Books in those days were about as costly as good pictures now are : the works of some authors selling for as many talents as would be equivalent to four or five thousand of our dollars. His writings show that he had mastered all the literature of the Old World which wealth and research could procure, and that literature must have been his own. After his father's death, instead of squandering his patri- mony in contemptible dissipation, he went to Athens, the centre of the world of intellect, which was something like ARISTOTLE. 555 going to one of the great universities of the present day. His objects were to buy books, to get knowledge, and to listen, if possible, to the conversations of the illustrious Plato. Plato, it seems, was absent when he arrived, and he studied for three years, while awaiting his return, in order to qualify himself for admission to the circle of the great master's disciples. Once admitted, he was in no haste to withdraw ; for he had dedicated his whole existence to the acquisition of knowledge. He remained for seventeen years the pupil and friend of Plato ; not always, however, agree- ing in opinion with his master, but expressing his dissent occasionally with decision and force. He did not think it was any part of friendship, nor even of discipleship, to ren- der a servile assent to the opinion of his instructor. On the contrary, he maintains, in one of his works, that it is our duty sometimes to attack the doctrines held by dear friends when we feel them to be erroneous. " We ought," he adds, " to slay our own flesh and blood where the cause of truth is at stake, especially as we are philosophers. Loving both, it is our sacred duty to give the preference to truth. " In one respect he differed very much from Plato. As his mind matured, he lost in some degree his taste for those moral and metaphysical discourses in which Plato delighted, and was powerfully drawn toward physical science, in which he began at length to deliver lectures at Athens. The bias to such studies must have been strong in Aristotle, for Plato cared little for them, and the general taste of Athens was rather averse to natural philosophy. Philip, meanwhile, who had ascended the throne of Mace- donia, had not forgotten the son of his father's physician. Doubtless, the fame of Aristotle had spread over Greece, and kept the recollection of him alive in the memory of the 55G PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. Macedonian king. His son Alexander being then fourteen years of age, Philip invited Aristotle to reside in his court, and take charge of the Prince's education. This was the greatest honor which a king could then bestow upon a man of learning. Aristotle accepted the invitation. He was received at court with the greatest honor, and Alexander became tenderly attached to his instructor. He said once that he honored Aristotle no less than his own father ; for if to the one he owed his life, he owed to the other that which made life worth having. Centuries after the death of Aristotle there still existed the beautiful grove, with its winding, shady walks and seats of stone, which King Philip assigned for the use of his son and his master, in the midst of which he built a commodious school-room. There the philosopher and the Prince strolled and studied and con- versed for the space of four years, when those delightful days suddenly terminated by Alexander being compelled, at eighteen years of age, to become the regent of the kingdom. But Aristotle still remained in Macedon. Alexander gave him royal aid towards making those collections upon which his scientific works are founded. It is said that the young king presented him with a sum of money equal to a million dollars in gold, and that he gave orders to his huntsman and fisherman, during the march into Asia, to furnish him with all the animals he might desire to examine. The first of these statements is certainly an exaggeration ; and as to the second, Humboldt declares that in no work of Aristotle is there any mention of an animal brought to the knowledge of Europeans through Alexander's conquests. There is no doubt, however, that the young and liberal king gave impor- tant aid to his preceptor in his researches. After seven years' residence in Macedonia, he returned to Athens, where he obtained permission to teach in the most ARISTOTLE. 557 splendid of all the Athenian places of instruction, the Lyceum. If we may judge from the descriptions given of it, it was more like a beautiful university town than a col- lege ; as it consisted, we are told, of a number of edifices surrounded with gardens, avenues of trees, and groves, and boasted its porticoed courts, its lecture-rooms, covered promenades and baths, its course for foot-races, and a circus for wrestling. In this agreeable and commodious place, Aristotle lived for thirteen years, teaching the young men of Greece, who gathered eagerly around him, and hung upon his lips. There also he wrote those works which have pre- served his renown to the present hour. During the lifetime of Alexander, the politicians of Athens dared not molest his preceptor, although they regarded him with some suspicion as the friend of their country's foe. But when the great news came that Alexander was no more, Aristotle was no longer safe in Athens. A pretext was soon found for his persecution; he was accused, like Socrates, of irreligion. He had the good sense not to confront an igno- rant and prejudiced mob, but left the city in time, in order, as he said, " not to give the Athenians a second opportunity of committing a sacrilege against philosophy." In his retirement he wrote a defence of his conduct ; but the Athenians, when he did not appear in answer to the summons, pronounced him guilty, deprived him of all the rights and honors they had conferred upon him, and sen- tenced him to death. The sentence harmed him not. Worn by excessive study, and wounded, perhaps, by the ingrati- tude of the people whose city he had rendered glorious by living in it, he died soon after his retreat, in the sixty-third year of his age. He was twice married, and had children both of his own and by adoption. His will, which has come down to us, 558 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. contains thoughtful and kind provisions for his wife, his children, and his slaves. He expressly ordered that none of his slaves should be sold, but that all should be set free on attaining maturity. Those who have not forgotten their Greek Reader, re- member the list of Aristotle's wise sayings given in that work. Here are two or three of them. Being asked in what the educated differ from the uneducated, he said, " As the living differ from the dead." "What grows old soon?" asked one. His reply was, w Gratitude." Being blamed for giving alms to an unworthy person, he said, " I gave ; but it was to mankind." Once when he was sick, he said to the doctor, " Do not treat me as you would a driver of oxen or a digger, but tell me the cause, and you will find me obedient." The world came very near losing all the works of Aristotle before they had seen the light of publicity. The philosopher bequeathed his numerous writings to his friend Theophrastus, who, after having been his favorite disciple, had become his successor as chief lecturer in the Lyceum at Athens. Theophrastus at his death left them to his favorite pupil Neleus, who conveyed them from Athens to a city in Asia Minor, where he lived. When Neleus died, the precious manuscripts became the prop- erty of his heirs, who, not being men of letters, valued them only as so much property. By this time the works of philosophers and men of genius had acquired a great pecuniary value ; for many kings had caught, from the example of Alexander, the fashion of collecting manuscripts and founding libraries. Literary works had become indeed objects of such intense desire to kings and princes, that they began to be unsafe, because they were so easily stolen. The heirs of Neleus, ARISTOTLE. 559 therefore, while awaiting some royal purchaser for the works of Aristotle, did with them what the ancients were accus- tomed to do with money and jewels, they buried them in the earth. And in the earth they remained till they were forgotten. Much buried treasure of other descriptions was lost in ancient times by the death of the sole possessors of the secret. Travellers tell us that, to this day, a large amount of gold, silver, and jewels is annually lost in this way, in China, India, and other parts of Asia. The writings of Aristotle narrowly escaped destruction ; for it was only after they had been buried one hundred and thirty years, that they were discovered, and then only by accident. They were much defaced by the dampness of the earth, and some of the writing was obliterated. By a happy chance, a wealthy disciple of Aristotle heard of the discovery of the books, bought them, and employed several copyists in transcribing them. Many pages and some whole treatises were lost beyond recovery, and it is supposed that many of the errors now found in the text were owing to the well-meant endeavors of the purchaser to restore sentences and passages that were partly effaced. The works thus accidentally preserved were conveyed to Athens, where they remained until the city was captured and plundered by Scylla, by whom they were carried away to Rome, with a vast amount of other literary treasure. This was a fortunate circumstance. At Rome they attracted the attention of a learned Greek, who made additional copies of them. At length, about three hundred years after the death of Aristotle, his works may be said to have been pub- lished : that is, copies of them became an article of literary merchandise, and anybody could have a copy who could afford to pay a sum of money equal to four or five thousand dollars. From that time to about two centuries ago, the 560 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. works of Aristotle constituted of themselves an important portion of the scientific property of man. It is only during the last two hundred years that discovery has rendered his scientific writings valueless, and only interesting as a curi- osity of the past. It is surprising how little he knew that could be depended upon ; and all because he did not follow his own maxim : "Men who desire to learn, must first learn to doubt; for science is only the solution of doubts." He did not doubt enough. He took things too much for granted. He believed too easily. Although a writer on anatomy, for example, it is almost certain that he never examined the inside of the human body, much less dis- sected one. Imagine a doctor of the present day giving such an account of the liver as the following : " The liver is compact and smooth, shining and sweet, though somewhat bitter ; and the reason is, that the thoughts falling on it from the intellect, as on a mirror, might terrify it by employing a bitterness akin to its nature ; and threateningly mingle this bitterness with the whole liver, so as to give it the black color of bile ; or, when- images of a different kind are reflected, sweetening its bitterness and giving place to that part of the soul which lies near the liver, giving it rest at night, with the power of divination in dreams. Although the liver was constructed for divination, it is only during life that its predictions are clear ; after death its oracles become obscure, for it becomes blind." This is wonderfully absurd. Elsewhere he informs us that, in his opinion, the seat of the soul is that portion of the brain called the Pineal gland, a small, solid mass of nervous matter in the midst of the lobes of the brain. The reason which this great philosopher gives for so thinking is, that " all the other parts of the brain are double, and thought is single." ARISTOTLE. 561 Man's soul thus being in the head, he feels it necessary to explain why we are provided with bodies and limbs. Since the soul is completely enclosed within the skull, why should we be encumbered with such a great mass of unspiritual matter? The gods foresaw, he tells us, that the head, being round, would roll down the hills, and could not ascend steep places ; and to prevent this, the body was added as a carrier and locomotive of the head. He has some strange ideas with regard to the heavenly bodies. "The heat and light of the stars," he says, "are evolved from the friction of their bodies against the air ; for motion naturally produces heat, even in wood and stones ; and still more must this be the case with bodies which are nearer to fire ; and air is nearer to fire, as may be concluded from the heat of arrows, which become so heated that some- times their lead is melted ; and when they are heated, the air surrounding them must be heated also. Motion through the air generates heat. Of the heavenly bodies, each is moved in its own circle, so that it does not become hot, but the air surrounding it is made hot, and there hottest where the sun is. We must conclude, therefore, that the stars are neither made of fire nor moved in fire." It is not surprising that Aristotle should have been igno- rant of astronomy, because in his day the instruments did not exist by which the stars are observed, and the science of astronomy had not begun to be. It is, however, very sur- prising that he should have been so ignorant of the structure of the human body, and even of the bodies of animals. He seems never to have taken the slightest pains to test his conclusions by experiment, or even by close observation. He was satisfied to conjecture, and was contented with an explanation, if it only seemed reasonable to his OWD mind. 562 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. His errors of mere statement respecting the body are numerous and remarkable. He says, for example, that the human kidney is lobed ; that man has but eight ribs ; that the heart has only three chambers ; that the brain contains no blood ; and that the back part of the human skull is empty : all of which are manifest errors. His idea of diges- tion is very curious. He supposed that the food in the stomach was cooked by the heat of the body, and that while it is cooking the liquefied food steams up into the heart, where it is converted into blood. Nature, he says, being a good economist, gives the best part of the food to the noblest parts of the body ; as masters eat the best portions of an animal, the slaves the inferior parts, and the dogs the refuse. Since the interior of the body is so hot that food is cooked merely by the natural heat, he felt it necessary to explain why the body did not get too hot, and consume itself. This would certainly be the case, he says, if we did not continually inhale cool air ! Breathing is the cooling process ; and air alone, he adds, would answer the purpose, because its light- ness enables it to penetrate into many parts of the body which water could not enter. He misstates many things which he could have verified with the utmost ease. He says, for example, that a man has more teeth than a woman, and that the ox and the horse have each a bone in its heart. Mice, he informs us, die if they drink in summer ; and all animals bitten by mad dogs go mad, except man. He also says, that horses feeding in meadows suffer from no disease except gout, which destroys their hoofs, and that one sign of this disease is the appear- ance of a deep wrinkle beneath the nose. He gives the following explanation of the limbs of animals and men : ARISTOTLE. 563 " Animals are four-footed, because their souls are not powerful enough to carry the weight of their bodies in an erect position. Therefore all animals in relation to man are dwarfs ; for dwarfs are those which have the upper parts large and the organs of progres- sion smalt. In man there is a proper proportion between the trunk and the limbs ; but when newly born, the trunk is large and the limbs small. Hence infants .crawl, and cannot walk ; at first they cannot even crawl, nor move alone, for all infants are dwarfs. On the contraiy, among quadrupeds the under part is at first the larger ; but as they develop, the upper part becomes the larger. Henc colts are little if at all shorter than horses, and when they are young they can touch their heads with their hind feet, which they cannot do as adults. Hence all animals are less intelligent than man. And among men children and dwarfs are less intelligent than the adult and well-grown. The reason is, as before stated, because the physical principle is very difficult to move, and is cor- poreal." Into such errors can the ablest of men fall when they try to use their miuds before they have learned to use their eyes. Aristotle loved to think, but he was averse to the patient observation and the exact experiment by which alone scientific knowlege is gained. His works swarm with curious examples of ingenious reasoning, founded more upon fancy than fact. I will conclude with one more specimen. "The hand," says he, " is an instrument. Nature, like a rational being, always bestows instruments on those \vho can use them For it is better to give a flute to a flute- player, than to make a flute-player of one who possesses a flute ; since the inferior ought to be given to the greater and nobler, and not the nobler and greater to the inferior. If, therefore, it is better so, and as nature always acts for the best when possible, evidently man has bands because he is the most intelligent, and is not the most intelligent because he has hands." PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. THE FOUNDER OF THE ROTHSCHILDS. THERE used to be a conundrum current in Europe, which was something like this : " What is the difference between ancient and modern times ? Answer: In ancient times, all the Jews had one king; in modern times, all the kings have one Jew." The Jew referred to in this conundrum was Maier Amsel Rothschild, the founder of the great banking-house so famous throughout the world. The history of this remarkable per- son, which I shall now -briefly relate, is a striking illustration of the well-known truth, that every great and permanent success in business is founded upon the rock of honesty. A hundred years ago, there lived in the German city of Frankfort a Jewish money-changer, named Amsel Moses Rothschild, who gained a moderate livelihood by buying and selling the coins of the hundred little sovereignties into which Germany was then divided. Frankfort being a place of great trade, merchants resorted to it from most of these sovereignties, each of which had its own coinage and its own standard of the purity of the metals of which its coins were composed. Hence, there was a considerable, though hot very profitable, business done in Frankfort in buying, sell- ing, and exchanging coins. Moses Rothschild, though a very honest and respectable man, appears to have had no partic- ular talent or audacity in business, and he acquired, there- fore, only that "modest competence" which everybody extols, and with which no one is content. MAIER ROTHSCHILD. 565 The founder of the great banking-house was the eldest son of this worthy Israelite. He was accustomed from his youth up to assist his father in his business of money-chang- ing. He counted and sorted the coins, computed their value, procured supplies from other money-changers of such, coins as were needed, carried deposits to the bank, and thus obtained a most familiar and exact knowledge of the coin system of the whole world. He became acquainted, also, with the artificial values which some coins possess as speci- mens and curiosities. This knowledge was the beginning of his fortune. While still a youth, he was in the habit of closely examining the bags of coin in his father's coffers, and selecting from them such as he could sell at a premium to collectors. It sometimes happens in Wall Street, in our own day, that coins of great value are found in a bag of miscellaneous pieces ; but Wall Street men and boys are too busy to pick them out, as any one may see who will go into the office of a Wall Street bullion dealer, and see the rapidity with which the clerks do their work. But they took business more leisurely in Frankfort ninety years ago, and the boy, Maier Rothschild, found many a prize among his father's store. It was not the intention of his father to bring him up to business. On the contrary, he meant to make a Rabbi of him ; and, with that intent, sent him to an institution in which young Jews were fitted for the ecclesiastical office. The youth remained for many months at this establishment. Nature, however, will have her way with all of us, in spite of our fathers and in spite of ourselves ; and so this young Rothschild laid aside his books of theology, and took the place of clerk in a banking-house in Hanover. It was imme- diately evident that finance was his true vocation. As a banker's clerk he was diligent, prudent, faithful, and skilful 5G6 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. in the highest degree, and was trusted by his employers with operations of the first importance. Men destined to a great career, I have observed, generally serve a long and rigorous apprenticeship to it of some kind. They try their forming powers in little things before grap- pling with great. I cannot call to mind a single instance of a man who achieved a success of the first magnitude who did not first toil long in obscurity. Maier Rothschild remained a banker's clerk for several years before attempting to set up for himself. At length he returned to his native city, and there established a small business, similar in character to that of his father. Besides being a money-changer, he bought and sold curious coins, jewels, plate, and other precious objects. His knowledge and long training gave him such advantages that, by the time he was twenty-seven years of age, he was a banker of some note and considerable wealth. He was a married man, too, and was, in every respect, an established and prosper- ous citizen. From this time his wealth increased with a rapidity remarkable for that day; so that, in the year 1780, when he was but thirty-seven years of age, he was already living in the style of an opulent banker, and had already removed into the mansion in which he spent the remainder of his life. Doubtless he would have lived the life of a private banker of Frankfort to the end, but for that fearful storm of the French Revolution, which swept a large quantity of the wealth of the French nobility into his coffers. During these prosperous years he had been gaining something besides money and bonds. He had been accumulating character. He was known to be a man as honest as he was sagacious. His word was as good as his bond. When, therefore, the French emigrants came, bringing with them jewels, plate, 26 MAIER ROTHSCHILD. 567 and all that they could seize in the hurry of departure, and conceal during their flight, it was in the banking-house of Rothschild that the most precious of these valuables were deposited, to be by him invested or sold. His vaults were filled with treasures not his own. Looking about over Europe for a place where this property could be safely employed, out of the range of the political tempest which threatened the whole continent, he chose the sea-girt realm of Britain. To that country a great part of his capital his own as well as that of others was transported, and ere long he established in London a banking-house to facilitate the transaction* of the business resulting from the transfer. Nevertheless, he was still only a private banker. No king had as yet paid him tribute ; he had taken no government loan. His introduction into the region of grand, finance occurred in the year 1801, when he was fifty-eight years of age. The richest of the smaller potentates of Germany at that time was the Landgrave of Hesse, who had still in his strong box two million dollars of the money which the English govern- ment had paid him for the hire of the Hessian troops in our Revolution. In 1801, this noble sovereign was in quest of a person to manage his financial concerns, and he asked one of his friends to recommend him a suitable individual. It so happened that the Landgrave's friend, General EstorfF, had noticed the accuracy and good sense of Maier Rothschild many years before, when the banker was a banker's clerk in Hanover. He recommended him for the post, and he was summoned to the Landgrave's residence. When he arrived, it chanced that the mighty monarch was getting beaten in a game of chess, by General Estorlf. " Do you understand chess ? " asked the Landgrave. "Yes, your highness," said the banker. "Then step up here, and look at my game.** 568 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. Rothschild obeyed, and suggested the moves by which the game was easily won. It was enough. From that time to the end of his life, he managed the finances of the Landgrave of Hesse. This gave him such standing, and the use of so much capital, that when the Danish government in 1804 wished to borrow ten millions of dollars, he was able to take the whole loan. In 1806, the Landgrave of Hesse, an ally of the King of Prus- sia, was involved in the ruin of that monarch, beaten by Napoleon in the decisive battle of Jena. The Landgrave, obliged to abandon his capital, caused his treasure to be secretly conveyed to Frankfort, and deposited with Maier Rothschild, who in his turn Lad it all safely conveyed to London. For two or three years he had the use of it with- out interest, on the easy condition of keeping it safe. Thus strengthened, he was able to undertake to supply the British army in the Peninsula with money, and to make the stipu- lated payments, on behalf of the British government, to Spain and Portugal. As he rendered this service on terms proportioned to its difficulty and risk, his profits were, enor- mous. This able and honest man died in 1812, aged sixty-nine years, leaving five sons and five daughters. ' Since his death, the house has constantly grown in wealth and importance, and the partners now live in a style which would formerly have been considered extravagant in a king. During the ninety-eight years which have elapsed since the house was founded by Maier Rothschild at Frankfort, it has never failed to keep an engagement. PETER COOPER. 569 THE ti COOPER INSTITUTE AND ITS FOUNDER. EIGHTY years ago, in Water Street, New York, not far from the wharves, there was a small manufactory of hats, with a hat store in front, kept by a person who was some- times styled by his neighbors Captain Cooper. He had indeed served in the Eevolutionary war ; had taken part in some noted operations ; and, at the conclusion of peace, had retired from the service with the rank of Captain. He was not formed to achieve success in civil life, for he lacked perseverance. He was better at forming a scheme than at carrying it out ; and the consequence was, that, after a struggle often years, he was still but a poor hatter in Water Street, with a large and rapidly increasing family. Like many other amiable, inefficient men, he had had the luck to marry a woman singularly fitted to be the main-stay of a family having an incompetent head. The daughter of a former Mayor of New York, who had served in important positions during the Revolution, she had been reared and educated among the Moravians in Pennsylvania, who had so nourished and strengthened her moral nature as to render her a rare blending of sweetness and fire, of efficiency and tenderness, a lovely, noble creature, who has transmitted a vivid tradition of her excellent qualities to the third generation of her descendants. Seven sons and two daughters were born to this couple. Their fifth child was Peter Cooper, who has been for so many 670 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. years past, of all the inhabitants of Manhattan Island, the one most honored and beloved. He was born in 1791. The father's necessities compelling him to employ his chil- dren in his business, the earliest recollection of this son is of pulling and picking wool for hat bodies. He was kept at work, assisting his father, all his boyhood, except that dur- ing one year he attended school half of every day, when he learned reading, writing, and a little arithmetic. Before his father left the hat business, Peter learned to make a hat throughout ; and when afterwards his father removed to Peekskill, and set up a brewery, he learned every branch of that business also ; for, from childhood, he was quick to learn, dexterous in handling tools, and much given to in- venting improved methods and implements. At seventeen, not relishing the idea of spending his life in brewing beer, he came, with his father's consent, to New York, intending to put himself apprentice to any trade that he should fancy, after looking about among the workshops of the city. After wandering, for some days without finding a shop that he liked, and that also wanted a boy, he went into a carriage factory, near the corner of Chambers Street and Broadway, and asked one of the partners if he had room for an apprentice. " Do you know anything about the business ? " asked the master. He did not. " Have you been brought up to work ? " He had, most decidedly; he had learned to make hats and to brew beer. " Is your father willing you should learn this trade ? " "He has given me my choice of trades." ** If I take you, will you stay with me and work out your time ? " PETER COOPER. 571 He promised so to do. The bargain was struck, four years' service, at twenty-five dollars a year and his board. In those cheap, simple times, a careful boy, with a little help from his mother or sisters, could clothe himself for twenty- five dollars a year, and have a pretty good suit of clothes for Sunday. In busy seasons, this apprentice, by working over time, earned extra wages, most of which he sent to his father, but a part of which he kept for another purpose. He painfully felt his ignorance. He had an energetic, inquisitive, inventive mind, which craved knowledge as a hungry man craves food. He bought some books, but a lad unaccustomed to handle books is apt at first to be more per- plexed than assisted by them ; and so he looked about him for some kind of evening school where he could have the help of the living teacher. In all New York there was then no such thing. There were no free schools of any kind, and no means of instruction for lads who, like himself, had to work all day for their livelihood. He hired a teacher for a while to help him in the evening, and he thus increased his knowledge of arithmetic, and gained a little insight into other branches. It was then, when he was a poor apprentice boy, thirsting for knowledge and unable to obtain it, that he formed a memorable resolution. " If," said he to himself, " I ever prosper in business, and acquire more property than I need, I will try to found an institution in the city of New York, wherein apprentice boys and young mechanics shall have a chance to get knowledge in the evening." This purpose was distinctly formed in his mind before he was of age, and he kept it steadily in view for forty years, before he was able to accomplish it. When he was out of his time, his employers offered to 572 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. help him into business for himself, but he declined the offer from the natural dread which such men have of getting into debt. And fortunate it was for him that he did decline it ; for, a few months after, the war of 1812 broke out, which would certainly have proved ruinous to the business of a young carriage-maker without capital. The war, however, was the beginning of his fortune. The supply of foreign merchandise being cut off, a great impulse was given to manufactures. Cloth, for example, rose to such an extrav- agant price that cloth factories sprang up everywhere, and there was a sudden demand for every description of cloth- making machinery. Peter Cooper, who possessed a fine genius for invention, invented a machine for shearing the nap from the surface of cloth. It answered its purpose well, and he sold it without delay to good advantage. Then he made another ; and as often as he had one done, he would goto some cloth mill, explain its merits, and sell it." He soon had a thriving shop, where he employed several men, and he sold his machines faster than he could make them. In 1814, before the war ended, he contracted that exqui- site marriage which gave him fifty-five years of domestic happiness, as complete, as unalloyed, as, mortals can ever hope to enjoy. It is believed by members, of his family that during that long period of time there was never an act done or a word spoken by either of thejoi which gave pain to the other. They began their married life on a humble scale indeed. When a cradle became necessary, and he was called upon to rock it oftener than was convenient, he invented a self-rocking cradle, with a fun attachment, which he patented, and sold the patent for a small sum. The peace of 1815 ruined his business ; for no more cloth could^ be manufactured at a profit in America. He tried cabinet-making for a while. Then he went far up town and PETER COOPER. 573 .bought out a grocery store on the site of the Cooper Insti- tute, which even then he thought would become by and by the best place in the city for the evening school which he hoped one day to establish. It was where the Bowery terminated by dividing into two forks, one of which was the old Boston road, now called the Third Avenue, and the other was the Middle road, now called the Fourth Avenue. He thought that by the time a far-distant time he was read} r to begin his school, those vacant fields around him would be built over, and that that angle would be not far from the centre of the town. The grocery store prospered. But he was not destined to pass his life as a grocer. One day, when he had been about a year in the business, as he was standing in the door of his shop, a wagon drove up, from which an old acquaint- ance sprang to the sidewalk. "I have been building," said the new-comer, after the usual salutations, "a glue factory for my son; but I don't think that either he or I can make it pay. But you are the very man." w Where is it?" asked the young grocer. It was on what we should now call the corner of Madison Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street, the present centre of ele- gance and fashion in New York. "I '11 go and see it." He got into the wagon with his friend, and they drove to the spot. He liked the prospect. All the best glue was then imported from Russia, the American glue being of the most inferior quality, and bringing only one fourth the price of the imported article. He saw no reason why as good glue could not be made in New York as in Russia, and he determined to try. The price was two thousand dollars. It so happened that he possessed exactly that sum, over and 574 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. above the capital invested in his grocery business. He con- cluded the bargain on the spot, sold out his grocery forth- with, and began to make glue. Now followed thirty years of steady hard work. He learned how to make the best glue that ever was made in the world, and it brought the highest price. For twenty years he had no book-keeper, no clerk, no salesman, no agent. He was up at the dawn of day. He lighted the factory fires, so as to be ready for the men at seven o'clock. He boiled his own glue. At mid-day he drove into town in his wagon, called upon his customers, and sold them glue and isinglass. At home in the evening, posting his books and reading to his family. Such was his life for thirty years, his business producing him thirty thousand dollars a year, a large portion of which he saved, always thinking and often talking of the institu- tion which he hoped to found. Glue is made from bullocks' feet, and for many years he consumed in his glue factory all the feet which the city yielded, and saw the price gradually rise from one cent to twelve cents per foot. When he had become a capitalist, he embarked in other enterprises, and made many inventions, some of which have since proved profitable, though for a long time they were a heavy charge upon his resources, and retarded the execution of his favorite scheme. It was at Peter Cooper's iron works in Baltimore, that the first locomotive was made ever em- ployed in drawing passengers on the Western Continent ; and it was in Peter Cooper's ingenious brain that the idea originated of using iron for the beams and girders of houses . After forty years of active and successful business life, he found himself able to begin the execution of the project formed when he was a New York apprentice boy. At the head of the famous street called the Bowery, in PETER COOPER. 575 the city of New York, stands the lofty edifice of brown stone which is known throughout the country as the Cooper Insti- tute. There is a little park in front of it; and, standing unconnected with other buildings, at the point where the Bowery divides into two avenues, it makes a noble termina- tion to the broadest and not least imposing of our streets. The ground floor of the building is occupied by showy stores, and the second story by the offices of various public institutions, the rents of which, amounting to about thirty- five thousand dollars a year, are the fund which supports the institution. Under ground is a vast cavern-like lecture room, in which political meetings are held, and where courses of popular lectures are delivered upon Art and Science. In the third story there is an extensive reading-room, furnished with long tables and newspaper stands, wherein the visitor has his choice of about three hundred journals and periodicals from all parts of the world. This room is not much frequented in the daytime ; but in the evening every seat is filled, and every stand is occupied by persons, well dressed and polite indeed, who observe the strictest order, and yet have evidently labored all day as clerks, mechanics, or apprentices. Several ladies are gener- ally present, reading the magazines ; for this apartment is free to all, of every age, sex, condition, and color, provided only that they are cleanly dressed and well behaved. On a platform at one end of the room a young lady sits, the libra- rian, who exercises all the authority that is ever needed. The most perfect order prevails at all times, and no sound is heard except the rustling of leaves. In all the city of New York, a more pleasing spectacle cannot be found than is exhibited in this spacious, lofty, and brilliantly lighted room, with its long tables bordered on both sides by silent 576 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. readers, presided over by a lady quietly plying her crochet needle. If you ascend to the stories above, you behold scenes not less interesting. The upper stories are divided into class- rooms and lecture-rooms. In one, you. may see fifty or sixty lads and lasses listening to a lecture upon Chemistry, illus- trated by experiments. In another, a similar class is wit- nessing an exposition of the Electric Telegraph. In another apartment there will be a hundred pupils seated at long tables, drawing from objects or copies ; and in another, a smaller class is drawing a statue, or a living object, placed in the centre of the room. Drawing, indeed, would appear to be a favorite branch with the frequenters of this establish- ment, nearly all of whom are engaged in some mechanical business which drawing facilitates. Young machinists and engineers, young carpenters and masons, who hope one day to be builders and architects, young carriage-makers, uphol- sterers, and house painters, who aspire to exercise the higher grades of their vocation, are here in great numbers in the various rooms devoted to drawing and painting. There are classes, also, the pupils of which, both boys and girls, learn to model in clay, several of whom have produced creditable works. In the daytime most of these upper class-rooms are empty ; but, soon after seven in the evening, crowds of young people begin to stream in from the streets, ascend the stairs, and fill all the building with eager young life. At half-past seven work begins, and after that time no one is admitted. The classes continue for an hour or two hours, according to the nature of the subject or exercise. By half- past nine the rooms are again silent and deserted. The reading-room closes at ten : the lights are extinguished, and the Cooper Institute has discharged its beneficent office for one dav more. PETER COOPER. 577 All this is free to every one, on two simple conditions : first, that the applicant knows how to read, write, and cipher ; and, secondly, that he desires to increase his knowledge. Of course, every one must observe the ordinary rules of decorum ; but this is so uniformly done by the pupils that it scarcely requires mention. Such is the Cooper Institute. This is that Evening School which Peter Cooper resolved to found as long ago as 1810, when he was a coach-maker's apprentice looking about in New York for a place where he could get instruction in the evening, but was unable to find it. Through all his career, as a cabinet-maker, grocer, manufacturer of glue, and iron- founder, he never lost sight of this object. If he had a fortunate year, or made a successful speculation, he was gratified, not that it increased his wealth, but because it brought him nearer to the realization of his dream. When he first conceived the idea, there were no public schools in the city, and such a thing as an evening school had not been thought of. His first intention, therefore, was to establish such an evening school as he had needed himself when he was an apprentice boy, where boys and young men could improve themselves in the ordinary branches of education. But by the time that he was ready to begin to build, there were free evening schools in every ward of the city. His first plan was therefore laid aside, and he deter- mined to found something which should impart a knowledge of the Arts and Sciences involved in the usual trades ; so that every apprentice could become acquainted with the mechanical or chemical principles which his trade compelled him to apply. Before any plan was fully formed in his mind, he met in the street one day a friend, an accomplished physician, and the alderman of his ward, who had just returned from a tour 578 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. in Europe. New York aldermen were then its most eminent and worthy citizens, many of them men of education and public spirit, who had the greatest pride and interest in the improvement and progress of the city, men who would have been hewn in pieces rather than accept a bribe, and who would have been strongly disposed to perform that op- eration upon the man who had dared to ofler one. Peter Cooper was himself an alderman in those happy days. This physician, on meeting his friend Cooper, aware of his interest in the scientific education of mechanics, began to describe, in glowing language, the Polytechnic School in Paris, where just such instruction was given as intelligent mechanics and engineers require. " Why," said the alderman, " young men come from all parts of France, and live in Paris on a crust a day, in order to attend the classes at the Polytechnic." Mr. Cooper listened eagerly to his friend's description, and he determined that his institution should be founded upon a similar plan. Already he had begun to buy portions of the ground for the site. I have been informed by a mem- ber of his family that he bought the first lot about thirty years before he began to build, and from that time continued to buy pieces of the ground as he could spare the money. Tn 1854 the whole block was his own, and he began to erect thereon a massive structure of stone, brick, and iron, six stories in height, and fire-proof in every part. It cost seven hundred thousand dollars, which was all the fortune the founder possessed, except that invested in his business. In 1859 he delivered the property, with the joyful and proud consent of his wife and children, into the hands of trustees, and thus placed it forever beyond his control. Two thou- sand pupils immediately applied for admission, a number which has greatly increased every year, until now most of PETER COOPER. 579 the departments are filled during the winter season with attentive students. From the beginning, as many as three thousand persons used the reading-room every week. Along with the title-deeds, the founder presented to the trustees a singularly wise and affectionate letter, in which he expressed the objects he had had in view in founding the institution. "My heart's desire is," said he, "that the rising generation may become so thoroughly acquainted with the works of nature, and the mystery of their own being, that they may see, feel, understand, and know that there are immutable laws, designed in infinite wisdom, constantly operating for our good, so governing the destiny of worlds and men that it is our highest wisdom to live in strict conformity to these laws." The whole letter is in this strain of benevolent wis- dom. Perhaps the most characteristic passage is the fol- lowing : " My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity through- out the world ; and, if it were in my power, I would bring all mankind to see and feel that there is an almighty power and beauty in goodness. I would gladly show to all, that goodness rises in every possible degree, from the smallest act of kindness up to the Infinite of all good. My earnest desire is to make this building and institution contribute, in every way possible, to unite all in one common effort to improve each and every human being, seeing that we are bound up in one common destiny, and by the laws of our being are made dependent for our happiness on the continued acts of kindness we receive from each other." He concludes this long and eloquent epistle with the utter- ance of a desire, that thousands of youth thronging the halls of the institution might learn " those lessons of wisdom so much needed to guide the inexperience of youth amid the dangers to which they are at all times exposed." 580 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. A pleasant sight it is, at the annual exhibition of the Institute in the spring, when, for three days and evenings, the halls are crowded with people viewing the works of art, the drawings, the models, the paintings produced by the pupils during the year, to see the venerable founder, his countenance beaming with happiness, moving about among the company, and receiving their congratulations upon the success of his enterprise. Few evenings in the winter pass without his visiting the Institute. It is the delight of his old age to see so many hundreds of young people freely enjoying the advantages which he longed for in early life, and could not obtain. He has recently given one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to provide the institution with a library of books of reference. JOHX HARVARD. 581 THE BEGINNINGS OF SCIENCE IN THE UNITED STATES. FOUNDING OP HARVARD AND YAIVE. How THE EARLY PROFESSORS WEUK FORMKD. CAREER OP PlJOFESSOK SlLLIMAN. ONE of the most remarkable facts of the early history of New England is, that the colonists of Massachusetts, only six years after the founding of Boston, should have set about establishing a College. Perhaps the New England historians, however, boast somewhat too much of this. These people had come into the wilderness for the sole purpose of enjoying and perpetuating their peculiar religion, one of the most essential features of which was a learned ministry. 'But as the English Universities were under the control of the Epis- copal Church, and the Nonconformists in England were per- secuted and discouraged in every way, there was no reason to expect that England would long continue to supply the growing colonies with competent clergymen. The colonists, therefore, were compelled to provide for this difficulty, or give up the object of their founding the colony. A nursery for the education of clergymen was one of the necessities of the situation, and the first college was founded for that purpose. Almost as soon as the colony was planted, in 1630, the people began to think of rearing clergymen, and a few young men were lodged in the families of ministers, from whom thej r received instruction in the languages and theology. 5S2 PEOPLE'S BOOK or BIOGRAPHY. But this resource being manifestly inadequate, the Legisla- ture, in the sixth year of the colony's existence, when the country was threatened with an Indian war, and all New England contained but five thousand white families, voted four hundred pounds toward the building of a college. This sum was about as much for the Massachusetts of 1636, as ten millions of dollars would be for the Massachusetts of 1871 The next year, the Legislature appointed twelve of the leading men to superintend the work, and changed the name of the place where it was appointed to be established, from New Town to Cambridge. Many of the leading men of the colony had been students at Cambridge in old England, and they gave the town this new name in grateful recollection of the happy days of their youth. The Pequot war ensued, which obliged the colonists to put forth all their strength, and expend far more than their revenue ; so that the vote of the Legislature would have probably remained inoperative for several years, but for the beneficence of a private individual. There was then living at Charlestown, on the other side of Charles Eiver, an invalid clergyman named John Harvard, who had brought with him from England some property and a considerable number of books. He had been educated at Cambridge, in England, and had emigrated to Massachusetts in 1637, the very year of the Pequot war, and the year after the four hundred pounds had been voted for a college. An opinion was current at the time that the voyage . across the Atlantic and a residence in New England were good for consumptives ; and there is some reason to believe that John Harvard, sharing this opinion, had removed to Massachu- setts for the restoration of his health. He does not appear to have preached in America, nor, as JOHX HARVARD. 