The Project Gutenberg eBook of The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 5, May, 1886, by Various.

The plan for the establishment of a second college in Connecticut was not carried into effect until after the time of the political and religious revolution which secured the adoption of a State Constitution in 1818. Probably no such plan was seriously entertained till after the close of the war of Independence. The Episcopal church in Connecticut had, one may almost say, been born in the library of Yale College; and though Episcopalians, with other dissenters from the “standing order,” had been excluded from taking [Pg 394] any part in the government or the instruction of the institution, they did not forget how much they owed to it as the place where so many of their clergy had received their education. In fact, when judged by the standards of that day, it would appear that they had at first little cause to complain of illiberal treatment, while on the other hand they did their best to assist the college in the important work which it had in hand. But Yale College, under the presidency of Dr. Clap, assumed a more decidedly theological character than before, and set itself decidedly in opposition to those who dissented from the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Saybrook Platform of Discipline. Besides, King’s College, which had been lately founded in New York, drew away some Episcopal students from Connecticut and made others dissatisfied; and had not the war with the mother country rudely put a stop to the [Pg 395] growth of Episcopacy in the colony, it would seem that steps might have been soon taken for the establishment of some institution of learning, at least a school of theology, under the care of the clergy of the Church of England.

At any rate no sooner was it known that the war was ended than the churchmen of Connecticut sent the Rev. Dr. Seabury across the ocean to seek consecration as a bishop; and it was not long after his return that the diocese, now fully organized, set on foot a plan for the establishment of an institution of sound learning, and in 1795 the Episcopal Academy of Connecticut was founded at Cheshire. It was sometimes called Seabury College, and, under its learned principals, it fitted many young men for entrance upon their theological studies, and gave them part at least of their professional training. But its charter, which was granted by the General Assembly of the State in 1801, did not give it the power of conferring degrees, and the frequent petitions for an extension of charter rights, so as to make of the academy a collegiate institution, were refused. For a time, owing to determined opposition in the State, to the vacancy in the episcopate, and to other causes, the project was postponed. But a combination of events, social, political, and religious, led at length to the great revolution in Connecticut, in which all dissenters from the standing order united in opposition to it, and secured in 1818, though it was by a small [Pg 396] majority, the adoption of a State Constitution containing a clause which admitted of “secession” from any ecclesiastical society and secured perfect religious equality before the law.

In the following year, while the enthusiasm of the victory was still felt, the vacant episcopate was filled by the election of the Rev. Dr. Thomas Church Brownell, who had been for ten years tutor and professor in Union College, a man of learning, profoundly interested in education, and qualified for the varied duties which lay upon him as Bishop of Connecticut. He soon availed himself of this favorable opportunity for renewing the plans for the establishment of a college. There was much strong opposition to be encountered, and the student of the pamphlet literature of the day finds much to excite his interest and his wonder in the attacks upon the proposed “Second College in [Pg 397] Connecticut”—“Seabury College,” as it was sometimes called. The whole matter was curiously complicated with discussions as to political and financial matters, the many questions between the recently disestablished order and its opponents not having been fully settled as yet. At last, on the 13th day of May, 1823, a petition for a college charter was presented to the General Assembly, and the act of incorporation of Washington College passed the lower house three days later, and soon received the assent of the senate and the approval of the governor. The name selected for the institution was not that which its friends would have preferred; but the honored name of Washington was adopted partly, as it would appear, because others than Episcopalians united in the establishment of the college, and partly that there could be no ground of opposition to it on account of its name. Among the [Pg 398] corporators associated with Bishop Brownell were some of the prominent clergy and laity of the diocese, such as the Rev. Drs. Harry Croswell and N. S. Wheaton, Gov. John S. Peters, the Hon. Nathan Smith, the Hon. Elijah Boardman, the Hon. Asa Chapman, Com. McDonough, and Mr. Charles Sigourney; and there were added to them representatives of the other opponents of the old establishment, among them the Rev. Samuel Merwin and the Rev. Elisha Cushman. It was expressly provided in the charter that no religious test whatever should be required of any president, professor, or other officer, and that the religious tenets of no person should be made a condition of admission to any privilege in the college. Even before the charter containing this clause was granted, it produced a most important effect; for, on the 12th day of May, 1823,—it was believed, as a last effort of opposition,—the corporation of Yale College met in Hartford, and repealed the test act which required of all its officers, even [Pg 399] of professors in the medical school, a subscription to the Saybrook Platform.

The trustees of the new college were authorized to locate it in any town in the State as soon as $30,000 should be secured for its support; and when it was found that more than three-fourths of the sum of $50,000, which was soon subscribed, was the gift of citizens of Hartford, who thus manifested in a substantial way the interest which they had previously expressed, it was decided to establish Washington College in that city. A site of fourteen acres on an elevation, then described as about half a mile from the city, was secured for the buildings, and in June, 1824, Seabury Hall and Jarvis Hall (as they were afterwards called) were begun. They were of brown stone, following the Ionic order of architecture, well proportioned, and well adapted to the purposes for which they were designed. The former, containing [Pg 400] rooms for the chapel, the library, the cabinet, and for recitations, was designed by Prof. S. F. B. Morse, and the latter, having lodging-rooms for nearly a hundred students, was designed by Mr. Solomon Millard, the architect of Bunker Hill Monument. The buildings were not completed when, on the 23d of September, 1824, one senior, one sophomore, six freshmen, and one partial student were admitted members of the college; and work was begun in rooms in the city. The faculty had been organized by the election of Bishop Brownell as president, the Rev. George W. Doane (afterwards Bishop of New Jersey), as professor of belles-lettres and oratory, Mr. Frederick Hall as professor of chemistry and mineralogy, Mr. Horatio Hickok as professor of agriculture and political economy (he was, by the way, the first professor of this latter science in this country), and Dr. Charles Sumner as professor of botany. The instruction in the ancient languages was intrusted to the Rev. Hector Humphreys, who was soon elected professor, and who left the college in 1830 to become President of St. John’s College, Maryland. The chair of mathematics and natural philosophy was filled in 1828 by the election of the Rev. Horatio Potter, now the venerable Bishop of New York. The learned Rev. Dr. S. F. Jarvis soon began his work in and for the college, under the title of Professor of Oriental Literature; and the Hon. W. W. Ellsworth was chosen professor of law. The provision which was announced in the first statement published by the trustees, that students would be allowed to enter in partial courses without becoming candidates for a degree, was a new feature in collegiate education, and a considerable number of young men were found [Pg 401] who were glad to avail themselves of it. It is believed, also, that practical instruction in the natural sciences was given here to a larger extent than in most other colleges.

In 1826 there were fifty undergraduates. A library had been obtained which, in connection with Dr. Jarvis’s, was called second in magnitude and first in value of all in the country. The professor of mineralogy had collected a good cabinet. There was a greenhouse and an arboretum; and, besides gifts from friends at home, the Rev. Dr. Wheaton had been successful in securing books and apparatus in England for the use of the college.

A doctor’s degree was conferred in 1826 upon Bishop Jolly (“Saint Jolly” he was called), of Scotland, but the first commencement was held in 1827, when ten young men were graduated. Of these, three died in early life, and but one, the Rev. Oliver Hopson, survives. To a member of this class, the Hon. Isaac E. Crary, the first president of the alumni, is due no small share of the credit of organizing the educational system of Michigan, which he represented both as a territory and as a State in the Federal Congress. The Athenæum Literary Society was organized in 1825, and the Parthenon, the first president of which was the poet Park Benjamin, in [Pg 403] 1827. The Missionary Society, still in successful operation, was founded in 1831, its first president being George Benton, afterwards missionary to Greece and Crete, and from it, primarily through the efforts of Augustus F. Lyde, of the class of 1830, came the establishment of the foreign missions of the Episcopal Church of this country.