583 far as we know, to have contemplated preaching. But after struggling with disease for about a year, he died of con- sumption. When his will was opened, it was found that he had left his whole library of two hundred and sixty volumes, and one half of his estate, to the proposed college, his estate being worth nearly sixteen hundred pounds sterling. Provided thus with a fund of nearly twelve hundred pounds, the trustees went forward, erected a building, established the college, and conferred upon it the name of its first bene- factor. The example of John Harvard was more beneficial even than the money which he bequeathed ; for it inspired a large number of other persons with generous feelings toward the infant institution. Some of the early donations were very simple and curious. A clergyman, for example, having neither money nor lands to bestow, gave the college two cows, valued at nine pounds. A gentleman presented nine shillings' worth of cotton cloth. Another contributed forty shillings a year for ten years ; and a farmer, who lived in Hartford, bequeathed a hundred pounds, to be paid in corn and meal, the college to defray the cost of transportation. One of the Bahama Islands, for which at a time of famine collections had been made in New England, now, in its turn, made a collection for the college, "out of their pov- erty," as they said, and sent a hundred and twenty-four pounds. The college received various gifts of land, from one acre to six hundred acres, as well as " two shops " in Boston, let by the president of the college for ten shillings a year. Among the smaller gifts, were a piece of plate valued at three guineas, a silver fruit dish, a sugar spoon, a silver- tipped jug, " one great .salt and one small trencher salt," one pewter flagon worth ten shillings, a pair of globes, a bell, 584 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. a silver tankard, two silver goblets, thirty ewe sheep worth thirty pounds, and some horses which brought seventy-two pounds. A large number of books, the weighty quartos and folios of the olden time, were presented to the college. One Lon- don lawyer gave eight chests of books at one time, worth four hundred pounds ; and it seems to have been a common thing for clergymen and others to bequeath their libraries to the College. Books were then high-priced, few in number, and highly valued. TY r e have an interesting proof of this in a document which may still be read in the college records, to the effect, that a certain Henry Stevens gave to the Col- lege his Greek Dictionary, in four volumes, folio, on the following conditions, to wit : that if his son should ever have occasion to use the work, he should have free access to it, and that if " God should bless the said Joshua with any child or children that shall be students of the Greek tongue, then the said books above specified shall be unto them deliv- ered." It so happened that the said Joshua had a son who studied Greek, to whom the Dictionary was delivered on demand accordingly. These voluntary contributions being insufficient, the Gov- ernment assigned for the support of the College the profits of the ferry over the Charles River, and the people were called upon to make an annual contribution to it, of at least one peck of corn! For many years, however, the College was a heavy charge upon the people, and the tutors and president were most scantily and precariously maintained. A sad misfortune befell the institution at the start. The first president, Nathaniel Eaton, although an excellent scholar, proved to be a man of violent temper and cruel disposition. In all colleges, then, the president was author- ized to inflict corporeal punishment on the students ; and EARLY DAYS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 585 this Eaton, besides half starving his scholars, pummelled them so outrageously that even the stern Puritans of that severe age could not endure it. "Among many of the instances of his cruelty," says Cotton Mather, " he gave one in causing two men to hold a young gentleman, while he so unmercifully beat him with a cudgel, that upon complaint of it unto the court, in Sep- tember, 1639, he was fined an hundred marks, besides a convenient sum to be paid unto the young gentleman that had suffered by his unmercifulness ; and for his inhumane severities towards the scholars, he was removed from his trust." This was an inauspicious beginning, and it was some time apparently before the College recovered from the check which the unfortunate choice of a President gave it. Under better men, however, the institution grew and throve, and acquired so high a reputation that Puritan families in Eng- land sent over their sons to be educated in it. The journal of a Dutch traveller, who made the tour of the American colonies when the college was forty years old, describes an unexpected scene which the author witnessed at Harvard College in 1680. The manuscript of this work was accidentally discovered, a few years ago, in a book- seller's shop at Amsterdam, by an American citizen, who caused it to be translated and published. In this strange, roundabout way, we get an interesting glimpse of old Har- vard. The author records, that, being at Boston, he started one morning about six o'clock to go to Cambridge, to see the college and the printing-office, the latter a great wonder then in America. After being rowed across the Charles River, he and his companion lost their way, so that they did not reach Cambridge until eight o'clock. He describes the as being small, the houses standing very much apart, 580 PEOPLE'S DO OK OF BIOGRAPHY. and the college building conspicuous in the midst. Upon approaching the college, they neither heard nor saw anything remarkable, until they had got round to the back of the edi- fice ; where, he says, " we heard noise enough in an upper room to lead my comrade to suppose they were engaged in disputation." They entered and went up-stairs, where they were met by a gentleman, who requested them to walk into the apartment whence the noise proceeded. "We found there," our Dutchman reports, "eight or ten young fellows sitting around smoking tobacco, with the smoke of which the room was so full, that you could hardly see, and the whole house smelt so strong of it, that when I was going up stairs, I said this is certainly a tavern. . . We inquired how many professors there were, and they replied not one, as there was no money to support one. We asked how many students there were. They said, at first, thirty, and then came down to twenty : I afterwards understood there were probably not ten. They could hardly speak a word of Latin, so that my comrade could not converse with them." It was true that, at the time of this visit, there was a vacancy in the office of the President, and that there was no one connected with the college entitled to be called Profes- sor; the classes being instructed by tutors. Nevertheless, it shows a want of discipline that the students should smoke so as to make the whole building smell like a tavern. One of the rules expressly forbade the use of tobacco, w unless with the consent of parents or guardians, and on good reason first given by a physician, and then in a sober and private manner." But among Puritans, as among other people, " when the cat 's away the mice will play." As to their not being able to speak Latin, they probably could not understand that language as pronounced by a Dutchman. The first rule of the college was, that no student SIMPLICITY OF THE EXAMINATIONS. 587 should be admitted to the Freshman class, until he could translate such Latin as that of Cicero at sight, and M speak true Latin in verse and prose." If this rule were strictly observed at the present day, every college in America would be empty. The students of Harvard were even required to speak Latin in their ordinary conversation ; one of the rules being, "The scholars shall never use their mother tongue, except that, in public exercises of oratory, or such like, they be called to make them in English." Another curious rule was the following : " Every scholar shall be called by his surname only, till he is invested with his first degree, except he be a fellow-commoner, or knight's eldest son, or of superior nobility." Another rule reads thus : " They shall honor their parents, magistrates, elders, tutors and aged persons by being silent in their presence (except they be called on to answer) , not gainsaying ; showing all those laudable expressions of honor and reverence in their presence that are in use, as bowing before them, standing uncovered, or the like." A very simple examination decided who was worthy of his Bachelor's degree. Every scholar was entitled to it who was found capable of translating the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Testament into tolerable Latin ; but for the degree of Master of Arts, the student was required to possess a com- petent knowledge of logic, natural and moral philosophy, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. Such was Harvard College during the first half-century of its existence. Then another college began to be talked of. Other settle- ments had attained importance ; Hartford and New Haven had been founded ; the supply of ministers was still thought to be inadequate. And it was deemed a hardship by the people of Connecticut to be compelled to send their sons so far away for education. 7 588 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. The reader is aware, probably, that the State of Connec- ticut, though not the largest in the world, has two capitals, Hartford and New Haven. If he reads on, he will discover the reason of this superfluity ; for it grew out of the found- ing of Yale College. We must go back to the year 1635, when so large a num- ber of emigrants had fled to Massachusetts from persecution in England, that the group of settlements about Boston had become over-crowded, and people could scarcely subsist their cattle through the long winters. At that day, the rough-and-ready mode of clearing laud since practised, by merely felling the trees, burning off the timber, and letting the stumps remain in the ground, had not been thought of; but every one supposed that the stumps mubt all be grubbed up and destroyed, before the land could bo culti- vated. By this slow process, few farmers could clear more than an acre or two in a year ; and but for the fact that there was a great quantity of cleared land about Boston and Salem, the Indian owners of which had died of a plague some years before, the colonists could not have subsisted at all. But in 1635, five years after the settlement of Boston, the good cleared lands along the coast were all taken up, and a number of settlers resolved to remove to the beautiful meadows upon the banks of the Connecticut River, of which glowing accounts had reached them from traders who had sailed up the Connecticut for traffic with the Indians. Hav- ing made up their minds to settle near the site of the city of Hartford, they chose a most unfortunate time for their removal. It was on the 15th of October, 1635, when the weather was already cold, that about fifteen families, num- bering sixty persons, men, women and children, with horses, cattle, and pigs, began their march from the neighborhood of Boston. FOUNDATION OF YALE COLLEGE. .589 The distance is about one hundred miles, and the whole journey lay through a wilderness, trackless and untrodden. There were rivers to cross, high hills to surmount, and tangled swamps to get through. The sufferings of the little band were severe and long ; and when at length they arrived at the shores of the broad Connecticut, they were on the wrong side of the river, and at a loss how to get their cattle over. By the 15th of November, while they were still engaged in getting their cattle across, the winter set in with such severity that the stream was frozen over, and there was deep snow upon the ground. A whole month had been consumed, and there was scarcely a hut yet erected which could shelter the young children from the withering blasts of this premature winter. It was a season of misery, famine, and death. Two ves- sels laden with their goods were wrecked on the voyage round, and all on board were lost. By the end of November, the situation was so appalling, that thirteen persons went back through the woods starving to Boston, only saved from perishing in the wilderness by the kindness of the Indians. Seventy more, in the very middle of the winter, contrived to make their way back by water. Those who remained lived on acorns, nuts, game, and what little corn they could get from the Indians. Amid sufferings seldom paralleled even in the early history of New England, the State of Connecticut was planted. With returning spring, however, relief was afforded to the settlers ; the fugitives went back ; Hartford was founded ; and new colonists came in. After the Pequot war of 1636, the settlements on the fertile shores of the beautiful Connec- ticut nourished exceedingly, and the province soon acquired some little importance. It was in old Connecticut that the American method of 590 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. clearing land was first hit upon ; and, without that inven- tion, the American wilderness never could have been cleared fast enough to receive the tide of emigration which set toward it. The fact, though not mentioned by any historian of note, is of so much importance that I will copy here the original record of it, as contained in an old manuscript history of Guilford, Connecticut, written one hundred years ago by the minister of that town, Rev. Thomas Ruggles, and published a year or two since in the " New York Historical Magazine." The passage has historical value. " It was a great many years the planters were chiefly confined to the lands cleared by the Indians, near the sea, in their husbandry. They indeed early made a law that every planter should clear up yearly half an acre of new land. This was a hard piece of labor. It was all done by hand by digging and stubbing up the trees and small growths by the roots although they quite spoiled the land by it ; but they knew of no other way, and it was a severe penalty to be guilty of transgressing this town order. It was a long time before the present way of clearing new land was prac- tised. The first adventurer herein was John Scran ton, upon the top of a good hill of land, now the property of Mr. Ruggles. He clear a A about an acre. " The inhabitants were amazed, first at his courage, that he would venture so far, about two miles, into the wood to labor ; then at his folly, that he should think a crop of wheat would grow in such a way. So strange are new things to the world. But they were perfectly astonished when they saw twenty bushels of the best of wheat reaped at harvest from only three pecks of seed on an acre of ground sown in that manner by such tillage. "Experience, from whence almost all useful knowledge, espe- cially in husbandry, is derived, convinced them of the truth ; and the same spirit spread, and the wood-lands soon became fields of wheat." EARLY DAYS OF YALE COLLEGE 591 Nine years after that winter march through the wilderness, the Connecticut colonists began to contribute a little toward the support of Harvard College, each family being requested by the legislature to give one peck of wheat per annum. When the colony was seventeen years old, a project was seriously discussed of founding a college of their own ; but it was thought best, for a while longer, for all New England to unite in supporting Harvard. In the year 1700, Avhen Connecticut contained twenty-eight towns, and fifteen thou- sand inhabitants, the clergy of the colony formed themselves into a society for the purpose of establishing a college in Connecticut. There was a meeting of this society soon after, to which each member brought from his own precious little store of volumes those which he thought suitable, and laying them upon a table, said these words : "I give these books for the founding of a college in this colony." The number of volumes thus collected was only forty ; but they were all solid folios of the olden time. The trustees took possession of them, deposited them in a safe place, and they formed the nucleus around which gathered the venerable institution now called Yale Col- lege. Other books were added ; a little money was given ; and one gentleman presented six hundred and thirty-seven acres of land, and engaged to supply all the glass and nails that should be necessary to build the college. The legislature agreed to give sixty pounds a year toward the support of the institution, and this they did for fifty-four years. The college was ready to receive pupils in the spring of 1702. The first who entered was Jacob Hemmingway, who, from March to September, remained the only student. But in September, the number of students was increased to eight ; 592 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF u TO GRAPH Y. a tutor was appointed to aid the rector ; and the college entered upon its long and honorable career. One of the earliest settlers of New Haven was an English O gentleman, named Thomas Yale, who arrived in 1638, and after remaining twenty years in the colony, went back to England, returning to America no more. He took back with him to his native land his son, Elihu Yale, a little boy ten years of age, born in New Haven. This son, after growing to manhood in England, went out to seek his fortune, as so many young Englishmen did, and do, to the East Indies, where he married an heiress ; and, returning to England, was chosen Governor of the East India Company. That he was a man interested in learning, if not possessed of it, we may infer from the fact that he was a Fellow of the Royal Society, that honorable institution to which Newton and Frankliii communicated their discoveries. Hearing what was going forward in his native Connecticut, he sent over, from time to time, donations of books, money, and merchandise, for the benefit of the new college. Some of his gifts arriving just in time to aid the trustees in the construction of a new building at New Haven, they named the edifice Yale College, and this name was finally assigned, by common usage, to the institution itself. It was a grand day in New Haven, in September, 1718, when the first Com- mencement took place after the completion of this building. In the presence of the Governor, the legislature, the judges, the clergy, and a great concourse of spectators from far and near, one of the trustees read a memorial in pompous Latin, which concluded thus : " "We, the trustees, having the honor of being intrusted with an affair of so great importance to the common good of the people, do, with one consent, agree, determine, and ordain, that our College House shall be called by the name of its munificent patron, and DEATH OF ELIHU YALE. 593 shall be named YALE COLLEGE : that this province may keep and preserve a lasting monument of such a generous gentleman, who, by so great benevolence and generosity, has provided for their greatest good, and the peculiar advantage of the inhabitants both in the present and future ages." On this joyful occasion an oration was pronounced by one of the trustees, in which he extolled the generosity of Yale in the most glowing terms. Eight students received their bachelor's degree, and the ceremony concluded with an ora- tion in Latin, pronounced by the Governor of the State, in which the benevolence of Mr. Yale was again warmly com- mended. It remains to be told how Connecticut came to be blest with two capitals. As soon as the college was determined upon in 1700, the question arose, and was discussed with the energy and heat with which such questions usually are, In what town shall it be situated? The institution was begun at Saybrook, and was not finally established at New Haven until 1718, which was sixteen years after the first student entered. This removal, as the reader may imagine, was keenly resented, not only by Saybrook, but by other towns which had hoped to be chosen as the site of the college, particularly Hartford. To reconcile Hartford to the disap- pointment, the .legislature agreed to build a State House there, as they said, "to compensate for tJie college at New Haven" They tried to appease Saybrook by voting twenty- five pounds sterling for the use of its school. But Saybrook was irreconcilable. When the sheriff, by order of the trus- tees, attempted to remove the library to New Haven, a riot ensued, in the course of which two hundred and fifty vol- umes were conveyed away to parts unknown, and never recovered. Elihu Yale lived to the age of seventy-three years, dying 594 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. in 1721, and was buried at "Wrexham, in Wales. The epi- taph on his tombstone is still legible. After the date of his birth and death these lines follow : Born in America, in Europe bred, In Africa travelled, and in Asia wed, Where long he lived and thrived : at London, dead. Much good, some ill, he did : so hope all 's even, And that his soul through mercy 's gone to Heaven. You that survive and read, take care For this most certain exit to prepare : For only the actions of the just Smell sweet and blossom in the dust. The time came when the enlightened minds connected with Harvard and Yale, sharing the modern enthusiasm for science, felt the incompleteness of the old college course. I have often admired the sensible mamiQr in which they pro- ceeded to form Professors of science, when they could not find any. That, for example, was an important conversation which occurred in 1801, under the noble elms of New Haven, between Dr. Dwight, President of Yale College, and young Silliman, tutor and student of law. Benjaman Silliman, twenty-two years of age, of May- flower ancestry, and the son of a Revolutionary general, was one of the most promising young men of New England, and he would have begun the profession of the law with every advantage that can be derived from birth, connections, and natural talent. Dr. Dwight, theologian as he was, was a man of vigorous, inquisitive mind, interested in branches of knowledge beyond the range of a college founded and main- tained chiefly for the purpose of supplying New England with clergymen. The young man cherished for the Presi- dent the profoundest veneration. DR. DAVIGHT. 505 w When I hear him speak," he wrote in his college diary, * it makes me feel like a very insignificant being, and almost prompts me to despair ; but I am reencouraged when I reflect that he was once as ignorant as myself, and that learn- ing is only to be acquired by long and assiduous application." He had just received an invitation to take charge of an academy in Georgia, and was deliberating on the proposal on the College Green, under the beautiful elms, on a warm July morning, when he met President D wight and asked his advice. "I advise you not to go to Georgia," said the President. "I would not, voluntarily, unless under the influences of some commanding moral duty, go to live in a country where slavery is established. You must encounter, moreover, the dangers of the climate, and may die of a fever within two years. I have still other reasons which I will now proceed to state to you." He told the young man that the corporation of the college had, several years before, at his recommendation, resolved to establish a professorship of Chemistry and Natural His- tory as soon as the college could afford to pay another salary. The time had gome ; but there was a difficulty in the way. In the United States there was then not a single individual competent to fill such a professorship, and there were objec- tions to the employment of a foreigner, who, whatever his scientific knowlege, could not be expected to harmonize with the college system so well as a native of the soil and a grad- uate of the institution. " I see no way," added he, " but to select a young man worthy of confidence, and allow him time, opportunity, and pecuniary aid, to enable him to acquire the requisite science and skill, and wait for him until he shall be prepared to begin." 59G PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. Dr. D wight concluded by offering to recommend to the corporation the appointment of his young friend. The tutov was startled at a proposal so novel and unexpected, the acceptance of which would compel him to renounce his long- cherished ambition of a distinguished career at the bar, and to enter upon a course of life of which there was no Ameri- can example. He stood confounded and speechless.. The President, perceiving his embarrassment, continued to enlarge upon the scheme. " I could not," he said, " propose to you a course of life and of effort which would promise more usefulness, or more reputation. The profession of law does not need you; it is already full, and many eminent men adorn our courts of justice. In the profession which I proffer to you there will be no rival here. The field will be your own. Our country is rich in unexplored treasures, and by aiding in their devel- opment you will perform an important public service, and connect your name with the rising reputation of our native land. Time will be allowed to make every necessary pre- paration, and when you enter upon your duties you will speak to those to whom the subject will be new. You will advance in the knowledge of your profession more rapidly than your pupils can follow you, and will be always ahead of your audience." This view of the . subject strongly impressed the young man, and he asked for a few weeks for consideration and consultation with friends, chief among whom, he records, was "a wise and good mother." The result was, that he accepted the appointment ; not, however, without stipulating that he should first pass his examination for the bar, " as a retreat, in case of disaster to the college, from the violence of party spirit." President Dwight, he explains, was w an ardent Federalist of the Washington school, and his eloquent PROFESSOR BENJAMIX BILLIMAN. 597 appeals excited the hostility of the rising democracy." In 1802, his appointment was announced, to the wonder of the public, and he soon began the work of preparation. He was almost totally ignorant of the sciences which he had undertaken to teach ; nor was there a person in New England to whom he could apply for instruction. He could not even find, nor did there exist, an elementary work upon chemistry simple enough for a beginner. After his conver- sation with Dr. D wight, he had procured a few books upon chemistry, but he could make little of them, and he found it necessary to proceed to Philadelphia, which was then, in everything which pertained to science and learning, the metropolis of the country. The means of instruction in chemistry were extremely limited even there, consisting chiefly of a course of lectures delivered every winter in a small, inconvenient room by one of the physicians attached to the medical school. The lab- oratory was a few closets ; the apparatus was barely sufficient for beginners ; and the lecturer was neither deeply versed in the science nor skilful in exhibiting its laws. To the young tutor, however, even the rudiments of chemistry had the attraction of novelty, and the lectures, as he says, were a treasure to him. An instance of the lecturer's want of skill used to be related by Professor Silliman. After informing the class, one day, that life could not be sustained in hydro- gen gas, a hen was placed under a bell glass filled with hydrogen. The hen gasped, kicked, and was still. "There, gentlemen," said the lecturer, "you see she 'is dead." He had no sooner uttered these words, than the hen over- turned the bell glass and flew screaming across the room, flapping with her wings the heads of the students, who roared with laughter. 598 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. After attending these lectures for two winters, and avail- ing, himself of all other means of acquiring knowledge, he returned to New Haven and entered upon the duties of his professorship. During his .absence, a laboratory had been constructed in one of the new college buildings ; but such complete ignorance prevailed of chemistry and its require- ments, that the young professor found his laboratory a gloomy cavern, sixteen feet below the surface of the ground, to which access could be gained only by a trap-door and a ladder. The architect had some confused notion that chemistry was one of the black arts, like alchemy, with its fiery furnaces, explo- sions, and incantations. Confounded at the sight of this dungeon, the young professor invited the corporation of the college to descend with him into its gloomy depths ; which resulted in their authorizing him to make such alterations as were necessary to let in light and air ; and in that room he labored and taught during fifteen of the best years of his life. Another curious proof of the universal ignorance of science at the time, Professor Silliman has recorded. He applied to a glass manufacturer to make some retorts for him. The man replied that he had never seen a retort, but he had no doubt he could make some, if a pattern were sent him. "I had a retort," says Professor Sillimau, "the neck or tube of which was broken off near the ball ; but as no portion was missing, and the two parts exactly fitted each other, I sent this retort and its neck in a box. In due time my dozen of green glass retorts of East Hartford manufacture arrived, carefully boxed, and all sound, except that they were all cracked off in the neck exactly where the pattern was frac- tured ; and broken neck and ball lay in state, like decapitated kings in their coffins." With such rudimentary difficulties had science to contend 'PROFESSOR SILLIMAN. 599 in the infant Republic. In October, 1804, the young pro- fessor, in his subterranean laboratory, began to lecture upon chemistry. He was a very handsome man, of stately pro- portions, elegant and dignified in his manners, of bland and courteous demeanor, and with that happy manual dexterity so important to an experimenter. Thus endowed, he lec- tured with striking success from the beginning, and gave an impetus to the study of Natural Science in America which will never cease as long as this continent remains inhabited by civilized men. Among his pupils that winter were Gal- laudet, Heman Humphrey, John Pierpont, and Gardiner Spring ; and often when the Senior class descended into the laboratory, President Dwight would follow, and humbly taking his seat as a learner among them, listen to the lecture and watch the experiments with the deepest interest. The poet Pierpont, who heard the first lecture, remembered for sixty-one years the words of its opening sentence : " Chem- istry is the science that treats of the changes that are effected in material bodies or substances by light, heat, and mix- ture." The college authorities, under the influence of President Dwight, were bountiful to the new professorship, appropri- ating soon ten thousand dollars for apparatus, and sending Professor Silliman to Europe to purchase it, and to improve himself by intercourse with the learned men of the old world. The Professor remained fifteen months abroad, and returned to New Haven provided with ample means for elucidating chemistry, and enriched with the results of the most recent investigation. "Why, Domine," said a member of the college corporation to Professor Silliman one day, "is there not danger that with these physical attractions you will overtop the Latin and the Greek ?" 600 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. " Sir," replied the professor, " let the literary gentlemen push and sustain their departments. It is my duty to give full effect to the sciences committed to my care." This he continued to do for more than half a century. Collections of great value gathered round him. A better laboratory and ampler apparatus followed in due time.- Other branches of natural science, under Day, Olmstead, and others, received their share of attention, and no college has since existed in the United States in which the natural sciences have not held a leading place in the routine of studies. In 1818, Professor Silliman began the publication of the "Journal of Science," a quarterly periodical, which he continued to edit for thirty years, and which has had much to do with promoting a taste among learned men for knowl- edge purely scientific. It cannot be said of Professor Silliman that he greatly increased the sum of human knowledge, but few men have ever lived who have done more to diffuse it. He was a great teacher, and an excellent man. He was one of the first of Americans to see through the wine delusion which we inherit from our ancestors. Like most people of his day, he supposed that stimulants were necessary for the preservation and restoration of health ; and consequently when, in middle life, his system had become thoroughly disorganized and enfeebled, he resorted to the means then usually employed for its restoration. I wish to give the result of his experiment in his own language, for the consid- eration of those who still believe in the restoring virtue of alcoholic drinks. "I yielded, for a time," he says, "to the popular belief that good wine and cordials were the lever which would raise my depressed power ; but the relief was only temporary. . . . No medical man informed me that I was pursuing a wrong course ; but tho same wise and good friend to whom PROFESSOR SILLIMAN'S DEATH. 601 I had been already so much indebted, Mr. Daniel Wads- worth, convinced me, after much effort, that my best chance for recovery was to abandon all stimulants, and adopt a very simple diet, and in such quantities, however moderate, as the stomach might be able to digest and assimilate. I took my resolution in 1823, in the lowest depression of health. I abandoned wine and every other stimulant, including, for the time, even coffee and tea. Tobacco had always been my ab- horrence. ... I persevered a year in this strict regimen, of plain meat, vegetables, bread, and rice, and after a few weeks, my unpleasant symptoms abated, my strength grad- ually increased, and health, imperceptibly in its daily prog- ress, but manifest in its results, stole upon me unawares." He lived to the age of eighty-five, enjoying life almost to his last hour, a happy, beautiful, affectionate old man. He would have lived longer, if science had progressed far enough in 1864 to show us some safe, easy way of ventilating public rooms. He suffered extremely from the bad air of a crowded chapel, upon leaving which, the wintry wind struck his irri- tated and enfeebled lungs, causing a cold, of which he died. The colleges, thus formed in the infancy of New Eng- land, continue to hold the first rank among the institutions of learning in America. The time, I hope, is not distant, when " these physical attractions," and the languages now spoken in the world, " will overtop the Latin and Greek'," not only in these institutions, but in all others which aim to prepare the youth of America for the work America has for them to do. No one ever more keenly enjoyed the study of those ancient languages than I did ; but no one has oftener had occasion to deplore that the time expended in getting a very imperfect knowledge of Latin and Greek, was not employed in obtaining a competent knowledge of French, German, Italian, and Spanish, four useful lan- guages, and four rich literatures I 602 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. ORIGIN OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. DURING the voyage of the packet ship Sully, from Havre to New York, in October, 1832, a conversation arose one day in the cabin upon electricity and magnetism. Dr. Charles S. Jackson, of Boston, described an experiment recently made in Paris with an electro- magnet, by means of which electricity had been transmitted through a great length of wire, arranged in circles around the walls of a large apartment. The transmission had been instantaneous, and it seemed as though the flight of electricity was too rapid to be measured. Among the group of passengers, no one listened more attentively to Dr. Jackson's recital than a New York artist, named Samuel Finley Breece Morse, who was returning from a three years' residence in Europe, whither he had gone for improvement in his art. Painter as he was, he was nevertheless well versed in science, for which he had inherited an inclination. His father was that once famous geographer and doctor of divin- ity, of Charlestown, Massachusetts, Avhose large work upon geography was to be found, half a century ago, in almost every considerable collection of books in America. Besides assisting his father in his geographical studies, Samuel Morse had studied chemistry at Yale College, under Professor Sil- limau, and natural philosophy under Professor Day. After graduating from Yale, in 1810, he went with Washington Allston to London, where he received instruction in painting from Sir Benjamin West. Returning to the United States 8 SAMUEL FINLEY BREECE MORSE. 603 in 1815, he pursued his vocation with so much success, that he was elected the first president of our National Academy, and held the office for sixteen years. In 1829, he went again to Europe, for further improvement; and it was when returning from this visit that the conversation took place in the cabin of the Sully. During all the years of his artist life, he had retained his early love for science, and usually was himself well informed of its progress. Hence the eager- ness with which he listened to Dr. Jackson's narrative. " Why," said he, when the Doctor had finished, " if that is so, and the presence of electricity could be made visible in any desired part of the circuit, I see no reason why in- telligence might not be transmitted instantaneously by electricity." "How convenient it would be," added one of the passen- gers, " if we could send news in that manner." "Why can't we?" asked Morse, fascinated by the idea. From that hour the subject occupied his thoughts ; and he began forthwith to exercise his Yankee ingenuity in devis- ing the requisite apparatus. Voyages were long in those days, and he had nothing to do but meditate and contrive. Before the Sully dropped her anchor in New York harbor, he had invented and put upon paper, in drawings and explan- atory words, the chief features of the apparatus employed, to this hour, by far the greater number of the telegraphic lines throughout the world. The system of dots and marks, the narrow ribbon of paper upon a revolving block, and a mode of burying the wires in the earth after inclosing them in tubes, all were thought of and recorded on board the packet -ship. The invention, in fact, so far as the theory and the essential devices were concerned, except alone the idea of suspending the wires upon posts, was completed on board the vessel. 604 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. A few days after landing, the plan, now universally em- ployed, of supporting the wires, was thought of by the inventor, though he still preferred his original conception of the buried tubes. The reader, of course, is aware that the mere idea of trans- mitting intelligence by electricity was not original with Samuel Morse. From the time when Dr. Franklin and his friends stretched a wire across the Schuylkill River, and killed a turkey for their dinner by a shock from an electri- cal machine on the other side of the stream, the notion had existed of using the marvellous fluid for transmitting in- telligence ; and long before the Sully was launched, some attempts had been made in this direction, which were not wholly unsuccessful. There is no instance on record, I believe, of a great inven- tion completed by the efforts of one man. Usually, an inven- tion of first-rate importance is originated in one age, and brought to perfection in another ; and we can sometimes trace its progress for thousands of years. Probably so sim- ple a matter as a pair of scissors one of the oldest of inven- tions was the result of the cogitations of many ingenious minds, and has undergone improvements from the days of Pharaoh to those of Rogers & Sons. The most remarkable case of rapid invention with which I am acquainted is that of the sewing-machine, which, in twenty-five years, has been brought to a point not distant from perfection. But then thousands of ingenious minds have exerted themselves upon it! In the Patent Office at Washington, not less than thir- teen hundred devices and improvements have been patented relating to this beautiful contrivance. The electric telegraph is an instance of the slow growth of a great invention. The first step was taken toward it thousands of years ago, when some one observed that if a SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 605 piece of amber was rubbed against cloth, it attracted small objects and emitted a spark. In Greek, the word electron signifies amber ; and hence the name which has been given to the mysterious and wonderful fluid that pervades the uni- verse. The second step toward the telegraph was not made until the middle of the last century, when a Dutch professor invented the Leyden jar, by which electricity can be accu- mulated, and from which it can be suddenly discharged in an electric shock. From that time electricity became, in all civilized coun- tries, the favorite branch of science. Franklin's discoveries quickly followed. Galvani led the way to electro-magnetism, which Volta pursued with striking success. The galvanic battery was speedily added to the resources of science. The electro-magnet followed ; and in 1719, Professor Oersted, of Denmark, so increased our knowledge of these instruments, that little remained except for ingenious inventors to devise the mechanical apparatus of the telegraph. An artist, arriving at home after a three years' residence in foreign countries, is not apt to be furnished with a great abundance of cash capital ; nor is he usually able to spend any more time in unproductive industry. Three years passed before Mr. Morse had set up his rude apparatus of half a mile of wire and a wooden clock, adapted to the purpose by his own hands, and sent a message from one end of his wire to the other, legible- at least by himself. He used to exhibit his apparatus now and then to his friends, and he spent all the time he could spare from his profession in perfecting it. For some time it was placed in a large room of the New York University, where, in the fall of 1837, large numbers of persons witnessed its operation. The invention attracted much notice at the time, as I can just remember. Every one said, How wonderful ! how 606 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. ingenious ! and boasted of the progress man was making in science ; but scarcely any one believed that the invention could be turned to profitable account, and no man could be found in New York willing to risk his capital in putting the invention to a practical test. By this time, however, Mr. Morse had become fully possessed of the inventor's mania, which shuts a man's eyes to all obstacles, and forces him to pursue his project to the uttermost. Having no other resource, he went to Washington in 1838, arranged his apparatus there, exhibited its per- formance to as many members as he could induce to attend, and petitioned Congress for a grant of public money with which to make an experimental line between Washington and Baltimore, a distance of forty miles. It is weary work getting a grant of money from Congress for such a purpose ; and it ought to be, for Congress has no constitutional right to give away the people's money to test such an invention. A committee reported upon it favora- bly, but nothing further was done during the session. He crossed the ocean to seek assistance in Europe. His efforts were fruitless. Neither in France nor in England could he obtain public or t private encouragement. It seemed out of the sphere of government, and capitalists were strangely obtuse, not to the merits of the* invention, but to the probability of its being profitable. They could not conceive that any considerable number of persons in a country would care to pay for the instantaneous transmission of news. Returning home disappointed, but not dis- couraged, he renewed his efforts, winter after winter, using all the influence of his personal presence at Washington, and all his powers of argument and persuasion. March the third, 1843, the last day of the session, was come. He attended all day the House of Representatives, EZRA CORNELL. 607 faintly hoping that something might be done for him before the final adjournment ; but as the evening wore away, the pressure and confusion increased, and at length hope died within him and he left the Capitol. He walked sadly home and went to bed. Imagine the rapture with which he heard on the follow- ing morning that Congress, late in the night,, amid the roar and stress preceding the adjournment, had voted him thirty thousand dollars for constructing his experimental line ! Eleven years and a half had passed since he had made his invention on board the ship. Perhaps, on that morning, he thought it worth while to strive and suffer for so long a period, to enjoy the thrill and ecstasy which he then expe- rienced. But his troubles were far from being over. Clinging still to his original notion of inclosing the wires in buried . tubes, he wasted nearly a whole year, and spent twenty- three thousand dollars of his appropriation in discovering that the plan would not work. And this brings another character on the scene, the founder of the Cornell University. Ezra Cornell has a place in the history of the telegraph, which would have caused his name to be remembered if he had never founded a univer- sity. At a critical moment, his ingenuity came to the rescue of Morse's enterprise, and saved it, perhaps, from premature extinction. The telegraph, in return for this service, has since given him a colossal fortune, part of which he has expended in a manner with which the world is acquainted. On a certain day in 1842, when he was a travelling agent for a patent plough, he arrived at Portland, in Maine, and, naturally enough, called at the office of an agricultural jour- nal, edited by Mr. F. O. J. Smith, with whom he was well acquainted. This visit proved to be the turning-point in the 608 PEOPLE'S NOOK OF IUOGRAPHY. plough agent's career. Horace Greeley often says, that every man has one chance in his life to make a fortune ; and Mr. Disraeli has recently informed mankind that the secret of success is, to be ready for your opportunity when it comes. Mr. Cornell's opportunity was now coming, and he was ready for it. On entering the office, he found the editor on his knees, with parts of a plough by his side, drawing on the floor with a piece of chalk, and trying to explain his draw- ing to a plough-maker named Robinson, who was standing near. "Cornell, "said the editor, with animation, and as if much relieved, "you are the very man I want to see. I want a scraper made, and I can't make Robinson understand exactly what I want. But you can understand it, and make it for me too." Ezra Cornell had indeed learned the trade of a machinist. The son of a farmer, named Elijah Cornell, in Westchester County, New York, he had passed his boyhood, as our country boys usually do, in wording on his father's farm, and going to the district school during the winter. In 1828, when he came of age, he went to Ithaca, New York, in search of employment, and there worked a while in a machine-shop, and afterwards passed several years as the superintendent of a large mill in Ithaca. Of an ingenious, inventive turn of mind, he had become familiar with the mechanical powers, could handle tools with dexterity, and was fertile in what may be called mechanical ideas. He was one of those men who would undertake on the spot to build a mill, dig a canal, bore the Hoosac Tunnel, or construct the High Bridge, and execute the work in a triumphant man- ner. He was a sound, healthy man, too, who drank no intoxicating drink, used no tobacco, and lived cleanly in every respect. It was with reason, therefore, that the editor EZRA CORNELL. 609 felt relieved when he saw him enter his office that day in Portland, while he was vainly expounding an imaginary scraper to Mr. Robinson. "What do you want your scraper to do?'* asked Cornell. Mr. Smith explained. Congress had made an appropria- tion to build a line of telegraph between Washington and Baltimore, and Mr. Smith had taken the contract from Pro- fessor Morse to lay down the pipe in which the wire was to be inclosed. Finding that it would cost a great deal more to do the work than he had calculated upon, he was trying to invent something which would dig the ditch, and fill it with dirt again, after the pipe was laid at the bottom. Cornell asked various questions concerning the size of the pipe and the depth of the ditch, and, after thinking a while, said : " You don't want either a ditch or a scraper." He then took a pencil and drew the outline of a machine, to be drawn by a yoke of oxen, which, he said, would cut open the ground to the depth of two feet, deposit the pipe at the bottom, and cover it with earth, as the oxen drew the machine along. The editor was incredulous. Cornell, how- ever, expressed unbounded confidence in its successful work- ing, and Smith at last agreed to pay for one, provided Cor- nell would superintend its construction. If it succeeded, the inventor was to be handsomely paid ; if it failed, he was to receive nothing. Ten days after, the trial took place, when one yoke of oxen, with the assistance of the machine and three men, laid one hundred feet of pipe and covered it with earth in the first five minutes. The contractor found that he could lay the pipe for about ten dollars a mile, for which he was to receive a hundred dollars. Nothing would now content the contractor but Cornell's going to Baltimore and superintending the working of the machine which he had invented ; and as he made an advan- I 610 PEOPLE'S BOOK OP BIOGRAPHY. tageous offer, Cornell agreed to go. Upon conversing with Professor Morse, and inspecting the pipe that was to be used, he predicted failure, and endeavored to convince the Profes- sor that the pipe would not answer. Morse clung to the child of his brain, and the work was begun. The pipe was laid with great rapidity, and it was not until Mr. Cornell had ploughed in ten miles of pipe, nearly all the way from Balti- more to the Relay House, that Morse was satisfied messages could not be transmitted through it. But, as our French friends say, " The eyes of the universe were upon him," and he shrank from the comments of the press upon the waste of the public money in an experiment so prolonged. The ready Cornell quickly relieved him from this embarrassment. He shouted to his men one day : " Hurry up, boys . Start the team lively I We must reach the Relay House before we leave off to-night." Cornell, who w r as guiding the machine, directed it so that it caught under a rock, and in a moment it was smashed to pieces. The newspapers lamented the catastrophe, and con- doled with the inventor upon the delay which it would cause. Another kind of pipe, was tried, and failed. The whole of that year was consumed in such experiments. At last, when but seven thousand dollars of the appropriation was left, and Professor Morse was almost in despair, he gave up the exe- cution of the work to Mr. Cornell, who forthwith, with the Professor's approval, abandoned the pipe system, and set up the telegraphic wire upon poles, employing an insulator and a relay magnet of his own invention. On the first of May, 1843, the first message was sent; and although every part of the apparatus worked imperfectly, and sometimes would not work at all, the line was sufficiently successful to establish the electric telegraph as a permanent addition to the possessions of man. No one more constantly I EZRA CORNELL. 611 studied its defects than Ezra Cornell ; for, from this time forward, it became his business to construct telegraphic lines. After a long struggle with the early difficulties mechanical, scientific, pecuniary he systematized the business so that it became profitable. Like most contractors, he occasionally received part of his compensation for constructing a line in stock of the company owning it ; and when the great rise in the value of telegraphic stock occurred, some years ago, he found himself a very rich man. 612 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. A FRENCH TORT. PIERRE ANTOINE BERRYER. IT is curious to notice how limited are reputations. I sup- pose that for every individual in the world who has heard of Queen Victoria, there are ten who do not know that such a person exists ; and I am sure that there are thousands in the United States who never heard of General Grant. Many reputations are limited by the sect, profession, or party to which the individual belongs. A man's name may be as familiar as a household word to all the Baptists in the world, and yet the majority of Presbyterians may know nothing of him ; or a man may have in his own country an immense and dazzling reputation, and be unknown to all the world besides. A case in point is that of the great French lawyer, Berryer, who died recently in Paris. Americans in general know about as much of Berryer as French people in general know of our famous lawyer, James T. Brady, whose death occurred in New York a short time ago. But M. Berryer was so interesting a person that I am tempted to give a little account of him. Pierre Antoine Berryer, born at Paris in 1790, was the son of a lawyer, and was descended from a family that had come originally from Germany, but had long been settled in France. He seems to have been composed almost entirely of the stuff of which romances are made. It is wonderful that such a man should ever have been able to PIERRE ANTOINE BERRYER. 613 adopt the profession of the law. His father, who was a warm adherent of the Bourbon dynasty, placed him at a college near Paris, which was conducted by priests, and there he showed a strong inclination to enter the church. He yielded, however, to his father's wishes, and prepared for the legal profession. He completed his studies, and was about to begin the practice of law, at the age of twenty-one, when he fell in love with an attractive young lady, aged sixteen, whom he immediately married. This was in 1811, when Napoleon T\ as at the zenith of his power. After his marriage, he threw himself ardently into his pro- fession, and endeavored also to attract attention by public addresses, for which he had a particular talent. Inheriting his father's political opinions, he was never reconciled to the sway of Napoleon; and when, in 1814, the allies entered France, and Napoleon was obliged to surrender, young Berryer announced his downfall to a company of magistrates and law students. The intelligence not being believed, an order was issued for his arrest ; but he was forewarned, and made his escape. After Napoleon's return from Elba, he joined the volunteers who turned out to defend the ancient dynasty ; but resumed his profession after Waterloo and the second return of Louis the Eighteenth. As yet, he had won no great distinction at the bar. In 1815, being then but twenty-five years of age, he was one of the three lawyers engaged to defend Marshal Ney, Avho was tried for rejoining the Emperor, after the escape from Elba. It was on this occasion that the talents of young Berryer, both as a lawyer and an orator, were revealed to his countrymen. It was a cause which gave immense oppor- tunities for a display of knowledge, skill, and eloquence ; and the young advocate is said to have improved those oppor- 614 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. tunities to the utmost, and his closing speech is, to this clay, regarded as a model of its kind. He could not save Marshal Key, but he made himself the first of the young lawyers of his country. He was employed to defend other generals of Xapoleon, and acquitted himself to admiration. It is, however, as a politician that he is interesting to us. I consider him in the light of a curiosity. With talents sur- passed by few men of his time, with great and exact knowl- edge, and a patriotism which no one that kne-w him could doubt, he was nevertheless, from youth to hoary age, a zeal- ous, consistent, uncompromising adherent of the old Bourbon dynasty, now represented by the person known in Europe generally as the Count de Chambord, but who is styled, by the legitimists of France, Henry the Fifth. There is something strange in this. It is incomprehensible to us how a man so able, so pure, and in many respects so wise as Berry er, could honestly think that this poor, foolish Count de Chambord had a divine right to reign over France, and that France could never be tranquil or happy until she dutifully accepted him as her king. So it was, however, and he was true to his belief to the last hour of his life. He was too sensible a man not to know that the time had not come for the return of the Bourbons. In 1832, when the Duchess de Berri attempted to raise an insurrection against the government of Louis Philippe, he went to La Vend6e, where the Duchess was, and begged her to abandon an attempt which he saw could end in nothing but defeat. Notwithstanding he had given her this excellent advice (which of course she, being a Bourbon, disregarded), he was arrested on a charge of promoting the insurrection. He was tried and triumphantly acquitted. Soon after this, his friend Viscount de Chateaubriand, another legitimist, in a pamphlet PIERRE ANTOINE BERRYER. 615 upon the imprisonment of the Duchess de Berri, apostro- phized her thus : " Your son is our King." The Viscount was prosecuted by the government, together with half a dozen editors who had published an address of de Chateaubriand's, of a similar tenor. Who could defend these prisoners but Berryer? His conduct of the case was in the highest degree effective, and all the prisoners were acquitted. During the whole of the reign of Louis Philippe, he was sure to be employed whenever a legitimist of rank was cited before the tribunals. In 1836, the legitimist party in France subscribed to purchase an estate for the great advocate who had delivered so many of them from trouble. In the same year, when it was announced that the exiled King, Charles the Tenth, was near his end, Berryer visited him in his retreat near Trieste, and paid a last homage to the man whom he revered as his rightful sovereign. It was Berryer who, in 1840, defended Louis Napoleon after he had made his ridiculous attempt to corrupt the garrison of Boulogne. But it was with great difficulty that he was induced to undertake the cause, and he did so at length, because, as he said Louis Napoleon was certainly the heir of the Napoleon dynasty and ought not to be con- demned to death for asserting what he considered to be his rights. "All that I can do," said the great advocate, "is to save his life ; perpetual imprisonment must at all events be his fate." An interesting anecdote is related of this trial. Louis Napoleon, it was agreed, should deliver a short address to tho Court, and then refuse to answer any questions. He PEOPLE S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. prepared a draught of such an address as he wished to deliver, and handed it to his lawyer for emendation. M. Berryer, thinking the address was much too inflated, read it over to an English friend to get his suggestions upon it. "You English," said M. Bcrry^r, "who have so much common-sense, can suggest what is ultra and exaggerated." The reading began. Various alterations were made in the opening sentences. At length M. Berryer came to the following : " I represent before you a principle and a cause the first, the Sovereignty of the People, and the second, that of the Empire." Upon hearing these words the Englishman laughed. * What are you laughing at?" asked the lawyer. ""Well," replied the Englishman, "I think there is one other thing the Prince represents." "What is that?" "A defeat," was the reply. " What do you mean ? " " Waterloo," answered the Englishman. " It is the word ! the very word I " cried M. Berryer, and he instantly altered the passage so that it read thus : " I represent before J T OU a principle, a cause, and a defeat. The principle is the Sovereignty of the People ; the cause is that of the Empire ; the defeat is that of Waterloo. The principle, you have recognized it ; the cause, you have served it ; the defeat, you would avenge it." This piece of clap-trap was accordingly delivered by the prisoner. Years after, when Louis Napoleon, as Emperor of France, was seeking the alliance of Great Britain, some prying journalist fished out this forgotten passage from the dead sea of journalism, and spread it before Europe. The PIERRE ANTOINE BERRYER. 617 English Press poured torrents of invective upon the person supposed to be the author of it ; and it was only a few months ago, since M. Berryer's death, that the Englishman who figures in the story communicated the facts to one of the London papers. During the last twenty years, M. Berryer's name appears in the report of almost every important trial that has occurred in Paris, and he has usually been a member of whatever semblance of a legislature France may have had. Always faithful to the ancient Royal Family, he protested, in 1851, against repealing the law which forbade the Bour- bons from entering France. "The Count de Chambord," said he, "is not a Frenchman in exile; he is a King of France unlawfully excluded from the throne, and no mon- arch can accept permission to enter his own dominions." On his death-bed, in November, 1869, a few hours before he expired, after he had received the last sacraments of the church, M. Berryer wrote the following letter to the Count de Chambord : "Oh, Monseignenr oh, my King! they tell me that my last hour is at hand. Alas ! that I should die without having seen the triumph of your hereditary rights, consecrating the establishment and the development of those liberties of which our country stands in need. " I bear these vows to Heaven for your Majesty, for her Majesty the Qneen, for our dear France. That they may be less unworthy to be heard by God, I leave this life armed with all the succors of our holy religion. " Adieu, Sire ; may God protect you and save France. " Your devoted and faithful subject. BERRYER. "18th November, 1868." He died soon after these words were written. His remains were followed to the grave by a great concourse of his legal 618 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. brethren and others, among whom were several distin- guished members of the English bar. A writer in the "London Times," who has frequently heard Berryer speak, gives a glowing description of his eloquence. " His speeches," says this writer, " had in them at once all the charm of finished orations and the force of the sudden- ness, vivacity, and fire of extempore harangues. When he stood at the tribune, with his head raised and his arm uplifted, and poured forth his torrent of eloquence, nothing could be superior to him in style or in action. Pos- sessing a most musical voice, and thoroughly gifted with every oratorical resource, he was listened to with profound silence, broken by applause only at the end of some fine period. Add to this the fact that he had an astonishing aptitude for business, and an intuitive quickness in mastering the details of the most complicated questions, and the reader may have an idea of the versatile and powerful orator whom France has just lost." Though M. Berryer was, during most of his professional life, in the receipt of a very large income, he lived so freely that he left little more to his sou than the estate which was presented to him, and a library valued at half a million francs. JARED SPARKS. 619 JAEED SPAKKS. FROM THE CARPENTER'S BENCH TO THE PRESIDENCY OF HARVARD COLLEGE. I TELL you again, boys, that you may all be as learned as you wish, even though you have no rich father to send you to college. The history of the late Dr. Jared Sparks, Presi- dent of Harvard University, and editor of the works of Washington and Franklin, is another illustration of this truth. He was a Connecticut boy, born as long ago as 1789, and as poor as any boy that reads this book. He earned his living as soon as he was strong enough to wield a hoe or drive a plough-horse, by working on a rough, stony Con- necticut farm ; and when he had grown to be a pretty stout lad, he was occasionally employed in a saw-mill of the neighborhood. When the time came for him to learn a business, he apprenticed himself to a carpenter ; and he worked diligently at this trade for two years. When he was twenty years of age, he was still hammering, planing, and mortising as a carpenter's apprentice. But during all this time, whether working on a farm, or in the saw-mill, or. in the carpenter's shop, he spent his lei- sure hours in reading and study. He had a most extraor- dinary thirst for knowledge. The clergyman of the town, observing his studious habits, spoke to him about his books, and, finding him intent on getting knowledge, offered to 620 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. give him some regular instruction in mathematics, and advised him to study Latin. The youth joyfully accepted this offer ; but with that fine, manly spirit that distinguishes the stock from which he sprang, he compensated the minis- ter by shingling his barn for him. With all his studying, however, he had no expectation of ever being anything but an honest Yankee carpenter, until he was a young man of nearly twenty. A circnmstanc e then occurred which opened the way for him to a college education. He was sitting, one day, in the chimney corner of his clerical instructor's house, so intensely engaged in study as to be unconscious of all else. The clergyman, as 'it hap- pened, had a visitor that da} r , the minister of an adjacent town, and the two gentlemen conversed together for some time in the same apartment. Afterwards, being in another room, they had a conversation together which determined the whole future career of the silent and absorbed young carpenter. Dr. Sparks used to relate this conversation him- self, and one of his friends has recently put it on record in the "Historical Magazine." " Did you notice the young man in the other room with his books?" asked the clergyman in whose house the collo- quy occurred. ** Yes," said the other. "He is a very remarkable young man," continued the cler- gyman ; "he has a great thirst for knowledge, and ought to be helped to obtain a liberal education. I have promised to give him two months' instruction, and hope to interest the neighboring clergy to do as much for him." "Most certainly I will help him," said the other minister, who was himself a great lover of knowledge ; " and I will try to do better for him than to give him tuition at my own house. I am acquainted with the trustees of Exeter Acad- JARED SPARKS. 621 emy, in New Hampshire, where there is a provision for worthy scholars who may be unable to pay their expenses, and I think I can get him a place there." This Exeter Academy was founded in 1778 by two noble brothers, John and Samuel Phillips. Among those who have been educated there, in part, we find the names of Daniel Webster, Lewis Cass, Levi Woodbury, Benjamin F. Butler, Alexander Everett, Edward Everett, and George Bancroft To this list we must add the name of Jared Sparks ; for the friendly interposition of this good clergyman procured for him a scholarship in the academy at Exeter, which entitled him to his board and tuition. Jared Sparks was a happy young man when this intelli- gence reached him, but his difficulties were not yet over. Readers must not forget how very poor and frugal people were fifty years ago in Connecticut. This apprentice had scarcely a dollar in the world, and his time was not yet out. His master, however, fully sympathizing with his love of knowledge, gave him his liberty without any compensation, and nothing remained but for him to pack his trunk and go to school. But Exeter was one hundred and fifty miles distant. "How can you manage to get to Exeter?" asked the cler gyrnan who had procured him the scholarship. The reader may ask, Why did not the clergyman just put his hand into his pocket and pay the young man's fare by the stage ? To which I reply, that a Connecticut minister, in 1809, was a man who had to bring up a large family, respectably, upon five or six hundred dollars a year, or less. Such a man has not twenty dollars to spare. "If it were not for my trunk," replied the student, "I should walk." The minister replied in the spirit of on.e who said, w Sil- 622 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. ver and gold have I none, but such as I have I give unto you." " Within a few weeks," said he, "I shall make a journey to Boston" (which is far on the way to Exeter) , " and if you can get along till that time, I will tie your trunk to the axle- tree of my chaise, and bring it to you." The young man gladly consented to this arrangement, and, a few days after, he bade good-by to his friends, and, espe- cially, to his two benefactors, slung his bundle over his back, and set off upon his long tramp. He reached Exeter in safety. The school gave him his food and instruction, and he earned his clothes and his books by teaching school in the vacations. It so chanced that three young men, destined to distinction as American historians, were all at this school at the same time, George Bancroft, Jared Sparks, and J. G. Palfrey, the historian of New Eng- land. After two years of most faithful study, Jared Sparks had completed the academical course and was ready to enter college. He was as poor as ever, and the expenses of a residence at Harvard University amounted, at that time, to about four hundred dollars a year. But, all this time, although he had not saved any money, he had been accumulating character and reputation. A virtuous young man, who is trying hard to educate himself, finds friends everywhere. On this occa- sion, the President of Harvard, the benevolent Dr. Kirkland, who had been told the history of young Sparks, stepped forward and gave him a helping hand. He procured for him a " scholarship " in the University, which entitled him to his tuition, and part of the cost of his board. Thus lided, he ventured, when twenty-two years of age, to enter college, and, during the vacations, earned the rest of his expenses by teaching school. Generally he taught in district JARED SPARKS. ' 623 schools of the neighborhood, but once he went as far as Maryland, and taught awhile in an academy there. It was during the war of 1812 that he taught in Maryland, and he was there when the British landed and invaded the State. All the men being called to arms, he, too, shouldered a musket, and served in the militia until the enemy had with- drawn. Returning to college, he completed his studies, and graduated with high distinction in 1815, being then twenty-six years of age. So far, so good. He had worked his way, with the assist- ance of generous friends, through college, and now he was to choose what he would do with his knowledge. It is a beautiful arrangement of things in the United States that a poor young man, who wishes to educate himself, can only earn the means of doing it by helping to educate others ; and when even he has gone through college, if he desires to study for a profession, still he is obliged to teach in order to live until he is ready to practise his profession. Jared Sparks had resolved to study for the ministry, and he did so for the space of four years, during which he performed labor enough for two ordinary men. After teaching a while in a boys' school, he was appointed tutor in Harvard College. Soon after, he was engaged to edit the " North American Review," which he did for two years, with general approval. It was not till 1819, when he was thirty years of age, that his theological studies were completed, and he was ordainetl a Unitarian minister. Thus, it required ten years to transfer this young man from the carpenter's shop to the pulpit. Having reached the pulpit, he found its labors unsuited to his bodily constitution, and therefore, after preaching for four years in Baltimore, he resigned his charge, and spent the whole of the rest of his long life in instructing his coun- trymen by means of printed books. 9 024 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF KIOGUAPHY. Six hundred thousand volumes, bearing his name on the title-page, have been sold in the United States during the last forty years. He became an author while yet a pastor, having published some theological works. Returning to Boston, he purchased the "North American Review," edited it for many years, and wrote for its pages more than fifty articles. It was Jared Sparks who gathered up and gave to the world, in twelve precious volumes, the writings of George Washington. It was Jared Sparks who collected the widely scattered letters and works of Benjamin Franklin, and published them in ten volumes. The Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States during the period of the Revolution, gathered patiently in the archives of France, England, Germany, and the United States, was published by him in seventeen volumes. Four interesting volumes of letters, addressed to General Washing- ton, were edited by this indefatigable man. He also wrote, or caused to be written, thirty or forty small volumes of American biography, designed for general circulation. These arduous and useful labors resulted in placing Dr. Sparks at his ease in pecuniary matters. Every dollar that friends had advanced him at school or college he repaid, principal and interest, and he was alwaj's most ready to assist young men who were striving for an education against adverse circumstances. As President of Harvard Uni- versity, he favored a mild and confiding system of govern- ment. One of his friends has related the following anecdote of him, as President of the college : w One of the scholars in the institution made a noise some- what derisive to one of the tutors, as he was coming out from recitation. The tutor stated the case to the Faculty, and gave the names of several who, if not guilty, he thought might know who was. These young men were summoned JARED SPARKS. 625 before tbe President, who was requested to ask them, one by one, if they made the noise, or who made it? Dr. Sparks addressed them, when they came before him, in sub- stance as follows : " ' I have been requested by the Faculty to ask yon if you made, or know who made, the disturbance at the close of your recent recitation. I have stated to you then- request, but if you know who made the noise, I do not intend to ask you to tell.' " They answered, one after another ; some did not know ; some said they knew, but did not tell. Finally, one was called forward who said : " ' I did it m}'self ; I know I ought not to have done it ; I am sorry that I did it ; I hardly know why I did it ; yes, I should say it was because I did not like the tutor, as I thought he had not used me fairly in some of my recitations.' President Sparks told the Faculty that he ought rather to be commended than punished ; but the tutors outvoted .the others, and he was suspended. Dr. Sparks wrote a note to his father, saying that he considered it no dishonor, as young men did not often have such an opportunity to show themselves so frank and noble." Dr. Sparks died at the age of seventy-seven, leaving his only son a student at the college to which he owed his own education. He was a kind and happy old man. We have had in the United States many literary men more brilliant and famous ; but, I venture to predict, not one to whom posterity will be so much indebted as Jared Sparks, who, in his twentieth year, was a carpenter's apprentice. 626 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. WHAT SORT OF MAN IS BISMARCK? HE is descended from a noble and ancient family, which traces its origin far back into the middle ages, and which has contributed to the service of the state many able men, both in the cabinet and in the field. In the early part of the reign of Frederick the Great, a Bismarck was one of the ministers of that king, and appears to have stood high in his confidence. A Count Bismarck, who had served with dis- tinction in the armies of several of the German States, was living recently in retirement, an old man past eighty. This aged soldier is the author of many works uppn military science, which are held in esteem in Europe. Baron Von Bismarck, born in 1814, studied at three of the principal universities of Germany, and went from college into the army. In Prussia every man of whatever rank is required to serve in the army for a short time, and after learning the trade of soldier, he is liable to be called on for the defence of his country in time of need. Bismarck, it appears, adopted the military profession from choice ; but, in 1846, when he attended the Diet of his province, he retired from the army. Both in that body and in the general Diet of the following year, he acquired some notoriety for the boldness with which he denounced everything that savored of democracy. He is said to have expressed the desire that all the large cities might be swept from the sur- face of the earth, because they were the centres of democracy and constitutionalism. If he said this, it was probably only PRINCE BISMARCK. 627 the extravagance of a young man irritated by contradiction, or heated with wine. In 1848, the storm swept over Europe which drove one king from his throne, and made every king feel unsafe. He is remembered at that period as an inflexible opponent of popular government, and a defender of Absolutism. In 1851, the ability and audacity with which he supported his ideas in the Prussian Parliament attracted the notice of the King, Frederick William the Fourth. The king invited him into the diplomatic service, and gave him the important appointment of Minister Resident of Frankfort, one of the most important diplomatic posts. Even then he had dis- tinctly conceived the policy which he has since so trium- phantly carried out. Even then, while appearing to oppose and distrust the people of Germany, he was preparing the way for the realization of their dearest wish. The dream of every good German, for many a year, has been to see the entire German people, all who speak the German tongue and share the German character, united as a Confederation under one head, so as to form a great Ger- man nation, and be a controlling power in the centre of Europe. Bismarck, too, indulged this fond desire, and he saw clearly the only probable means of realizing it. Either Prussia or Austria, he thought, must gain such an ascendency in Germany as to draw to itself a great preponderance of the smaller States, and thus unite Germany by absorbing it. Austria he believed incapable of playing this grand part, nor would he have been willing to see her attempt it. Devoted to Prussia, he naturally desired Prussia to be chief in Germany, and to become another name for Germany. To accomplish this, he foresaw that Prussia must encounter, first, Austria in the field, and submit the question to the arbitrament of the musket. But, twenty years ago, Prussia 628 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. was not considered a match for Austria in the field. Bie- marck himself did not consider her such ; and he early conceived the plan for dividing her powers, which he has since executed. From Frankfort, Bismarck was transferred, in 1852, to Vienna, where he studied the Austrian Empire with special reference to his favorite system. While still in the diplomatic service, he published his celebrated pamphlet, entitled " Prussia and the Italian Question," in which he expressed the opinion that Italy's sullen discontent was Austria's weak- ness ; and endeavored to show that an alliance between Prussia, Russia, and France was the true method by which Prussia could gain the ascendency in Germany, while deliv- ering the northern provinces of Italy from the grasp of Austria. This pamphlet produced considerable effect in Prussia, and attracted attention elsewhere. In 1859, Bismarck was appointed Ambassador to Russia. He resided at St. Petersburg three years, and it is supposed that he then prepared the Russian Emperor for the events which followed, and disposed him to witness the aggrandize- ment of Prussia with satisfaction. In May, 1862, he reached the highest diplomatic honor by being appointed Ambassador to Paris ; but after a stay of but three months at the gay capital, he was suddenly recalled to Berlin, where he received appointments which made him Prime Minister of the king, and the almost absolute controller of the policy of the government. It was not, however, without a severe struggle that he held in check the democratic tendencies of the nation. Both in parliament and at the council board he was the supporter of measures which tended to strengthen the authority of the king, and enable him to wield without restraint the resources of the kingdom. He was an exceedingly unpopular mm- PRINCE BISMAliCK. 629 ister, down to the very moment when he gave his country- men the keen gratification of seeing their country the unquestionable head of Germany. The series of masterly manoeuvres by which he hurled Gari- baldi, Victor Emanuel, and the Italian people upon the rear of Austria, while the Prussian Army attacked her in front, is still fresh in the recollection of every reader. Prussia was perfectly ready for the struggle, and the Prussian army had that effective weapon, the needle-gun. Austria, unprepared, ill-armed, deep in debt, and powerfully attacked in the south, was unable to withstand the vigorous onslaught of the Prussian forces. One short campaign sufficed. Austria was compelled to relinquish her hold upon Venetia, and compelled to acquiesce in the absorption into Prussia of several powerful German States. Passing over his more recent exploits, let me answer the question proposed : What sort of man is he ? On, the. first of April, 1880, Bismarck was sixty-five years of age. In person he is tall and strongly built, with the imposing carriage that belongs to a large and well-proportioned figure. We are all familiar with the lineaments of his countenance, his lofty forehead, his bald head, his full, military mustache ; but there is said to be an animation in his face, and an air of high breeding, which photographs seldom preserve. In his demeanor and conversation there is a blending of soldier- like directness with the courtesy of the aristocrat. When he is dressed in his white military uniform, and sits upon one of his own thorough-bred horses, he is one of the most distinguished looking men in Europe. He is a man of homely, domestic habits. In the letters to his wife and sister, a great number of which have been published, there are many allusions to his three children, PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. their infantile complaints, the trouble he had in buying them suitable Christmas presents, and to the pains he took with their habits and education. A gentleman who lived for sev- eral months under Bismarck's roof, records that the great statesman constantly exhorted his two boys at table to sit upright ; and that in consequence of his hearing so much said upon this point, he got into the habit of sitting upright him- self, and found, at the end of his visit, that he had become two inches taller. At Christmas time, while the children were young, there was always a great Christmas tree in the dining-room, which was consecrated and exhibited with all the usual ceremonies. Naturally as he frequently himself remarks Bismarck was an idle, pleasure-loving man, who desired nothing better than to lead the life and enjoy the sports of " an honest coun- try gentleman." He said, in 1863, when he was in the full tide of his career as Prime Minister, " I regard every one as a benefactor who seeks to bring about my fall." Nothing is more evident in his family letters, than that he is extrava- gantly fond of hunting. We find such passages as this : " Besides several roebucks and stags, I shot five elks, one a very fine stag, measuring roughly six feet eight, without his colossal head. He fell like a hare, but as he was still alive, I mercifully gave him my other barrel. Scarcely had I done so when a second came up, still taller, so close to me that Engel, my loader, had to jump behind a tree to avoid being run over. I was obliged to look at him in a friendly way, as I had no other shot." Even when he had no such luck as this, or no luck at all, he hunted all day. In another letter, he writes : "Yesterday we had a very tired day's sport, long and rocky ; it produced me one woodcock ; but it has tamed me so completely, that to-day I am sitting at home with bandages, so as to be ready PRINCE BISMARCK. 631 to travel to-morrow and shoot the next day. I really am aston- ished at myself for stopping at home alone in such charming wea- ther, and can scarcely refrain from the abominable wish that the others will shoot nothing." Usually he had excellent luck in his hunting. One day, when he shot over one of the imperial parks near Vienna, he killed fifty-three pheasants and fifteen hares ; and, on another clay, eight stags. "I am quite lame," he adds, "in hand and cheek from snooting." He had all the other tastes of the country gentleman. He was passionately fond of his horses, and often when he was away at Paris or some other distant place, he would sigh for some favorite animal in his stables at home. " Next to jny wife and children," he once wrote from Paris, "I want my black mare." It was his boast, too, that the country gentlemen of his neighborhood treated the peasantry with a degree of consideration and generosity, of which " a savage Democrat " could form no idea. If we may judge from his private letters, he is a religious man of the old type, and attends punctually to the obser- vances of the national church of his country. To a friend who once wrote to him respecting a scandalous picture, in which he was represented sitting beside a noted actress, he made a long reply, denying the imputation, and defending the lady. In the course of this epistle, the following sen- tences occur : " I would to God that, besides what is known to the world, I had not other sins upon my soul, for which I can only hope for forgive- ness in a confidence upon the blood of Christ ! As a statesman, I am not sufficiently disinterested ; in my own mind, I am rather cowardly ; because it is not easy always to get that clearness on the questions coming before me which grows upon the soil of divine 632 PEOPLE'S BOOK or BIOGRAPHY. confidence. . . . Among the ^multitude of sinners who are in need of the mercy of God, I hope that His grace will not deprive me of the staff of humble faith, in the midst of the dangers and doubts of my calling." We observe also that he had his children both baptized and confirmed, and that, if he is unable to attend church, he usually has prayers read by some young clergyman at home. In former days, before experience and observation had instructed and broadened him, he was a Tory of the most pronounced description. They relate an anecdote of him in Berlin, to this effect : At a beer saloon much frequented by conservatives, Bismarck, one evening, just as he had taken his seat, and was about to drink his first glass of beer, over- heard a man, who sat at the next table, speak of a member of the royal family in a particularly insulting manner. Bis- marck rose, and, lifting his glass of beer, thundered out : " Out of the house ! If you are not off when I have drunk this beer, I will break the glass on your head ! " Upon this there was a wild commotion in the room, and loud outcries, but Bismarck drank his glass of beer with the utmost composure. When he had finished it, he smashed the glass upon the offender's head. The outcries ceased for a moment, and Bismarck said quietly : " Waiter, what is to pay for this broken glass ? " The manner in which this outrage was committed Bis- marck's commanding look and bearing carried the day; the beer drinkers applauded the act, and the man dared not resent it. Bismarck's attachment to the Crown of Prussia was, at first, merely the instinctive feeling of a nobleman for his King. "I am the King's man," he once said in Parliament; and it was such words as these that made him Prime Minis- PRINCE BISMARCK. ter. But Bismarck is a man of understanding, as well as a nobleman, and this understanding has constantly grown and expanded with the march of events. When he began his public life, he was an admirer of the Austrian system ; but when, after a residence near the Austrian Court, he knew what the Austrian system was, his feelings underwent a complete change, and he adopted it as the aim of his public life, " to snatch Germany from Austrian oppression," and to gather round Prussia, in a North German Confederation, all the States "whose tone of thought, religion, manners, and interests " were in harmony with those of Prussia. "To attain this end," he once said, in conversation, "I would brave all dangers exile, the scaffold itself! What matter if they hang me, provided the rope by which I am hung binds this new Germany firmly to the Prussian throne ? " In the course of the conversation in which he used this language, which occurred in 1866, he denied that he was an enemy to a truly liberal government. "When the King sent for me," said he, "four years ago, his Majesty laid before me a long list of liberal concessions. I said to the King : "I accept ; and the more liberal the government can prove itself, the stronger it wilLbe." The Chamber had been obdurate on one side, and the Crown on the other. In the conflict I remained by the King. My respect for him, all my antecedents, all the traditions of my family, made it my duty to do so. But that I am an adver- sary of parliamentary government, is a perfectly gratuitous supposition." The leading ideas of his policy appear to be these : 1. The Northern states of Germany united, and Prussia supreme over all. 2. The Prussian military system to be preserved intact. 3. The King's person and authority inviolable. 634 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. 4. As much parliamentary palaver as may be necessary to relieve the minds of the people and veil the fact of Despotism under Republican forms. But his is a growing mind, and, if he lives long enough, he may yet cooperate with the next King in making a parliament of the Germanic Empire the supreme power of the land. Tory as he may be, he is not deceived by the shows of this world. When he was Ambassa- dor at Frankfort, twenty years ago, he saw, with the clearness of an honest mind, all the humbug of what is called diplo- macy. He gives a humorous account of the manner in which he and his fellow-diplomatists "worried themselves with their important nothings." "Nobody," he wrote, " not even the most malicious sceptic of a Democrat, believes what quackery and self-importance there is in this diplomatizing. ... I am making enormous progress in the art of saying nothing in a great many words. I write reports of many sheets, which read as tersely and roundly as leading articles ; and if the minister can say what there is in them, after he has read them, he can do more than I can." There is a good sense and good-humor in his private let- ters, which indicate the man who can rise superior to the traditions of his order, and who, from being the King's man at forty, may grow to be the Nation's man and the People's man at sixty. DR. MORTON. 635 PAINLESS SURGERY BY ETHER. DISCOVERY OF THE PROCESS. THIRTY-FIVE years ago there was a dentist in Boston named William Thomas Green Morton, a native of Massa- chusetts, about twenty-five years of age. Zealous and suc- cessful in his calling, he had already improved in some partic- ulars upon its usual practice ; but he was much perplexed by the difficulty of inducing patients to have their old teeth entirely removed before new ones were inserted. It was not common at that day, as it now is, for dentists to advise so unpopular an operation, and it seemed presumption in this young practitioner to demand it. It was useless to explain to patients the great and lasting advantages of such a method, for the pain was too great to be endured, so long as dentists of repute pronounced it unnecessary. The thought occurred to the young man one day, that perhaps a way might be discovered of lessening human sensibility to pain. He had not received a scientific educa- tion, nor hud he more scientific knowledge than an intelli- gent young man would naturally possess who had passed through the ordinary schools of a New England town. Instead of resorting to books, or consulting men of science, he began, from time to time, to experiment with various well-known substances. First he tried draughts of wine and brandy, sometimes to the intoxication of the .patient ; but as soon as the instru- ment was applied, consciousness revived, and long before 636 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. the second tooth was out, the patient, though not perfectly aware of what was going on, was roaring with agony. He tried laudanum in doses of two hundred and three hundred drops, and opium in masses often grains, frequently renew- ing the dose until the patient would be in a condition truly deplorable. Dr. Morton records in his diary, that on one occasion he gave a lady five hundred drops of laudanum in forty-five minutes, which did indeed lessen the pain of the operation, but it took her a whole week to recover from the effects of the narcotic. This would never do, and he soon abandoned the prac- tice. Attributing his failure to his ignorance, he entered a physician's office as a student of medicine, and while still carrying on his business, pursued his medical studies until he graduated from the medical school of Harvard College a Doctor of Medicine. One day in July, 1844, a young lady called upon him to have a tooth filled which was in so sensitive a condition that she could not endure the touch of an instrument. It occurred to him, at length, to apply to the tooth some sul- phuric ether, the effect of which, in benumbing the parts of the body to which it was applied, had become familiar to him during his medical studies. The ether seemed to allay the sensitiveness of the tooth in some degree, but not enough to admit of the operation being finished at one sit- ting. She had to call several times, and every time she came the ether was applied, always with some effect in lessening her pain. On one occasion, when he happened to use the ether more freely and for a longer time than before, he was surprised to discover that the gum near the tooth was so benumbed as to be almost insensible to the pressure of the instrument. Now it was that the idea occurred to him, that if, in some DR. MORTON. 637 way, the whole system could be etherized, his dream of extracting teeth without paiii might be realized, at least in part. But how could this be done ? Could the body be bathed in ether ? Would washing the whole surface answer ? Such thoughts as these passed through his mind ; for although he had witnessed the eifects of laughing-gas, it did not yet occur to him to try whether ether inhaled would benumb the common source of pain and pleasure, the brain. Meanwhile he reflected constantly upon ether, read and con- versed upon ether; always hopeful, and sometimes confident that he w r as upon the path leading to a discovery that would make his fortune. Baffled for the time in his experiments, and absorbed in business and study, several months passed before he took another step toward the great achievement of his life. The subject, indeed, had somewhat faded from his mind, when it was revived by a ludicrous scene in one of the medical class-rooms at the University. Some laughing-gas was administered to a patient for the purpose, as the experi- menter said, of pulling a tooth without pain. This is now done every day ; but the experiment did not succeed. The gas was administered, but as soon as the experimenter began to pull at the tooth, the patient gave such a yell of agony, that the students laughed and hooted as only medical stu- dents can, and the operator retired in confusion. Here let me pause and tell who the unlucky operator in laughing-gas was. He too, played a leading, perhaps an essential, part in the great discovery. His name was Horace Wells, dentist, of Hartford. But observe, first of all, that neither of these young men claim to have invented the substances ether and laughing- gas now used in destroying sensibility to pain; nor was 638 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOURAPHY. either of them the first to originate the idea of inhaling gas for the purpose. The idea was original with Sir Humphry Davy. In 1798, when he was twenty years old, he was appointed chemical superintendent of a hospital for the cure of pulmonary diseases by the inhalation of different gases. This appointment led to his undertaking a series of experi- ments with the various gases employed, particularly the protoxyd of nitrogen, sometimes called by him, "the pleas- ure-giving air," and by us laughing-gas. In the course of his remarks on this gas, he used the following language : " As nitrous oxide (another name for the same gas), in its exten- sive operation, appears capable of destroying physical pain, it may probably be used with advantage during surgical operations, in which no great effusion of blood takes place." Here, then, is the suggestion, but only the suggestion, and it was put forward by Sir Humphry, with a hesitation unusual in an experimenter twenty-one years of age. The gas only appeared capable of destroying pain, and its advan- tageous use was only probable in some cases. Sir Humphry Davy's experiments with the laughing-gas, an account of which he published in the year 1800, attracted universal attention, and it became common, in courses of chemical lectures, both in colleges and lyceums, to administer the gas. The fact, therefore, became familiar to a large number of persons, that people under the influence of this gas were not susceptible to such pain as is inflicted by pinching or slight pricking with a pin. Horace Wells, born in Vermont in 1815, established him- self, in 1836, at Hartford as a dentist. Being an intelligent man and skilful operator, he soon obtained a large practice. Like Dr. Morton, he was much inconvenienced by the unwil- lingness of patients to submit to the pain of having dental DR. HORACE WELLS. 639 operations performed thoroughly ; and like Dr. Morton, too, he had tried the effect of laudanum and spirituous liquors in lessening sensibility. He had even thought of trying the laughing-gas ; but he was prevented from doing so by the dread of it which existed in the public mind, owing to a person having died from the effects of it in Connecticut some years before. It does not appear, from his narrative, that he had ever heard of Sir Humphry Davy's suggestion, quoted above. " Reasoning from analogy," he says, " I was led to believe that surgical operations might be performed without pain, by the fact that an individual, when much excited from ordinary causes, may receive severe wounds, without manifesting the least pain ; as, for instance, the man who is engaged in com- bat, may have a limb severed from his body, after which he testifies that it was attended with no pain at the time ; and so the man who is intoxicated with spirituous liquor may be severely beaten without his manifesting pain, and his frame in this state seems to be more tenacious of life than under ordinary circumstances. By these facts I was led to inquire if the same result would not follow the inhalation of exhila- rating gas." This was the state of his mind on the subject when, on the 10th of September, 1844, Mr. G. Q. Colton gave in Hart- ford a public exhibition of the laughing-gas, which Dr. Wells attended. In the course of the evening a man, after inhaling the gas, bruised himself severely by falling over some benches. Dr. Wells was quick to observe that the man felt no pain, and he at once said to a friend : "A man, by taking that gas, could have a tooth extracted, or a limb amputated, and not feel the pain ! " The very next day that is to say, September the llth, 1844 he put the matter to the test by having one of his 42 640 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. own teeth extracted while under the influence of the gad. The operation was painless. Soon after he repeated the experiment about fifteen times with perfect success. Other dentists in Hartford employed the same gas in their practice during the autumn of 1844. We have the sworn testimony to this effect of respectable dentists who used the gas at that time, and of several gentlemen who had teeth extracted without pain after inhaling it. The friends of Horace Wells, I think, have established their main position, that he was the first man in the world who ever successfully used a gas for destroying sensibility to pain. If human testimony can establish anything, it has established this. It seems, also, that Dr. Wells was aware that ether possessed the same property, that he often conversed with professional friends upon the pain-suspending power of ether, and that the question was discussed between them, whether it would answer as well as the nitrous oxide. They concluded but without having tried the experiment that the nitrous oxide gas was easier to inhale, less offensive, and more safe. For the extraction of teeth, the laughing-gas is still found more convenient than ether ; but it would not avail for any operation in surgery which requires more than a few minutes. In December, 1844, Dr. Wells went to Boston for the purpose of making known his discovery to physicians and scientific men. Dr. Jackson, he says, received his state- ments with ridicule and contempt. The celebrated surgeon Dr. Warren, however, gave him an opportunity to address the medical class of Harvard College on the subject, and to perform an experiment before them. It is not an easy matter to address a class of medical students with effect, for they are not the most patient of mortals, and they are accustomed to express their feelings DR. HORACE WELLS. 