When Bishop Brownell retired from the presidency of the college in 1831, in order to devote all his time to the work of the diocese, he was succeeded by the Rev. Dr. N. S. Wheaton, an early, steadfast, and liberal friend of the institution. He secured the endowment of two professorships, and among the many good things which he planned and did for the college should not be forgotten the taste with which he laid out and beautified its grounds. To him succeeded, in 1837, the Rev. Dr. Silas Totten, professor of mathematics. During his presidency of eleven years, additions were made to the scholarship fund, and the foundation of a library fund was laid; and in 1845 a third building, Brownell Hall, was built, corresponding in appearance to Jarvis Hall, and, like it, designed for occupation by students. In the same year, on the petition of the corporation, who acted in the matter at the desire of the alumni, the General Assembly of the State changed the name of the college to Trinity College. The change was intended in part to prevent the confusion which arose from the use of a name which the college had in common with other institutions, in part to attest the faith of those who had founded and who maintained the college, and in part to secure a name which (especially at Cambridge in England) had been long associated with sound learning. At the same time the alumni were organized into a convocation as a constituent part of the academic body.

In 1848 the Rev. Dr. John Williams, a graduate in the class of 1835, who, though he was less than thirty-one years of age, had given ample promise of extraordinary abilities, was chosen president, and he held the office until 1854, when the duties of assistant bishop, to which he had been consecrated in 1851, forced him to resign. He did much to increase the library funds and to develop the course [Pg 404] of academic instruction. He also began instruction in theology, and an informal theological department grew up, which was organized in 1854 as the Berkeley Divinity School and located in Middletown. He was succeeded by the Rev. Dr. D. R. Goodwin. In 1860 Prof. Samuel Eliot was chosen president, and in 1864, the Rev. Dr. J. B. Kerfoot, who was called in 1866 to the bishopric of Pittsburgh. Under the care of these scholarly men the college maintained and strengthened its position as a seat of learning (though in the time of the civil war it suffered from depletion in numbers), additions were made to the funds, and a new professorship was founded. Among those whom the college gave to the war were Generals G. A. Stedman and Strong Vincent, and the “battle-laureate of America,” Henry H. Brownell.

In June, 1867, the Rev. Dr. Abner Jackson, of the class of 1837, formerly professor here, then President of Hobart College, was elected president. Under his administration, in 1871-72, the number of undergraduates, for the first time, reached a hundred. In 1871 the legacy of Mr. Chester Adams, of Hartford, brought to the college some $65,000, the largest gift thus far from any individual. In 1872, after much discussion and hesitation, the trustees decided to accept the offer of the city of Hartford, which desired to purchase the college campus for a liberal sum, that it might be offered to the State as a site for the new capitol, the college reserving the right to occupy for five or six years so much of the buildings as it should not be necessary to remove. In 1873 a site of about eighty acres, on a bluff of trap-rock in the southern [Pg 405] part of the city, commanding a magnificent view in every direction, was purchased for the college, and President Jackson secured elaborate plans for extensive ranges of buildings in great quadrangles. The work, to which he devoted much time and thought, was deferred by his death in April, 1874, but the Rev. Dr. T. R. Pynchon, of the class of 1841, who succeeded him in the presidency, entered vigorously upon the labor of providing the college with a new home. Ground was broken in 1875, and in the autumn of 1878 two blocks of buildings, each three hundred feet long, bearing the old names of Seabury and Jarvis Halls, were completed. They stand on the brow of the cliff, having a broad plateau before them on the east, and, with the central tower, erected in 1882 by the munificence of Col. C. H. Northam, they form the west side of the proposed great quadrangle. Under Dr. Pynchon’s direction the former plans had been much modified, in order that this one range of buildings might suffice for the urgent needs of the college, provision being made for suitable rooms for the chapel, the library, and the cabinet, as well as for lecture-rooms and for suites of students’ apartments. During his presidency the endowments were largely increased by the generous legacies of Col. and Mrs. Northam, whose gifts to the college amount to nearly a quarter of a million of dollars; large and valuable additions were made to the library and the cabinet, and the number of students was, in 1877-80, greater than ever before. By a change in the charter, made in 1883, the election of three of the trustees was put into the hands of the alumni.

In 1883 the Rev. Dr. George Williamson Smith was elected to the presidency, and was welcomed to his duties with much enthusiasm. In the following year considerable changes were made in the course of instruction, including arrangements for four distinct schemes of study, introducing elective studies into the work of the junior and senior years, and providing for practical work in the applied sciences. An observatory has been built, for which a telescope and other apparatus have been presented; and the funds have been secured for the erection of an ample gymnasium, with a theatre or lecture-hall.

Of the nearly nine hundred men who have received the [Pg 406] bachelor’s degree from Trinity College no small number have attained eminence in their respective walks in life. The class of 1829 gave a governor to Michigan and a judge to Illinois; the class of 1830, a member of Congress to Tennessee, a judge to Louisiana, and two prominent divines to Ohio; the class of 1831, a bishop to Kansas; the class of 1832, three members of Congress, one to North Carolina, one to Missouri (who has also been governor of the State), and one to New York, a distinguished clergyman to Connecticut, and a chaplain to West Point; the class of 1835, an archbishop to the Roman Catholic Church, and a chairman to the house of bishops of the American Episcopal Church; the class of 1840, a president to St. Stephen’s College and a supreme-court judge to Connecticut; the class of 1846, a member of Congress to New York, another (also lieutenant-governor) to Minnesota, and a president to Norwich University; the class of 1848, a bishop to Massachusetts, a lecturer, a tutor, and three trustees to the college; and this list seems as a sample of what the college has done and is doing, in the spirit of her motto, for the Church and the country. The bishops of Connecticut, Kansas, Georgia, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington Territory, and Indiana are among her alumni; with them some three hundred others have entered the ministry of the Christian Church; and representatives of the college are found holding honored positions in the State, in institutions of learning, in the professions of law and medicine, and in the business of life. Her course of instruction unites the conservatism of experience with adaptation to the needs of modern scholarship, all under the acknowledged influence of religious nurture; her well-stocked library and ample museum, with her unrivalled accommodations for students, furnish her for her work, so that she is, in reality as well as in name, in the affections of her members as well as in her profession, a home of sound learning. And as her needs are supplied by the generosity of alumni and friends, she will be still better qualified for her work and will draw still closer to herself those who are entrusted to her care.

The elaborate plans for the new buildings, prepared by the eminent English architect the late Mr. Burgess, were such as to provide for all the present and prospective needs of the college. As finally arranged they included a large quadrangle six [Pg 407] hundred feet by three hundred, at either end of which should be a quadrangle three hundred feet square. It was not expected that all of the great pile could be built at once, and, in fact, all that has been erected as yet is the west side of the great “quad.” This includes, as has been said above, two long blocks of buildings connected by a large tower some seventy feet square. The style of architecture is that known as French secular Gothic; the buildings are of brown Portland stone, liberally trimmed with white sandstone from Ohio. Jarvis Hall contains forty-four suites of rooms for the students and the junior professors, unsurpassed for beauty and convenience by students’ quarters elsewhere; they are so arranged that each suite of rooms runs through the buildings, and that there is plenty of sunlight and air in every study and bedroom. The Northam tower is also fitted for students’ apartments. In Seabury Hall, the plan of which was modified under Mr. Kimball, the American architect, are the spacious lecture-rooms, finished, as is all the rest of the buildings, in ash and with massive Ohio stone mantel-pieces; and also the other public rooms. The chapel is arranged choir-wise, after the English custom, and will accommodate about two hundred people; the wood-work here is particularly handsome. It is provided with a fine organ, the gift of a recent graduate. The museum contains a full set of Ward’s casts of famous fossils, including the huge megatherium, a large collection of mounted skeletons, and cases filled with minerals and shells; while the galleries afford room for other collections. The library extends through three stories, and is overrunning with its twenty-six thousand books and thirteen thousand pamphlets; large and valuable additions have been made to its shelves within a few years. The erection of a separate library building, probably at the south end of the great quadrangle, will be a necessity before many years. The laboratories for practical work in physics and chemistry are at present in Seabury Hall; but there is a demand for larger accommodations. The St. John observatory is a small, but well-furnished building on the south campus. The present gymnasium is a plain structure on the north campus, between the dormitories and the president’s house; but the funds have already been obtained for a handsome and spacious gymnasium, and the generous gift of Mr. J. S. Morgan, of London, has provided for the erection of an “annex,” under cover of which base-ball and [Pg 408] other games may be practised in the winter. As new buildings rise from time to time, the spacious grounds will doubtless be laid out and beautified to correspond with the lawn in front of the present buildings. Mention should also be made of the halls of the college fraternities, three of which are already erected.