641 in a noisy and emphatic way Dr. Wells, too, not yet thirty years of age, was constitutionally diffident, and did not succeed very well in his preliminary remarks. But a successful experiment would have made amends. The class having assembled in another room to see a tooth extracted without pain, the gas was administered to the patient. Unfortunately he did not take enough, and the moment the wrench was applied he roared with pain. The class hooted, hissed, and laughed immoderately. Dr. Wells retired in confusion, and returned to Hartford to report that Boston had given a sorry welcome to his discovery. This scene it was which set young Morton again upon the path of discovery. .The thought flashed upon his mind : Why not try the effect of inhaling ether? But at once another question arose : Is it safe ? On searching his medical books, he found a passage which informed him that ether, when long inhaled, produces a kind of stupefaction, from which it was not certain that the patient could be restored. At least, it was not possible to ascertain to what degree of stupefaction it was safe to reduce the patient. Discouraging as this was, he began from this time timidly to experiment upon himself. At first he made a mixture of opium and ether, which he warmed over a fire, and then inhaled the vapor that was generated. Some degree of numbness, he thought, was produced, but the experiment gave him headaches so severe that he was obliged to discontinue them. He received soon after a student of dentistry, who told him that he had often inhaled pure ether when he was a school-boy, and in considerable quantities, without experien- cing any harm. Fortified by this and other testimony, he bought a quan- tity of ether, and went into the country to make experiments 642 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. upon animals. After many absurd failures and some partial successes, he succeeded in etherizing a dog, a frisky black- and-tan terrier, and this he accomplished in the way com- monly practised at the present time. A handful of cotton saturated with ether was placed at the bottom of a tin vessel, and the dog's head held directly over it. " In a short time," says Morton, " f the dog wilted com- pletely away in my hands, and remained insensible to all my efforts to arouse him by moving or pinching him." And, what was infinitely more important, three minutes after the vessel was taken away, the dog was frisking about as usual, totally unharmed ! Need I say that the experi- menter was in the highest elation ? " Soon," said he to a friend, " I shall have my patients com- ing in at one door, have all their teeth extracted without knowing it, and then, going into the next room, have a full set put in." Feeling now that he held a great discovery in his hand, he engaged an experienced dentist to take entire charge of his business, while he devoted all his time to experimenting with ether. Again he went into the country, where he again subjected his innocent dog to the process. One day the animal, exhilarated by the ether, dashed against the glass jar containing the fluid, and broke it, so that only a small portion remained at the bottom. There was no further sup- ply nearer than Boston, and, unwilling to lose the fruits of his journey, he suddenly determined to use the little ether remaining in an experiment upon himself. He dipped his handkerchief in the ether, held it over his mouth and nose, and inhaled the gas strongly into his lungs. A feeling of lassitude stole over him, and this was followed by a single moment's unconsciousness. "I am firmly convinced," he afterwards said, " that a tooth could have been drawn at that time without pain." DRS. MORTON A ST D WELLS. 643 Nothing remained but to try the complete experiment of actually extracting a tooth from a patient under the influ- ence of ether. Long he tried in vain to hire and persuade some one to run the risk of a trial. He repeated the experi- ment upon himself more than once, remaining on one occasion insensible for nearly eight minutes without experiencing any subsequent harm. Having now no lingering doubt of the safety of the process, he waited impatiently for some one to come in who would consent to submit to the stupefying influence. " One evening," he tells us, "a man entered the office suf- fering great pain, and wishing to have a tooth extracted. He was afraid of the operation, and asked if he could be mesmerized. I told him I had something better ; and sat- urating my handkerchief with ether, gave it to him to inhale. He became unconscious almost immediately. It was dark, and Doctor Hayden held the lamp, while I extracted a firmly rooted bicuspid tooth. There was not much alteration in the pulse, and no relaxation of the muscles. He recovered in a minute, and knew nothing of what had been done to him ! " The discovery was accomplished. A short time after, the process was repeated on a large scale in the operating room of the Massachusetts General Hospital, in the presence of a great number of contemptuous students and incredulous physicians. A painful and widely rooted tumor was cut from the face of a young man while he was under the influ- ence of ether, administered by Dr. Morton. When the patient returned to consciousness, he said to the surgeon : "I have felt no pain, but only a sensation like that of scraping the part with a blunt instrument." The students were no longer contemptuous, nor the doc- tors unbelieving ; but all gathered about Dr.' Morton, pro- foundly impressed with the importance of what they had seen, and overwhelmed him with congratulations. PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. This great discovery brought upon the discoverer, during the rest of his life, little but vexation and bitterness. As the process could not be patented, he wasted many years and many thousands of dollars in trying to induce Congress to make him a grant of public money. He did not succeed ; and, although he received considerable sums from hospitals and medical colleges in recognition of his right, he became at last a bankrupt, and the sheriff held his estate. His cir- cumstances afterwards improved ; but he died upon his farm in Massachusetts, a few years ago, a comparatively poor man. He was ever hopeful and cheerful. More than once I have heard him relate this tale, and I witnessed his calm demeanor under the repeated disappointments he had to" suffer from not receiving expected aid from Congress. He never com- plained, and was never cast down ; but, making the best of such good fortune as befell him, enjoyed life to the end, and never so much as during his last years. By all means let the people of Connecticut erect their mon- ument to the memory of Dr. Wells, who, first of all man- kind, succeeded in destroying sensibility to pain through the inhalation of a gas. Not the less let us honor the memory of Morton, who carried the discovery another step forward, that last step, which renders it one of the most precious of all the incidental results of scientific discovery. COUNT RUM FORD. 645 BENJAMIN THOMPSON, ALIAS COUNT KUMFORD. WHAT a strange tale is the life of this Yankee Count ! His real name was Benjamin Thompson, and he was born of a respectable family of farmers in 1753, at North Woburn, Massachusetts, in a plain country house that is still stand- ing. The boy was father of the man. From childhood he exhibited a remarkable interest in natural objects, and scien- tific experiments ; and this trait attracted the notice of a clergyman of the neighborhood, who gave him instruction in mathematics and astronomy. Before he was fourteen, he could calculate an eclipse. At the same time he displayed a singular manual dexterity, being skilful in the use of his pocket knife and in constructing apparatus for experiments, in making curious nick-nacks and mechanical contrivances. He also learned to play the violin in his boyhood, and showed a great love for music, flowers, and other refined pleasures. With all his talents and aptitudes, he was obliged, from the narrow circumstances of his family, to be apprenticed at thirteen to a store-keeper at Salem, with whom he remained three years. Hogarth, probably, would not have pro- nounced him a "good apprentice." He was prone, it is said, to play on the fiddle when customers were not press- ing ; he was particularly skilful in engraving the names of his companions upon the handles of their knives ; he con- structed an electrical machine ; he attempted to produce per- 646 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOORAPHY. petual motion ; he experimented in chemistry ; he made fire- works to celebrate the repeal of the Stamp Act ; he watched closely the winds and the weather ; he addressed inquiries to learned friends concerning the mysteries of the universe ; and he reflected upon the greatest mystery of all,- the ori- gin of life. A capital draughtsman, too, he was ; excelling in caricature likenesses. In short, he knew everything bet- ter than business, and did everything better than serve his master. He changed his vocation in his sixteenth year, beginning the study of medicine, and earning his livelihood by teaching school, according to the time-honored New England custom. At nineteen, we find him at Concord, New Hampshire, teacher of a school there, a splendid and gifted youth, six feet in stature, nobly proportioned, with handsome features, bright blue eyes, and hair of dark auburn. He was what we may call a natural gentleman ; one of those who easily 'take to polite ways, and assume without an effort an agreeable demeanor ; one who, though country-born and village-bred, could have adapted himself to the life of a court. While teaching school at Concord, he attracted the regard of a young widow of good family and fortune, whom, after a short courtship, he married. At twenty-one he was both a husband and a father, living with considerable elegance in tlie principal mansion of the town, and, to all appearance, he was settled for life, as gentleman farmer and philosopher. The Governor of New Hampshire appointed him major of a regiment, so that an honorable military title was added to the other distinctions of his lot. But the storm of the Revolution was impending, and then appeared the radical defect of his understanding. If he was a gentleman and courtier by nature, he was also a tory by nature, and his heart was not with his country at this crisis BENJAMIN THOMPSON. 647 of her fate. He performed no overt act of hostility to the patriot cause ; but his neighbors felt and knew that he was not one of them. At such a time as that, silence cannot conceal a man's sentiments, because silence betrays the secret of his heart more forcibly than words. His house was mobbed. Fortunately he was absent, or it might have gone ill with him. At twenty-two he was a fugitive from his home and family, domesticated with the tories in Boston ; and when, at length, General Washington compelled the British to abandon that city, he had done the enemy such service that he was commissioned to bear the tidings of the evacuation to England in a British ship of war. He never saw his home, nor his wife, nor his native State again. In England he at once won powerful friends, for he had just what they most wanted at the moment, information respecting affairs in America. His agreeable manners, his commanding presence, his admirable talents, his heartfelt toryism, all stood him in good stead ; and he soon won the affections of the War Secretary, Lord George Germaine, to whom he made himself indispensable. Under this lord, he held a lucrative office, that of Under Secretary of State, which gave him charge of transporting supplies and raising troops, duties which at that time brought great profit. When Lord George Germaine was compelled to resign, he provided handsomely for his factotum, by procuring for him a commission as Lieutenant-Colonel in the British army. But he was a lieutenant-colonel without a regiment. The regiment was to be gathered in America from the " loyal- ists." To America he went, accordingly, where he raised a regiment, which he commanded, and which he did not scruple to lead against his countrymen. So lost was he to a sense of his position, that he could write of an action in which he took part, in such language as the following : 648 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. " We had the good fortune this morning to fall in with a chosen corps, under the command of General Marion in person, which we attacked and totally routed, killing a con- siderable number of them, taking sixteen prisoners, and driving General Marion and the greater part of his army into the Santee, where it is probable a great many of them perished." This he calls " good fortune " That native of America who could speak so of the slaughter of some of his country- men, and the lingering death of others, must indeed have had what the phrenologists call a " defective organization." The war ended, he returned to England, and retired from the army on half pay. He was now an English gentleman of rank, fortune, celebrity, prestige, and thirty years. What more natural than that such a person should avail himself of the peace to make the tour of Europe ? A new chapter of his strange history now opens. At Strasbourg, one day, mounted upon a superb English horse, and dressed in his uniform, he attended a grand parade. Prince Maximilian, heir to the throne of Bavaria, but then a field- marshal in the service of France, commanded the troops on that occasion. Struck with the fine appear- ance of Colonel Thompson, he accosted him, conversed with him, was captivated by him, and invited him to dinner. In short, the Prince conceived so lively a regard for the British officer, that it ended in his inviting him to enter the service of Bavaria, in a capacity which gave him all the power, at once, of a favorite and a prime minister. This office, how- ever, he could not accept without the permission of the King of England. George the Third not only granted the permission, but allowed him to retain his half pay, and knighted him ; so that he took up his abode in Munich, as Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Benjamin Thompson. The Elector BENJAMIN THOMPSON. 649 soon gave him the title of Count Rumford, by which name he has ever since been known. It was only in occasional letters to his mother that he had the good sense to use the old familiar Benjamin. Plain Thompson he sunk entirely, preferring always to sign himself by the rather ridiculous name of "Rumford." Such is the weakness of the Tory mind ! The glorious part of his career now begins. He was one of the greatest benefactors Bavaria has ever known. Armed with authority little less than sovereign, and wielding the revenues of an important state, he introduced into every branch of the public service the most radical and useful improvements. He reduced the excessive power of the church ; he restored discipline and efficiency to the army ; he established foundries and factories ; he drove the swarms of beggars from the high roads and streets, and gave them profitable employment; he drained marshes, and converted them into gardens ; he turned waste places into beautiful parks ; he founded schools ; he caused the cities and towns to be perfectly cleansed ; he invented ovens, kitchens, laun- dries, so contrived that vast numbers of people would be provided for at the minimum of expense. In a word, he was a Yankee, with all a Yankee's thrift, invention, love of order, love of cleanliness, dropped down into a kingdom burdened with the accumulated abuses of centuries ; and he was a Yankee who wielded the power of an absolute prince. Wealth and honors flowed in upon him. When he was sick, vast numbers of the poor went in procession to church to beseech Heaven for his recovery, and to this day a monu- ment, surmounted by a statue, standing in the streets of Munich, attests the veneration in which he was held. Imagine such a man alighting in the city of New York, with absolute power, and twenty-five millions a year to 650 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. spend in putting the city in order ! What a bewildering thought ! When he had worked for Bavaria twenty years, the death of the elector, and the coming in of a prince who valued him less, enabled him to transfer his beneficent activity to Eng- land ; where he erected a monument to himself far more honorable, and, I hope, more lasting, than his Munich statue. He founded the ROYAL INSTITUTION, which employed Sir Humphry Davy, and gave to Faraday the opportunity to spend his life in discovering scientific truth. Some years later, he contracted an unfortunate marriage with a brilliant, wealthy, French widow, which embittered his closing years. She was wholly a woman of the drawing-room. He was an inventor, a philosopher, and a lover of order even to fanaticism. An infuriate " incompatibility " was rapidly de- veloped. One of their quarrels he has himself recorded : " A large party had been invited I neither liked nor approved of, and invited for the sole purpose of vexing me. Our house (near Paris) was in the centre of the garden, walled around, with iron gates. I put on my hat, walked down to the porter's lodge, and gave him orders, on his peril, not to let any one in. Besides, I took away the keys. Madame went down, and when the company ar- rived she talked with them, she on one side, they on the other, of the high brick wall. After that she goes and pours boiling water on some of my beautiful flowers." A recurrence of such scenes soon rendered the connection insupportable, and the unhappy pair had the good sense to separate. If we believe the husband, we shall certainly have a very bad opinion of this lady. In a letter to his American daughter, he calls her " the most imperious, tyrannical, unfeeling woman that ever existed"; and he BENJAMIN THOMPSON. 651 speaks of her as one, " whose perseverance in pursuing an object is equal to her profound cunning and wickedness in framing it." Obs-ervers of life will know how to interpret these words. The habits of both of these people were fixed before they saw one another, and they had passed the period when change is possible. Such incompatibility is the fault of neither party, but the calamity of both. How was it possible that they should agree ? She loved society ; he loved quiet. He was willing enough to spend money for permanently improving or embellishing their abode ; she rejoiced in giving the most profuse entertainments, happy to live all the week upon scraps, if she could give a gorgeous banquet on Sunday. Their house was filled with Frenchmen who detested Rumford, and whom he detested. He says, in one of his letters, that no one can imagine the utter want of nobleness in the French character unless he lives long in France. It was a happy day for both when the husband took up his abode in another mansion near Paris, and re- sumed his bachelor life ; which, however, he alleviated, according to the bad custom of the country, by keeping a mistress. His wife, it appears, occasionally visited him, and he visited her ; so that the separation was what is called " amicable." Rumford was a strange mixture of great and little, of good and evil. If he abandoned his home and country, he cher- ished a tender recollection of his mother, and provided gen- erously for the comfort of her old age. His interest, too, in the welfare of the poor appears to have been genuine and deep. In one of his essays, we find the following pas- sage : " Amongst the great variety of enjoyments which riches put within the reach of persons of fortune and education, there is none more delightful than that which results from doing good to those 652 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. from whom no return can be expected, or none but gratitude, re- spect and attachment. ... Is it not possible to draw off the attention of the rich from trifling and unprofitable amusements, and engage them in pursuits in which their own happiness and rep- utation, and the public prosperity, are so intimately connected? ... What a wonderful change in the state of society might in a short time be effected by their united efforts ! " No doubt his heart spoke in these words. On the other hand, he was firmly convinced that the poor were incapable of helping themselves, and can never be raised from their miserable condition except through the generosity of the rich. He approved the social arrangements existing in the Old World. He thought China the nearest approach to a perfect state, because there the principle of ORDER was developed to the uttermost; and, for the same reason, he approved American slavery. Such minds as his can form no concep- tion of a state of things, like that which exists in the best portions of the United States, where no class depends upon another for its welfare and happiness, but all classes are equally dependent and equally independent. This extraordinary man died in 1814, at Auteuil, near Paris, where he was buried, and a handsome monument cov- ers his remains. His daughter, Sarah, who inherited his title, spent most of her days in New England, where she was called the " Countess of Rumford." One of his illegitimate sons, born in the last year of his life, entered the French army as an officer, won distinction in the service, and fell before Sebastopol during the Crimean war. A son of this officer is still living in Paris, to whom the rt Countess of Rumford" left a portion of her fortune. To Harvard College he left, first, a thousand dollars a year ; secondly, his daughter's annuity after her death, of four hundred dollars a year ; and, thirdly, his whole estate BENJAMIN THOMPSON. 653 after the decease of persons dependent upon its income. The object of this handsome bequest was to endow a professorship for the promotion of physical and mathematical science. He bequeathed to the government of the United States all that part of his library which related to military subjects, as well as all his military plans and designs, for the use of the Military Academy at West Point. In accordance with his bequest to Harvard College, the Eumford Professorship of Science was founded in 1816, and the first person who held the appointment was Dr. Jacob Bigelow, an eminent physi- cian and man of science. Count Rumford, in his lifetime, presented five thousand dollars to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an endowment which has increased, in the course of years, to more than six times that amount. Under the auspices of this institution a complete edition of the works of Count Rum- ford, in four handsome volumes, has been recently published. Fifty years ago, his essays and papers, philanthropic and philosophical, were highly esteemed, ran through many editions, and were translated into several languages. A superb biography has recently been written by a distin- guished member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Rev. George E. Ellis, of Boston. 654 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF IJIOORAPHY. POCAHONTAS AND HER HUSBAND. THE UNROMANTIC TRUTH. HAVING duly celebrated various triumphant exertions of human ingenuity, let me now relate one instance of success- ful imposture. But it will oblige us to bid farewell to our childhood's Pocahontas. Dusky maiden, heroine of Captain John Smith's romantic story, farewell forever ! It is strange we should have believed this pleasing fiction so long ; for the other incredible tales of the same author ought to have put us upon our guard. He describes Pow- hatan, for example, as living in great state, like an " empe- ror," who gave audience to Captain Newport, with twenty women on each side of the room, and a guard of four or five hundred men around the house ; while on each side of the door stood forty platters of w fine bread." John Smith knew the Indians better than that. He knew very well that a people without cattle, horses, sheep, or swine, with little cleared land, and only two or three rude implements, could never maintain an imperial court and retinue in that style. It seems to have been a habit of this adventurer to attri- bute his deliverance from peril to the friendship and inter- cession of beautiful damsels. In Turkey he won the tender love of the lovely Tragabigzanda, who gave him substantial aid in his time of trouble. At another place, it was the noble Lady Callamata who " largely supplied all his wants." But let him speak for himself. In the dedication of his POCAHONTAS AND HER HUSBAND. 655 History of Virginia to the Duchess of Richmond, he holds the following language : " My comfort is, that heretofore honorable and virtuous ladies, and comparable but amongst themselves, have offered me rescue and protection in my greatest danger. Even in foreign parts I have felt relief from that sex. The beauteous lady Tragabigzanda, when I was a slave to the Turks, did all she could to secure me. When I overcame the bashaw of Nalbritz in Tartaria, the charita- ble Lady Callamata supplied my necessities. In the utmost of many extremities, that blessed Pocahontas, the great King's daughter of Virginia, oft saved my life. When I escaped the cru- elties of pirates and most furious storms, a long time alone in a small boat at sea, and driven ashore in France, the good Lady, Madam Chanoies, bountifully assisted me. And so verily these my adventures have tasted the same influence from your gracious hand." Then he never tells his story twice alike. In one of his versions, Pocahontas is spoken of as " a child of tenne " ; in another, as a maiden of twelve or thirteen ; and in the passage just quoted, he goes beyond previous statements in saying that she oft saved his life. But the most remarkable discrepancy, and the one that led to the detection of the braggart, remains to be told. In the year 1608, a few weeks after his return to Jamestown from his residence with Pow- hatan, he wrote a long letter home, in which -he gave an account of the manner in which he was taken prisoner, and of what transpired during the month of his detention among the Indians. In this letter there is no allusion to Pocahon- tas ; he does not mention her name ; nor does he relate any story at all resembling the one with which we are all so familiar. On the contrary, he assures us that Powhatau treated him with the most bountiful generosity, and he speaks of him as M this kind king." 650 PEOPLE'S HOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. Wingfield, President of the colony, was in the habit of recording in his diary everything of interest that occurred in Virginia. He mentions the fact of Smith's imprisonment and safe return, but says nothing whatever of an Indian maiden having saved his life. In short, of the events which occurred in Virginia during the first ten years of the col- O O v ony's existence, we have seven distinct sources of informa- tion, all but one of which are the productions of men who had lived in the colony ; but in none of them is there an intimation that Pocahontas saved the life of Captain Smith. Two of these narratives contain several particulars of the life and death of this Indian girl, and the authors of them had a strong interest in exalting her reputation. The reader, if he knows anything of the Indian character, is aware that nothing is more unlikely than that an Indian chief should be diverted from his purpose by the entreaties of a little girl ; and that Indian children, so far from being disposed to intercede for a prisoner, enjoyed the execution and torture of captives as our children do the circus and the Fourth of July. I say, then, farewell the Pocahontas of romance ! and approach the true Pocahontas, the dumpy, dingy little squaw whom John Rolfe married, and the council sent to England to advertise forlorn Virginia ! Pocahontas was born in the year 1598. Her father Pow- hatan, by reason of his age and former prowess, was the principal chief of the tribe of Indians inhabiting the region about the falls of the James, a tribe that may have num- bered three hundred warriors, and was connected by inter- marriage and alliance with tribes living upon the Potomac and other rivers flowing into the Chesapeake. We get our first glimpse of Pocabontas when she was a naked girl of twelve, who used to visit Jamestown and play about the POCAHONTAS AND HER HUSBAND. 657 peninsula with the white boys. William Strachey, secretary of the colony, and one of its first historians, describes her as he first saw her in 1610 : " The younger Indian women goe not shadowed (clad) amongst their owne companie until they be nigh eleaven or twelve returnes of the leafe old (for so they accornpt and bring about the yeare, calling the fall of the leafe taquitock) ; nor are they much ashamed thereof ; and therefore would the before remembered Pochahuntas a well-featured but wanton young girle, Powhatan's daughter, sometymes resorting to our fort, of the age then of eleaven or twelve yeares, get the boyes forth with her into the markett place, and make them wheele, falling on with then 1 hands, turning up their heeles upwards, whome she would follow and wheele so herself, naked as she was, all the fort over." This, then, is her first appearance in the history of Vir- ginia, a wanton young girl, naked, wheeling and wheeled about the market-place at Jamestown ! Three years passed, daring part of which, it is intimated by one of the early chroniclers, she lived with one of the settlers as his mistress. Powhatan becoming actively hostile to the whites she left them, and went to reside for a while with a chief and his wife, whose village was situated on the shores of the river Potomac. She was living there in the spring of 1613 ; but the place of her retreat was unknown to the English. One Captain Argol, a noted man in the early days of Vir- ginia, was despatched that season for the third time, in the vessel which he commanded, to trade with the Potomac Indians for corn ; and while he lay anchored in their river, he heard that Pocahontas was living near, in the village of the very chief with whom he was most intimate. Japazaws was the name of this potentate. He had had many a bauble from Captain Argol in exchange for corn, and was accus- 658 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. tomed to style the Captain his brother. At this time Pow- hatan had eight white captives, and Captain Argol conceived that by getting Pocahoutas into his possession, he could induce her father to give them up in exchange for her. He enlisted Japazaws in the scheme, promising to give him a copper kettle if he would lure Pocahoutas on board his ship. The temptation was too much for the Indian. His wife, too, gave way at the prospect of such an addition to her household treasures, and promised her assistance. So, on a certain day the chief and his wife, accompanied by Pocahontas, strolled down to the river's bank to see the ship ; and while there the wife was seized with a longing to go on board. Her husband objected. She persisted, saying that this was the third time the vessel had been in their river, and yet she had never visited it. The chief still refusing, she resorted to the expedient employed by lovely woman, in all ages and climes, to subdue the obstinacy of man : she began to cry. Then her husband, as husbands generally do, relented ; and when Pocahontas joined her entreaties, the chief launched his canoe and took the ladies on board. The treacherous couple returned to the shore rejoicing over their copper kettle, but Pocahontas was a prisoner. Arrived at Jamestown, she was kept as a hostage while the Governor negotiated the exchange, and during her stay she caught the fancy of one of the early settlers, styled in the list of passengers, " John Rolfe, gentleman." I think he really liked the girl. We have a very long and very sancti- monious letter of his, in which he declares that his motive in desiring to marry her was, to promote the welfare of the colony, and the conversion of the heathen. He says this at such length, and in such pious phraseology, that we are jus- tified in disbelieving him. It was evidently his cue to exalt 29 POCAHONTAS AND HER HUSBAND. 659 Pocahoutas, but there is no hint in his letter of her saving John Smith's life six years before. The Governor and Council consenting, and Pochontas having been baptized, the marriage was solemnized in 1613. Powhatan was conciliated. He gave up his prisoners, and much of his plunder. He remained the friend and ally of the whites as long as he lived. For three years John Rolfe and his wife Rebecca nee Pocahoutas lived together in Jamestown. A son was born to them. In 1616, when Sir Thomas Dale was going home to see his friends, it occurred to the Council to send with him, at the expense of the colony, this interesting family, as a kind of first fruit of missionary success. The colony was in ill repute in England, needed friends there, and they thought Pocahoutas and her child would advertise poor Virginia effectively. The family reached England, where Captain John Smith was still living. Then it was eight years after his resi- dence with Powhatan that he first told the famous tale of his rescue by Pocahontas from a violent death. Doubtless he told it to help the advertising scheme, and to excuse his old friend Rolfe for marrying an Indian girl. He had prob. ably been reading a tract, published in London in 1609, concerning De Soto's exploits in Florida, in which there is an account given of the Spaniard, John Ortiz, falling into the hands of the savages, who bound him to stakes, and were about to burn him, when a daughter of the chief interceded for him and saved his life. The ingenious Smith improved upon this simple tale. He wrote a letter to the Queen of England, recommending the " Virginia Princess " to her majesty, in which he used the following language : " After some six weeks' fatting amongst those savage courtiers, at the minute of my execution, she Jiazarded the beating out of her 660 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. own brains to save mine ; and not only that, but so prevailed with her father that I was safely conducted to Jamestown." The trick succeeded to admiration. Pocahontas became the lion of the London season. The king and queen received her at court with gracious civility ; the bishop of London gave her a banquet ; and King James consulted his council upon the question, whether Rolfe had not committed a grave offence in marrying a princess of an imperial house ! After a year's stay in England, poor Pocahontas, sick from the change in her mode of living, and yet unwilling to go, set out with her husband on her return home. While waiting at Graveseud for the sailing of the ship, she died, and was buried in one of the parish churches of that town. Rolfe returned to Virginia, where he founded a consider- able estate. His son, Thomas Rolfe, after being educated in England and growing to manhood there, joined his father in America. He left one son ; that son had one daughter ; that daughter became the mother of a family of daughters, who married respectable young men of the colony ; and thus the blood of Pocahontas circulates to this day in the prin- cipal families of Virginia. Later in life, John Smith, being in London poor and neg- lected, appears to have fallen into the hands of the booksel- lers, for whom he wrote various versions of his travels and adventures. It was at this part of his life, and to make these works more attractive, that he expanded the tale of Pocahontas into the form in which we usually find it. His writings have been received with full credit almost to the present day. A copy of his History of Virginia was sold at auction the other evening in New York, for two hundred and sixty-two dollars. In another way, Rolfe is connected with the early history of Virginia. In the spring of 1612, the fifth year of the POCAHONTAS AND HER HUSBAND. 661 Colony, lie performed an action which, if we were to judge it by its consequences only, we might pronounce the most important deed ever done in colonial Virginia. Being an old smoker, he had the curiosity to know whether white men could raise good tobacco in Virginia ; and, accordingly, he planted some tobacco seed at Jamestown. It grew well during the summer, and when the leaves were ripe, he cured them as best he could ; for not a person in the colony was acquainted with the proper process. When the leaves were dry, he tried them in his pipe, and pronounced the tobacco excellent. His friend, Ealph Hamor, secretary of the colony, tried it ; and finding it very much to his taste, planted some seed in his own garden, in the following spring. Mr. Hamor, in his tract upon Virginia, published in 1615, gave Virginia tobacco a strong indorsement. " I dare affirm," he wrote, "that no country under the sun can or doth afford more pleasant, sweet, and strong tobacco than I have tasted there, even of my own planting; which, howsoever, being then the first year of a trial thereof, we had not the knowledge to cure and make up ; yet are there some men resident there, out of the last year's well-observed experience, which both know, and, I doubt not, will make and return such tobacco this year (1615) that even England shall acknowledge the goodness thereof." 062 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. DAVID CROCKETT. A SKETCH OF nis EVENTFUL LIFE, AND AN ACCOUNT OP ONE OF ms EXPLOITS. FEW men have reached Congress by a stranger road than the eccentric individual named at the head of this article. Some men have talked, others have written, others have fought themselves into Congress ; but David Crockett shot himself thither. It was his wonderful skill as a marksman, and his during as a bear-hunter, which made him so popular in his district, that when he chose to run for office he usually distanced all competitors. He could shoot a hum- ming-bird on the wing with a single ball. Seated upon the margin of a river, he would aim at a fish, and as soon as the crack of his rifle was heard , one of the little inmates of the stream would be seen struggling on the surface. He used to speak of his battered old rifle in words like these : " She 's a mighty rough old piece, but I love her; for she and I have seen hard times. She mighty seldom tells me a lie. If I hold her right, she always sends the ball where I tell her." Shooting was not his only qualification. He had other gifts and graces calculated to win the favor of a frontier popula- tion ; although it was his matchless skill with the rifle that first drew attention to him. He was an abundant relator of comic anecdotes, and an utterer of those eccentric remarks which are passed from mouth to mouth, and form a large part of the .common stock of wit in a country place. Forty or fifty years ago, almost every newspaper that appeared had DAVID CROCKETT. 663 a story in it, in some odd corner, in which the name of David Crockett figured. He was born in East Tennessee, in 1786, the youngest but one of the six sons of John Crockett, who by turns was farmer, miller, and tavern-keeper. This John Crockett was the son of an emigrant from the north of Ireland, who, after fighting with noted courage through the Revolutionary war, settled in East Tennessee. There he and his wife were murdered by the Creek Indians. One of their sons was wounded, and another was carried into captivity, and re- mained a prisoner with the Indians for seventeen years. John Crockett escaped, grew up, and in due time became the father of the famous David. When the boy was seven years old, his father met with a misfortune which reduced him to utter poverty. A freshet swept away a new mill in which he had invested the savings of a lifetime. It was carried off bodily, leaving not a wreck behind. The unfor- tunate proprietor then removed to another county, and opened a small tavern not far from the present city of Knoxville. It happened, one evening, when David was twelve years of age, that an old Dutchman, a drover, put up at his father's tavern, having with him a drove of cattle. To this Dutch- man John Crockett hired his son, as drover's boy, with the understanding that he was to help drive the cattle as far as Richmond, and then return. Away he went, and was soon in high favor with the Dutchman, from whom he learned those Dutch anecdotes and the Dutch brogue which he after- wards employed with so much effect. He liked his master very well, but after travelling for some weeks with the cattle, he became homesick, ran away, joined a wagoner bound for East Tennessee, and so reached home again. The next winter his father sent him to school for the first 664 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. time in his life ; but before he had been at school a week, he had a fight with one of the scholars, in which he gained the victory, and beat his antagonist so severely that he dared not show himself in school again. So he played truant for several days ; but discovering that his father had found him out, he thought it prudent to beat a retreat, and hired him- self to another drover who was going to Virginia. Many were his adventures. His employer, after ill-treating him in various ways, turned him adrift hundreds of miles from home, with only four dollars. Then he joined a wagoner once more, and soon found himself at Baltimore, where, for the first time in his life, he saw a ship. As he stood on the dock, gazing at the ship with open eyes and mouth, bewildered at the sight, one of the sailors accosted him and asked him if he would not like to go to Liverpool. Forgetting his engagement with the wagoner, he joyfully consented, and rushed off to the wagon to get his clothes, although ten minutes before he did not know that there was such a thing as a ship in the world. The wagoner posi- tively refused to let him go. Watching his chance, however, he bundled up his clothes and started for the wharf; but it so chanced that in turning the corner of a crowded street, he came full upon his master, who collared him and brought him back. Leaving his wagoner soon after, he started, penniless, to work his way home. First he worked a while as a laborer, and, with the money thus earned, he travelled a few miles towards Tennessee. When his money was gone-, he would stop and work again for the first farmer who wanted him. Once he bound himself as an apprentice to a hatter, for four years, and worked for him a few months, until the hatter failed, and he was homeless once more. At length, after two years' absence, one winter evening he entered his father's DAVID CROCKETT. 665 tavern with his bundle, and asked permission to sit down and rest. No one knew him. His father, a somewhat infirm old man, was waiting upon his guests ; his mother was cook- ing supper ; and his sister was also working about the house. He remained silent for an hour, when, supper being ready, he was asked to come to the table, where, the light falling upon his face, his sister recognized him. The truant had a joyful welcome, and he kept the family up late relating his adventures. He now set to work in earnest to assist his old father, to whom he had not given much help or comfort hitherto. By six months' hard work he paid one of his father's debts, which had caused the old man much anxiety. Then he worked six months more to cancel a note of thirty dollars which his father had given, and brought it to his father as a present. Next he went to work for sundry other mouths, until he had provided himself with a supply of decent clothes. He was now nearly twenty years of age, and being much mortified with his inability to read or write, he made a bargain with a Quaker schoolmaster, agreeing to work two days on the Quaker's farm for every three that he attended his school. He picked up knowledge rapidly, and, after six months of this arrangement, he could read, write, and cipher sufficiently well for the ordinary purposes of life on the frontier. He now began to be extremely susceptible to the charms of the female sex. Marriageable girls were as scarce on the frontiers then as they now are in some parts of California and Oregon. Accordingly, a young fellow had to be prompt both at popping the question and in fulfilling his engagement. The first girl with whom he was smitten was a young relative of his schoolmaster, but, while he was courting her with the vigor and warmth of a backwoodsman, and flattering himself that his passion was returned, a wealthy suitor came along, 6GG PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. and snapped her up before his eyes. He soon fell in love again, at a ball, and, before the evening was finished, he was engaged to be married, and a day was appointed for him to announce the fact to the girl's parents. On the appointed day, he started for the young lady's abode, but falling in on the way with a gay party, he spent the whole night' in a frolic ; and when, the next morning, he approached the house of his* lady-love, he learned that she was to be married that evening to another man. His riding- whip slipped from "his hand ; his jaw fell ; and he sat on his horse staring wildly at his informant. He. recovered his spirits, however, went to the wedding, and danced all night, the merriest of the merry. He was soon in love again, over head and ears, and in due time was happily married. He lived, at first, with his wife's mother, working a little, and hunting a great deal, for his subsistence. After two years he set up his own cabin on the Elk River, where he cultivated a few acres for his bread, and ranged the forest for his meat. The Creek War, in 1813, summoned the yeomen of Ten- nessee to arms under General Jackson. No young man of them all was prompter to take the field than David Crockett. He was in most of the principal engagements under General Jackson, and if ever he obtained leave of absence, he soon tired of the monotony of home, and was off again for the army. He was the life of the camp. His merriment, his Dutch anecdotes, his bear stories, his wonderful shooting, his fortitude and courage, made him a universal favorite. The war over, he removed his little family one hundred and fifty miles to the west, and settled in the midst of a wil- derness forty miles distant from the nearest settlement. There he built his cabin, dug his well, cleared his cornfield, and lived the life of a pioneer in its perfection. His skill DAVID CROCKETT. 667 and courage in hunting the deer, the panther, and the bear, were wonderful indeed ; and I must find room for one of his bear stories before I close. Years passed on. The country filled up with settlers. The fame of David Crockett, as a hunter, story-teller, and general good fellow, spread far and wide, and at last he found himself elected to the Legislature. So popular was he in the Legislature that, in 1824, he was set up as an anti-tariff candidate for Congress, and was only beaten by two votes, in a district of seventeen counties. At the next election, he was returned by the extraordinary majority of twenty-seven hundred votes. At Washington, he was a conspicuous personage, for his fame preceded him, and he was, perhaps, the only genuine pioneer and backwoodsman that ever sat in Congress. He was a member four years, and would, no doubt, have been again elected, if he had not differed with his old commander, President Jackson, on the removal of the Cherokces. He found, at the next election, that Andrew Jackson was too strong for him. He was defeated, and, soon after, joined in the movement started by General Houston, which was de- signed to sever Texas from Mexico, and annex it to the United States. His exploits were as romantic as any which have ever been related. He was caught, at length, in a fort garrisoned by a hundred and forty Texans, when it was invested by a Mexican army of two thousand. Never was a place more valiantly defended. After ten days of conflict and starvation, every man of the garrison had perished, except six, one of whom was Colonel Crockett. These six heroes then surrendered to Santa Anna, the dastardly traitor and coward, who commanded the Mexican army. This base wretch, so far from being touched by the heroism of 668 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. Colonel Crockett, ordered him to be murdered, and the gal- lant pioneer fell, pierced with a dozen swords. This is the merest outline of a life so full of strange and romantic adventure, that if it could be truly and fully writ- ten, it would attract universal attention, and be a permanent addition to our literature. It is a subject worthy the pen of an Irving or a Cooper. Let me give one incident of his life as a bear-hunter, as related by himself to his friends. The scene of this thrilling adventure was the region near the Mississippi river called the "Shakes," from its having been shaken, and tumbled into chaos, by the great earth- quake of 1812. This region is thus described by a gentle- man familiar with it from having hunted over it, with Crockett himself: " The Obion Eiver, a navigable stream which empties into the Mississippi nearly opposite to New Madrid, was dammed up, and two considerable lakes, one nearly twenty miles long and varying in its breadth, the other not quite so large, have been formed of unknown depth. The bed of the river has been changed ; and fissures or openings, made in the earth by the concussion, still remain, running parallel to each other, of various lengths, from three to thirty feet wide, and from ten to forty feet deep. One, to visit these "Shakes," would see striking marks of the gigantic power of an earthquake. He would find the largest forest trees split from their roots to their tops, and lying half on each side of a fissure. He would find them split in every direction, and lying in all shapes. At the time of this earthquake, no persons were living where those lakes have been formed. Colonel Crockett was among the nearest settlers ; and to this day, there is much of that country entirely uninhabited, and even unknown. Several severe hurricanes have passed 24 DAVID CROCKETT. 