Thus the college, though it needs an increase in its funds for various purposes, is well fitted for its work. In its courses of instruction it provides for those who wish to secure degrees in arts and in science, and also for special students. The prizes offered in the several departments and the honors which may be attained by excellence in the work of the curriculum serve as incentives to scholarship. Nor is it least among the attractions of Trinity College that it stands in the city of Hartford.

THE WEBSTER FAMILY.

The feeling between the settlers and the Indians, as narrated by Dr. Moore Russell Fletcher, became so bitter that the Indians determined on the total annihilation of the villagers, and with that intent seventy-five or eighty Indians left their tribe in the vicinity of Canada, and came down the head waters of the Pemigewassett as far as Livermore Falls, and there camped for the night. All were soon sound in sleep except one Indian, who was friendly to the settlers. He made his way to Plymouth, aroused the villagers, and informed them of their dangerous situation. The settlers, in dismay, asked each other, “What can be done?” The Indian heard their inquiries, saw their alarm, and in his Indian way, said, “Harkee me, Indian,—you no run away, no fight so many Indians. Go up river a mile, quick, make um up fires by camp-ground (holding up his fingers, five, ten, twenty), cut um sticks, like Indian roast him meat on, lay um ends in fires, put fires out. When Indians see and count um sticks he shake his head,—no fight so many pale-faces; they go back home to camp-grounds.” Next morning the villagers waited in great excitement, fear, and hope. No Indians appeared, and there was little trouble from them afterwards. Comparative peace reigned, although the Indians at times (three or four in number) passed through the quiet town of Plymouth on their way to their old camping-grounds. The villagers buried their animosity, having been told of the ill-treatment of the Indians by the State, and, instead of driving them from their houses, they fed and kept them over night when they signified a desire to stop and rest.

After many years other settlers went there; passable roads and bridges were made, and the settlement was extended up along Baker’s River almost to Rumney, and down the river nearly to Bridgewater, now called Lower Intervale. They brought in from the lower towns oxen, cows, horses, pigs, geese, and turkeys. [Pg 411] Their furs and moose and bear-skins found ready sale in the lower towns, and afforded them the means of the most common luxuries and groceries, which could not be provided in their incomplete rural settlement.

A Mr. Brown, of that part of the settlement known as the Lower Intervale, was one night returning from a neighbor’s house. In the darkness he lost the footpath, and dropped upon his hands and knees to feel for it. Instantly he felt the hair of some animal touch his face. A quick thought told him that his companion was none other than an immense bear. Mr. Brown’s presence of mind did not desert him. He knew that all domestic animals like to be rubbed or scratched, so he began rubbing up and down his companion’s breast and neck, continuing as far as the throat, while with his other hand he drew out his long hunting-knife and plunged it in to the handle, at the same instant jumping backwards with all his might. As soon as he could he made his way back to his neighbor’s house; his neighbor and another man, armed with gun, axe, long hay-fork and lantern, returned to the place of encounter, where they found Bruin already dead. Bear-steak was served all around the next morning.

Ebenezer Webster, the father of Daniel, settled at Salisbury about the time that Stephen went to Plymouth, and the hardships they underwent were very similar.

Daniel was born ten years after the Revolutionary War, and had to pass through many of the privations of the first settlers.

The clearing of the land was a tedious process, in which all boys had to participate. The forest trees were felled generally when in full foliage, about the first of June, and laid thus until the next March, when the “lopping of the limbs,” as it was called, went on, in which boys, with their small hatchets, took part.

About the middle of May, when perfectly dry, they were set on fire, and the small limbs, with the leaves, were burned. In the midst of the tree-trunks, as they lay, corn was planted in the burnt ground, and usually yielded some sixty bushels, shelled, to the acre.

In the early autumn, when the corn was in milk, bears, hedgehogs, and coons were very troublesome, for they trampled down a great deal more than they ate. Later in the autumn the chopping was infested by squirrels. All practicable means were used for killing these visitors. Bears were caught in log traps, hedgehogs [Pg 412] were hunted with clubs, and coons were caught in steel traps. Squirrels generally visited the chopping in the daytime, and were killed with bows and arrows, and sometimes caught in box traps. All of these animals were considered good food.

Just before the frost came the corn was gathered and shucked, and afterwards husked and put into the granary. During the winter the felled trees were sometimes cut for firewood, and those remaining in the spring were “junked,” as it was called, and rolled into immense piles and burned, after which a crop of rye or wheat was sown, and hacked in with hoes, the roots of the trees preventing the movement of the harrow. The process of “junking” was a tedious one, as the burnt logs soon covered the axe-handle with smut, drying up the skin of the hands so they would often crack and bleed.

It is said that young Daniel disliked this toil very much, and was among the earliest to devise “niggering,” as it was called. In this process a stick of wood was laid across the log and lighted with fire, so it would burn down through the larger log, when fanned by the breeze, cutting it in two.

In the early spring great preparation was made for tapping the maple-trees and boiling the sap down to sugar, which was always an agreeable employment for young Daniel. Another occupation of the boy on the farm was in weeding, pulling, and spreading flax, which boys generally dislike very much.

After sheep were introduced in this locality there was a general washing of them in the brook about the first of May, after which sheep-shearing came on.

Planting, hoeing, and haying was very hard work for the boys, and very few liked it. After the harvest something was done in lumbering, and the Websters, having a small saw-mill on their farm, made shingles and boards; although for many years shingles and clapboards were mostly split by hand. Daniel was peculiarly fond of hunting and fishing, a passion which lasted his whole lifetime. Minks, musk-rats, and now and then a fox, were caught in traps, though the latter was oftener shot. Small game, such as partridges and squirrels, were very plenty in the woods, and the skins of gray squirrels were most always used for winter caps for the boys. Larger game, like moose, deer, bears, wolves, and sometimes panthers, were taken.

[Pg 413] The schooling of boys was often among these scenes, where at home the evenings were spent in studying by the light of a pitch-pine knot.

Itinerant ministers, in those days, mostly supplied the rustic pulpit, and visited their scattered flocks through many miles of travel.

The boys were expected to be very decorous not only to the visiting ministers but to all older than themselves. Reverence was natural to Daniel Webster, and was not with him a mere matter of cultivation.

TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

Good Doctor, what has put it in your head
To sail away across the ocean blue?
Have you got tired of Boston? or, instead,
Do you mistrust that we are tired of you?

You wanted to see England, and you thought
That you might go for once in fifty years:
Well, your own way—just make your visit short;
So here’s bon voyage,—and also a few tears.

We hope that you will have a joyful time,
Meet hosts of friends, and sit at many a feast;
And when, with all your wit and all your rhyme,
You once are back in this your native clime,
Don’t ask to sail again off to the East
For—well, for five times fifty years at least.

Edward P. Guild.

A ROMANCE OF KING PHILIP’S WAR.