669 along, blowing down all the trees in one direction, and an undergrowth has sprung up, making these places almost impenetrable to man. This section of country which has been visited by the shakes, forms the best hunting-ground in the west. There are bears, wolves, panthers, deer, elk, wild cats, in abundance ; and this is the only place within my knowledge east of the Mississippi, where elk are yet to be found." Such was the scene of the unique bear-hunt now to be related. Imagine the mighty hunter himself telling the story to a group of backwoodsmen on the stoop of a country store. " It has been a custom with me," began Colonel Crockett (so his neighbors always called him) , " ever since I moved to this country, to spend a part of every winter in bear-hunt- ing, unless I was engaged in public life. I generally take a tent, pack horses, and a friend 'long with me, and go down to the "Shakes," where I camp out and hunt till I get tired, or till I get as much meat as I want. I do this because there is a great deal of game there ; and, besides, I never see any- body but the friend I carry, and I like to hunt in a wilder- ness, where nobody can disturb me. I could tell you a thousand frolics I Ve had in these same " Shakes" ; but per- haps the following one will amuse you : " Some time in the winter of 1824 or '25, a friend called to see me, to take a bear-hunt. I was in the humor ; so we got our pack horses, fixed up our tent and provisions, and set out for the *' Shakes." We arrived there safe, raised our tent, stored away our provisions, and commenced hunting. For several days we were quite successful ; our game we brought to the tent, salted it, and packed it away. We had several hunts, and nothing occurred worth telling, save that we killed our game. 670 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. w But one evening, as we were coming along, our pack horses loaded with bear-meat, and our dogs trotting lazily after us, old Whirlwind held up his head and looked about ; then rubbed his nose agin a bush, and opened. I knew, from the way he sung out, 'twas an old he bear. The balance of the dogs buckled in, and off they went right up a hollow. I gave up the horses to my friend, to carry 'em to the tent, which was now about half a mile distant, and set out after the dogs. "The hollow up which the bear had gone, made a bend, and I knew he would follow it ; so I run across to head him. The sun was now down ; 't was growing dark mighty fast, and 'twas cold; so I buttoned my jacket close round me, and run on. I had n't gone fur, before I heard the dogs tack, and they come a tearing right down the hollow. Presently I heard the old bear rattling through the cane, and the dogs coming on like lightning after him. I dashed on ; I felt like I had wings, my dogs made such a roaring cry; they rushed by me, and as they did I harked 'em on ; they all broke out, and the woods echoed back and back to their voices. It seemed to me they fairly flew, for 't was n't long before they overhauled him, and I could hear 'ern fighting not fur before me. I run on, but just before I got there, the old bear made a break and got loose ; but the dogs kept close up, and every once in a while they stopped him and had a fight. I tried for my life to git up, but just before I 'd get there, he 'd break loose. I followed him this way for two or three miles, through briers, cane, etc., and he devilled me mightily. Once I thought I had him : I got up in about fifteen or twenty feet, 't was so dark I could n't tell the bear from a dog, and I started to go to him ; but I found out there was a creek between us. How deep it was I did n't know ; but it was dark and cold, and too late to turn back ; DAVID CROCKETT. 671 so I held my rifle up and walked right in. Before I got across, the old bear got loose and shot for it, right through the cane ; I was mighty tired, but I scrambled out and fol- lowed on. I knew I was obliged to keep in hearing of my dogs, or git lost. " Well, I kept on, and once in a while I could hear 'em fighting and baying just before me ; then I 'd run up, but before I'd get there, the old bear would git loose. I some- times thought 'bout giving up and going back ; but while I'd be thinking, they'd begin to fight agin, and I'd run on. I followed him this way 'bout, as near as I could guess, from four to five miles, when the old bear could n't stand it any longer, and took a tree ; and I tell you what, I was mighty glad of it. " I went up, but at first it was so dark I could see nothing ; however, after looking about, and gitting the tree between me and a star, I could see a very dark-looking place, and I raised up old Betsy, and she lightened. Down came the old bear ; but he was n't much hurt, for of all the fights you ever did see, that beat all. I had six dogs, and for nearly an hour they kept rolling and tumbling right at nry feet. I could n't see anything but one old white dog I had ; but every now and then the bear made 'em sing out right under me. I had my knife drawn, to stick him when- ever he should seize me ; but after a while, bear, dogs, and all rolled down a precipice just before me, and I could hear them fighting, like they were in a hole. I loaded Betsy, laid down, and felt about in the hole with her till I got her agin the bear, and I fired ; but I did n't kill him, for out of the hole he bounced, and he and the dogs fought harder than ever. I laid old Betsy down, and drew my knife ; but the bear and dogs just formed a lump, rolling about; and presently down they all went again into the hole. G72 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. " My dogs now began to sing out mighty often ; they were getting tired, for it had been the hardest fight I ever saw. I found out how the bear was laying, and I looked for old Betsy to shoot him again ; but I had laid her down some- where and coul 1 n't find her. I got hold of a stick and began to punch him; he didn't seem to mind it much, so I thought I would git down into the crack, and kill him witl> my knife. w I considered some time 'bout this ; it was ten or eleven o'clock, and a cold winter night. I was something like thirty miles from any settlement ; there was no living soul near me, except my friend, who was in the tent, and I did n't know where that was. I knew my bear was in a crack made by the shakes, but how deep it was, and whether I could get out if I got in, were things I could u't tell. I was sitting down right over the bear, thinking ; and every once in a while some of my dogs would sing out, as if they wanted help ; so I got up and let myself down in the crack behind the bear. Where I landed was about as deep as I am high ; I felt mighty ticklish, and I wished I was out ; I couldn't see a thing in the world, but I determined to go through with it. I drew my knife and kept feeling about with my hands and feet till I touched the bear ; this I did very gently, then got upon my hands and knees, and inched my left hand up his body, with a knife in my right, till I got pretty fur up, and I plunged it into him ; he sunk down and for a moment there was a great struggle ; but by the time I scrambled out, everything was getting quiet, and my dogs, one at a time, came out after me and laid down at my feet. I knew everything was safe. " It began now to cloud up : 't was mighty dark, and as I didn't know the direction of my tent, I determined to stay all night. I took out my flint and steel and raised a little DAVID CROCKETT. 673 fire ; but the wood was so cold and wet it would n't burn much. I had sweated so much after the bear, that I began to get very thirsty, and felt like I would die, if I didn't git some water : so, taking a light along, I went to look for the creek I had waded, and as good luck would have it, I found the creek, and got back to my bear. But from having been in a sweat all night, I was now very chilly ; it was the middle of winter, 'and the ground was hard frozen for sev- eral inches, but this I had not noticed before ; I again set to work to build me a fire, but all I could do could n't make it burn. The excitement under which I had been laboring had all died away, and I was so cold I felt very much like dying ; but a notion struck me to git my bear up out of the crack ; so down into it I went, and worked until I got into a s \veat again ; and just as I would git him up so high, that if I could turn him over once more he 'd be out, he 'd roll back. I kept working, and resting, and while I was at it, it began to hail mighty fine ; but I kept on, and in about three hours I got him out. " I then came up almost exhausted ; my fire had gone out and I laid down, and soon fell asleep; but 'twas n't long before I waked almost frozen. The wind sounded mighty cold as it passed along, and I called my dogs, and made 'em lie upon me to keep me warm; but it wouldn't do. I thought I ought to make some exertion to save my life, and I got up, but I don't know why or wherefore, and began to grope about in the dark ; the first thing I hit again was a tree : it felt mighty slick and icy as I hugged it, and a notion struck me to climb it ; so up I started, and I climbed that tree for thirty feet before I came to any limb, and then slipped down. It was awful warm work. How often I climbed it, I never knew ; but I was going up and slipping down for three or four hours, and when day first began to 674 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. break, I was going up that tree. As soon as it was cleverly light, I saw before me a slim sweet gum, so slick, that it looked like every varmunt in the woods had been sliding down it for a month. I started off and found my tent, where sat my companion, who had given me up for lost. I had been distant about five miles ; and, after resting, I brought my friend to see the bear. I had run more perils than those described ; had been all night on the brink of a dreadful chasm, where a slip of a few feet would have brought about instant death. It almost made my head giddy to look at the dangers I had escaped. My friend swore he would not have gone in the crack that night with a wounded bear, for every one in the woods. We had as much meat as we could carry ; so we loaded our horses, and set out for home." This, I think, is the most remarkable narrative of the kind ever put upon paper. It has haunted me for years ; and I copy it now for the reader's entertainment from the little volume, published nearly forty years ago, iu which I read it, ELI AS HOWE. 675 HISTOKF OF THE SEWING-MACHINE. IN Cornkill, Boston, thirty years ago, there was a shop for the manufacture and repair of nautical instruments and phil- osophical apparatus, kept by Ari Davis. Mr. Davis was a very ingenious mechanic, who had invented a successful dovetailing machine, much spoken of at the time, when inventions were not as numerous as they are now. Being thus a noted man in his calling, he gave way to the foible of affecting an oddity of dress and deportment. It pleased him to say extravagant and nonsensical things, and to go about singing, and to attract attention by unusual garments. Nev- ertheless, being a really skilful mechanic, he was frequently consulted by the inventors and improvers of machinery, to whom he sometimes gave a valuable suggestion. In the year 1839, two men in Boston one a mechanic, and the other a capitalist were striving to produce a knitting- machine, which proved to be a task beyond their strength. When the inventor was at his wit's end, his capitalist brought the machine to the shop of Ari Davis, to see if that eccentric genius could suggest the solution of the difficulty, and make the machine work. The shop, resolving itself into a com- mittee of the whole, gathered about the knitting-machine and. its proprietor, and were listening to an explanation of its principle, when Davis, in his wild, extravagant way, broke in with these words : " What are you bothering yourselves with a knitting-machine for ? Why don't you make a sew- ing-machine ? " 676 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. "I wish I could," said the capitalist; "but it can't be done." "O, yes it can," said Davis; "I can make a sewing- machine myself." " Well," said the other, w you do it, Davis, and I '11 insure you an independent fortune." There the conversation dropped, and it was never resumed. The boastful remark of the master of the shop was considered merely one of his sallies of affected extravagance, as it really was ; and the response of the capitalist to it was uttered without a thought of producing an effect. Nor did it pro- duce any effect upon the person to whom it was addressed. Davis never attempted to construct a sewing-machine. Among the workmen who stood by and listened to this conversation was a young man from the country, a new hand, named Elias Howe, then twenty years old. The person whom we have named the capitalist, a well-dressed and fine- looking man, somewhat consequential in his manners, was an imposing figure in the eyes of this youth, new to city ways ; and he was much impressed with the emphatic assur- ance that a fortune was in store for the man who should invent a sewing-machine. He was the more struck with it, because he had already amused himself with inventing some slight improvements, and recently he had caught from Davis the habit of meditating new devices. The spirit of invention, as all mechanics know, is exceedingly contagious. One man in a shop who invents something that proves successful, will give the mania to half his companions, and the very appren- tices will be tinkering over a device after their day's work is done. There were other reasons, also, why a conversation so trifling and accidental should have strongly impressed itself upon the mind of this particular youth. Before that day, the idea of sewing by the aid of a machine had never occurred to him. ELIAS HOWE. 677 ELIAS HOWE, the inventor of the sewing-machine, was born in 1819, at Spencer, in Massachusetts, where his father was a farmer and miller. There was a grist-mill, a saw-mill, and a shingle-machine on the place ; but all of them together, with the aid of a farm, yielded but a slender revenue for a man blessed with eight children. It was a custom in that neighborhood, as in New England generally, forty years ago, for families to carry on some kind of manufacture at which children could assist. At six years of age, Elias Howe worked with his brothers and sisters at sticking the wire o teeth into strips of leather for " cards," used in the manufac- ture of cotton. As soon as he was old enough, he assisted upon the farm and in the mills, attending the district school in the winter months. He is now of opinion, that it was the rude and simple mills belonging to his father, which gave his mind its bent toward machinery ; but he cannot remem- ber that this bent was very decided, nor that he watched the operation of the mills with much attention to the mechanical principles involved. He was a careless, play-loving boy, and the first eleven years of his life passed without an event worth recording. At eleven, he went to "live out" with a farmer of the neighborhood, intending to remain until he was twenty-one. A kind of inherited lameness rendered the hard work of a farmer's boy distressing to him, and after trying it for a year, he returned to his father's house, and resumed his place in the mills, where he continued until he was six- teen. One of his young friends, returning from Lowell about this time, gave him such a pleasing description of that famous town, that he was on fire to go thither. In 1835, with his parents' reluctant consent, he went to Lowell, and obtained a learner's place in a large manufactory of cotton machinery, where he remained until the crash of 1837 closed the mills 678 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. of Lowell, ard sent him adrift, a seeker after work. He went to Cambridge, under the shadow of venerable Harvard. He found employment there in a large machine-shop, and was set at work upon the new hemp-carding machinery invented by Professor Treadwell. His cousin, Nathaniel P. Banks, since Speaker of the House of Representatives and Major-General, worked in the same shop and boarded in the same house with him. After working a few months at Cam- bridge, Elias Howe found employment more congenial in Boston, at the shop of Ari Davis, where the conversation occurred which we have just related. Judging merely by appearances, no one would have pitched upon him as the person likely to make one of the revolution- izing inventions of the age. Undersized, curly-headed, and exceedingly fond of his joke, he was at twenty more a boy than a man. Nor was he very proficient in his trade, nor 'inclined to put forth extra exertion. Steady labor was always irksome to him ; and frequently, owing to the consti- tutional weakness to which we have alluded, it was painful. He was not the person to seize an idea with avidity, and work it out with the passionate devotion of a Watt or a Goodyear. The only immediate effect upon him of the con- versation in the shop of Mr. Davis was to induce a habit of reflecting upon the art of sewing, watching the process as performed by hand, and wondering whether it was within the compass of the mechanic arts to do it by machinery. His uppermost thought, in those years, was, What a waste of power to employ the ponderous human arm, and all the intri- cate machinery of the fingers, in performing an operation so simple, and for which a robin's strength would suffice ! Why not draw twelve threads through at once, or fifty? And sometimes, while visiting a shop where army and navy cloth- ing was made, he would look at the heaps of unsewed gar- ELI AS HOWE. 679 ments, all cut alike, all requiring the same stitch, the same number of stitches, and the same kind of seam, and say to himself, " What a pity this cannot be done by machinery ! It is the very work for a machine to do." Such thoughts, however, only flitted through his mind now and then ; he was still far from any serious attempt to construct a machine for sewing up the blue trousers. At twenty-one, being still a journeyman machinist, earn- ing nine dollars a week, he married ; and, in time, children came with inconvenient frequency. Nine .dollars is a fixed quantity, or, rather, it was then; and the addition of three little mouths to be fed from it, ad three little backs to be clothed by it, converted the vivacious father into a thought- ful and plodding citizen. His day's labor at this time, when he was upon heavy work, was so fatiguing to him, that, on reaching his home, he would sometimes be too exhausted to eat, and he would go to bed, longing, as we have heard him say, "to lie in bed for ever and ever." It was the pressure of poverty and this extreme fatigue, that caused him, about the year 1843, to set about the work of inventing the machine which, he had heard four years before, would be "an independent fortune" to the inventor. Then it was that he caught the inventor's mania, which gives its victims no rest and no peace till they have accom- plished the work to which they have abandoned themselves. He wasted many months on a false scent. When he began to experiment, his only thought was to invent a machine which should do what he saw his wife doing when she sewed. He took it for granted that sewing must be that, and his first device was a needle pointed at both ends, with the eye in the middle, that should work up and down through the cloth, and carry the thread through it at each thrust. Hundreds of hours, by night and day, he brooded 680 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. over this conception, and cut many a basket of chips in the endeavor to make something that would work such a needle so as to form the common stitch. He could not do it. One day, in 1844, the thought flashed upon him, Is it nec- essary that a machine should imitate the performance of the hand? May there not be another stitch? This was the crisis of the invention. The idea of using two threads, and forming a stitch by the aid of a shuttle and a curved needle, with the eye near the point, soon occurred to him, and he felt that he had invented a sewing-machine. It was in the month of October, 1844, that he was able to convince him- self, by a rough model of wood and wire, that such a machine as he had projected would sew. At this time he had ceased to be a journeyman mechanic. His father had removed to Cambridge to establish a machine for cutting palm-leaf into strips for hats, a machine invented by a brother of the elder Howe. Father and son were living in the same house, into the garret of which the son had put a lathe and a few machinists' tools, and was doing a little work on his own account. His ardor in the work of invention robbed him, however, of many hours that might have been employed, his friends thought, to better advantage by the father of a family. He was extremely poor, and his father had lost his palm-leaf machine by a fire. With an invention in his head that has since given him more than two hundred thousand dollars in a single year, and which is now yielding a profit to more than one firm of a thousand dollars a day, he could scarcely provide for his little family the necessaries of life. Nor could his inven- tion be tested, except by making a machine of steel and iron, with the exactness and finish of a clock. At the pres- ent time, with a machine before him for a model, a good mechanic could not, with his ordinary tools, construct a ELIAS HOWE. 681 sewing-machine in less than two months, nor at a less expense than three hundred dollars. Elias Howe had only his model in his head, and he had not money enough to pay for the raw material requisite for one machine. There was living then at Cambridge a young friend and schoolmate of the inventor, named George Fisher, a coal and wood merchant, who had recently inherited some prop- erty, and was not disinclined to speculate with some of it. The two friends had been in the habit of conversing together upon the project of the sewing-machine. When the inventor had reached his final conception, in the fall of 1844, he succeeded in convincing George Fisher of its feasi- bility, which led to a partnership between them for bring- ing the invention into use. The terms of this partnership were these : George Fisher was to receive into his house Elias Howe and his family, board them while Elias was making the machine, give up his garret for a workshop, and provide money for material and tools to the extent of five hundred dollars ; in return for which, he was to become the proprietor of one half the patent, if the machine proved to be worth patenting. Early in December, 1844, Elias Howe moved into the house of George Fisher, set up his shop in the garret, gathered materials about him, and went to work. It was a very small, low garret, but it sufficed for one zealous, brooding workman, who did not wish for gos- siping visitors. It is strange how the great things come about in this world. This George Fisher, by whose timely aid such an inestimable boon was conferred upon womankind, was led into the enterprise as much by good nature as by expecta- tion of profit, and it was his easy acquisition of his money that made it easy for him to risk it. So far as we know, neither of the partners indulged in any dream of benevo- 682 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BKHJRAPHY. lence. Howe wanted to invent a sewing-machine to deliver himself from that painful daily toil, and Fisher was inclined to aid an old friend, and not disinclined to own a share in a valuable patent. The greatest doers of good have usually proceeded in the same homely spirit. Thus Shakespeare wrote, thus Columbus sailed, thus Watt invented, thus New- ton discovered. It seems, too, that George Fisher was Elias Howe's only convert. "I believe," testified Fisher, in one of the great sewing-machine suits, " I was the only one of his neighbors and friends in Cambridge that had any confidence in the success of the invention. He was gen- erally looked upon as very visionary in undertaking any- thing of the kind, and I was thought very foolish in assist- ing him." It is the old story. All the winter of 184445 Mr. Howe worked at his machine. His conception of what he intended to produce was so clear and complete, that he was little delayed by failures, but worked on with almost as much certainty and steadiness as though he had a model before him. In April, he sewed a seam by his machine. By the middle of May, 1845, he had completed his work. In July, he sewed by his machine all the seams of two suits of woollen clothes, one suit for Mr. Fisher and the other for himself, the sew- ing of both of which outlasted the cloth. This first of all sewing-machines, after crossing the ocean many times, and figuring as a dumb but irrefutable witness in many a court, may still be seen at Mr. Howe's office in Broadway, where, within these few weeks, it has sewed seams in cloth at the rate of three hundred stitches a minute. It is agreed by all disinterested persons (Professor Renwick among others) who have examined this machine, that Elias Howe, in making it, carried the invention of the sewing-machine farther on towards its complete and final utility, than any ELI AS HOWE. 683 other inventor has ever brought a first-rate invention at the first trial. It is a little thing, that first machine, which goes into a box of the capacity of about a cubic foot and a half. Every contrivance in it has been since improved, and new devices have been added ; but no successful sewing- machine has ever been made, of all the seven hundred thou- sand now in existence, which does not contain some of the essential devices of this first attempt. We make this asser- tion without hesitation or reserve, because it is, we believe, the one point upon which all the great makers are agreed. Judicial decisions have repeatedly affirmed it. Like all the other great inventors, Mr. Howe found that, when he had completed his machine, his difficulties had but begun. After he had brought the machine to the point of making a few stitches, he went to Boston one day to get a tailor to come to Cambridge and arrange some cloth for sew- ing, and give his opinion as to the quality of the work done by the machine. The comrades of the man to whom he first applied, dissuaded him from going, alleging that a sewing- machine, if it worked well, must necessarily reduce the whole fraternity of tailors to beggary ; and this proved to be the unchangeable conviction of the tailors for the next ten years. It is probable that the machines first made would have been destroyed by violence, but for another fixed opinion of the tailors, which was, that no machine could be made that would really answer the purpose. It seems strange now, that the tailors of Boston could have persisted so long in such an opinion ; for Mr. Howe, a few weeks after he had finished his first model, gave them an oppor- tunity to see what it could do. He placed his little engine in one of the rooms of the Quincy Hall Clothing Manufac- tory, and, seating himself before it, offered to sew up any seam that might be brought to him. One unbelieving tailor 684 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF IJIOGRAPHY. after another, brought a garment, and saw its long seams sewed perfectly, at the rate of two hundred and fifty stitches a minute ; which was about seven times as fast as the work could be done by hand. For two weeks he sat there daily, and sewed up seams for all who chose to bring them to him. He amused himself, at intervals, in executing rows of orna- mental stitching, and he showed the strength of the machine by sewing the thick, plaited skirts of frock-coats to the bodies. At last, he challenged five of the swiftest seam- stresses in the establishment to sew a race with the machine. Ten seams of equal length were prepared for sewing, five of which were laid by the machine, and the other five given to the girls. The gentleman who held the watch, and who was to decide the wager, testified, upon oath, that the five girls were the fastest sewers that could be found, and that they sewed "as fast as they could, much faster than they were in the habit of sewing," faster than they could have kept on for one hour. Nevertheless, Mr. Howe finished his five seams a little sooner than the girls finished their five ; and ^ the umpire, who was himself a tailor, has sworn, that " the work done on the machine was the neatest and strongest." Upon reading testimony like this, we wonder that manu- facturers did not instantly set Mr. Howe at work making sewing-machines. Not one was ordered. Not a tailor encouraged him by word or deed. Some objected that the machine did not make the whole garment. Others dreaded to encounter the fierce opposition of the journeymen. Others really thought it would beggar all hand-sewers, and refrained froiri using it on principle. Others admitted the utility of the machine and the excellence of the work done by it ; but, said they, " We are doing well as we are, and fear to make such a change." The great cost of the machine was a most serious obstacle to its introduction. A year or two since, ELI A 8 HOWE. 685 Mr. Howe caused a copy of his first machine to be made for exhibition in his window, and it cost him two hundred and fifty dollars. In 1845, he could not have furnished his machine for less than five hundred dollars, and a large 7 O clothier or shirt-maker would have required thirty or forty of them. The inventor was not disheartened by the result of the introduction of the machine. The next thing was to get the invention patented, and Mr. Howe again shut himself up in George Fisher's garret for three or four months, and made another machine for deposit in the Patent Office. In the spring of 1846, there being no prospect of revenue from the invention, he engaged as "engineer" upon one of the rail- roads terminating at Boston, and " drove " a locomotive daily for some weeks ; but the labor proved too much for his strength, and he was compelled to give it up. Late in the summer, the model and the documents being ready for the Patent Office, the two associates treated themselves to a journey to Washington, where the wonderful machine was exhibited at a fair, with no results except to amuse the crowd. September 10, 1846, the patent was issued, and soon after the young men returned to Cambridge. George Fisher was now totally discouraged. He had maintained the inventor and his family for many months ; he had provided the money for the tools and material for two machines ; he had paid the expense of getting the patent, and of the journey to Washington ; he had advanced in all about two thousand dollars ; and he saw not the remotest probability of the invention becoming profitable. Elias Howe moved back to his father's house, and George Fisher considered his advances in the light of a dead loss. "I had lost confidence," he has since testified, "in the machine's ever paying anything." 686 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. But mothers and inventors do not give up their offspring so. America having rejected the invention, Mr. Howe resolved to offer it to England. In October, 1846, his brother, Amasa B. Howe, with the assistance of their father, took passage in the steerage of a sailing packet, and con- veyed one of the machines to London. An Englishman was the first manufacturer who had faith enough in the Ameri- can sewing-machine to invest money in it. In Cheapside, Amasa Howe came upon the shop of William Thomas, who employed, according to his own account, five thousand per- sons in the manufacture of corsets, umbrellas, valises, carpet bags, and shoes. William Thomas examined and approved the machine. Necessity, as poor Richard remarks, cannot make a good bargain ; but the bargain which it made on this occasion, through the agency of Amasa B. Howe, was sig- nally bad. He sold to Mr. Thomas, for two hundred and fifty pounds sterling, the machine he had brought with him, and the right to use as many others in his own business as he desired. There was also a verbal understanding that Mr. Thomas was to patent the invention in England, and, if the machine came into use there, he was to pay the inventor three pounds on every machine sold. That was an excellent day's work for William Thomas of Cheapside. The verbal part of the bargain has never been carried out. He patented the invention ; and ever since the machines began to be used, all sewing-machines made in England, or imported into Eng- land, have paid tribute to him at the rate of ten pounds or less for each machine. Elias Howe is of opinion that the investment of that two hundred and fifty pounds has yielded a profit of one million dollars. Mr. Thomas further proposed to engage the inventor to adapt the machine to the work upon corsets, offering him the munificent stipend of three pounds a week, and to defray the expense of workshop, tools, and material. ELIAS HOWE. 687 Amasa B. Howe returned to Cambridge with this offer. America being still insensible to the charms of the new invention, and the two hundred and fifty pounds having been immediately absorbed by the long-accumulating necessities of the family, and there being no prospect of advantageous employment at home, Elias Howe accepted the offer, and both brothers set sail for London, February 5, 1847. They went in the steerage, and cooked their own provisions. William Thomas provided a shop and its requisites, and even advanced money for the passage to England of the in- ventor's family, who joined him soon, wife and three children. After eight months of labor, the inventor suc- ceeded in adopting his machine to the purposes of the stay- maker ; and when this was done, the stay-maker apparently desired to get rid of the inventor. He required him to do the miscellaneous repairs, and took the tone with him which the ignorant purse-holder, in all lands, is accustomed to hold in his dealings with those to whom he pays wages. The Yankee, of course, resented this behavior, and William Thomas discharged Elias Howe" from his employment. To be a poor stranger, with a sick wife and three children in America, is to be in a purgatory that is provided with a practicable door into paradise. To be such a person in London, is to be in a hell without visible outlet. Since undertaking to write this little history of the sew- ing-machine, we have gone over about thirty thousand pages of printed testimony, taken in the numerous suits to which sewing-machine patents have given rise. Of all these pages, the most interesting are those from which we can gather the history of Elias Howe during the next few months. From a chance acquaintance, named Charles Inglis, a coach-maker, who proved to be a true friend, he hired a small room for a work-shop, in which, after borrowing a few tools, he began 10 688 PEOPLE'S BOOK OK IJIOGRAPHY. to construct his fourth sewing-machine. Long before it was finished, he saw that he must reduce his expenses or leave his machine unfinished. From three rooms, he removed his family to one, and that a small one in the cheapest quarter of Surrey. Nor did that economy suffice ; and he resolved to send his family home while he could, and trust to the machine in hand for the means to follow them. "Before his wife left London," testifies Mr. Inglis, "he had frequently borrowed money from me in sums of five pounds, and requested me to get him credit for provisions. On the evening of Mrs. Howe's departure, the night was very wet and stormy, and, her health being delicate, she was unable to walk to the ship. He had no money to pay the cab-hire, and he borrowed a few shillings from me to pay it, which he repaid by pledging some of his clothing. Some linen came home from his washerwoman for his wife and children on the day of her departure. She could not take it with her on account of not having money to pay the woman." After the departure of his family, the solitary inventor was still more severely pinched. " He has borrowed a shilling from me," says Mr. Inglis, " for the purpose of buying beans, which I saw him cook and eat in his own room." After three or four months of labor, the machine was finished. It was worth fifty pounds. The only customer he could find for it was a working man of his acquaintance, who offered five pounds for it, if he could have time to pay it in. The inventor was obliged to accept this offer. The purchaser gave his note for the five pounds, which Charles Inglis suc- ceeded in selling to another mechanic for four pounds. To pay his debts and his expenses home, Mr. Howe pawned his precious first machine and his letters-patent. " He drew a hand-cart, with his baggage on it, to the ship, to save the expense of cartage " ; and again he took passage in the steer- ELIAS HOWE. 689 age, along with his English friend, Charles Inglis. His brother Amasa had long before returned to America. In April, 1849, Elias Howe landed in New York, after an absence of two years from the country, with half a crown in his pocket. Four years had nearly elapse'd since the completion of his first machine, and this small piece of silver was the net result of his labors upon that invention. He and his friend went to one of the cheapest emigrant boarding- houses, and Elias Howe sought employment in the machine- shops, which luckily he found without delay. The news reached him soon that his wife was dying of consumption, but he had not the money for a journey to Cambridge. In a few days, however, he received ten dollars from his father, and he was thus enabled to reach his wife's bedside, and receive her last breath. He had no clothes except those he daily wore, and he was obliged to borrow a suit from his brother-in-law in which to appear at the funeral. It was remarked by his old friends, that his natural gayety of dis- position was quite quenched by the severity of his recent trials. He was extremely downcast and worn. He looked like a man just out after a long and agonizing sickness. Soon came the intelligence that the ship, in which he had embarked all his household goods, had been wrecked off Cape Cod, and was a total loss. But now he was among friends, who hastened to relieve his immediate necessities, and who took care of his children. He was soon at work ; not, indeed, at his beloved machine, but at work which his friends considered much more rational. He was again a journeyman machinist at weekly wages. As nature never bestows two eminent gifts upon the same individual, the man who makes a great invention is seldom the man who prevails upon the public to use it. Every Watt 090 PEOPLE'S HOOK OF BI OCR A PHY. needs his Boulton. Neither George Fisher nor El ins Howe possessed the executive force requisite for so difficult a piece of work as the introduction of a machine which then cost two or three hundred dollars to make, and upon which a purchaser kad to take lessons as upon the piano, and which the whole body of tailors regarded with dread, aversion, or contempt. It was reserved, therefore, for other men to edu- cate the people into availing themselves of this exquisite labor-saving apparatus. Upon his return home, after his residence in London, Elias Howe discovered, much to his surprise, that the sew- ing-machine had become celebrated, though its inventor appeared forgotten. Several ingenious mechanics, who had only heard or read of a machine for sewing, and others who had seen the Howe machine, had turned their attention to inventing in the same direction, or to improving upon Mr. Howe's devices. We have before us three hand-bills, which show that, in 1849, a sewing-machine was carried about in Western New York, and exhibited as a curiosity, at a charge of twelve and a half cents for admission. At Ithaca, the fol- lowing bill was posted about in May, 1849, a few weeks after the inventor's return from Europe : A GREAT CURIOSITY ! ! The YANKEE SEWING-MACHINE is now EXHIBITING AT THIS PLACE . from 8 A. M. to 5 P." M. The public were informed by other bills, that this won- derful machine could make a pair of pantaloons in forty min- ELI AS HOWE. utes, and do the work of six hands. The people of Ithaca, it appears, attended the exhibition in great numbers, and many ladies carried home specimens of the sewing, which they preserved as curiosities. But this was not all. Some machinists and others in Boston, arid elsewhere, were making sewing-machines in a rude, imperfect manner, several of which had been sold to manufacturers, and were in daily operation. The inventor, upon inspecting these crude products, saw that they all contained the devices which he had first com- bined and patented. Poor as he was, he was not disposed to submit to this infringement, and he began forthwith to prepare for war against the infringers. When he entered upon this litigation, he was a journeyman machinist ; his machine and his letters-patent were in pawn, three thousand miles away, and the patience, if not the purses, of his friends was exhausted. When the contest ended, a leading branch of the national industiy was tributary to him. The first step was to get back from England that first machine, and the document issued from the Patent Office. In the course of the summer of 1849, he contrived to raise the hundred dollars requisite for their deliverance ; and the Hon. Anson Burlingame, who was going to London, kindly undertook to hunt them up in the wilderness of Surrey. He found them, and sent them home in the autumn of the same year. The inventor wrote polite letters to the infringers, warning them to desist, and offering to sell them licenses to continue. All but one of them, it appears, were disposed to acknowledge his rights, and to accept his pro- posal. That one induced the others to resist, and nothing remained but a resort to the courts. Assisted by his father, the inventor began a suit ; but he was soon made aware that justice is a commodity much beyond the means of a journey 692 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. man mechanic. He tried to reawaken the faith of George Fisher, and induce him to furnish the sinews of war ; but George Fisher had had enough of the sewing-machine ; he would sell his half of the patent for what it had cost him ; but he would advance no more money. Mr. Howe then looked about for some one who would buy George Fisher's share. He found three men who agreed to do this, and tried to do it, but could not raise the money. The person to whom he was finally indebted for the means of securing his rights, was George W. Bliss, of Massachusetts, who was prevailed upon to buy Mr. Fisher's share of the patent, and to advance the money needful for carrying on the suits. He did this only as a speculation. He thought there might be something in this new notion of sewing by machinery, and, if there was, the machine must become universal, and yield large revenues. This might be ; he even thought it probable ; still, so weak was his faith, that he consented to embark in the enterprise only on condition of his being secured against loss by a mortgage on the farm of the inventor's father. This generous parent who is still living in Cambridge came once more to the rescue, and thus secured his son's fortune. The suits went on ; but, as they went on at the usual pace of patent cases, the inventor had abundant leisure to push his invention out of doors. Towards the close of 1850, we find him in New York, superintending the construction of fourteen sewing-machines at a shop in Gold Street, adjoining which he had a small office, furnished with a five-dollar desk and two fifty-cent chairs. One of those machines was exhibited at the fair in Castle Garden in October, 1851, where, for the space of two weeks, it sewed gaiters, pantaloons, and other work. Sev- eral of them were sold to a boot-maker in Worcester, who ISAAC MERRITT SINGER. 693 used them for sewing boot-legs, with perfect success. Two or three others were daily operated in Broadway, to the satisfaction of the purchasers. We can say, therefore, of Elias Howe, that besides inventing the sewing-machine, and besides making the first machine with his own hands, he brought his invention to the point of its successful employ- ment in manufacture. While he was thus engaged, events occurred which seriously threatened to rob him of all the benefit of his inven- tion. The iufringers of his patent were not men of large means nor of extraordinary energy, and they had no " case " whatever. There was the machine which Elias Howe had made in 1845, there were his letters-patent, and all the sewing-machines then known to be in existence were essen- tially the same as his. But in August, 1850, a man became involved with the infriugers who was of very different mettle from those steady-going Yankees, and capable of carrying on a much more vigorous warfare than they. This was that Isaac Merritt Singer, who has since so often astonished the Fifth Avenue, and is now amusing Paris, by the oddity and splendor of his equipages. He was then a poor and baffled adventurer. He had been an actor and manager of a theatre, and had tried his hand at various enterprises, none of which had been very successful. In 1850, he invented (as he has since sworn) a carving-machine, and having obtained an order for one from Boston, he made it, and took it himself to Boston. In the shop in which he placed his carving- machine, he saw, for the first time, several sewing-machines, brought there for repairs. Orson C. Phelps, the proprietor of the shop (Mr. Singer says) , showed him one of these machines, and said to him that, if it could be improved so as to render it capable of doing a greater variety of work, "it would be a good thing " ; and if Mr. Singer could accom- 694 PEOPLE'S JJOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. plish this, he could get more money from sewing than from carving-machines. Whereupon, Mr. Singer contemplated the apparatus, and at night meditated upon it, with so much success, that he was able in the morning to exhibit a drawing: O r5 of an improved machine. This sketch (so he swears) con- tained three original devices, which, to this day, form part of the sewing-machine made by the Singer Company. The sketch being approved, the next thing was to construct a model. Mr. Singer having no money, the purchaser of his carving-machine agreed to advance fifty dollars for the pur- pose ; upon which Mr. Singer flew at the work like a tiger. "I worked," he says, "day and night, sleeping but three or four hours out of the twenty-four, and eating generally but once a day, as I knew I must get a machine made for forty dollars, or not get it at all. The machine was com- pleted the night of the eleventh day from the day it was commenced. About nine o'clock that evening, we got the parts of the machine together, and commenced trying it. The first attempt to sew was unsuccessful ; and the workmen, who were tired out with almost unremitting work, left me, one by one, intimating that it was a failure. I continued trying the machine, with Zieber" (who furnished the forty dollars) "to hold the lamp for me, but, in the nervous con- dition to which I had been reduced by incessant work and anxiety, was unsuccessful in getting the machine to sew tight stitches. About midnight, I started with Zieber to the hotel where I boarded. Upon the way, we sat down on a pile of boards, and Zieber asked me if I had noticed that the loose loops of thread on the upper side of the cloth came from the needle. It then flashed upon me that I had for- gotten to adjust the tension upon the needle thread. Zieber and I went back to the shop. I adjusted the tension, tried the machine, and sewed five stitches perfectly, when the ISAAC MERRITT SINGER. 695 thread broke. The perfection of those stitches satisfied me that the machine was a success, and I stopped work, went to the hotel, and had a sound sleep. By three o'clock the next day, I had the machine finished, and started with it to New York, where I employed Mr. Charles M. Keller to get out a patent for it." Such was the introduction to the sewing-machine of the man whose energy and audacity forced the machine upon an unbelieving public. He borrowed a little money, and form- ing a partnership with his Boston patron and the machinist in whose shop he had made his model, began the manufac- ture of the machines. Great and numerous were the .diffi- culties which arose in his path, but, one by one, he overcame them all. He advertised, he travelled, he sent out agents, he procured the insertion of articles in the newspapers, he exhibited the machine at fairs in town and country. Several times he was upon the point of failure, but in the nick ot time something always happened to save him, and year after year he advanced toward an assured success. We well remember his early efforts, when he had only the back part of a small store in Broadway, and a little shop over a rail- road depot ; and we remember also the general incredulity with regard to the value of the machine with which his name was identified. Even after hearing him explain it at great length, we were very far from expecting to see him, one day, riding to the Central Park in a French diligence, drawn by five horses, paid for by the sewing-macbine. Still less did we anticipate that, within fourteen years, the Singer Company would be selling two thousand sewing-machines a week, at a profit of a thousand dollars a day. He was the true pioneer of the mere business of selling the machines, and made it easier for all his subsequent competitors. Mr. Singer had not been long in the business before he 696 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. was reminded by Elias Howe that he was infringing his patent of 1846. The adventurer threw all his energy and his growing means into the contest against the original inven- tor. The great object of the infringing interest was to dis- cover an earlier inventor than Elias Howe. For this purpose, the patents records of England, France, and the United States were most diligently searched ; encyclopaedias were examined ; and an attempt was even made to show that the Chinese had possessed a sewing-machine for ages. Nothing, however, was discovered that would have made a plausible defence, until Mr. Singer joined the infringers. He ascer- tained that a New York mechanic, named Walter Hunt, who had a small machine-shop up a narrow alley in Abingdon Square, had made, or tried to make, a sewing-machine as early as 1832. Walter Hunt was found. He had attempted to invent a sewing-machine in 1832 ; and, what was more important, he had hit upon the shuttle as the means of form- ing the stitch. He said, too, that he had made a machine which did sew a little, but very imperfectly, and, after wearying himself with fruitless experiments, he had thrown aside. Parts of this machine, after a great deal of trouble, were actually found among a quantity of rubbish in the garret of a house in Gold Street. Here was a discovery ! Could Mr. Hunt take these parts, all rusty and broken, into his shop, and complete the machine as originally made, so that it would sew ? He thought he could. Urged on by the indefatigable Singer, supplied by him with money, and stim- ulated by the prospect of fortune,* Walter Hunt tried hard and long to put his machine together ; and when he found that he could not, he employed an ingenious inventor to aid him in the work. But their united ingenuity was unequal to the performance of an impossibility ; the machine could not be got to sew a seam. The fragments found in the garret ISAAC 31 ERR ITT SINGER. did indeed demonstrate that, in 1832, Walter Hunt had been upon the track of the invention ; but they also proved that he had given up the chase in despair, long before coming up with the game. And this the courts have uniformly held. In the year 1854, after long trial, Judge Sprague, of Massachusetts, decided that " the plaintiff's patent is valid, and the defend- ant's machine is an infringement." The plaintiff was Elias Howe ; the real infringer, I. M. Singer. Judge Sprague further observed, that "there is no evidence in this case, that leaves a shadow of doubt that, for all the benefit con- ferred upon the public by the introduction of a sewing- machine, the public are indebted to Mr. Howe." This decision was made when nine years had elapsed since the completion of the first machine, and when eight years of the term of the first patent had expired. The patent, how- ever, even then, was so little productive, that the inventor, embarrassed as he was, was able, upon the death of his part- ner, Mr. Bliss, to buy his share of it. He thus became, for the first time, the sole proprietor of his patent ; and this occurred just when it was about to yield a princely revenue. From a few hundreds a year, his income rapidly increased, until it went beyond two hundred thousand dollars. He received in all not much less than two millions. As Mr. Howe devoted twenty-seven years of his life to the invention and development of the sewing-machine, the public com- pensated him at the rate of seventy-five thousand dollars a year. It cost him, however, immense sums to defend his rights, and he was very far from being the richest of the sewing-machine kings. He had the inconvenient reputation of being worth four millions, which was exactly ten times the value of his estate. So much for the inventor. In speaking of the improvers 698 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. of the sewing-machine, we know not how to be cautious enough ; for scarcely anything can be said on that branch of the subject which some one has not an interest to deny. We, the other day, looked over the testimony taken in one of the suits which Messrs. G rover and Baker have had to sustain in defence of their well-known " stitch." The testimony in that single case fills two immense volumes, containing three thousand five hundred and seventy-five pages. At the Wheeler and Wilson establishment in Broadway, there is a library of similar volumes, resembling in appearance a quan- tity of London and Paris Directories. The Singer Company are equally blessed with sewing-machine literature, and Mr. Howe had chests full of it. We learn from these volumes that there is no useful device connected with the apparatus, the invention of which is not claimed by more than one per- son. And no wonder. If to-day the ingenious reader could invent the slightest real improvement to the sewing-machine, so real that a machine having it would possess an obvious advantage over all machines that had it not, and he should sell the right to use that improvement at so low a rate as fifty cents for each machine, he would find himself in the enjoyment of an income of one hundred thousand dollars per annum. The consequence is, that the number of patents already issued in the United States for sewing-machines, and improvements in sewing-machines, is about nine hundred ! Perhaps thirty of these patents are valuable ; but the great improvements are not more than ten in number, and most of those were made in the infancy of the machine. By general consent of the able men who are now conduct- ing the sewing-machine business, the highest place in the .list of improvers is assigned to Allen B. Wilson. This most in- genious gentleman completed a practical sewing-machine early in 1849, without ever having seen one, and without WILLIAM O. GROVER. 699 having any knowledge of the devices of Elias Howe, who was then buried alive in London. Mr. Wilson, at the time, was a very young journeyman cabinet-maker, living in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. After that desperate contest with difficulty which inventors usually experience, he procured a patent for his machine, improved it, and formed a connection with a young carriage-maker of his ac- quaintance, Nathaniel Wheeler, who had some capital ; and thus was founded the great and famous house of Wheeler and Wilson, who are now making sewing-machines at the rate of about fifty-three thousand a year. These gentlemen were honest enough in opposing the claim of Elias Howe, since Mr. Wilson knew himself to be an original inventor, and he employed devices not to be found in Mr. Howe's machine. Instead of a shuttle, he used a "rotating hook," a device as ingenious as an}' in mechanism. The " four-motion feed," too, was another of Mr. Wilson's masterly inventions, suffi- cient of itself to stamp him as an inventor of genius. Noth- ing, therefore, was more natural than that Messrs. Wheeler and Wilson should regard Mr. Howe's charge of infringe- ment with astonishment and indignation, and join in the con- test against him. Messrs. Grover and Baker were early in the field. William O. Grover was a Boston tailor, whose attention was directed to the sewing-machine soon after Mr. Howe's return from Europe. It was he who, after numberless trials, invented the exquisite devices by which the famous " Grover and Baker stitch " is formed, a stitch which, for some pur- poses, is of unequalled utility. When, by the decision of the courts, all the makers had become tributary to Elias Howe, paying him. a certain sum for each machine made, then a most violent warfare broke out among the leading houses, Singer and Company, 700 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. Wheeler and Wilson, Grover and Baker, each accusing the others of infringement. At Albany, in 1856, these causes were to be tried ; and parties concerned saw before them a good three months' work in cou*t. By a lucky chance, one member of this happy family had not entirely lost his temper, and was still in some degree capable of using his intellect. It occurred to this wise head, that, no matter who^ invented first, or who second, there were then assembled at Albany the men who, among them, held patents which controlled the whole business of making sewing-machines ; and that it would be infinitely better for them to combine and control, than to contend with and devour one another. They all came into this opinion ; and thus was formed the " Combina- tion," of which such terrible things are uttered by the sur- reptitious makers of sewing-machines. Elias Howe, who was the best-tempered man in the world, and only too easy in matters pecuniary, had the complaisance to join this confed- eration, only insisting that at least twenty -four licenses should be issued by it, so as to prevent the manufacture from sinking into a monopoly. By the terms of this agreement, Mr. Howe was to receive five dollars upon every machine sold in the United States, and one dollar upon each one exported. The other parties agreed to sell licenses to use their various devices, or any of them, at the rate of fifteen dollars for each machine ; but no license was to be granted without the consent of all the parties. It was further agreed that part of the license fees received should be reserved as a fund for the prosecution of infringers. This agreement remained unchanged until the renewal of Mr. Howe's patent in 1860, when his fee was reduced from five dollars to one dollar, and that of the Combination from fifteen dollars to seven. That is to say, every sewing-machine honestly made paid Elias Howe one dollar ; and every sewing-machine WILLIAM 0. GROVER. 701 made, which included any device or devices the patent for which is held by any other member of the Combination, paid seven dollars to the Combination. Of this seven dol- lars, Mr. Howe received his one, and the other six went into the fund for the defence of the patents against infringers. 702 PKOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. ORIGIN OP THE COTTON -WEAVING MACHINERY. ONE evening, about a hundred years ago, Dr. Franklin and Dr. Priestley were conversing at the Roj-al Society Club in London, upon the progress of the arts and sciences. The question arose at length, what was the most desirable inven- tion that remained to be made ; upon which Dr. Franklin' expressed himself thus : M A machine capable of spinning two threads at the same time." The cotton manufacture, introduced into England about the year 1620, was then fast rising into importance. We read in an English book, published in 1641, the following interesting passage : " The town of Manchester buys linen yarn from the Irish in great quantity, and weaving it, returns again the same in linen into Ireland to sell. Neither does her industry rest here ; for they buy cotton wool in London that comes from Cyprus and Smyrna, and work the same into fustians, vermilions, and dimities, which they return to London, where they are sold, and from thence not seldom are sent into such foreign parts, where the first material may be more easily had for that manufacture." At this time, and for more than a century after, the weaver bought his own yarn, took it home to his cottage, and wove it into cloth ; so that each weaver's house was a little factory. He bought the yarn for the warp ; the wool for the woof was carded and spun by his wife and daughters, while the weav- JAMES HARGREAVES. 703 ing was performed by himself and sons. It was long before any attempt was made in England to make cloth wholly of cotton, although fabrics of this nature had been known in India for centuries, and were beginning to be imported into England in considerable quantities before the year 1700. It is curious to notice how uniformly every great step in the progress of man has been dreaded and opposed. Dr. Ure says : " The silk and woollen weavers of England manifested the keen- est hostility to the use of printed calicoes, whether brought from the east or made at home. In the year 1680 they mobbed the India House, in revenge for some large importations then made of the chintzes of Malabar. They next induced the government, by inces- sant clamors, to exclude altogether the beautiful robes of Calicut from the English market. But the printed goods found their way into the country in spite of excessive penalties annexed to smug- gling, and raised anew alarm among the manufacturing population. The sapient legislators of that day, intimidated by the London mob, enacted, in 1720, an absurd law prohibiting the wearing of all printed calicoes whatsoever, either of foreign or domestic origin ! This disgraceful enactment, worthy of Cairo or Algiers, proved not only a death-blow to rising industry, but prevented the ladies from attiring themselves in the becoming drapery of Hindostan." This law, it appears, remained in force for ten years, and was then replaced by an act somewhat less oppressive. Peo- ple were allowed to make what was styled " British calicoes," provided the warp was made of linen, and only the woof of cotton ; and provided, also, that for every yard of such cal- ico the maker should pay a duty of sixpence to the govern- ment. Even while staggering under this burden, the cotton manufacture made some progress ; so that more than fifty thousand pieces of mixed fabrics were made in England in the year 3 750. 704 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. This restrictive legislation, as Dr. Ure remarks, grew out of the ignorance and terror of the weavers themselves. A curious anecdote has been related, which most strikingly illustrates the fact. A man was about to be executed at Cork for stealing. On the appointed day, the weavers, who were short of work, and attributed the hard times to cotton, gathered about the gallows, and dressed both the criminal and the executioner in cotton cloth, to mark their contempt and abhorrence of it, and to make the wearing of it disgrace- ful. The criminal, sympathizing with the object, delivered the following address just before being turned off: " Give ear, oh good people, to the words of a dying sinner. I confess I have been guilty of what necessity compelled me to com- mit ; which starving condition I was in, I am well assured, was occasioned by the scarcity of money, that has proceeded from the great discouragement of our woollen manufactures. Therefore, good Christians, consider that, if you go on to suppress your own goods by wearing such cottons as I am now clothed in, you will bring your country into misery which will consequently swarm with such unhappy malefactors as your present object is, and the blood of every miserable felon that will hang after this warning, will lay at your door." Thus has it ever been. Man has always hated and warred against his best benefactors, and denounced in one age what he has honored in the next. Wonderful to relate, it was not until the year 1774, that the law was repealed which required the warp of calico to be made of linen, and for many years after that a duty of threepence per yard was exacted. Nor are we who live in a more enlightened day exempt from sim- ilar folly. I have heard lately arguments in favor of a pro- tective tariff and against an international copyright, which were just as short-sighted as the English cotton legislation of the last century. JAMES HARGREAVES. 705 But to come to our subject. About the year 1760, a change was introduced into the cotton manufacture, which proved to be of importance in leading to the great inventions of a later day. The Manchester dealers, instead of buying calicoes and other fabrics from the weavers, now began to furnish the weavers with materials, and to pay a certain price for doing the work. Thej r gave out a quantity of linen thread, and with it a certain proportion of cotton- wool, which the weaver himself had to convert into woof. Now arose the difficulty which led Dr. Franklin to make the remark previously quoted. As there was no machine in existence for spinning, except the old-fashioned spinning-wheel, which spun but one thread at a time, the weavers were constantly troubled to get their cotton-wool spun fast enough. The business was self-limited. Even if there had been no restraining laws, the cotton manufacture could never have attained grand proportions unless a method had been con- trived of spinning with greater rapidity. James Hargreaves, a poor, illiterate weaver of Lancas- shire, in England, was the man who began those improve- ments in the methods of spinning which have made England the cotton manufacturer for the world. While Dr. Franklin was uttering the words attributed to him, James Hargreaves, if he was awake at the moment, was probably brooding over the same subject. Nothing is recorded of the early life of this man. We simply know, that about the year 1762, the weavers of Lancashire, and he among them, were sorely troubled to get their cotton- wool spun fast enough, and that, being a man of an inventive turn, he began to meditate improvements. He turned his attention, first, to devising a more rapid way of carding cotton. Before his time, carding was done by hand. He invented a mode of doing the work which 706 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. enabled the carder to double his product, and to do it with greater ease. This contrivance, however, was soon super- seded by the well-known cardiug-machiiie, which is still in use. The inventor of this is unknown. It is known, how- ever, that one of the first persons to use it was Sir Rob- ert Peel, who made one with his own hands, assisted by Hargreaves ; from which it seems reasonable to infer that Hargreaves was the inventor. Five years after, Hargreaves conceived the idea of his celebrated spinning-jenny, which was suggested to him, it is said, by seeing a spinning-wheel, which had been over- turned, continue to revolve horizontally, as it lay on the floor. Being but slightly acquainted with mechanics, he had great difficulty in carrying out his conception ; but he suc- ceeded, at length, in constructing a rude machine of eight spindles, turned by bands from a horizontal wheel. Rude as it was, it answered the purpose, and enabled the spinner to produce eight threads at once. The inventor labored dil- igently to improve it, until, in the course of a year or two, he made a spinning-jenny which spun eighty threads at once. Dr. Franklin was in England at the time, and I presume he duly rejoiced at this new triumph of human ingenuity. But all men are not Franklins. The spinners took the alarm ! A mob of ignorant and anxious men burst into James Hargreaves' house, and broke his machine all to pieces. The inventor fled to Nottingham, where he began forthwith to construct another. Soon after this the spinners of Lancashire rose in greater numbers than before, and scoured the country, destroying every carding-machine and spinning-machine they could find. In the large town of Nottingham, however, Hargreaves was safe from violence of this kind ; but there an event soon occurred which, though a benefit to the rest of mankind, was a terrible calamity to RICHARD ARKWJUGHT. 707 him. Richard Arkwright invented the spinning-frame ! A mechanical genius like Hargreaves must have comprehended at a glance all the merit of that splendid invention. He must have seen in it the irresistible rival of his darling spin- ning-jenny. The spinning-frame of Arkwright, which per- forms the whole process of spinning with only the superin- tendence of a girl, was so complete a conception, that it is employed to-day in all the cotton factories of Christendom. Poor Hargreaves, it seems, never recovered the blow. He struggled with adverse fortune for a few years, and then died at Nottingham in extreme poverty. The career of Arkwright, on. the contrary, was as trium- phant as it was peculiar. This great inventor, who died a knight and a millionnaire, kept a barber-shop in a cellar in the town of Bolton, Lancashire. He w.is the child of parents who were rich in nothing but children, of whom they had thirteen. Richard, the youngest child, received scarcely any education, but was apprenticed at an early age to a bar- ber, and, in due time, established himself in thaf business in the cellar just mentioned. Tradition reports that even in these lowly circumstances he showed some enterprise and ingenuity, and cherished a deep-rooted desire to emerge from his cellar to a position more worthy of the powers which he was conscious of pos- sessing. He is said to have attracted customers by putting a sign over his cellar which bore these words : " Come to the subterraneous barber he shaves for a penny." This announcement proved so attractive, that the other barbers were compelled to reduce their price to the same standard ; whereupon Arkwright exchanged his sign for one still more alluring : "A clean shave for a half-penny." This dashing measure, tradition reports, brought plenty of customers, but reduced the profits of the business so low that he resolved to abandon it. 708 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. It was about the year 1762, when he was thirty years of age, that he left his cellar at Bolton, and roamed the country, buying up human hair for the wig-makers, travelling from fair to fair, and purchasing the long tresses of the rustic girls who attended them. That was the age of wigs. Few persons above the rank of a laborer ever thought of present- ing themselves to view in their own hair, and some of the wigs worn were of great size and considerable weight. The trade of wig-maker was one of the principal occupations of the country, and the trade in human hair of all descriptions was extensive and profitable. Richard Arkwright now began to accumulate property. He increased his gains by selling hair-dye, and by dyeing the hair which he purchased, an art in which he acquired great skill. But his prosperity was of brief duration. Although he possessed wonderful mechanical talent, he had so little knowl- edge of mechanical principles, that he took it into his head to invent a perpetual motion. So infatuated was he, that he spent most of his time, and soon all his money, in making experiments. Peace fled from his house, and plenty from his board. His wife very naturally resented this infringement of her rights, and, on one unhappy day, overcome with sud- den anger, she broke to pieces his wheels and levers, and all the apparatus of his perpetual motion. Violence never answers a good purpose between people who live together in a relation so intimate, neither violence of word nor deed. Richard Arkwright could not forgive this cruel stroke ; ho separated himself from his wife, and never lived with her again. Resuming his travels about Lancashire, he could not but become aware of Hargreaves' still imperfect invention of th spinning-jenny. There was a great defect in this ingenious machine ; for, though it would spin eighty threads at once, 15 RICHARD ARKWRIGHT. 709 those threads were not hard and strong enough to serve as the warp of calico, but could only be used for the woof. This was of no great consequence at the time, because it was unlawful to use cotton as the warp of a fabric ; but pure cot- ton cloth never could have been made by machinery unless a mode had been invented of spinning cotton-wool into a firm thread. At the very time that poor Hargreaves was toiling to improve his spinning-jenny, Arkwright fell in with a clock-maker, named John Kay, who had rendered some assistance to Hargreaves in constructing his machine, and had been frequently employed in making and mending weavers' tools. Arkwright consulted John Kay respecting his perpetual motion, and it is highly probable that Kay, who was a good mechanic, diverted him from further pursuing that chimera, and turned his iniiid toward the invention of cotton-spin- ning machinery. The jenny was still incomplete, and the weavers still found extreme difficulty in getting cotton-wool fast enough to keep their looms in motion. While his mind was intent upon this purpose, he chanced to go into an iron foundry, where he saw a red-hot bar of iron drawn out into wire by being made to pass between rollers. The idea of his great invention the spinning-frame flashed upon his mind. The essential feature of his machine was to spin cotton into threads by causing it to pass between grooved rollers, as the reader may see by stepping into a cotton factory the next time he passes one. Arkwright now sought his friend Kay, and gave himself wholly up to the construction of a machine upon the prin- ciple which he had conceived. Kay made such a machine for him under his directions ; or, to speak more correctly, the model of one which he could show to men of capital. In the construction of this first model, he reduced himself 710 PEOPLE'S HOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. .to such poverty, that his clothes were all in rags and tat- ters, and he could not replace them. An election of mem- bers of parliament occurring about this time, he desired to vote for General Burgoyne, who was destined to be so famous in our Revolution ; but his clothes were in a con- dition so woful that he was ashamed to appear at the polls, and, "as the election was closely contested, some of General Burgoyne's adherents clubbed together and bought him a suit of clothes to wear when he cast his vote. Another calamity threatened him. Hargreaves' spinning- jenny had just been torn to pieces by a mob in another town, and the weavers about Preston were beginning to eye with suspicion the mysterious operations of this tattered barber, and his assistant, the clock-maker. In the nick of time Arkwright packed up his model and conveyed it safely to the large town of Nottingham. Confident in the merit of his invention, he boldly applied to a firm of bankers for money to assist him in constructing a machine, which they agreed to furnish on condition of sharing the profits of the invention. But these worthy bankers, as many men have since done, soon grew weary of spending their money upon a machine which was slow to get into a working condition ; but they recommended the inventor to explain his ideas to a great firm of stocking-weavers, men of enterprise, wealth, and intelligence. One of them, Jedediah Strutt, was him- self an inventor, having but recently contrived and patented a highly ingenious and successful machine for making stock- ings. Mr. Strutt had scarcely seen Arkwright's models, before he comprehended the inestimable value of the inven- tion. A partnership was promptly formed with the inge- nious barber, and the invention never again stood still for lack of money. RICHARD ARKWRIGHT. 711 The patent for the spinning-frame was taken out in 1769, the very year in which James Watt patented his improved steam-engine, which was to keep this spinning-frame in motion. It is a curious fact, that Richard Arkwright is styled in the. letters-patent a "clock-maker," possibly because he had not the courage to write himself down a barber. The patent being secured, Arkwright erected his first mill, the power of which was supplied by horses. Horses proving too expensive, he built a larger mill in an adjacent county, the machinery of which was moved by water power. He now proceeded to create the system of cotton manufac- ture which has ever since prevailed; and to improve every part of the machinery employed in the business. He per- formed such a twenty years' work as few men have ever done in this world. From four in the morning until nine at night, he was ever at work, inventing, organizing, creat- ing, improving. When compelled to travel, he rode in a post-chaise, drawn by four horses ridden at their utmost speed, merely to save time. Many years elapsed, and very many thousand pounds were spent, before the enterprise yielded any profit. He had all the usual difficulties to contend with, and some that were unusual. When the value of his spinning - frame had become apparent, his patent was infringed, and, to main- tain his right, he was compelled to engage in a series of most expensive and most wearisome lawsuits, which alone would have exhausted the patience of most men. At one time his largest and most costly mill was destroyed by a mob of working men, although it was defended by bodies of soldiers and policemen. For some time the weavers would not buy his cotton-thread for their looms, while confessing that it was the best in England. 712 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. After a struggle of twenty years, the indomitable man triumphed over all enemies and all obstacles, and he accu- mulated a fortune of two million pounds sterling. When, at length, he began to enjoy a little leisure, which was not until he was fifty years of age, he set to work to remedy some of the defects of his early education. At fifty years of age, it is not easy to bring the mind to acquire the rudi- ments of knowledge ; but this remarkable man applied him- self humbly to the task, studied grammar, strove to improve his handwriting, and to become a more correct speller. Late in life, when he was high sheriff of an English county, it became his duty to present an address to George the Third, congratulating him upon his escape from an assassin. The king conferred upon himself the honor of knighting the man whose inventive and organizing genius enabled Great Britain to supply the waste of "her resources caused by the. king's folly and obstinacy. For the last few years of his life, therefore, he was styled Sir Richard Ark- wright. He died in 1792, in the sixtieth year of his age, having in thirty years created the cotton manufacturing system of England, such as it exists to-day. Another man who contributed a lifetime of toil and thought to the development of the cotton manufacture of England, was the founder of the Peel family. A hundred years ago, Robert Peel was a small farmer with a large family, residing in the county of Lancaster, in England. His farm was sit- uated two or three miles from the town of Blackburn, and about twenty miles from Manchester, now the centre of the English cotton manufacture. The reason why the manufac- tures of. England have gathered in that region is, that it is near the coal-mines, the great Lancashire coal-field extend- ROBERT PEEL. 713 ing over four hundred square miles, which is among the most important of the coal regions of the world. Lands which abound in mineral wealth are frequently not very productive on the surface. The farm tilled by Robert Peel was far from being fertile, and as his family increased he became less and less satisfied with his condition and pros- pects. It has for ages been customary with the tillers of barren soils and small farms, to eke out their subsistence by carrying on some kind of domestic manufacture during the winter months. The custom prevails to this day in many parts of the United States. There are some counties in New Jersey where almost every farmer spends the winter in mak- ing shoes, and there are parts of New England where the manufacture of straw hats and bonnets is the winter employ- ment of many a household. In western New York, and in other wheat-raising States, farmers and their sons often spend the winter months in making flour barrels, and the industrious people of Pennsylvania carry on various small trades in the same season. And so in English Lancaster the farmers had long been accustomed to add to their slender revenues by the manufac- ture of a certain excellent fabric, half linen and half cotton, called " Blackburn gray." Robert Peel, seeing in industry of this kind a means of employing and supporting his large family, began the home-manufacture of calico. Like the founders of every other great and permanent establishment of which I have ever heard or read, he was a very honest man, and put his honesty into the fabrics he wrought. Nor less ready was he to seize upon improved machinery and methods. James Hargreaves, a native of this county, invented the spinning-jenny about the year 1760, and Robert Peel was one of the first to avail himself of his neighbor's inventions. He was soon a thriving man. 71 4 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. His gre.it success, however, was in the printing of calicoes, an art which scarcely existed before his time. His special object was to invent a mode of printing calico by machinery. At that period, when the patent-laws afforded little protec- tion, every ingenious mechanic had, or thought he had, val- uable secrets respecting his trade, which he kept with the greatest care. Apprentices were formerly bound by their indentures to "keep their master's secrets," and everyone employed in the shop considered himself bound in honor not to betray them. Robert Peel's experiments in calico print- ing were carried on in the deepest secrecy, just as forgers and counterfeiters now ply their vocation. One of his daughters usually assisted him, washing and ironing the cloth, mixing the colors, and sketching the patterns. Farmers in those days generally used pewter plates at table. It happened one day that Robert Peel drew a pattern for calico on the back of one of his dinner-plates, and while he was looking at it, the thought occurred to him that per- haps if he should spread color upon it, and apply the requisite degree of pressure, he could get an impression on calico. In a cottage close to his farm-house lived a woman who had one of those machines for smoothing fabrics which worked by rollers. Having applied color to his pattern, and placed calico over it, he passed his plate between the rollers of this calendering machine. He was delighted to find that an excellent impression was made upon the calico, and thus was begun the invention of the process by which to this day calico is printed. Robert Peel rapidly improved upon the original idea, and was soon printing calicoes by machinery. At this period fortunes were not made with the rapidity which we are accustomed to in these times. Robert Peel, however, was henceforth a prosperous man, and began to THE FIRST SIR ROBERT PEEL. 715 accumulate property. Relinquishing his farm, he removed to a village near by, and there established a calico printing- house, which constantly grew in importance as long as he lived. As his sons grew up, and he had many sons, he established them in the neighborhood in various branches of the cotton manufacture, so that each could be of service to all the rest. He was not able to give them much capital at starting; but there was a great deal of solid worth and understanding in the family, and these sons had been brought up in the sensible way of the olden time. It is a remarkable fact, that every one of his sons became at length the proprietor of a great manufactory, and made a great fortune. The eldest son of this able and vigorous English yeoman, born in 1750, was also named Robert, and became, in the course of time, Sir Robert Peel. He learned the trade of cotton-printing under his father, and when he was twenty years of age he determined to set up for himself. His father had not yet become rich enough to advance him any great amount of capital, not more, it is said, than a hun- dred pounds. But he had a young friend in the town of Blackburn, named William Yates, whose father kept the Bull Tavern there, and had saved a little money. Young Robert Peel had the requisite knowledge, and the elder Yates gave his son three hundred pounds, to enable him to go into partnership with his friend. James Haworth, a near relative of Robert Peel, joined the two young men, and added a hundred pounds to the joint capital. Their first operation was to buy an old mill, all in ruins, with a con- siderable piece of ground attached to it. Upon this ground they erected, chiefly with their own hands, a few wooden sheds, and forthwith began to print calicoes. 716 PEOPLE'S BO.OK OF BIOGRAPHY. The humble and frugal manner in which they lived is pleasant to read in these days of fuss and ostentation : " William Yates," says an English writer, " being a married man, with a family, commenced house-keeping on a small scale, and to oblige Peel, who was single, he agreed to take him as a lodger. The sum which the latter first paid for board and lodging was only eight shillings a week; but Yates, considering this too little, insisted on the weekly payment being increased a shilling, to which Peel at first demurred, and a difference between the partners took place, which was eventually compromised by the lodger paying an advance of a sixpence a week. William Yates' eldest child was a girl, named Ellen, and she very soon became an especial favorite with the young lodger. On returning from his hard day's work, he would take the little girl upon his knee, and say to her : ' Nelly, thou bonny little dear, wilt be my wife?' to which the child would readily answer, 'Yes,' as any child would do. 'Then I'll wait for thee, Nelly; I'll wed thee, and none else.' And Robert Peel did wait. As the girl grew in beauty towards womanhood, his determination to wait for her was strengthened; and after the lapse of ten years years of close application to business and rapidly-increasing prosperity Robert Peel married Ellen Yates when she had completed her seven- teenth year." The success of this firm was great and rapid, beyond all previous precedent. Robert Peel was the soul of the enter- prise. He was equally bold and prudent, most prompt to adopt every real improvement, and sagacious and far-seeing in an eminent degree. At one time he had fifteen thousand persons in his employment, and he made a fortune of two million pounds sterling. He owed his baronetcy to the zeal and liberality with which he supported the politics of THE FIRST SIR ROBERT PEEL. 717 George the Third and the Tory party. It was he who, during the French wars, gave the king a frigate, with all her guns and equipage complete. Elected, to Parliament in 1790, he was a member of that body for thirt} r years. He was a most thorough and con- sistent Tory. He appears to have been the author of the sentiment, that " a national debt is a national blessing " ; at least, he wrote a pamphlet entitled, " The national debt pro- ductive of national prosperity." What wonder that George the Third made him a baronet ! He died in 1830, soon after completing his eightieth year, leaving the greater part of his immense possessions to hia eldest son, the great Sir Robert Peel. 718 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. THE FOUNDERS OF THE LITERATURE OF THE UNITED STATES IRVING, COOPER, BRYANT. FOR a generation these three Washington Irving, James Feuimore Cooper, and William Cullen Bryant were the only names which America had given to the literature of the world. The poet was born a literary man ; he " lisped in numbers " ; he was famous before he was out of short jack- ets. But Cooper appears to have fallen upon literature by accident, and Irving to have been drawn into it by necessity as much as inclination. Irving was the first to acquire gen- eral reputation. Before the Revolutionary war, there used to be a line of small packet-ships plying between New York, and a seaport in the south of England named Falmouth. The father of Washington Irving was a mate in one of these packets. He was a native of one of the Orkney Islands, and after his mother's death went to sea before the mast, and was a sailor in the packet service until his good conduct and seamanship led to his promotion. Soon after this event he married the girl of his heart, with whom he had become acquainted when on shore at Falmouth. A year or two after their marriage they sailed for New York, where they arrived in 1763, the year of the peace between France and England. There are two houses now in the city which were standing vvhen William Irving and Sarah his wife reached these 18 P ' cS+~v-t^ WASHINGTON IRVING. 719 western shores in 1763. One was the Walton House, in Pearl street, and the other is the old Dutch Church, now used as the post-office. In New York, Mr. Irving went into business, and was a moderately prosperous man when the Revolutionary war drove him from the city, and he fled to Rah way, in New Jersey. Finding himself there an object of persecution by the English officers, he returned to New York, where he resumed his business, and was noted for his liberality toward the American prisoners confined in the prison-ships and elsewhere. In 1783, eight months before the evacuation of the city, in William Street, Washington Irving, the eleventh and youngest child of his paients, was born. He was named after the victorious General Washington, whom he may have seen with his baby eyes marching into the city on Evacuation Day, November twenty-fifth, 1783. The hand of Washington once rested upon his head. A Scotch servant girl who had him in charge one day, when he was about three years old, followed General Washington into a shop, and thus addressed the Father of his Country : "Please your honor, here's a bairn was named after you." Washington placed his hand upon the head of the boy, and gave him the usual benediction. Except Columbia College, the only means of education which the city then furnished were small private schools, kept by persons more or less competent ; and at these the boy received that small portion of his education which he did not acquire by his own unassisted efforts. He was an affec- tionate, merry lad, and a great reader from early childhood. From his eleventh year he was passionately fond of reading voyages and travels, a little library of which was within his reach, and he used to secrete candles to enable him to read these transporting works in bed. 720 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF IJIOGRAPHY. The persual of such books gave him a strong desire to go to sea, and at fourteen he had almost made up his mind to run away and be a sailor. But there was a difficulty in the way. He had a particular aversion to salt pork, whiqli he endeavored to overcome by eating it at every opportunity. He also endeavored to accustom himself to a hard bed by sleeping on the floor of his room. Fortunately for the infant literature of his country, the pork grew more disgusting instead of less, and the hard floor became harder, until he gave up his purpose of trying a sailor's life. At sixteen he left school and entered a law office, and he continued the study of the law until he was admitted to the bar. Ill health at first, and a love of literature afterwards, prevented him from practising the profession of law with any benefit to himself, although he was occasionally employed as junior counsel in important cases. He was one of the half dozen lawyers engaged to defend Aaron Burr at Richmond against the charge of treason, but took no public part in the case. In 1802, his brother, Dr. Peter, established in New York a daily paper, called " The Morning Chronicle." Dr. Irving was assisted in this enterprise by Aaron Burr, then Vice-President of the United States, and the .main object of the paper was to defend Burr against his political opponents, who had then become numerous and powerful. A few weeks after the first number of the "Chronicle " appeared, Washing- ton Irving, then nineteen years of age, began to contribute to it a series of satirical essays, signed Jonathan Oldstyle, which Colonel Burr and his fellow-citizens generally thought were "very good for so young a man." This was the beginning of Washington Irving's long and splendid literary career. He continued to write occasionally for the " Chroni- cle," winning considerable local reputation, until the dis- WASHINGTON IRVING. 721 astrous termination of Burr's political career put an end to the existence of his organ ; which occurred, I think, soon after the duel with Hamilton in 1804. 4 Irving was then twenty-one years of age. His health was extremely delicate, and there was a sad prospect of his early filling a consumptive's grave. His family sent him abroad to spend a year or two in the south of Europe, and as he was going on board ship, the captain said to him- self : " There 's a chap who will go overboard before we get across." But he did not. He gained strength as he neared the European shore, and under the influence of leisurely travel in the pleasant climates of Southern Europe, he began to gain something of that robustness of body and ruddiness of com- plexion which many of us remember. At Eome he was strongly tempted to turn painter ; and it was there also that he was the recipient of attentions more flattering than he could account for until just as he was going away. "Tell me, sir," said a great Roman banker, who had paid him particular honor, " are you a relative of General Wash- ington ? " He thus learned that he had been indebted for unexpected invitations and other civilities to his supposed relationship to our first President. Mr. Irving, after telling this anecdote, used sometimes to add to it another. An English lady and her daughter paused in a gallery of art before a bust of Washington. "Mother," said the daughter, "who was Washington?" " Why, my dear, don't you know ? He wrote the Sketch Book." Returning home after two years' absence, he made some slight attempt at practising his profession ; but the only thing he really cared for, or ever seriously attempted, was 722 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. literature, and in that he was always successful. The Salma- gundi now appeared, a series of humorous numbers, which appeared three or four times a month ; obtaining a circula- tion of several hundred copies a number. Erelong, his humorous history of New York by Diedrich Knickerbocker began to amuse the public, and it has ever since been part of its common stock of entertainment. After the war of 1812, Washington Irving joined one of his brothers who was established as a merchant in Liverpool ; and there occurred the fortunate calamity which drove him to adopt literature as a profession. The brothers failed in business, and lost all they had in the world. Then it was that Washington Irving began the publication of the Sketch Book, which appeared in numbers in New York, and won an immediate popularity, which it has ever since retained. The first number was published in May, 18 19, price seventy- five cents, and the first edition of two thousand copies was rapidly sold, and most eagerly read. Under the auspices of Sir Walter Scott, the Sketch Book was republished in England, where it became and remains not less a favorite than in America. Its most remarkable and memorable effect was in awakening the genius of Charles Dickens. Mr. Dickens has repeatedly acknowledged, and once in writing to Mr. Irving himself, that it was his early reading of the Sketch Book that gave his mind the habit of surveying life in the humorous and sympathetic spirit which led to his peculiar literary career. The Sketch Book, as we all know, was followed by similar volumes, which confirmed and extended the author's reputa- tion ; until, having exhausted his stock of pleasant fancies, he had the good sense to exert his maturer powers upon works of solid instruction, chief among which are his Life of Columbus and his Life of Washington. FEN I MORE COOPER. 723 After seventeen years' residence abroad, he returned home, where he was warmly welcomed, both by the friends who were attached to his person, and by his countrymen gener- ally, who were proud of his fame. He retired soon to that delicious and romantic home of his on the banks of the Hud- son, near Tarry town, where the long evening of his life glided tranquilly away, ennobled by well-directed toil, and cheered by the presence of those whom he loved. He died suddenly, of heart-disease, in 1859, aged seventy-six. His remains were followed to the grave by a wonderful concourse of people ; and it may be said, with considerable truth, that his country mourned his departure. I had the pleasure once of spending a day with him at Sunnyside, and walking with him about his grounds, and listening to the stories, which he was so much pleased to tell, of his old friends Scott, Moore, Leslie, Allston, and others, and of his gay life in London and Paris, and of the old times in New York, when Knickerbocker's history was coming out. There never was a man more completely devoid of every kind of pretence and affectation. He was simplicit}' itself. How different a man was Fenimore Cooper, and how different his life ! This pioneer and ornament of the young literature of the United States was not so happy a man as we should suppose he might have been. He had an exaggerated estimate of his own importance, and as a consequence he was prone to undervalue both the character and opinions of other men. Unlike the genial and friendly Irving, who never had an enemy because he could never be an enemy, Cooper's life was sown with enmities, and it ended in a prodigious broil. He had, however, admirable qualities, without reckoning his brilliant talents ; and if he had but thought a little 724 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. less of himself, and a great deal more of others, he might have been as much beloved as he was admired. His father was that rich and proud old Federalist politi- cian and member of Congress, Judge William Cooper, whose name figures in the history of the intrigue of 1801 to foist Aaron Burr upon the country as President, instead of Thomas Jefferson, who was the real choice of the victorious Democratic party. It was Judge Cooper who wrote in the midst of the struggle in the House of Representatives : " A little good management would have secured our object on the first vote. . . . Had Burr done anything for him- self, he would long ere this have been President." This passage was much relied upon by the friends of Burr in their successful attempts to defend that politician against the charge of aiding that nefarious conspiracy. Judge Cooper at that time was a representative from the State of New York, almost in the very centre of which, on the shores of Lake Otsego, he lived, in a kind of pioneer baronial style, lord of a county of primeval forest. He had built a stately mansion near the lake, and he lived in it very much in the manner frequently described in the novels of his son. Judge Cooper was a rich man when he removed into the wilderness, but he became still richer by the rapid rise in the value of the lands which he had bought of the Indians. His son, James Fenimore Cooper, born in Burlington, New Jersey, in 1789, was little more than an infant when the family took up their abode in the forest around Lake Otsego, and there he continued to live, the petted child of a wealthy family, until, at the age of thirteen, he was sent to New Haven, where he entered the Freshman class of Yale College, the youngest pupil in the institution. It is not surprising that he remained at college undistinguished, and that his college life left few perceptible traces upon his char- FENIMORE COOPER. 