The first day or two after her meeting with the captain Millicent worked with a light heart and renewed strength, and though Ninigret now never assisted her in carrying water, as he had formerly done, the thought of her new friend and of freedom sustained her. When after a week, however, there was no sign of the approach of friends, she grew restless. Her work tired her more than it ever had; the water-bucket seemed to hold twice the usual quantity; there was double the amount of food to prepare, and the women all seemed to want clothing made. Doubtless all was as it had been in her surroundings, only the hope that had dawned one June day in her heart had died out. She tried to reason with herself. Why was she so impatient? Did it not take time in this season of war to accomplish anything? Why, after all, should he return? Her story may have interested him at the time, even aroused his sympathies; but, afterwards, it was but natural he should, on returning to his duties, forget about her and her misery. What did she know of him? They had met but once; still her belief in him was strong, though wavering at the same time. Had he not said the unfortunate had a claim on all honorable men, and surely he was a man an unfortunate might apply to, if any man was? Such is the effect of imagination upon all poor mortals; it may be a grand gift, but is often a most uncomfortable one.

Upon the tenth night after the meeting with the captain quiet reigned at the Indian camp, where all slumbered except Millicent, to whom, in her anxiety, sleep was denied. She sat meditating upon recent events, her bosom stirred with the hope of speedy deliverance, and fear lest untoward circumstances should prevent the captain from executing his plan for her rescue. After a time her attention was attracted by peculiar sounds breaking upon the stillness of the night. These, at first faint and distant, gradually grew nearer and louder, till, trembling, she recognized the yells of [Pg 415] the savages, who were returning through the woods rejoicing over the atrocities they had committed. She aroused the women to prepare for the wanderers, who, bounding like deer through the forest, soon burst into the clearing and threw themselves on the ground in front of the wigwam, calling upon the women for food and drink. In order to help the squaws provide for their impatient lords Millicent offered to carry out some provisions. As she appeared the warriors greeted her with a shout, calling her Philip’s pretty maid. She did not reply, but moved about silently among them, horrified at their revolting account of an attack upon a lone country-house, where, having murdered the inmates, they had possessed themselves of all of value in the house. Exultingly they told their tale of horror, their painted faces and blood-stained garments looking ghastly in the moonlight. One man threw an ornament, torn from the person of a white woman, to his squaw, who had brought his supper; and another, with a fiendish laugh, tossed a scalp to Millicent, calling out in coarse tones, “Here little white-skin, take that for a remembrance of your race.”

With loathing she crept back to her tent, and, stopping her ears, tried to keep out the sound of their diabolical cries.

Toward morning the noise ceased, as they, weary with carousing, one after another, fell into a heavy slumber. Allured by the silence, Millicent slipped out into the forest to quiet her aching brow in the fresh morning air. What if the English should come now, when these warriors are all at home? Would they be prepared for the fierce resistance they would encounter, she murmured, and, lost in thought, gazed mournfully at the waters of the lake, cold and gray in the early daylight. Suddenly she was startled by the tall form of Ninigret appearing like a phantom at her side.

“I have come to join you in your morning walk, Millicent,” he said, with meaning in his dark eyes, as he watched her narrowly.

“You need not have come; I prefer to be alone,” she answered, drawing herself up haughtily.

A look of disgust swept over her face as he spoke the word protector. As if comprehending the expression, he said, hurriedly:—

“Have you considered what I said to you? Have you had enough of this life, and are you ready to come with me?”

“No, never! I would rather die at the hands of the warriors up [Pg 416] there”—but the words died on her lips, for, as she spoke, the sounds of fire-arms reached their ears, mingled with the war-cry of the half-aroused Indians. With an exclamation of joy Millicent started in the direction of the firing, but had advanced but a step before the lithe Indian had her in his grasp.

“You shall not escape me now. Resign yourself. The white men have found the camp, but they will not rescue you. Dare to utter a cry, and I will kill you,” he added, brandishing a gleaming knife before her eyes.

Terrified at this menace she allowed herself to be dragged unresistingly into the forest.

Immediately after his interview with Millicent Captain Merwin returned to Boston to secure the force necessary to his purpose. This required some days, during which he found himself becoming very restless. The story of the fair captive had strongly excited his sympathy, and her sweet face had made a deep impression upon his imagination, and he longed, with an impatience he could hardly control, to be again by her side. He was also fearful lest harm should befall her during his absence.

All this gave him a stimulus to action, and caused him to use every endeavor to prepare for his undertaking. When everything was at last ready he departed with all possible despatch.

In the evening after leaving Boston, as the English approached Lake Quinsigamond, when more than a mile from the Indian head-quarters, they heard the shouting of the warriors above described.

Merwin commanded his men to conceal themselves in a thicket in the dense wood, whence they could observe the Indians as they passed. He found they considerably outnumbered his own force. As they evidently had no suspicion of the presence of an enemy, he determined to follow them cautiously, wait until weary with revelling they should fall asleep, and then surprise them after their own mode of warfare. He deployed his men, and held them in readiness. Toward day dawn, when the Indians had sunk into a profound slumber, he ordered the attack.

The English advanced stealthily, and were almost in the camp before they were discovered by the sentinel, who gave the alarm.

This came too late. The English rushed forward with cheers, and were among the surprised Indians before they were fairly awake. The latter hurriedly seized their weapons and made what [Pg 417] resistance they could; but this was ineffectual. The struggle was sharp and brief. Many of the best warriors were soon killed, and the rest fled precipitately, following the women and children who escaped into the woods when the combat began.

Merwin, as soon as he saw that his men were fairly engaged with the Indians, called a few trusty fellows, and went in search of Millicent. Not finding her at the wigwam, he plunged into the wood, following luckily the path taken by Ninigret.

After dragging the girl ruthlessly with him, until she fainted with fright, Ninigret laid her on the ground for a moment, in order to arrange his weapons, so that he might bear her away in his arms. While doing this he espied Merwin advancing, and, taking hasty aim at him with his musket, fired. The ball missed its mark and struck one of Merwin’s companions. As the Indian bounded off Merwin raised his rifle and fired in return, with deadly effect. Ninigret, leaping high in the air, fell dead, pierced through the heart. The English bore his body a short distance into the forest, and, leaving it to such a burial as nature might grant, hurried back to Millicent, who still lay in a swoon. They then carried her to the scene of battle and placed her in one of the wigwams lately occupied by the Indians.

For a week Capt. Merwin and his men remained in the vicinity to intercept any band of Indians that might be passing westward. Merwin, although often away upon scouting expeditions, found ample time to improve his acquaintance with his rescued charge, in whom he was fast becoming deeply interested. It was the evening before their departure for Boston. The air was soft and laden with the fragrance of flowers; the lake, its surface unruffled by a ripple, lay spread like a great mirror, reflecting the lustre of the full moon. Two persons stood near the water’s edge contemplating the beauty of the scene. The quiet harmony of nature seemed to possess their souls, and for a time neither spoke. Millicent was the first to break the silence.

“It is, indeed, a contrast this night. Let us sit here awhile and enjoy its beauty,” said Merwin; and, assisting Millicent to a seat upon the trunk of a fallen tree, he placed himself at her feet.

“How strange it all seems! Here I am in the forest, as I was a week ago, yet under such different circumstances,—free from my enemies and surrounded by only friends.”

[Pg 418] “And another week will change your surroundings entirely; and the new friends made now will, like the Indians, be present but in memory. You know to-morrow we are to leave here.”

“I can hardly realize it. Ah, Captain Merwin! can it be that I shall so soon leave Wigwam Hill, the scene of my trying life of captivity, behind me?”

“Yes; by to-morrow at this time, I trust, you will be far from this spot where you have suffered so much. This beautiful lake will always recall unpleasant associations to your mind, I fear, while to mine it will recall some of the pleasantest hours of my life.”