725 acter or his mind. He was too young to go to college. A boy should be at least eighteen years of age before he attempts to grapple with the subjects which properly belong to a college course, and which demand for their consider- ation a certain maturity of mind seldom attained before eighteen. He seems not to have improved his residence at New Haven. He was expelled from college a year before his class graduated, and accepted a midshipman's commission in the navy of the United States ; in which he served six years, rising to the rank of Lieutenant. He saw some service on the ocean, and some on Lake Ontario ; enough in all to give him the knowledge of sea life which his sea novels exhibit. But just as the country was drifting into the war of 1812 with Great Britain, which would have given abundant scope for all his seamanship and daring, he fell in love with Susan De Lancey, an admirable girl, of the well-known New York De Lanceys. On New- Year's Day of 1811, Lieutenant Cooper married this young lady, and, resigning his commis- sion soon after, settled in a pleasant village on Long Island Sound, thirty miles from New York. Here he lived for some years the half-idle life of a country gentleman, without the remotest expectation of attracting to himself the attention of the world. So far as is known, he had never given any particular indication of possessing a talent for literature, and probably did not himself suspect the existence of the gift that slumbered within him. He used to relate the trifling circumstance which led to his first attempt. He was reading aloud to his wife one of those tedious and trivial English novels which were so common before Scott and Cooper supplanted them. Weary of the spiritless delineations of inane characters, he said to his wife, with a yawn, "lean write a better novel than that myself." PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. "You had better try," replied she ; and thought 110 more of it. It was a happy and a timely suggestion. He was young, energetic, with plenty of ambition, and nothing to do. Without telling even his wife of his intention, he began to write a novel, which he named "Precaution," and which, after a few weeks of secret toil, he had the pleasure of sub- mitting to his wife's inspection, and reading it to a circle of friends. It is a curious thing, but he produced merely a tolerable imitation of the very kind of novel with which he had been so much disgusted. Partial friends, however, flattered the author, as they generally do, and he was in- duced in 1819 to publish it, at his own expense, in two volumes. It had a moderate success, but made nothing that resembled a hit ; and it was indeed singularly devoid of all that energy and fire and graphic power which distinguished the author's later works. He was then thirty years of age, and his talent still slept. This partial failure was the event which roused him to a consciousness of his abilities. He now abandoned English models, and formed the scheme of producing a story of American life, a tale of the Revolution, the classic period in the history of the infant nation. The " Spy " was the result of his labors, the first and greatest of a class of novels now to be numbered by thousands. As in the case of nearly every other very successful book, the author had great difficulties in getting it before the pub- lic. No publisher could be found who would undertake it, and it was finally, after three years' delay, published at the author's cost. It is said that Mr. Cooper was the only proof-reader of this work, and that he sometimes actually assisted in setting it in type. With very great difficulty the first volume was put in type ; and when that was done, the c/ Co FENIMOKE COOPER. 727 author was so thoroughly sickened. of the enterprise, that he would have been more than willing to give the novel away to any one who would have brought it out. But there was not a printer in the city who had both courage and capital enough to accept the author's urgent and repeated offers. In 1822, three years after the appearance of "Precaution," "The Spy" was published. Its success was immediate and immense. It had every kind of success which a novel can have, universal circulation in the author's own country, the intense admiration of all classes of readers, prompt republi- cation in England, a brilliant popularity there, translation into every cultivated language, even into Arabic and Per- sian, countless imitations, and the acquisition of a permanent place in universal literature. The " Pioneers " followed, in which the author turned to excellent account his early experience of life in the wilder- ness, and his recollections of the lordly state of his father's establishment. In due time the " Pilot " appeared, and afterwards the "Red Rover," sea novels, in which Mr. Cooper availed himself of his six years' experience as an officer of the navy. For thirty-one years he was a popular writer, producing a long series of successful novels, and a valuable contribution to the history of his country, a " History of the Navy of the United States." He took a great deal of pains to make this work strictly correct, which was a high merit in a man so imaginative and so patriotic as Fenimore Cooper, who could easily and with impunity nay, with the applause of nine tenths of his readers have heightened the effect of narratives flattering to the national pride, by giving a little play to his imagination. Toward the close of his life, he wrote some works designed to cure his countrymen of some of their alleged bad habits, 728 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. which called forth from the press a great number of humor- ous and satirical paragraphs, as well as some which were abusive. Mr. Cooper was weak enough to resent this, and to bring a great number of libel suits against the offending editors. His famous suit against the New York " Tribune " was founded upon the following words, which occurred in a letter giving an account of a trial in which the novelist obtained a verdict of four hundred dollars : " The value of Mr. Cooper's character has been judicially ascer- tained. It is worth exactly four hundred dollars." Mr. Greeley defended the suit in person, and made a very spirited and able defence, of which he published a ludicrous account afterwards in the " Tribune." Nevertheless, he was obliged to conclude his amusing narrative with the following: w *J O paragraph : " The jury retired about half-past two, and the rest of us went to dinner. The jury were hungry too, and did not stay out long. On comparing notes, there were seven of them for a verdict of $100, two for $200, and three for $500. They added these sums up total $2,600 divided by twelve, and the dividend was a little over $200 ; so they called it $200 damages, and 6 cents cost, which of course carries full costs against us. We went back from dinner, took the verdict in all meekness, took a sleigh and struck a bee-line for New York." Mr. Cooper rather prided himself on these suits, and used to boast that he had won his case every time he had gone into court. I have no doubt he thought he was rendering a service to the public in curbing what he considered the licen- tiousness of the press. He died at his ancestral seat, upon the banks of Lake Otsego, in 1851, aged sixty-two years. His eldest daughter still lires, and has won considerable distinction by a series WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 729 of pleasant and sympathetic works upon the charms of country life. Mr. Cooper was a strikingly handsome man, of magnificent proportions, and most winning, agreeable presence. In the bosom of his own family he is said to have been the kindest and most entertaining of men. I come now to the last of the illustrious trio. On the twenty-second of December, 1807, Congress, acting upon the recommendation of President Jefferson, passed an embargo law, which prohibited the departure from the ports of the United States of any vessels bound for for- eign countries, unless they were men-of-war, or foreign merchant vessels going home in ballast. This act suspended the commerce of the United States, and threw out of employment mariners, merchants' clerks, and a great number of other persons who derived their liveli- hood directly and indirectly from commerce. In no part of the country did the embargo produce effects so disastrous as in New England, which for many years had been growing rich by supplying the belligerents with provisions ond other merchandise. Boston was desolate ; its wharves and ware- houses were silent and deserted. The prices of produce fell, and thus the farmers were disappointed and alarmed. New England, moreover, had been, from the early days of Wash- ington, the stronghold of Federalism; and the Federalists were opposed not only to the embargo, but to the policy which had led to it, as they were afterwards to the war which it led to. Interest, therefore, and political feeling, combined to inflame the popular discontent. There was then living at the village of Cummington, in Hampshire County, the garden county of Massachusetts, . Dr Peter Bryant, a physician noted the country round for his skill, learning, and benevolence. Among his children, all of whom were intelligent beyond their years, was 730 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. William Cullen, a boy of thirteen, who, young as he was, was already somewhat famous in his native county as a poet. At nine he had written harmonious verses, and at ten he had composed a poem for a school exhibition, which was thought good enough for publication, and was actually published in the county paper. And now this gifted boy, moved by what he heard of the terrible embargo, and the more terrible Jefferson and the Democratic party, wrote a poem, in the heroic measure, entitled "The Embargo," in which he endeavored to express the feeling of New England respecting the course of the general government. The poem was pub- lished in pamphlet form, and was so well received in the county that, a year after, it was republished in a little thin volume, the title-page of which read as follows : "The Embargo; or, Sketches of the Time. A Satire. The Second edition corrected and enlarged, together with the Spanish Revolution and other Poems. By William Cullen Bryant. Bo3- ton : Printed for the Author by E. G. House. No. V. Court Street. 1809." The lad was nearly fifteen years of age when this volume of thirty-six pages saw the light. It contained poems so extraordinary, that it was thought necessary in the preface to print a kind of certificate, declaring that the author was really only a boy ! The reader, I am sure, will be gratified to read one of the short poems from this volume, which was written when the poet was ten years and nine months old. DROUGHT. Plunged amid the limpid waters, Or the cooling shade beneath, Let me fly the scorching sunbeams, And the south wind's sickly breath I WILLIAM CULL EN BRYANT. 731 Sirius burns the parching meadows, Flames upon the embrowning hill Dries the foliage of the forest, And evaporates the rill. Scarce is seen a lonely flow'ret, Save amid th' embowering wood ; O'er the prospect, dim and dreary, Drought presides in sullen mood I Murky vapors hung in ether, Wrap in gloom the sky serene ; Nature pants distressful, silence Reigns o 'er all the sultry scene. Then amid the limpid waters, Or beneath the cooling sha'de, Let me shun the scorching sunbeams, And the sickly breeze evade. JULY, 1807. Such precocity as this was a perilous gift. Fortunately the boy had a judicious father, who early taught him to avoid superfluous words, and -to distinguish between true poetical expression, and that which has nothing of poetry but the form. The poet, in one of his latter productions, commemorates at once his father's death and his own indebt- edness to his taste and judgment. " For he is in his grave who taught my youth The art of verse, and in the bud of life Offered me to the Muses." And while his early taste was forming, there reached him, in the seclusion of his village home, Wordsworth's Lyrical Bullads, that volume which survived the criticism of the 732 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. " Edinburgh Review," to make its way over the world, and kindle the gentle poetic flame in kindred minds beyond the sea. There were few books of poetry then to be met with among the hills of Western Massachusetts, and the boy appears to have read little poetry in his childhood except Pope. " Upon opening Wordsworth," Mr. Bryant once said, " a thousand springs seemed to gush up at once in my heart, and the face of nature of a sudden to change into a strange freshness and life." And Avhat a " nature " it was that he beheld around him ! Western Massachusetts is an enchanting region. I spent a summer there recently, within sight of that Monument Mountain which Mr. Bryant has celebrated in verse, and not far from that Green River to which he had dedicated stanzas as flowing and tranquil as itself. If it were in the power of beautiful nature to awaken, or even to cultivate, the poetic faculty, the region of the Berkshire hills would do it. But beautiful nature cannot do this. Mr. Bryant is a poet because of the fine brain which nature gave him, and the excellent father who taught and reared him. Poet as he was, however/and marked out by nature to charm and cheer his species, he must needs go to college, like other lads, and enter a lawyer's office, and be admitted to practice, and hang out his tin sign in a country town, and plead causes in county courts. All this he did ; and we find him, as early as his nineteenth year, established as a country lawyer in his native State. He did not want for practice, and yet found time, as he has ever since done, to exercise his poetic gift. The " North American Review," in 1816, was conducted by a club of Boston gentlemen, the chief of whom was Rich- ard II. Dana. It was more like a monthly magazine then, WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 733 than a review, and published whatever literary matter came to hand of the requisite merit. Mr. Dana received, one day in 1816, two poems that were offered for publication, one entitled Thanatopsis, and the other, A Fragment. The poems being accompanied by the name of Bryant, Mr. Dana, in some way now forgotten, received the impression that Thanatopsis was written by Dr. Peter Bryant, then a mem- ber of the Massachusetts State Senate, and that The Frag- ment was the production of his son. Struck with the majestic beauty of the longer poem, he hastened to the Sen- ate house to see the new poet. He found Dr. Bryant a man of dark complexion, with black hair, thick eyebrows, and a countenance indicative of every excellent quality except the poetic. The editor was rather ashamed of his want of discern- ment, but remained for some years under the impression thai the author of Thanatopsis was the Senator from Hampshire ; not discovering his mistake until, in conversation with the poet himself, he chanced to use the expression, "your fathers Thanatopsis." Who, indeed, could suppose that that noble poem was the work of a youth of nineteen? " So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan which moves To that mysterious realm where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon ; but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." Thase are its concluding lines. The reader cannot do better than learn them by heart, and say them over once a day, for they have a moral as well as a poetic value. From the day of the publication of this poem, in 1816, an 734 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. American could boast that his country also had produced a poet. William Cullen Bryant who was but yesterday among us was the first native of the Western Conti-" iient who ever wrote poetry which the world accepted as poetry. One who can write such verses as these cannot long be contented without exercising his talent. After the publica- tion of Thanatopsis, the young poet occasionally contributed to the periodicals of Boston ; and in 1821 his poems were published at Cambridge in a volume, which procured for him a certain intense local fame, and gave him courage to aban- don the law and come to New York to gain his livelihood by literature. This was in 1825, when he was thirty-one years of age. After a year or two spent in editing a literary periodical, he made that fortunate engagement with the " Eve- ning Post," as fortunate for his country as for himself, which has added at length an ample fortune to the poet's ever-brightening fame. From the day when the influence of Mr. Byrant began to be felt, in this newspaper, it has been the ally of every sound principle in politics and morals. He continued to contribute poems to the magazines of the day ; so that in the course of a few years he had a con- siderable collection, which, in 1831, he published in a vol- ume of some magnitude. The public cordially welcomed this addition to its means of enjoyment. The author sent a copy to Washington Irving, then running a brilliant career of authorship in London. In one of Irving's letters of 1832, we read : " I have received recently a volume of poetry from Mr. Bryant, in which are many things really exquisite. Yet I despair of find- ing a bookseller that will offer anything for it, or that will even publish it for his own benefit ; such is the stagnation of the liter- ary market." 19 WILLIAM CULL EN BRYANT. 735 The cholera was then raging in England, the terrible cholera of 1832. Nothing daunted, however, Mr. Irving wrote a preface introducing the poet to the people of Eng- land, and the volume soon after appeared. Its merits alone would have given it currency enough in time ; but the friendly offices of Mr. Irving drew the attention of the pub- lic to it at once, and secured to Mr. Bryant an immediate popularity. His poems have ever since held their ground in England, and his name is familiar in English homes. 736 PKOPLE'SBOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. TWO OF OUR BOHEMIANS. EDGAR A. FOB AND " ARTKMTTS WARD," HOW THEY LIVED, A.ND WHY THEY DIED so YOUNG. No one who has written of poor Poe seems to have quite understood his case. Nor should I, if I had not spent a few days last summer at the Inebriate Asylum at Binghamton, in the State of New York. Edgar A. Poe, like Byron and many others, appears to have been a man whose brain was permanently injured by alcohol, and so injured that there was no safety for him except in total and eternal abstinence from every intoxicating drink. I have often heard the late N. P. Willis speak of Poe's con- duct when he was sub-editor of the " Evening Mirror," of which Mr. Willis was one of the editors. Poe, he would say, was usually one of the most quiet, regular, and gentle- manlike of men, remarkably neat in his person, elegant and orderly about his work, and wholly unexceptionable in con- duct and demeanor. But in a weak moment, tempted, per- haps, by a friend, or by the devil Opportunity, he would take one glass of wine or liquor. From that moment he was another being. His self-control was gone. An irresistible thirst for strong drink possessed him, and he would drink and drink and drink, as long as he could lift a glass to his lips. If he could not get good liquor, he would drink bad ; all he desired was something fiercely stimulating. He would frequently keep this up for several days and nights, until, in fact, his system was peifectly exhausted, and he had been taken helpless and EDGAR ALLAN POE. 737 unresisting to bed. There he would lie, miserable and repentant, until he hud in some degree recovered his health, when he would return to his labor, if the patience of his employers had not been exhausted. Having formed this deplorable habit while his brain was immature, I believe that it then received an incurable injury, which caused it to generate unsound thoughts, erro- neous opinions, and morbid feelings. His thinking appara- tus was damaged, and he came upon the stage of life with a propensity toward absurdity and extravagance. David Poe, of Maryland, the grandfather of the poet, was an officer of repute in the army of the Revolution. Like many other soldiers, he married when the war was over, and settled in the chief city of his native State, Baltimore. His eldest son, who was also named David, was destined to the law, and in due time entered the office of a Baltimore lawyer. This son was an ardent, impetuous youth, one of those ill-balanced young men who may, if circumstances favor, perform heroic actions, but who are much more likely to be guilty of rash and foolish ones. While he was still pursuing his studies, an English actress, named Elizabeth Arnold, appeared at the Baltimore theatre. David Poe fell in love with her, as many young fellows before and since have done with ladies of that profession. More than that, he married her, abandoned his studies, and went upon the stage. Having taken this desperate step, he lived for a few years the wandering life of an actor, playing with his wife in the principal cities of the South. Three children were born to them, of whom Edgar, the eldest, first saw the light at Balti- more, in 1811. Six years after, Mr. and Mrs. David Poe were fulfilling an engagement at the theatre in Richmond, Virginia. Within a short time of one another, they both 738 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. died, leaving their three little children totally unprovided for. Edgar, at this time, was a lively, pretty boy, extremely engaging in his manners, aiad giving great promise of future talent. He was so fortunate as to attract the attention of Mr. John Allan, a rich merchant of Richmond, who adopted him, and who proceeded to afford him what he considered the best opportunities for education then existing. When the boy was not quite seven years of age, he took him to London ; and in a village near that city, he placed the little orphan at a boarding-school, where he left him for nearly five years. So far as is known, the child had not a friend, still less a relation, on that side of the ocean. Here was an eager, vivacious, and probably precocious boy, confined in the desolation of an English school ; which is, generally speaking, a scene as unsuited to the proper nurture of the young, as Labrador for the breeding of canary-birds. Such a boy as that needed the tenderness of women and the watchful care of an affectionate and wise father. He needed love, home, and the minute, fond attention which rare and curious plants usually receive, but which children seldom do, who are so much more worthy of it, and would reward it so much more. He needed, in short, all that he did not have, and he had in abundance much that he did not need. If the truth could be known, it would probably be found that Poe received at this school the germ of the evil which finally destroyed him. Certainly, he failed to acquire the self-control and strong principle which might have saved him. The head-master, it appears, was a dignified clergy- man of the Church of England, whom the little American was disposed to laugh at in his shabby suit of black on week- days, though he regarded him with awe and admiration when on Sunday he donned his canonicals, and ascended the pulpit. EDGAR ALLAN POE. 739 Poe was past eleven years of age a pale, bright little boy when Mr. Allan brought him home, and placed him at a school in Richmond. At a very early age, not much later than fourteen, he entered the Virginia University at Charlottes ville, which Jefferson had founded, and over which the aged statesman was still affectionately watching, as the favorite child of his old age. At this university he became immediately distinguished, both in the class-room and out of doors. One of his biographers (who, however, was a notorious liar) tells us that, on a hot day in June, "he swam seven miles and a half against a tide running, probably, from two to three miles an hour." This is a manifest false- hood. Neither Byron, nor Leander, nor Franklin, nor any of the famous swimmers, could have performed such a feat. Nevertheless, he may have been an excellent swimmer, and may have excelled in the other sports proper to his age. The acquisition of knowledge was easy to him, and he could without serious effort have carried off the highest honors of his class. But he drank to excess ; and as drink is the ally of all the other vices, he gambled recklessly, and led so disorderly a life that he was expelled from the college. His adopted father refusing to pay his gambling debts, the young man wrote him a foolish, insulting letter, took passage for Europe, and set off, as he said, to assist the Greeks in their struggle for independence. Of his adventures in Europe only two facts are known ; for Poe was always curiously reticent respecting the events of his own life. One fact is, that he never reached Greece. The other is, that, about a year after his departure from America, he was arrested in St. Petersburg by the police, probably for an offence committed when he was drunk. The American minister procured his discharge, and finding him totally destitute of money, relieved his wants and paid 740 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. his passage home. On reaching Richmond the prodigal was heartily welcomed by his benefactor, Allan, who soon pro cured for him a cadetship at West Point. He appears to have entered that institution with a sincere determination to perform his duties, and become a good officer. For a while his behavior was excellent ; he stood high in his class ; and bis friends hoped that he had sown his wild oats, and that he was now a reformed character. But what an amount of falsehood is implied in that expres- sion, He has sown his wild oats. The popular belief is, that a young man may go on drinking, carousing, gambling, and turning night into day, for a certain time, and then, sud- denly changing his course of life, live the rest of his days as well and happily as though he had never gone astray. Mis- erable mistake ! No one can abuse his body without paying the penalty, and, least of all, a man of delicate and refined organization like Edgar A. Poe. Such men as he are formed by nature for the exercise of the noblest virtues and the practice of the highest arts. A stronger and coarser nature than his, or one more mature, might have suffered for a while from the blighting fumes of alcohol, and then in some degree have recovered its tone, and made some amends for the wrong it had done. It was not so with the tender and unformed organs of this young man, who never recovered from the injury which early dissipation had wrought. A few months after entering West Point, his appetite for drink resumed its sway, and he relapsed into his former habits. Before his first year had expired, he was expelled from the academy. Again he returned to Richmond, and again his long-suffer- ing benefactor received him into his house. There he found the young and beautiful wife whom Mr. Allan had recently married ; and to her, it is said, he paid attentions so marked EDGAR ALLAN POE. 741 that Mr. Allan was at length thoroughly incensed against him, and banished him forever from his house. A more probable version of the story is, that Mr. Allan, happy in the society of his wife, was less patient than before of his protege's dissipated habits, and was easily set against him by the young lady. However it may be, John Allan died soon after, and, though he left a large fortune, poor Poe's name vvas not mentioned in his will. His death occurred in 1834, when Poe was twenty-three years of age. The young man had published a small volume of poems at Baltimore in 1829, which attracted some attention, more on account of the youth of the writer than the merits of the writing. Being now destitute of all resource, he made some endeavors to procure literary employment. Failing in this, he enlisted in the army as a private soldier. While he was serving in the ranks, he was recognized by officers whom he had known at West Point, who, after inquiring into his case, applied for his discharge ; but before the document arrived Poe deserted. He was not very closely pursued, however, and he soon found himself in Baltimore, a free man, but almost totally destitute. Then it was that he read in a paper an advertisement by the publisher of a literary periodical, offering two prizes of $100 each for the best story and the best poem that should be offered. Poe sent in both a story and a poem, won both prizes, and soon after obtained employ- ment as editor of the " Southern Literary Messenger," then published at Richmond. Again the same story : steady conduct and well-sustained industry for a short time ; then drink, dissipation, and dis- charge. Before he was dismissed, he had married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, a very pretty, amiable girl, and exceed- ingly fond of her erratic husband. The ill-provided pair removed to New York in 1837, where he continued to live 742 PKOPLK'S HOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. during the greater part of the rest of his life. Nothing new remains to be told. He frequently obtained respectable and sufficiently lucrative employment, but invariably lost it by misconduct, arising, as I think, solely from the effect of alcohol on his brain. In October, 1849, in the course of a Southern lecturing tour, he stopped at Baltimore, where, meeting some of his old companions, he spent a night in a wild debauch, and was found in the morning in the street suffering from delirium tremens. He was taken to the hos- pital, where, in a few days, he died, aged thirty-eight. Poe was a mild-looking man, of pale, regular features, with a certain expression of weakness about the mouth, which men often have who are infirm of purpose. He had some- thing of the erect military bearing noticeable in young men who have had a military drill in their youth. What with the neatness of his attire, the gentleness of his manners, and the pale beauty of his face, he usually excited an interest in those who met him, and he remained to the last a favorite with ladies. He has had many followers in the Bohemian way of life, few of whom have had his excuse. But nearly all of them ended in the same miserable, tragic manner. Of the twenty young men of the New York press, who were known, ten years ago, as the Bohemians, all are in their graves except five or six, who saw in time the abyss before them, and struck into better paths. One died of an honorable wound received in battle. The rest might all have been living and honored at this moment, if they had lived pure and temper- ate lives, and gone to bed when they had done their work, instead of going to Pfaff's. Let me briefly relate the story of one of them, who was, naturally, as amiable and worthy a fellow as any young man of his time to say nothing of his rare talent. "ARTEMUS WARD." 743 In the beautiful town of Cleveland, Ohio, ten years ago, I was introduced, one Sunday morning, to Mr. Charles F. Browne, who had recently acquired celebrity by his Artenms Ward letters, in the Cleveland " Plaindealer." He was then twenty-live years of age, of somewhat slender form, but with ruddy cheeks, and a general appearance of health and vigor. He was the local editor of the " Plaindealer," and had the ready, cordial, and off-hand manner of the members of the Western press. Like other professional humorists, he was not particularly funny in ordinary conversation ; on the con- trary, he was less so than Western editors usually are. I was far from anticipating the career that was in store for him ; still less could I have foreseen the premature death of a young man who presented even an exceptional appearance of good health. If he were alive to-day, he would only be thirty-eight years of age. He was born at Waterford, in Maine, where his father was a surveyor. His native village, as he says in one of his papers, " does not contain over forty houses, all told ; but they are milk-white, with the greenest of blinds, and, for the most part, are shaded with beautiful elms and willows. To the right of us is a mountain ; to the left a lake. The vil- lage nestles between. Of course it does. I never read a novel in my life in which the village did not nestle. Vil- lages invariably nestle." In this secluded nook of New England, he passed the first fourteen years of his life, dur- ing which he acquired such education as a rather idle and sport-loving boy could acquire in the common and high schools. He was sent to learn the printing business at a neighbor- ing town, called Skowhegan, where, in the office of the Skowhegan " Clarion," he learned to set type and work the hand-press. To the last of his days he held this place in 744 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. abhorrence. One of his friends has recorded that he was accustomed "to set up a howl of derision" whenever its name was mentioned ; and that whenever he desired to ex- press the last degree of contempt for any person, place, or thing, he would speak of it as worthy of Skowhegan. How many a boy has reaped a fell revenge upon a teacher or an employer, by turning out to be a genius, and consigning him to universal ridicule ! At sixteen he found his way to Boston, where he obtained employment as a compositor in the office of the funniest periodical then published in Boston, " The Carpet-bag," to which Shillaber, Halpine, and Saxe contributed. As he set up, from week to week, the humorous contributions of those writers, the conviction grew upon him that he too could write a piece that would make people laugh. I think he must have been reading Franklin's Autobiography or the preface to " Pickwick," for in putting his talent to the test, he employed a device, similar to that used by Franklin and Dickens in offering their first productions to the press. Having written his piece in a disguised hand, he put it into the editor's box. Great was his joy when it was handed to him, soon after, to set in type. This first piece, I believe, was in the style of Major Jack Downing, whose letters, he once said, had more to do with making him a humorist than the productions of any other writer. About this time he chanced to read Bayard Taylor's "Views Afoot," in which that popular author gave an account of his making the tour of Europe, and paying hia way by working at his trade, which was that of a printer. Captivated by this example, he started for the Great West. When his money was exhausted, he would stop for a while tn some large town where there was a printing-office, and "ARTEMUS WARD." 745 replenish hia purse ; which done, he would continue hia journey. "I did n't know," he once said, "but what 1 might get as far as China, and set up a newspaper one day in the tea-chest tongue." He stopped short of China, however. At the town of Tiffin, Ohio, he obtained a place as compositor and assistant editor, at four dollars a week. From Tiffin he removed to Toledo, where he procured a similar place in the office of the " Toledo Commercial," at five dollars a week. It was upon this paper that his talent as a humorist first attracted atten- tion, and he was soon permitted to devote his whole time to filling the local columns with amusing abuse of the rival paper. He acquired so much celebrity in Ohio as a writer of facetious paragraphs, that he was offered at length the place of local editor of the Cleveland " Plaindealer," at a salary, munificent for the time and place, of twelve dollars a week. Most of the noted humorists and the great master of humor himself, Charles Dickens have shown a particular fondness for persons who gain their livelihood by amusing the public, showmen of all kinds and grades, from the tumbler in the circus to the great tragedian of the day. In the performance of his duty as local editor, Charles Browne had abundant opportunity of gratifying this taste, and he gradually became acquainted with most of *he travelling showmen of the Western country. He delighted to study their habits, and he used to tell many a good story of their ingenious devices for rousing the enthusiasm of the public. Much of this showman's lore he turned to account in the Letters of Artemus Ward. There are dull times in a place like Cleveland, times when the local editor is hard put to it to fill his columns. 746 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. No show, no court, no accident, no police report, no trot- ting match, no fashionable wedding, no surprise party, no anything. One day in 1859, when the local editor of the Cleveland " Plaindealer " was in desperate want of a topic, he dashed upon paper a letter from an imaginary showman, to which he affixed the name of a Revolutionary General, which had always struck him as being odd, " Artemas Ward." The letter began thus : " To the Editor of the Plaindealer SIR : I'm moving along slowly along down tords your place. I want you should write me a letter, sayin hows the show-bizniss in your place. My show at present consists of three moral Bares, a Kangaroo a amoozin little Raskal ; 'twould make you larf to deth to see the little cuss jump up and squeal wax figgers of G. Washington, Gen. Tay- lor, John Bunyan, Dr. Kidd, and Dr. Webster in the act of killin' Dr. Parkman, besides several miscellanyus moral wax stat- toots of celebrated piruts and murderers, etc., ekalled by few and exceld by none." The showman proceeds to urge the editor to prepare the way for his coming, and promises to have all his handbills " dun at your offiss." " We must fetch the public somehow," he continues. " We must work on their feelins come the moral on 'em strong. If it's a temperance community, tell 'em I sined the pledge fifteen minits arter ise born. But, on the contrary, if your people take their tods, say that Mister Ward is as genial a feller as we ever met full of conviviality, and the life and sole of the soshul Bored. Take, don't you?" Mister Ward concludes his epistle by condensing its whole meaning into a very short postscript : " You scratch my back, and He scratch your back." "ARTEMUS WARD." 747 This letter made a wonderful hit. It was immediately copied into many hundreds of newspapers, and was gener- ally taken as the genuine production of a showman. Other letters in the same vein followed, which carried the name of Arteinus Ward and the Cleveland " Plaindealer " to the ends of the earth. For two or three years they figured in the funny column of most of the periodicals in America, Eng- land, and Australia. But except the reputation which the letters gave, they were of little advantage to their author. His salary may have been increased a few dollars a week, and he added a little to his income by contributions to the comic papers of New York. No man. indeed, is so cruelly plundered as the writer of short amusing pieces, easily clipped and copied. He writes a comic piece for a trifling sum, which amuses per- haps five millions of people, and no one compensates him except the original purchaser. There are, for example, comic dialogues which have done service for fifteen years at negro minstrel entertainments, and now make thousands of people laugh every night, for which the author received three dollars. Artemus Ward, anxious to buy back the family home- stead in which to shelter the old-age of his widowed mother, soon discovered that he could never do it by making jokes, unless he could sell them over and over again. So he tried comic lecturing. The first night the experiment was a fail- ure. A violent storm of snow, sleet, and wind thinned the audience in Clinton Hall, New York to such a degree, that the lecturer lost thirty dollars by the enterprise. A tour in New England, however, had better results. He lec- tured a hundred nights, by which he cleared nearly eight thousand dollars ; and he was soon able to establish his mother in the comfortable village home in which he was born. 748 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. I ought not to conclude this article without letting the reader precisely know why this bright and genial spirit is no longer here to add to the world's harmless amusement. Well, this was the reason : wherever he lectured, whether in Xew England, California, or London, there was sure to be a knot of young fellows to gather round him, and go home with him to his hotel, order supper, and spend half the night in telling stories and singing songs. To any man this will be fatal in time ; but when the nightly carouse follows an evening's performance before an audience, and is succeeded by a railroad journey the next clay, the waste of vitality is fearfully rapid. Five years of such a life finished poor Charles Browne. He died in London, in 1867, aged thirty- three years ; and he now lies buried at the home of his childhood in Maine. He was not a deep drinker. He was not a man of strong appetites. It was the nights wasted in conviviality which his system needed for sleep, that sent him to his grave forty years before his time. For men of his profession and cast of character, for all editors, literary men, and artists, there is only one safety TEETOTALISM. He should have taken the advice of a stage-driver on the Plains, to whom he once offered som6 .whiskey, and I commend it strongly to every young man : " I DON'T DRINK. I WON'T DRINK ! AND I DON'T LIKE TO SEE ANYBODY ELSE DRINK. I *M OF THE OPINION OF THOSE MOUNTAINS KEEP YOUR TOP COOL. THEY'VE GOT SNOW AND I 'VE GOT BRAINS ; THAT 'S ALL THE DIFFER- ENCE." JOSIAH QUINCY. 749 JOSIAH QUINCY. A MODEL GENTLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. BORN in 1772, and died in 1864 ! Ninety-two years of happy, prosperous, and virtuous life ! How was it that, in a world so full of the sick, the miserable, and the unfortu- nate, Josiah Quincy should have lived so long, and enjoyed, during almost the whole of his life, uninterrupted happiness and prosperity? Let us see. He was born in Boston, in a house the walls of which are still standing, in a part of the city now called Washington Street. His father was that young Josiah Quincy who went away on a patriotic mission to London when this boy was three years of age, and only returned to die within sight of his native land, without having delivered the message with which Doctor Franklin had charged him. Left an orphan at so early an age, his education was superintended by one of the best mothers a boy ever had ; and this was the first cause both of the length and of the happiness of his life. This admirable mother was so careful lest her fondness for her only son should cause her to indulge him to his harm, that she even refrained from caressing him, and, in all that she did for him, thought of his welfare first, and of her own pleasure last, or not at all. To harden him, she used to have him taken from a warm bed in winter, as well as in summer, and carried clown to a cellar kitchen, and there dipped three times in a tub of cold water. She even accus- tomed him to sit in wet feet, and endeavored in all ways to 20 750 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. toughen his physical system against the wear and tear of life. This boy (who only died seven years ago) was old enough during the Revolutionary war to remember some of its inci- dents. "I imbibed," he once wrote , "the patriotism of the period, was active against the British, and with my little whip and astride my grandfather's cane, I performed prodigies of valor, and more than once came to my mother's knees declar- ing that I had driven the British out of Boston." Like all other healthy boys, he was a keen lover of out-of-door sports of every kind. "My heart," he wrote, "was in ball and marbles." And yet, in accordance with the custom of the schools of that time, he was compelled to sit on the same hard bench every day, four hours in the morning, and four hours in the afternoon, studying lessons which it was impos- sible so young a child could value or understand. A boy of less elastic mind and less vigorous constitution of body must have been injured by this harsh, irrational discipline. It seems only to have taught him patience and fortitude. Being a member of a rich and ancient family, he enjoyed every advantage of education which America then afforded, and graduated from Harvard College, in 1790, with honor. He was soon after admitted to the bar ; but as he was not dependent upon his profession for a maintenance, he was not a very diligent or famous lawyer. I have said that he was a very happy man. This is almost equivalent to saying that he was very happily mar- ried ', since the weal or woe of most men's lives chiefly depends upon the wisdom with which they choose their life's companion. Josiah Quincy was indeed most fortunately married, and yet he does not appear to have exercised his judgment in the choice of a wife. In seven days after he first saw her face, he was engaged to be married to her. It happened thus : JOSIAH QUINCY. 751 On a certain Sunday evening, in 1794, being then twenty- two years of age, he went, according to his custom, to visit one of his aunts, who lived in Boston. He found at his aunt's house, a Miss Morton, a young lady from New York, of whom he had never before heard, and who was so little remarkable in her appearance, that she made no impression on his mind. In the course of the evening, a female relative who was present asked him to go into the next room, as she wished to consult him on some affair of business. While they were talking, the strange lady began to sing one" of the songs of Burns with a clearness of voice, and with a degree of taste and feeling, which charmed and excited him beyond anything he had ever experienced. He immediately threw down the law papers which he had been examining, and returned to the company. Miss Morton sang several other songs, to the great delight of all who heard her, and to the unbounded rapture of this particular young gentleman. "When the singing was over, he entered into conversation with her, and discovered her to be an intelligent, well- informed, unaffected, and kind-hearted girl. In short, he fell in love with her upon the spot, and when the young lady left Boston a week after, he was engaged to her. Some time elapsed, however, before they were married. She was a young lady of highly respectable connections and considerable fortune. The marriage was suitable in all re- spects, and they lived together- fifty-three happy years. This most fortunate union was, no doubt, one of the main causes of the singular peace and uninterrupted happiness of his life. It was expected, at that time, that a man of fortune, tal- ents, and education, like Josiah Quincy, would enter public life. In 1805 he was elected a member of Congress by the Federalists of Boston, a party of which he was a warm adhe- 752 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. rent, and to which he clung as long as it existed. His son tells us, in an excellent biography of his father recently published, that, to the last of his life, when he was in reality a member of the Republican party, the old man still called himself a Federalist. Having been elected to Congress, he did a most extraordinary thing : he actually set to work to prepare himself, by a study of politics and history, to dis- charge the duties of the place I He even learned the French language, in order to be able to converse with the foreign ministers and other Europeans whom he might meet in Washington. Besides this, he made a large collection of pamphlets, documents, and books relating to the history of his country, and to the political questions which had agitated it since the close of the Revolution. He was, unquestionably, the ablest member of the Federal party in Congress at that time, and he served his party with a zeal and eloquence which was highly useful in keeping the administrations of Jefferson and Madison in the true path. Being myself in the fullest sympathy with Jefferson and Madison, I cannot think so highly of his Congressional career as, perhaps, his son would have us. But I can fully appre- ciate his honesty, his industry, his high-bred courtesy, and his admirable eloquence. His ardor in debate would have led to frequent challenges and duels, if he had not from the first made up his mind never to be bullied into an acquies- cence with so barbarous a custom. In conversation with Southern members on the subject, he would say: "We do not stand upon equal grounds in this matter. If we fight and you kill me, it is a feather in your cap, and your con- stituents will think all the better of you for it. If I should kill you, it would ruin me with mine, and they never would send me to Congress again.** Reasoning of this kind the fire-eaters of 1810 could under- JOSIAH QUINCY. 