“No; I, too, shall have pleasant recollections of these shores. The memory of your noble kindness to me will not be effaced. But tell me, where do we go then?” Millicent asked, rather seriously.

“It cannot matter to you where I and my men go; but you I hope to take to your sister.”

“To Martha, Captain Merwin? Is my dear sister then alive? Is there no doubt of it?”

“Is it possible? What happiness!” breathed Millicent, with tears in her eyes. “I cannot believe it. I cannot believe that I shall again see my dear sister, whom I have so long supposed dead. How did you know she was alive; and why have you not told me this before?”

“Because I wished to surprise you just before our departure. You will not deprive me of that last pleasure, would you?” asked the captain in a low voice, smiling faintly. “I made all possible inquiry when in Boston, and, just as about to depart with the troops, received accurate news of her whereabouts.”

“I see; and so she is safe, and we shall meet before many days. Where is she, please?” asked Millicent, smiling divinely upon Merwin.

Drinking in the sweetness of the smile the captain gave her an account of her sister’s fortune, and of her surroundings.

“The Stantons, with whom she is, are friends of mine,” he observed, rather gloomily.

“Ah, indeed; then it will be a pleasant meeting all around!” and she clapped her hands with joy. Then, noticing the captain’s gravity, she said, “Why are you so sad, Captain Merwin?”

[Pg 419] “Oh, I don’t know. I did not mean to be,” and he tried to smile. “Yes, I think I do appear rather glum,—don’t mind the word, it is so expressive of my feelings. You see, this last week has been so pleasant, we have become such good friends, and learned to know each other’s tastes so well, and I have enjoyed so intensely giving you your freedom and sharing it with you, that the thought that it must all end, that I must take you back to interests which I can know nothing of and have no share in, is just a little hard to bear at present. You will think me selfish; forgive me, I did not mean to mention it, but you asked me.”

She held out her hand to him and said, “You are my trusted friend, and will be my sister’s when she knows what you have done for me; so do not say you will have no share in our interests.”

“You are very kind,” he replied, pressing her hand tightly in his, then dropping it suddenly.

“Captain Merwin,” said Millicent, in turn looking grave, “the past year I have lived in an atmosphere of treachery and revenge; the minds of those with whom I have been associated were filled with anything but Christian thoughts. Unkindness and ill-feeling have found a fertile soil upon which to thrive in their hearts; but deep in my own I ever kept a spot green, where the plant of gratitude could again grow should the occasion offer. It did offer. The seeds were sown by a kind and generous hand; the plant grew quickly, and to-day it blossomed in full. Deeply grateful for what you have done for me, I beg you to accept its flowers.” And, with tears in her eyes, she held toward him a small exquisitely selected bunch of fragrant white azalias.

Taking the blossoms tenderly he lifted them to his lips. “What a pretty idea! Who but you would have thought of rewarding a common deed of kindness so sweetly? I shall cherish these flowers, they are so like you. Did you really pick them for me?”

“Yes, and selected them out of many. It was all I had. If ever I can reward you better tell me, for I would willingly do you any favor to pay the debt of gratitude I owe you. I assure you I feel my obligation deeply,” said Millicent, blushing.

“There is a reward you could give me now; but I scarcely dare ask it, for I know it to be more than I deserve.” And the captain gazed at Millicent with a look that brought a bright blush to the young girl’s cheek.

[Pg 420] “Perhaps it is not,” she replied, hesitatingly. “I don’t think I understand you.”

“Well, then, Millicent,—may I call you that?—the drawing-room term of Miss does not suit our simple life here.” And, as she nodded assent, he continued, “Will you answer a question, even a hard one?”

“Tell me, then, if ever in the heart where the plant of gratitude grew another far sweeter flower has grown?”

“Yes; the plant might be called friendship, but its blossom is love. Ah, Millicent! may I not take the fairest of these sweet flowers, and, placing it in the centre, call it love surrounded by gratitude? Then would my nosegay be perfect indeed.”

Millicent looked, beyond the ardent gaze of the captain, into the lake, and made no reply.

“Throwing off the language of flowers, and all language but that of simple truth, the reward I desire above all on earth is yourself. I know my request is a bold one, and I ought, I suppose, not to make it for months, if ever. But come it must, and to-night my heart has forced it to my lips.”

“I know that, but, after all, most deep feelings are sudden. In the savages, with whom you have been associated, have you not seen hate and other strong passions develop in a moment? Why, then, should not love, in a more appropriate soil, spring to life? It certainly has taken deep root in my heart. Give me some answer, Millicent, if it be but that of hope deferred. Can you ever love me?”

“Do you really, Millicent? Then I am the proudest, happiest man alive,” said Merwin. And, possessing himself of both her hands, kissed them vehemently.

“Thank you, dearest, thank you, for your sweet words. Your reward for them shall be my life devoted to your service.” And he drew her to him and kissed her lips.

“—for releasing me from such a captivity, Harold, and, lastly, from death, or worse than death.” And weeping, she threw her arms about his neck and buried her head on his shoulder.

“My brave darling, I hope and believe your troubles are at an end. I only wonder your strength has survived the hardships of such a life as yours has been the past year.”

“True, ours has been a courtship in which the bitter and the sweet have been equally mingled, but now the peace complete is coning love, for King Philip is dead and the war is over.”

THE PICTURE.

It was only a simple picture,
The simplest, perhaps, of all
The many and costly paintings
That hung on the parlor wall;
But it held my gaze the longest,
And it touched my inmost heart
With a pathos in which the others
Held neither place nor part.

It showed me a lonely hill-side,
Where the light of the day had fled,
And the clouds of an angry twilight
Were gathering overhead;
And under the deepening shadows,
Tired and sore afraid,
A sheep and her lamb were grieving,
Far from the sheepfold strayed.

Only a simple picture;
But oh, how full of truth,
Which silently spoke from the canvas
Its lesson of age and youth!
For are we not sheep, sore needing
The safety of Christ’s own fold?
And do we not often wander
Far from his loving hold,

[Pg 422] Heedless of where we are straying
Till the light of day has fled,
And perchance a storm is gathering
With the shadow of night o’erhead?
My little one came beside me,
And climbed to my waiting knee,
And lifted her gaze to the picture,
Which told its story to me.

“Tell me about it, mamma;
Why does the sheep wait there?”—
So I told my own wee lammie
(So tender, and sweet, and fair),
How the poor white sheep had wandered
Far from its fold away,
And was tired, and sad, and lonely,
And afraid, at the close of day.

“But the lamb couldn’t help it, mamma,
’Cause its mother led it, you see.”—
Oh! there was another lesson
Brought silently home to me:
We mothers, who love our babies,
Guarding them day and night,—
Are we always careful to lead them
In ways that are best and right?

I gathered my darling closer,
With an earnest unspoken prayer,
That the tender Shepherd above us
Would help me with special care
To lead my little lamb onward
Thro’ pastures prepared by him,
That naught could harm or afflict us
When the light of our day grew dim.

And I know he will graciously answer,
And, though come storms and cold,
He will gather his own in safety
Within one blessed fold.
And my baby still talks of the picture,
And pities the lamb so white,
Which was led by its careless mother
Out into the dark, cold night.

NEW BEDFORD.

No visitor to the shore of Buzzard’s Bay has really done his duty, or shown due respect to the inhabitants, who has not learned to say in one breath, and without a break or hesitation,—

Nashawena, Pesquinese,
Cuttyhunk and Penekese,
Naushon, Nonamesset,
Onkatonka and Wepecket.

These are the names of the islands along the south entrance to the bay which Bartholomew Gosnold, the English navigator, named for his queen the Elizabeth Islands when he entered the bay in 1602. Fortunately his attempt to substitute his own English names for these of the Indians was futile. When Gosnold landed at Cuttyhunk in the early summer of that year he found it densely wooded and abounding in game. To-day there is hardly a tree there. In the west part of this island is a pond of fresh water, in the waters of which is a considerable island, and it was on this that [Pg 424] these adventurers built the first habitation in this section of New England of which there is any authentic account. There they were, in a sense, safe from the Indians and from wild animals.

When Gosnold prepared to return to England in his vessel, the “Concord,” with a cargo of native products, such as sassafras, cedar, etc., those who had planned to remain and settle returned with him, fearing that they might not share in the expected profits. But they could not take back with them the cellar to the house they had built, and what little vestige of the hole that still remains in that island within an island is to-day pointed out as the spot where the first white settler’s house was built hereabouts. Unfortunately for the picturesqueness and poetry of this historic incident, modern civilization has utilized the island as a hen-yard, and the historic cellar as a chicken-roost.

[Pg 425] The real history of Southern Massachusetts began in June, 1664, when the General Court of the Plymouth Colony passed an order that “all that tracte of land called and known by the name of Acushena, [1] Ponogansett, and Coaksett, is allowed by the court to bee a townshipe, and said towne bee henceforth ... called and knowne by the name of Dartmouth.” In November, 1652, Wamsutta and his father, Massasoit, had signed a deed conveying to William Bradford, Capt. Standish, Thomas Southworth, John Winslow, John Cooke, and their associates all the land lying three miles eastward from a river called the Coshenegg to Acoaksett, to a flat rock on the western side of the said harbor, the conveyance including all that land from the sea upward “so high that the English may not be annoyed by the hunting of the Indians, in any sort, of their cattle.” The price paid for this tract was, thirty yards of cloth, eight moose-skins, fifteen axes, fifteen hoes, fifteen pairs of breeches, eight blankets, two kettles, one cloak, two pounds wampum, eight pairs stockings, eight pairs shoes, one iron pot, and ten [Pg 426] shillings in other commodities. This immense tract had twenty miles of sea-coast, not to mention harbors, etc., and represents, besides the present township of Dartmouth, New Bedford, Fairhaven, Westport, and Acushnet. [2]

In a brief article it is impossible to give more than the cream of the whole story of the growth and existence of this settlement. It experienced the vicissitudes of Indian depredations and wars. In the King Philip war it was nearly obliterated, only the little settlement of Apponegansett surviving. But at the return of peace the settlers took up their old avocations, and gradually, but surely, made the old town of Dartmouth. The story of nearly every other outlying settlement in those days is the story of this one, so that all that concerns us are the historical events peculiar to this.

These early inhabitants combined tilling the soil and extracting the wealth of the sea, only, however, as shore fishermen, and an occasional off-shore whaling voyage in small boats. One event in early history shows that the people were possessed of something more than the traditional courage and bold seamanship for which southern Massachusetts was ever famed, and shows a spiritual courage as well as that deliberate manly determination to overcome all physical obstacles to existence with which the early settlers were permeated.

[Pg 428] This was the dispute between the General Court at Plymouth and the town authorities regarding a settled minister. A good two-thirds of the people were Friends, and one of their number provided for their spiritual wants without compensation. Those remaining were mostly Baptists, who also had among them a quasi minister who acted as pastor. But the General Court at Plymouth wanted the settlers to have their kind of a minister; so in 1671 they ordered the settlers to raise £15 by taxation “to help towards the support of such as may dispense the word of God.” But as the settlers were satisfied with their own ministers they refused to obey the order. Fortunately they were far away from the court. Then about that time King Philip’s war broke out, and absorbed the whole attention of the court; although time enough was found to warn the people that the calamity of war was due to the “lack of a dispenser of the word of God” among them. But no sooner had the war ended than the old dispute was taken up just where it was left off. The court pleaded and persuaded, [Pg 429] then commanded, and finally threatened; but year after year the colonists continued doing as they pleased, regardless of the court. Finally, in 1722, as a last resort, the court ingeniously combined the provincial and ministerial tax, £181 12s. in all, with the intention of providing a minister by that means. The town called a meeting, and, after promptly voting the provincial tax of £81 12s., as promptly refused to raise the extra £100, which they recognized as the ministerial tax in a new garb. Such defiance led to the arrest of the selectmen, and they were imprisoned at Taunton. This thoroughly aroused the town. A meeting was immediately held, and £700 was unanimously voted to support the selectmen. This enormous sum for those days was used partly to support the selectmen and their families, but mostly to send an embassy to England to seek redress from the King and his council. In this the colonists were successful, for not only were the selectmen ordered released from prison, but the [Pg 430] province of Massachusetts Bay was ordered to remit the obnoxious taxes which it had in vain tried for thirty-one years to collect. It was not until about this time that what is now New Bedford was settled. Joseph Russell had been practically the sole inhabitant. He was succeeded by his twin sons John and Joseph. The latter lived near the heart of the site of the present city, and is regarded as its real founder. For some time vessels of all classes had fitted out in the Apponegansett river, but he sent his from the Acushnet. His merchantmen sailed all over the seas. At the same time he fitted out whaling vessels. These whalers were small sloops and schooners, which only went off-shore, captured a whale or two, then returned to try out the oil. In connection with this business Mr. Russell had built try works, and he started a sperm-oil factory. The infant whaling industry began about 1760 to attract a boat-builder, then a carpenter, a blacksmith, and so on until gradually there became quite a little settlement. Larger vessels were built, voyages were extended to [Pg 431] some two or three weeks, and sometimes to as many months, the seas being scoured from Newfoundland to Virginia for whales.

The year 1765 was an eventful one, as it brought Joseph Rotch, a man of means and experience, from Nantucket,—or Sherburn as it was called up to 1790,—to carry on the whaling business here; and his vessels, together with those of other new-comers, materially increased the size of the little fleet sailing from the Acushnet river. The settlement had now become quite a little village, and needed a distinctive name, as it had always been regarded as a part of the village of Acushnet; so it was christened Bedford, and in after years the New was added to distinguish it from the Bedford near Boston.

Being deeper, broader, and a safer harbor than the Apponegansett, the Acushnet river gradually absorbed most of the fleet that had sailed from there, so that the little fleet of a few vessels in 1765 had become one of fifty vessels in 1773. Among these vessels was one owned by Mr. Rotch,—the “Dartmouth,”—which will be remembered as long as the American republic stands, for it was this vessel that took the tea to Boston which was thrown overboard at the time of the famous Tea Party in 1773.

But the Revolution put a stop to a continuance of this marvellous growth, and during the following eight years in the struggle for liberty, decay, fire, and the English did fatal destruction to the vessels in Buzzard’s Bay. Mr. Rotch returned to his off-shore island home, taking his vessels with him, and one or two other merchants followed his example and moved away. What vessels remained after these desertions were moored along the wharves. But the people did not settle down in idleness to wait for the war to be over. While the women were working for the soldiers, in providing them clothing, etc., the men young and old proved that their sea-training in the catching of whales was invaluable in manning the little navy of the colonies. With such men behind him, John Paul Jones scoured the ocean and even defied the English in their own harbors, and the little navy became a powerful and dangerous foe to the proud mistress of the seas. Not the least destructive vessels of the brave American navy were the whaling vessels from [Pg 433] Buzzard’s Bay made over into men-of-war. The frequent and astonishing victories of these vessels caused many valuable prizes to be brought into the bay, and the natural consequence was the raid of Major Gen. Gray, accompanied by the ill-fated Andre, on the fourth day of September, and the day following, in 1778, by which nearly the whole town of Bedford was laid in ashes and property to the value of over half a million of dollars destroyed, together with seventy vessels, including eight large ships with their cargoes, and four privateers.