753 stand, though they would have been little able to compre- hend the lofty moral grounds on which his objections to the practice were really founded. The most remarkable event of his public life was his oppo- sition to the creation of States, by Act of Congress, out of territory which did not belong to the United States when the Constitution was agreed to. His opinion was, that such new States could only be admitted into the Union by the consent of as many of the original thirteen States as had been necessary for the adoption of the Constitution itself. So rooted and passionate was his conviction on this subject, that, in the year 1811, when the act was discussed under which Louisiana was afterwards admitted, he uttered in the House the following words : " I am compelled to declare it as my deliberate opinion, that, if this bill passes, the bonds of this Union are virtually dissolved ; that the States which compose it are free from their moral obligation ; and that, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, to prepare definitely for a separation ; amicably, if they can, violently if they must." This looks so much like the secession doctrines of subse- quent times, that, I am afraid, many readers will never be able to distinguish the difference. One thing is certain : the admission of new States formed out of new territory by a mere Act of Congress, did actually, for fifty years, make the Southern States masters of this Union ; and Josiah Quincy was, perhaps, the first public man who clearly saw and clearly foretold that this would be the case. Mr. Quincy, in one of his letters from Washington, relates an anecdote of Felix Grundy, of Tennessee, which throws light upon Western politics, as they were conducted half a century ago. Mr. Grundy, after having soundly berated Mr. Quincy in the House, said to him the next clay : 754 PEOPLE'S BOOK or BIOGRAPHY. w Quincy, I thought I had abused you enough ; but I find it will not do." " Why, what is the matter now ? I do not mean to speak again." "No matter," said Grundy; "by Heavens, I must give you another thrashing." "Why so? " asked the member from Massachusetts. " Why," said Grundy, " the truth is, a d d fellow has set up against me in my District; a perfect Jacobin, as much worse than I am as worse can be. Now, except Tim Pickering, there is not a man in the United States so per- fectly hated by the people of my District as yourself. You must therefore excuse me. I must abuse you, or I shall never get re-elected. I will do it, however, genteelly. I will not do it as that fool of a Clay did strike so hard as to hurt myself. But abuse you I must. You understand ; I mean to be friends, notwithstanding. I mean to be in Congress again, and must use the means." The imagination is a great deceiver. We have a curious example of this truth in the different accounts which have come down to us respecting the appearance of General Wash- ington. Josiah Quincy and his wife both saw this illustri- ous man, and both were persons of eminent intelligence and perfect truth. Nevertheless, how different their impres- sions ! Mrs. Quincy, who was of a highly imaginative temperament, used to speak of him as being as far above ordinary mortals, in grace and majesty of person and de- meanor, as he was in character. Mr. Quincy, on the contrary, though revering Washington not less, thought him rather countrified and awkward in his appearance and manners. He used to say that " President Washington had the air of a country gentleman not accustomed to mix much with society, perfectly polite, but not easy in his address and JOSIAH QUIXCY. 755 conversation, and not graceful in his gait and movements." We can account for these different representations by sup- posing that one of the witnesses was, and the other was not, misled by the imagination. When Josiah Quincy was a young man, about the year 1795, he paid a visit to New York, and while there became acquainted with Alexander Hamilton, who, with Aaron Burr, stood at the head of the New York bar. Upon one occasion, when the conversation turned upon Colonel Burr, Mr. Quincy asked Hamilton whether Burr was a man of great talents. Hamilton's reply, in view of subsequent events, was remarkable. "Not of great talents," said Hamilton. "His mind, though brilliant, is shallow, and incapable of broad views or con- tinued effort. He seldom spea.ks in court more than twenty minutes ; and, though his speeches are showy and not with- out effect upon a jury, they contain no proof of uncommon powers of mind. But he has ambition that will never be satisfied until he has encircled his brow with a diadem." These words were uttered nine years before the duel took place which terminated the life of Alexander Hamilton. It shows that, even at that early period, he had the same ill opinion of Burr, the too careless expression of which after- wards cost him his life. In the spring of 1812, when President Madison deter- mined, before declaring war against Great Britain, to try once more the effect of an embargo, Mr. Quincy was informed of the President's intention by Mr. Calhoun, a member of the Committee on Foreign Eelations. Being authorized to communicate the news to his constituents, he joined another member from Massachusetts in writing to two of the lead- ing citizens of Boston a letter containing the important intel- ligence. Despatch in the transmission- of the news was, of 756 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAP'HY. course, all important, and they contracted with a stage pro- prietor to convey the letter from Washington to Boston in seventy-six hours. The contract was performed ; and never, perhaps, did news produce a greater excitement. "On Saturday and Sunday," as Mr. Quincy himself relates, "the whole town was in motion. Every truck and cart was in requisition. The streets and wharves were crowded by the merchants, anxious to send their ships to sea before the harbor was closed by the embargo." All day Sunday those Puritan merchants continued to load their ships ; so that, by the time the embargo was laid, all the vessels designed for England were safe at sea. Some pretty rough politicians used to find the way to Washington from the Western States, x fifty or sixty years ago. Matthew Lyon was one of these, a man of great note in his day. Josiah Quincy once asked him how he obtained an election to the House of Representatives so soon after his emigration to Kentucky. He answered, "By establish- ing myself at a cross-roads, which everybody in the district passed from time to time, and abusing the sitting member." This Lyon was one of those members who continually sent printed speeches and political letters to their constituents. Mr. Quincy asked him one day how he avoided offending those of his constituents whom he chanced to overlook in this distribution of favors." " I manage it in this way," said he. " When I am canvas- sing my district, and I come across a man who looks distantly and cold at me, I get up cordially to him and say : ' My dear friend, you got my printed letter last session, of course.' 'No, sir,' replies the man, with offended dignity, 'I got no such thing.' 'No ! ' I cry out in a passion. 'No ! damn that post-office I ' Then I make a memorandum of the man's name and address, and when I get back to Washington I write him an autograph letter, and all is put to rights." JOSIAH QUINCY. 757 After eight years of Congressional life, when he was but forty-one years of age, and when he might easily have been reflected, Josiah Quincy withdrew from public life, partly from private and partly for public reasons. The main pub- lic reason was, that the Federal party was too powerless even to make a useful opposition ; and his chief private reason was, that he loved his wife and children too much to be sep- arated from them. Returning home, he served his native State, first by making costly experiments in agriculture upon his estate, which, though unprofitable to him, were highly beneficial to the community. For several years he was mayor of Boston, during which he reformed the city govern- ment, and rendered services to the city the good effects of which are still apparent. If Boston is the best-governed city in America, it is in part owing to the efficiency and wis- dom of Josiah Quincy. When Mr. Quincy was President of Harvard College, he displayed unusual tact in the management of different egun by such kind of principles. They cried, he had betrayed the trust that was delegated to him from the people." The trial lasted from ten in the morning until six in the evening; and during the whole period, Sidney not only 818 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. displayed his constitutional firmness and courage, but a promptitude and skill in meeting the points made by the attorney and the judge, which would have secured his triumphant acquittal, if the jury had been intelligent and uncorrupt. After half an hour's absence from their box, the jury returned with a verdict of Guilty; and a few days after, the prisoner was brought again to the court-room, to receive his sentence. When asked what he had to say why sentence should not be pronounced, ho attempted to speak, but was rudely interrupted by one of the associate justices, and all his exceptions were contemptuously set aside by Jeffries, who seemed impatient to sentence him. When the sentence had been pronounced, Sidney, raising his hands to heaven, utterod these words : " Then, O God, I beseech Thee to sanctify these sufferings unto me, and impute not my blood to the country, nor to the great city through which I am to be drawn ; let no inquisition bs made for it, but, if any, and the shedding of blood that is innocent must be avenged, let the weight of it fall upon those that maliciously per- secute me for righteousness' sake ! " A week later, he ascended the scaffold on Tower Hill, with the calm fortitude that belonged to his character. To the sheriff, who asked him if he had anything to say to the people, he replied : *' I have made my peace with God, and have nothing to say to men ; but here is a paper of what I have to say." After removing some of his upper garments, he laid his head upon the block with the utmost serenity of manner ; and when the executioner, according to the customary form, asked him if he should rise again, he quietly replied : " Not till the general resurrection. Strike on.'* ALGERNON .SIDNEY. 819 A moment after, the axe descended, severing the head at a blow, and the executioner held it up to the multitude as the head of a traitor. It was the noblest head in England, and under it had beaten one of the noblest hearts. I have seen and the reader may see when he visits the Tower of London the block upon which Sidney's head was laid, and the axe with which it was severed from the body. From the number of cuts in the block, it is evident that it was often used ; and the reader, if he chooses, may indulge his fancy, and guess which of the cuts records the execution of Lady Jane Grey, which that of Charles I., which that of Lord William Russell, and which that of thia noblest of them all Algernon Sidney. 820 PEOPLE'S BOO.K OF BIOGRAPHY. A HERO OF LITERATURE THOMAS HOOD. IT is a curious fact that those who contribute to the mer- riment of mankind, are, as a class, among the least happy of our species. Comic actors, for example, are usually very grave men, often subject to melancholy, sometimes to ill temper; and, in some notorious instances, they have been cruelly unfortunate. I have been behind the scenes of a theatre two or three times in my life, and I was always struck with the serious demeanor of the comic men when they were off duty. I well remember one evening, when the curtain went down upon the gay comedy of " The Honeymoon," the startling change which came over the countenances of the comedians at the very moment that they were hidden from the gaze of the audience. Every face collapsed into an expression of mingled sadness and fatigue, and they all seemed to slink away, in their fine clothes and staring paint, as if they were thoroughly sick of the whole business, and never meant to appear on the stage again. The excellent artist who played the part of the " Mock Duke " passed me as he went slowly and wearily up to his dressing-room. I shall never forget how tired and dejected he looked ; and I have since learned that he had abundant cause to be dejected. He was amusing the public and keeping multitudes in a roar of laughter, when his heart was torn and desolate by the most acute domestic afiiictions. THOMAS HOOD. 821 Humorous writers, I should suppose, are not more happy or more fortunate than their brethren of the stage. I could mention some striking examples among the living ; but it seems to be a necessity of the case, that those who cheer and entertain us by their pleasure-giving talents, should them- selves tread the wine-press alone, and receive little help and little sympathy until neither can do them any good. The life. and death of Thomas Hood, author of the " Song of the Shirt," and editor for many years of the "Comic Annual," seems to me to be one of the most pathetic trage- dies of modern times. Observe this passage from one of the letters of his wife : " All Tuesday Hood has been in such an exhausted state he was obliged to go to bed ; but / was up all night ready to write at his dictation if he felt able ; but it was so utter a prostration of strength, that he could scarcely speak, much less use his head at all. The doctor said it was extreme exhaustion from the cold weather, want of air and exercise, acted upon by great anxiety of mind and ner- vousness. . . . The shorter the time became the more nervous he was, and incapable of writing. . . . His distress that the last post was come without his being able to send (manuscript to a magazine) was dreadful." It was jests for a comic periodical that poor Hood strug- gled to invent that night, while his wife sat at his side wait- ing to write them down at his dictation. Such scenes occurred many a time in the author's room, he so racked with agony that he could neither write nor draw, and his wife sitting patiently during the slow hours of the night, waiting to see if her husband would have an interval of ease when he could exercise his powers. The following is a portion of an apology once inserted in the magazine called " Hood's Own " : " Up to Thursday, the twenty-third, Mr. Hood did not relinquish the hope that he should have strength to continue in the present 822 PEOPLE'S :BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. number the novel which he began in the last. . . . On the same evening, sitting up in bed, he tried to invent and sketch a few comic designs ; but even this effort exceeded his strength, and was fol- lowed by the wandering delirium of utter nervous exhaustion." And yet, even in such desperate circumstances, he could sometimes throw off a great number of excellent jests and amusing pictures. On that very night just described, he succeeded in drawing two humorous sketches, which were published in the magazine. One was a picture of a magpie, with a hawk's hood on its head, which was called " Hood's Mag." The other picture was a collection of bottles, leeches, and blisters ; and this was styled " The Editor's Apologies." During the last twelve years of his life, he scarcely ever wrote except with great physical pain or inconvenience. Nor was it possible for him to rest ; for the compensation paid to contributors was smaller then than now, and he had a family dependent on him. He was in debt through the fault of others, and it required the utmost exertion of his powers to keep the wolf from the door. His father was a London bookseller and author, more successful, however, in selling than in making books. He wrote two novels, which have long since passed into obliv- ion ; but as a bookseller he was successful enough to rear his family respectably, and give his children such education as was usual at that day, in his sphere of life. His second son, Thomas, was born in the last year of the last century. Losing his father when he was a boy of fifteen, he was apprenticed to an engraver, under whom he acquired that skill with his pencil which he turned to account as the editor of comic periodicals. To his widowed mother he was a most affectionate and faithful son. She did not long survive her husband, and her last clays were greatly soothed and cheered by the untiring services of her children. THOMAS HOOD. 823 If the reader knows anything of the writings of Thomas Hood, he is aware that there was one thing in the world that he hated more than all others besides, and that was the cant of religion. I have just discovered the cause of the peculiar intensity of this hatred. Being much persecuted by a female neighbor with tracts and canting letters, he sat down one day, and wrote her a long satirical remonstrance, which he entitled, "My Tract." It is extremely ingenious and forcible ; but the last paragraph gives us the key, not only to this composition, but to others of a similar nature which abound in his works : " And now, Madam, farewell Your mode of recalling yourself to my memory reminds me that your fanatical mother insulted mine in the last days of her life (which was marked by every Christian virtue), by the presentation of a tract addressed to Infidels. I remember, also, that the same heartless woman intruded herself, with less reverence than a Mohawk squaw would have exhibited, on the chamber of death, and interrupted with her jargon almost my very last interview with my dying parent. Such reminiscences warrant some severity ; but if more be wanting, know that my poor sister has been excited by a circle of canters like yourself into a religious frenzy, and is at this moment in a private mad- house." That explains all. And terrible was the revenge which he took upon all the tribe of hypocrites ; for I suppose no man ever lived who did so much to make the cant of religion odious and loathsome. The close confinement of an engraver's office soon told upon his health ; for he was a delicate and sensitive boy. He was therefore sent to a relation in Scotland, where he remained for two years as clerk in a counting-room ; and it was in Scotland that he first began to write for the public. Returning to London in his twenty-second year, he obtained 824 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. employment in the office of a magazine as proof-reader ancl editorial assistant. He began forthwith to write humorous contributions for this periodical in prose and verse, few of which, however, have been thought worthy of republication. His connection with this magazine made him a literary man for life, and in that career he achieved, at length, a fame which extended as far as the English language is known. At twenty-five he married that admirable, that devoted, that martyr wife, who gave herself up so entirely to her suf- fering husband, and upon whose cheering presence he was at last so dependent, that he could hardly write at all if she were not near him. The first years of his married life were happy and fortunate, for he enjoyed tolerable health ; he could produce salable matter with astonishing ease, and he had a sufficient income. Ten years passed. He had saved some money, which he invested in a publishing business, as Sir Walter Scott did in the great Edinburgh house that published his novels. The firm of which poor Hood was a silent member failed in 1834, by which he lost all that he had saved, and was plunged into debt His friends advised him to avail himself of the Bank- rupt Act, or as he expressed it, to " score off his debts with legal whitewash or a wet sponge." But he chose to follow the example of Scott, and resolved, if health continued, to discharge his obligations by honest toil in his profession. With this object in view, he removed with his family to Coblentz, a town on the Ehine, where the necessaries of life are much cheaper than in England. On the passage over he narrowly escaped shipwreck, and suffered so severely, that his delicate constitution never recovered the strain. How he flew at his task ; how patiently he toiled ; how fearfully he suffered ; with what indomitable gayety of heart he bore his daily and nightly anguish ; how kind he was as THOMAS HOOD. 825 father, husband, and friend ; how tenderly he felt for the sorrows of the poor and friendless ; how nobly he toiled in the service of the forlorn and afflicted ; and how, while he suffered, he enlivened and blessed ten thousand homes with his honest, cheerful, and innocent writings, cannot here be told. The story of his life has never been related as it ought to have been. The memorials published some years ago by his children are of the deepest interest, and would almost move a heart of stone to pity ; but we feel the tale to be incomplete, and it provokes curiosity rather than satis- fies it. I gather, however, a few traits and incidents from it. It is a custom in Europe to construct libraries in such a way that the doors and windows are not visible, so that the student may feel himself hemmed in on every side by books, and not be tempted to wander forth before his task is done. As there must be a way of getting in and out, the doors are so contrived as to resemble perfectly a con- tinuation of the book-shelves, and on the backs of the imag- inary books are stamped such fanciful titles as the inge- nuity of the owner can devise; as "Essays on Wood," "Perpetual Motion," and others. Hood being requested by the Duke of Devonshire to furnish a number of such titles, he contributed a great number, of which the following are specimens : " The Life of Zimmerman (author of a work on Solitude) . By Himself" " The Racing Calendar, with the Eclipses for 1831." "Percy Vere, in forty volumes." "Lamb on the Death of Wolfe." " Tadpoles, or Tales out of My Own Head." " On Trial by Jury, with remarkable Packing Cases." " MacAdam's Views in Rhodes." "Boyle on Steam." "John Knoxon Death's Door." " Designs for Friezes, by Captain Parry." " Peel on Bell's ' System." " Life of Jack Ketch, with Cuts of His own Execution." " Barrow on the Common "Weal." " Cursory 826 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. Remarks on Swearing." " Recollections of Bannister, by Lord Stair." " The Sculpture of the Chipaway Indians." " Cook's Specimens of the Sandwich Tongue." "In-i-go on Secret Entrances." The Duke might well reply as he did: "I am more obliged to you than I can say for my titles. They are exactly what I wanted, and are invented in that remarka- ble vein of humor which has, in your works, caused me and many of my friends so much amusement and satisfac- tion." It was dangerous to make Hood the butt of a joke, for he was most ingenious at a retort, whether verbal or prac- tical. Some friends one day, who were fishing with him in a small boat near his cottage, contrived to give the boat such a push as to throw him into the water. Upon coming out dripping he made light of the mishap ; but soon began to complain of various cramps and pains, and at last went into the house apparently suffering a good deal. His jovial friends became serious, and persuaded him to go to bed, which he did. As soon as he was within the' sheets, he began to groan and writhe in the most alarming manner, to the infinite distress of his comrades. The nearest doctor lived some miles distant, and meanwhile the patient, shak- ing with suppressed laughter, appeared to those around him seized with the most violent ague. One rushed for a tea- kettle of boiling water, another brought in a large tin bath ; and a third employed himself in getting the materials for a mustard plaster. At last the patient pretended to be dying, and began in a hollow voice to give directions with regard to his will. His friends, penetrated with horror, implored him to forgive them for their fatal joke, and begged him to believe in the depth and sincerity of their remorse. Upon this, Hood could restrain himself no longer, but burst into THOMAS HOOD. 827 a perfect roar of laughter, which the horrified by-standers regarded as delirium. This time, however, the laughter was too natural to deceive them long, and they were soon all roaring in concert around the bedside. The city of Cologne in those days was paved with cobble- stones, even to the sidewalks, as New York used to be when it was a Dutch town. As Hood and his wife were hobbling along, he said it looked as though there had been a stone storm, and that if a certain place was payed with good inten- tions, Cologne must have been paved with the bad ones. When they were living in Germany, Mrs. Hood volun- teered to make an English plum-pudding for some of the officers of the garrison of Coblentz. Hood was writing late at night, when the servant took the pudding out of the pot, and put it smoking on a table near him. She then went to bed, and left him alone with the savory object. The spirit of mischief seized him. There was a large quantity of new wooden skewers lying about, which he proceeded to thrust into the pudding in every direction, and did it so neatly that the pudding presented no visible sign of the mischief that had been done to it. In the morning it was conveyed to the officers' mess, where it figured upon their table at din- ner ; and in the evening one of them came to thank Mrs. Hood for the gift. When the officer arrived, the lady was not present, and he began to pour forth the admiration and gratitude of the officers to her mischievous husband. " Don't you think it was well trussed ?" asked Hood. To this the officer replied, "Yes," so simply and gravely, that Hood supposed they meditated a joke in retaliation, and kept a bright lookout upon the parties concerned. Days passed, and nothing happened. He discovered at length, by accident, that the Prussian officers, totally ignorant of the nature of, plum-pudding, supposed that the skewers were a 828 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. proper and necessary part of it, and it was not until some one informed them to the contrary that they became aware that a joke had been played upon them. George the Third, we know, was puzzled to account for the presence of the apple inside of a dumpling ; and these Prussians were no better informed respecting the nature of a plum-pudding. He made a remark in one of his letters from Ostend, which some of our office-seekers might employ if their appli- cations for appointment were "founded upon fact." "Why," said he, " can't the Queen make me consul here? I don't want to turn anybody out; but can't there be nothing-to-do enough for two ? " He said once that there was a family living near him that had a mile of daughters. The name of the family was Fur- long, and eight of them were daughters. " Eight furlongs make a mile." When Hood was ready to sink under his burden, poor and sick, earning a bare subsistence for his family by efforts of almost superhuman endurance, a young man, little more than twenty-one, soared to celebrity and wealth by the exer- cise of the same kind of talent as that which Hood possessed. This was Charles Dickens, whose Pickwick, after running three or four months, was selling at the rate of eighty thou- sand a number. Hood beheld this success, not only without any mean repining, but with generous joy, and was one of the keenest appreciators of the new author. The editor of the "Athenaeum" having privately asked his opinion of Dickens, Hood gave him the warmest praise, exulting in the talent which knew how to recognize and exhibit K good in low places, and evil in high ones." He .had a funny habit of inserting notes and comments in his wife's letters to her friends. She wrote once, " Hood is certainly much better in spite of all his drawbacks .," Upon which he inserted, "Does she mean blisters?" 17 THOMAS HOOD. 829 Although he was one of the most fertile of jesters, he did not disdain to note down ideas for use when he should need them. Among his papers was found a small book, in which he was accustomed to put down rudimental jokes, like the following : " Some men pretend to penetration, who have not even kalf-penny- tration." " A quaker loves the ocean for its broadbrim." " If three barley corns go to an inch, how many corns go to a foot ? Bun- yan says thirty-six." " That bantam Mercury, with feathered heels." "What -a little child! Ah! his parents never made much of him." As his life was ebbing away, he wrote several notes of farewell to his more distant friends, and even in them he could not refrain from the exercise of his fanciful wit. One of these notes was the following : " Dear Moir God bless ywi and yours, and good-by ! I drop these few lines as in a bottle from a ship water-logged and on the brink of foundering, being in the last stage of dropsical debility. But though suffering in body, serene in mind. So without revers- ing my Union Jack, I await my last lurch. Till which, believe me, dear Moir, yours most truly, " THOMAS HOOD." There never was a man more disposed to enjoy and make much of the innocent pleasures of this world. He suffered extremely during his last sickness, and yet the sight of a flower, or the streaming in of the sunlight, would often make him for a while forget his pain. He said to his chil- dren on a fine spring morning, shortly before his death : " It 's a beautiful world, and since I have been lying here I have thought of it more and more. It is not so bad, even humanly speaking,* as people would make it out. I have had some very ,830 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. happy days while I lived in it, and could have wished to stay a little longer. But it is all for the best, and we shall all meet in a better world." His last verses, published in the last number of his maga- zine to which he contributed, were these : STANZAS. Farewell Life ! My senses swim, And all the world is gi'owing dim ; Thronging shadows cloud the light, Like the advent of the night : Colder, colder, colder still Upward steals a vapor chill Strong the earthy odor grows, I smell the mould above the rose ! "Welcome Life ! The spirit strives ! Strength returns, and hope revives ; Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn Fly like shadows at the morn ; O'er the earth there comes a bloom Sunny light for sullen gloom, Warm perfume for vapors cold I smell the rose above the mould ! He died in 1845, aged forty-six years. He was buried in a cemetery near London, where an unusually beautiful and tasteful monument covers his remains, to the erection of which a prodigious number of the best hearts in the British Empire contributed. CHARLES DICKENS. 831 CHARLES DICKENS AS A CITIZEN. To most of us, the prospect of being obliged to make a speech is simply terrible. This appears to be particularly the case with literary men, who are apt to be shy and sen- sitive, and whose success in one kind of utterance, they think, imposes upon them a kind of obligation not to fail in another. Every one remembers the woful plight into which the poet Cowper was thrown when his friends procured for him a lucrative office for life, which would oblige him to read aloud occasionally in the House of Lords. He was so com- pletely panic-stricken, that his reason at length gave way ; and, after he had twice attempted to commit suicide, his family consented to his resigning the place. Washington Irving, as we all know, had a mortal dread of addressing an assembly, and, on one celebrated occasion, broke down and tookhis seat in confusion. Hawthorne, too, was a coward before an audience, and it cost him a great effort, when he was Con- sul at Liverpool, to say a few words after dinner in acknowl- edgment of a toast complimenting his country. Thackeray was little more of a speech-maker than Hawthorne. He used to suffer extremely when he had engaged to preside at a meet- ing, or reply to a sentiment. I remember, also, the remark- able case of the strong man of New England, Dr. Winship, who declares that he lost seven pounds of flesh during the week or two preceding the delivery of his first lecture ; and 43 832 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. when at length he came trembling before the audience, and had uttered a few words, the lights swain before his eyes, he fell to the floor, and was carried out in a dead faint. Notwithstanding this natural repugnance to public speak- ing, I think that every citizen of a free country ought to endeavor to overcome it. It seems to me to be a real cowardice, which we ought not to permit to ourselves, any more than a boy ought to stay out of the water, because the first plunge is chill and disagreeable. Surely we ought to expect from every educated person, that he should be able to get upon his legs, look his fellow-beings in the face, and utter to them freely and calmly his thoughts, if he has any, upon subjects of common interest. That this accomplish- ment is somewhat more common in the United States than anywhere else in the world, is a fact upon which we should congratulate ourselves. Charles Dickens was so constituted that he never expe- rienced the slightest embarrassment in making a speech. When he was last in the United States, he told a friend that the first time he had ever addressed an audience, he was as composed in mind as though he were talking to his own family, and that every speech he had ever delivered was extemporaneous. He said that when he was going to speak in the evening, he was accustomed to take a walk by him- self, and arrange the outline of what he wished to say, and after fixing the leading thoughts well in his mind, dismiss the subject until he rose to speak. All those fifty-six speeches, therefore, which have been recently published in a volume, were in some degree the unstudied expression of his nature. Many of them, indeed, were uttered without a moment's preparation, since they were suggested by occurrences which could not be antici- pated. In delivering the prizes one evening to the pupils CHARLES DICKENS AS A CITIZEN. 833 of the Birmingham Institute, he had to bestow one of the medals upon a Miss Winkle, a name which was, of course, received by the audience with laughter, as it reminded them of Mr. Pickwick's sporting friend. The young lady herself joining in the merriment, Mr. Dickens pretended to whisper a few Avords in her ear, and then, turning to the audience, said : "I have recommended Miss Winkle to change her name." In this happy way he availed himself of every incident of festive occasion. No one, I presume, ever carried the art of presiding at a public dinner nearer perfection than he. There was such a blending of dignity and ease in his demeanor, and such a union of airy humor and weighty thought in his discourse, that no one could tell, at the close of the repast, whether he had been more amused than impressed, or more impressed than amused, although sure that he had never been so much amused or so much impressed in his life before. These speeches are perhaps, upon the whole, the most Dickensy of his works, and they certainly do present him to us in a most captivating light. They show him to us as a man who, although himself powerful and famous, yet had a peculiar and strong sympathy with the weak and the defeated. For example, in that very Birmingham speech, to which allusion has just been made, he did not omit to say a few consoling words to those who had striven for the prizes, but striven in vain. He remarked that the prize-takers were not the only successful pupils, but merely the most successful. "To strive at all," said he, "involves a victory achieved over sloth, inertness, and indifference. . . Therefore, every losing competitor among my hearers may be certain 834 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. that lie has still won much very much and that he can well afford to swell the triumph of his rivals who have passed him in the race." It was also graceful in him, in presiding at a meeting of proof-readers, to acknowledge that he had never gone over the sheets of any of his works without having a proof-reader point out to him "something that he had overlooked, some slight inconsistency into which he had fallen, some little lapse he had made " ; showing that he had been closely followed w by a patient and trained mind, and not merely by a skilful e} r e." At the same time he was, if we may judge by his speeches, wholly free from jealousy of authors who might be supposed to be his rivals. The only two men in England whom any one could regard in that light, during his lifetime, were Thackeray and Bulwer, but he seems to have had for both a genuine admiration. " I am sure," said Mr. Dickens, at a dinner of the Theat- rical Fund, at which Thackeray presided, " I am sure that this institution never has had, and that it never will have, simply because it cannot have, a greater lustre cast upon it than by the presence of the noble English writer who fills the chair to-night." On more than one occasion, he paid equal homage to the genius of Lord Lytton, Thomas Hood, Douglas Jerrold, Thomas Carlyle, and Henry Thomas Buckle. Dickens shows himself a modest man in these speeches, inasmuch as he ever attributes whatever success he may have had in literature to hard work. I would like to have the following passage put up conspicuously in every school and college on the globe : " The one serviceable, safe, certain, remunerative, attainable quality, in every study and in every pursuit, is the quality of CHARLES DICKENS AS A CITIZEN. 835 ATTENTION. My own invention or imagination, such as it is, I can most truthfully assure you, would never have served me as it has, but for the habit of commonplace, humble, patient, daily, toiling, drudging attention. Genius, vivacity, quickness of penetration, brilliancy in association of ideas, such mental qualities will not be commanded ; but attention, after a due term of submissive ser- vice, always will. Like certain plants which the poorest peasant may grow in the poorest soil, it can be cultivated by any one, and it is certain, in its own good season, to bring forth flowers and fruit." Many times he recurs to the same idea. He seems to take pleasure, also, in sharing the glory of his works with his readers. " Your earnestness," he once said, "has stimu- lated mine, your laughter has made me laugh, aud your tears have overflowed my eyes " ; and he again added, that he claimed nothing for himself but " constant fidelity to hard work" For so amiable a man, he was singularly free from every- thing mawkish and weakly sentimental. Like every other person of good feeling, he regarded war with horror ; but he knew well, as he once eloquently said, that there are times "when the evils of peace, though not so acutely felt, are immeasurably greater than the evils of war." We might almost suppose him speaking with a mind prophetic of these very days, when he gave one example of a peace more terri- ble than war. It was when "a powerful nation, by admit- ting the right of any autocrat to do wrong, sows, by such complicity, the seeds of its own ruin." The same hearty, robust sense dictated his frequent remark, that sanitary reform must precede all other social remedies, and that neither education nor religion can do anything permanently useful until the way has been paved for their ministrations by cleanliness and decency. He always stands by the age in which he had the happi- 836 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF IJIOORAPHY. i ness to live. There is an excellent passage, too long for quotation, in which he defends the present time against the common charge of its being " a material age." He wishes to know whether electricity has become more material, in any sane mind, because of the blessed discovery that it could be employed for the service of man, to an immeasura- bly greater extent than for his destruction. He desires also to be informed whether he makes a more material journey to the bedside of a dying parent, when he travels thither sixty miles an hour, than when he jogs along at six. " Rather," he adds, w in the swiftest case, does not my agonized heart become over-fraught with gratitude to that Supreme Beneficence from which alone could have proceeded the wonderful means of shortening my suspense ? " He goes on to say, with excellent truth and point, that the true material age is " the stupid Chinese age, in which no new or grand revelations of nature are granted, because they are ignorautly and insolently repelled, instead of being diligently and humbly sought." I am tempted to append to these observations a passage from his celebrated Manchester speech of 1858, before the distribution of the prizes awarded by the Institutional As- sociation of Lancashire and Cheshire. It may serve as a specimen of his manner, and an evidence of his worth as a citizen. "I have looked," said he, "over a few of those examina- tion-paper-, which have comprised history, geography, gram- mar, aritluuctic, book-keeping, decimal coinage, mensura- tion, mathematics, social economy, the French language, in fact, they comprise all the keys that open all the locks of knowledge. I fell: most devoutly gratified, as to many of them, that they had not been submitted to me to answer, for I am perfectly sure that if they had been, I should have had CHARLES DICKENS AS A CITIZEN. 837 mighty little to bestow upon myself to-night. And yet it is always to be observed, and seriously remembered, that these examinations are undergone by people whose lives have been passed in a continual fight for bread, and whose whole exist- ence has been a constant wrestle with 4 Those twin jailors of the daring heart, Low birth and iron fortune.' * " I could not but consider, with extraordinary admiration , that these questions have been replied to, not by men like myself, the business of whose life is with writing and with books, but by men, the business of whose life is with toola and with machinery. "Let me endeavor to recall, as well as my memory will serve me, from among the most interesting cases of prize-holders and certificate-gainers who will appear before you, some two or three of the most conspicuous examples. There are two poor brothers from near Chorley, who work from morning to night in a coal-pit, and who, in all weathers, have walked eight miles a night, three nights a week, to attend the classes in which they have gained distinction. There are two poor boys from Bollington, who began life as piecers at one shil- ling or eighteenpeuce a week, and the father of one of whom was cut to pieces by the machinery at which he worked, but not before he had himself founded the institution in which this son has since come to be taught. These two poor boys will appear before you to-night, to take the second-class prize in chemistry There is a plasterer from Bury, sixteen years of age, who took a third-class certificate last year at the hands of Lord Brougham ; he is this year again success- ful in a competition three times as severe. There is a wagon-maker from the same place, who knew little or abso- lutely nothing until he was a grown man, and who has * Claude Melnotte, In " The Lady of Lyons," Act III. Scene 2. 838 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BTOORAPHY. learned all he knows, which is a great deal, in the local insti- tution. There is a chain-maker, in very humble circum- stances, and working hard all day, who walks six miles a night, three nights a week, to attend the classes in which he has won so famous a place. There is a moulder in an iron foundry, who, whilst he was working twelve hours a day before the furnace, got up at four o'clock in the morning to learn drawing. 'The thought of my lads,' he writes in his modest account ot himself, ' in their peaceful slumbers above me, gave me fresh courage, and I used to think that if I should never receive any personal benefit, I might instruct them when they came to be of an age to understand the mighty machines and engines which have made our country, Eng- land, pre-eminent in the world's history.' There is a piecer at mule-frames, who could not read at eighteen, who is now a man of little more than thirty, who is the sole support of an aged mother, who is arithmetical teacher in the institution in which he himself was taught, who writes of himself that he made the resolution never to take up a subject without keeping to it, and who has kept to it with such an astonish- ing will, that he is now well versed in Euclid and Algebra, and is the best French scholar in Stockport. The drawing- classes in that same Stockport are taught by a working blacksmith ; and the pupil of that working blacksmith will receive the highest honors of to-night . Well may it be said of that good blacksmith, as it was written of another of his trade, by the American poet : 4 Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing, Onward through life he goes ; Each morning sees some task begun, Each evening sees its close. Something attempted, something done, Has earned a night's repose.' CHARLES DICKENS AS A CITIZEN. 839 * To pass from the successful candidates to the delegates from local societies now before me, and to content myself with one instance from amongst them, there is among their number a most remarkable man, whose history I have read with feelings that I could not adequatety express under any circumstances, and least of all when I know he hears me, who worked when he was a mere baby at hand-loom weaving until he dropped from fatigue ; who began to teach himself as soon as he could earn five shillings a week ; who is now a botanist, acquainted with every production of the Lancashire valley ; who is a naturalist, and has made and preserved a collection of the eggs of British birds, and stuifed the birds ; who is now a conchologist, with a very curious, and, in some respects, an original collection of fresh- water shells, and has also preserved and collected the mosses of fresh water and of the sea ; who is worthily the president of his own local Literary Institution, and who was at his work this time last night as foreman in a mill " So stimulating has been the influence of these bright examples, and many more, that I notice among the applica- tions from Blackburn for preliminary test examination-papers, one from an applicant who gravely fills up the printed form by describing himself as ten years of age, and who, with equal gravity, describes his occupation as "nursing a little child." Nor are these things confined to the men. The women employed in factories, milliners' work, and domestic service, have begun to show, as it is fitting they should, a most decided determination not to be outdone by the men ; and' the women of Preston in particular have so honorably distinguished themselves, and shown in their examination- papers such an admirable knowledge of the science of house- hold management and household economy, that if I were a working bachelor of Lancashire or Cheshire, and if I had 840 PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY. not cast my eye or set my heart upon any lass in particular, I should positively get up at four o'clock in the morning with the determination of the iron-moulder himself, and . should go to Preston in search of a wife." How admirable is this ! Mr. Dickens concluded with the following remark : " Lastly, let me say one word out of my own personal heart, which is always very near to it in this connection. Do not let us, in the midst of the visible objects of nature, whose workings we can tell in figures, surrounded by machines that can be made to the thousandth part of an inch, acquiring every day knowledge which can be proved upon a slate or demonstrated by a microscope, do not let us, in the laudable pursuit of the facts that surround us, neg- lect the fancy and the imagination which equally surround us as a part of the great scheme. Let the child have its fables , let the man or woman into which it changes, always remem- ber those fables tenderly ; let numerous graces and orna- ments that can not be weighed and measured, and that seem at first sight idle enough, continue to have their places about us, be we never so wise. The hardest head may coexist with the softest heart. The union and just balance of those two is always a blessing to the possessor, and always a bless- ing to mankind. The Divine Teacher was as gentle and con- siderate as he was powerful and wise. You all know how He could still the raging of the sea, and could hush a little child. As the utmost results of the wisdom of men can only be at last to help to raise this earth to that condition to which His doctrine, untainted by the blindnesses and passions of men, would have exalted it long ago ; so let us always remember that He set us the example of blending the under- standing and the imagination, and that, following it ourselves, we tread in His steps, and help our race on to its better and host days. Knowledge, as all followers of it must know, CHARLES DICKENS AS A CITIZEN. 841 has a very limited power indeed, when it informs the head alone ; but when it informs the head and heart too, it has a power over life and death, the body and the soul, and domi- nates the universe." The perusal of these speeches, when some day a well- edited edition of them shall be published, with due explana- tions of the circumstances in which they were delivered, will probably enhance the public estimate both of his genius and of his worth. The reader will observe, with pleasure, that most of them were delivered for the benefit of charitable funds and working men's lyceums. He could not but know that the success of a public dinner or of a public meeting was secure, if only the managers could print the magic words : "Charles Dickens will preside." It was a matter of principle with him not to refuse such a request when it was made on behalf of an institution which he approved. He presided several times at the annual dinner of the London newspaper carriers, and he frequently performed the same office for the benefit of circus riders and poor actors, a class whom he delighted to defend against their calumniators. By making this noble use of his great powers and his great fame, he not only put many thousands of pounds into the treasury of use- ful charities, but he assisted to rescue from failure, and to place upon a solid footing, the working men's lyceum system of England. Like all the rest of the sons of men, he had his faults and his limits. *He was more a microscope than a telescope. He knew the by-ways of London better than he could ever have known the solar system. He could better inspire benevolent feeling than suggest practical measures. But when the whole story of his public and private life has been told, we shall probably all be persuaded that this beloved author was not less excellent as a mail and citizen, than admirable as a genius. V UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000 667 662 1