At the first whisperings of peace, Capt. Moores, of the good ship “Bedford,” with a cargo of oil, set sail for London, and first displayed to the defeated English, in their great metropolis, the stars and stripes of the infant republic of the western world. This promptness of Capt. Moores is a fair sample of the manner in which the village of Bedford grasped the return of peace and rushed into its former industries. The greater part of the village had been rebuilt; the vessels that survived the war—most of them as men-of-war—were refitted, and whaling and commerce resumed, although it was years before whaling fairly got on its feet again. This was [Pg 434] owing to the lack of a market for oil, as England and France had passed laws practically prohibiting its importation. Some merchants were forced to live in French or English territory and sail under those flags, in order to pursue whaling with any profit.

In 1787 the General Court of Massachusetts incorporated the town of New Bedford, and in 1847 it became a city. The census of 1790 reported a population of 3,313 in the new town. But there was nothing at this time to cause the town to grow, nor was there until 1804, when, through the intercessions of William Rotch, Sr., [Pg 435] Great Britain remitted her alien duty on oil. From that year New Bedford began to assume her distinctive character as the whaling port preëminent of the world. The stock in trade to begin with was no meagre one, as it consisted of fifty-nine vessels of 19,146 tons’ burden, about thirty of them being brigs and ships employed in the merchant service with Europe, South America, and the West Indies. This fleet suffered terribly from the impressment of seamen, then the embargo, and finally by the second war with England, [Pg 436] during which many vessels were captured. This over, the place began in earnest its distinctive career.

A few words as to the history of whaling in America. Capt. John Smith makes mention of catching a few whales on some of his voyages, and it is known that the Indians had quite a passion for hunting the whale, or powdawe as they called it. The Montauk Indians regarded the fin or tail of a whale as a rare sacrifice to their deity. As the early settlers began to spread throughout New England, it became quite an industry along the sea-shore to hunt stranded whales for their oil and blubber. This naturally led to hunting them in their native element, and the industry extended along Cape Cod and Long Island, and, about 1672, was introduced on the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. About fifty years later the [Pg 437] brave Nantucket seamen began whaling in large boats, and within the following twenty-five years Nantucket had direct communication with England in her ships. These brave early mariners were the first who understood and made use of the Gulf Stream, and by them it was explained to the English admiralty. At the opening of the Revolution there were one hundred and fifty vessels that sailed from Nantucket; but at the close of the war one hundred and thirty-four of these had been captured and fifteen more wrecked. The war also cost this island twelve hundred sailors, and was the making of two hundred and two widows and three hundred and forty-two orphans.

In the year 1815 there sailed from Nantucket fifty whalers, while only ten sailed from New Bedford. But the New Bedford fleet increased rapidly year by year, reaching the climax in 1852, when two hundred and seventy-eight sailed. From that date there has been an almost uninterrupted decline in the whaling [Pg 438] industry. Nantucket’s decline began many years earlier. In 1860 she had only very few vessels left, and in 1872 her last whaler, the bark “Oak,” was sold. In 1835 whaling was at its height, the whole fleet of the United States consisting of six hundred and seventy-eight ships and barks, thirty-five brigs, and twenty-two schooners, valued at twenty-one millions of dollars; while the foreign fleet consisted of only two hundred and thirty vessels of various kinds. From the off-shore fishing as practised in the early days of the industry, voyages had extended to all parts of the Atlantic, and before the opening of the nineteenth century a considerable fleet was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. By 1820 these voyages had extended to Japan, and in 1836 they reached what is known as the Kodiak Grounds. In 1848 the wonderful field in the Arctic, by way of Behring’s Strait, was discovered by bark “Superior.” Three years later two hundred and fifty vessels took advantage of the “Superior’s” discovery and entered the same grounds. The largest catch in these grounds was in 1852, when two hundred and seventy-eight vessels got three hundred and [Pg 439] seventy-three thousand, four hundred and fifty barrels of oil. Since then there has been a very great decline; the Arctic fleet of 1876 consisting of only twenty vessels, which caught five thousand, two hundred and fifty barrels of oil. The fleet of 1885 consisted of forty-one vessels, more than half hailing from New Bedford; but four of the fleet were lost.

Seven years before the wonderful catch of 1852, disasters and other reverses had caused many serious failures, and from that date really begins the decline in whaling, which was rapid after 1860. But meantime San Francisco had worked into the business. For years vessels had fitted out from the Sandwich Islands, returning home only about once in five years. But there were many abuses and disadvantages in this; hence San Francisco as it grew in importance became the head-quarters for fitting, and one ship after another was transferred from the New Bedford fleet to that of San Francisco, until now she is next to New Bedford in the whaling business. It is doubtful if the fleet sailing from Buzzard’s Bay twenty-five years hence is half the size of the fleet of to-day; for vessels that are lost, sold, or broken up are seldom replaced. The astonishing decline in this industry is shown by the fact that three hundred and eleven whaling vessels were owned in New Bedford in 1855. Thirty years later, in 1885, only one hundred and thirty-five such vessels were owned in the whole United States, eighty-six of which hailed from New Bedford, twenty from San Francisco, and the rest from Provincetown, New London, Edgartown, Boston, Stonington, and Marion.

The disasters which have befallen the whaling industry are many and fearful. During the late war rebel cruisers captured fifty vessels, forty-six of them, with their cargoes and outfits, being burned. Twenty-eight of them were New Bedford vessels. These, with other losses, show what New Bedford had at stake before the Court of Commissioners of Alabama Claims. Her slice of the Geneva Award will approximate, when all paid, three millions of dollars. The “stone fleets,” sunk off Charleston and Savannah harbors in 1861, drew heavily on whaling vessels; for more money would be paid by the Government for vessels than they could earn in whaling. In the first stone fleet were twelve New Bedford whalers, and in the second, eight. Then there were the horrible calamities of 1871 and 1876. In the former year [Pg 440] thirty-three vessels were crushed or abandoned in the Arctic, twenty-two belonging in New Bedford. The direct loss from this was one million, one hundred thousand dollars. Twelve hundred and nineteen men were thrust out on the ice to perish from cold and hunger. Nothing but the bravery of Capt. Frazier, of one of the abandoned vessels, in journeying seventy miles over the ice-fields to the fleet outside for rescue, prevented untold suffering and death. In the calamity of 1876 twelve vessels were abandoned, causing a loss to New Bedford merchants of about six hundred and sixty thousand dollars. But a greater horror was added to this calamity, some fifty lives being lost.

The wealth that was brought to New Bedford by whaling in its palmiest days was enormous, and gave the city the reputation of being the wealthiest of its size in the world. The catch of 1853, the banner year, was over one hundred and three thousand barrels of sperm oil, valued at four millions, fifty thousand, five hundred and forty dollars; two hundred and sixty thousand, one hundred and fourteen barrels of whale oil, valued at four millions, seven hundred and sixty-two thousand, five hundred and twenty-five dollars; and five millions, six hundred and fifty-two thousand, three hundred pounds of bone, valued at one million, nine hundred and fifty thousand, forty-four dollars,—bone that year averaging only thirty-four and one-half cents per pound; while it now sells at from $2 to $2.50 per pound. The catch of the one hundred and thirteen vessels arriving in the following year brought into the city some over six millions of dollars. In 1866, when prices were very high, the cargoes of the forty vessels that arrived aggregated over four millions of dollars. All was not always palmy, however. Forty-four of the sixty-eight vessels that arrived home in 1858 made losing voyages, causing a direct loss of a million of dollars. Other disasters of less importance have never been uncommon.

It is estimated that between seven hundred and twenty-five and seven hundred and fifty whaling vessels have been owned and sailed from New Bedford. Of these at least two hundred and fifty are known to have been lost. This means immense losses, for not only did the vessels cost from fifteen to seventy-five thousand dollars each, but the outfittings and catches were also partially or wholly lost. At the beginning of this century it cost [Pg 441] somewhere about twelve to fifteen thousand dollars to fit out a vessel for a good voyage. In 1858 the cost had increased to about sixty-five thousand dollars, voyages were of longer duration, and catches had increased only about twofold in value. To-day a good outfit falls but little, if any, below fifty thousand dollars. The cost of fitting out the sixty-five vessels that sailed in 1858 was estimated at one million, nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars. [3] The catch since 1800 is believed to have been at least a quarter of a million of sperm whales and nearly as many more right whales, the total value being approximately one hundred and fifty millions of dollars.

Volumes might be told of the experiences of whalemen, of their contests with the natives of many an island in the Pacific, of wrecks, of the bravery with which masters have stood by one another in times of need or trouble, of the great benefits whaling has been to commerce, of the discoveries by masters in their searches for new grounds, of the fields opened for the missionaries, of the men rescued from danger and bondage, etc., etc. [4]

Up to the time of the war, and perhaps till its close, the history of New Bedford and the whaling industry was identical. But the discovery of petroleum, the scarcity of whales, and at the same time the low price of oil, necessitated an entirely new field for the capital and energy so long devoted to whaling. For a period of ten years or so the city was in a transition state, the conservative element contending for a continuation of the old order of things, while the younger blood demanded the necessary changes to keep abreast of the times. At one time it did look as though the conservatives would succeed; but gradually one industry after another got a foothold. Then the panic of 1872 demonstrated that a man who has money must invest it where he can watch it, instead of trusting to luck in some wild-cat railroad scheme out West. By the concentration and investment at home of some of the money saved from the wreck, the Wamsutta mills have become a [Pg 442] corporation with a capital of three million dollars. The Potomska mills have accumulated a capital of fifteen hundred thousand, the Grinnell mill has eight hundred thousand, the Acushnet mill six hundred thousand, the Yarn mills three hundred thousand. In addition to these cotton mills other industries have sprung up, so that the total capital represented by the various corporations is over nine millions of dollars. Banking also proved profitable. Of the five national banks three have a capital of a million dollars each, another has six hundred thousand, and the fifth half a million; making a total capital of four millions, one hundred thousand. Add to this the surplus funds, premiums on the stock, etc., and the amount of money represented by these five national banks falls little short of ten millions of dollars. The Institution for Savings has deposits of over ten millions, and, with over three millions of deposits in the other savings-bank, the seven New Bedford banks represent some twenty-three millions of dollars.

But New Bedford is not, or never has been, devoted entirely to the scramble for wealth. Her public schools have been given a place among the best, their cost last year being one hundred thousand dollars. She has given to the world many scholarly as well as smart men. During the war she did her duty bravely, sending eleven hundred more men than her quota. With all of her business she has not neglected her duties to her country or to her own citizens. One of the prides of the city is the Public Library, established under an act of the State Legislature of May 24, 1851, authorizing the incorporation of public libraries. A year and twelve days afterward the common council appropriated fifteen hundred dollars for its support. Before the action of the city government the library had existed a long time as the old Social Library, and before that time as the Library Society, but when the State authorized the incorporation of such institutions it immediately entered the wider field. To-day it has fifty thousand volumes. It has the income of the Sylvia Ann Rowland fund of fifty thousand dollars, the Charles W. Morgan fund of one thousand dollars, the George Rowland, Jr. fund of sixteen hundred dollars, the Oliver Crocker fund of one thousand dollars, and the James B. Congdon fund of five hundred dollars. Besides the culture of books, New Bedford has always been blessed by the presence and words of ministers far above the average in talent [Pg 443] and earnestness. The dispute of the early settlers with the General Court showed that the people were particular as to the quality of their spiritual food, and this fastidiousness seems to have been handed down from generation to generation, judging from the personnel of the men. Dr. Samuel West, who preached at the Head of the River from 1761 to 1803, was of just that material to satisfy the spiritual wants of his time. Especially should his name be honored for the vigor and determination with which he threw himself, body and soul, into the struggle for independence. Nor should the names of George L. Prentiss, Moses How, and others be forgotten. One branch of the parent church, the First Congregational (Unitarian) Society, which built its present substantial edifice in 1836-7-8, has had a continuity of pastors hardly equalled anywhere for real spiritual living, thinking, and teaching. Dr. Orville Dewey, who was settled in 1823, was much beloved by everybody, and in his last years, at his home in Sheffield, among the Berkshire hills, he won the hearts of all there by his beauty of character, as he had done here. While Dr. Dewey was abroad, in 1833, and a year or so following, Ralph Waldo Emerson supplied the pulpit. The present church was dedicated in 1838, and Rev. Dr. Ephraim Peabody and Rev. J. H. Morison were installed as pastors. The former remained with the society until 1845, and the latter until 1844. In 1847 Rev. John Weiss became pastor, remaining until ill-health compelled him to resign, in 1857. Two years later Rev. William J. Potter, who is not only the typical preacher but the typical practitioner of his preaching, was installed, and yet holds the pastorate. The bell of this church, tradition says, was formerly in a Spanish convent. Whether this be so or not, its clear, musical tone gives evidence that it is of high pedigree.

Nothing could more fittingly close this article than a notice of that monument to the charitable souls of New Bedford, the Union for Good Works. This is a noble institution, not only because it cares for the poor, but because it aids them to be self-reliant and self-supporting by tiding over times of need. It provides sewing or other work for needy women; it maintains a sales-room for the handiwork of the indigent or the gentlewoman reduced in circumstances, whether the work be preserves, needle-work, or anything that is salable; it has a large reception-room well stocked with [Pg 444] the best papers, periodicals, and magazines, books, all the parlor games, etc.; it provides throughout the winter season a series of popular entertainments of high order and little cost; in short, it endeavors to lighten the burdens of those in dependence of distress, and to make pleasanter the life of those whose existence is a continuous struggle. It has the spending of about three-quarters of the income of the one hundred thousand dollars left by James Arnold for the aid of the worthy poor of the city of New Bedford. Besides that it has accumulated a fund of about thirty thousand dollars, by donation and otherwise. This will not be touched, however, until it has reached at least fifty thousand dollars. It will then provide sufficient income to meet the expenses of the Union. There are the various branches of work, the relief committee, the sewing-women’s branch, the fruit and flour committee, the prison committee, the hospitality section, and others. The Union is the outgrowth of the sermon preached by Rev. William J. Potter at his tenth anniversary, but it is not sectarian in any sense.

HENRY BARNARD—THE AMERICAN EDUCATOR.

The career of Henry Barnard as a promoter of the cause of education has no precedent and is without a parallel. We think of Page as a great practical teacher; of Gallaudet as the founder of a new institution; of Pestalozzi as the originator of a new method of instruction; of Spurzheim as the expounder of the philosophy of education, and of Horace Mann as its most eloquent advocate; but Mr. Barnard stands before the world as the national educator. We know, indeed, that he has held office, and achieved great success in the administration and improvement of systems of public instruction in particular States. But these labors, however important, constitute only a segment, so to speak, in the larger sphere of his efforts. Declining numerous calls to high and lucrative posts of local importance and influence, he has accepted the whole country as the theatre of his operations, without regard to State lines, and by the extent, variety, and comprehensiveness of his efforts has earned the title of the American Educator. It is in this view that his course has been patterned after no example, and admits of no comparison. But if in his plan, equally beneficent and original, he had no example to copy, he has furnished one worthy alike of admiration and imitation.

Mr. Barnard was a native of Hartford, Conn., where his family had lived from the first settlement of the colony. He was born on the 24th of January, 1811, in the fine mansion where he now resides. The son of a wealthy farmer, and living within half a mile of the centre of a considerable town and the State capital, he was placed in the most favorable circumstances for early physical and mental development.

His elementary instruction was received at the district school, which, with all its imperfections, “as it was,” he remembers with gratitude, not indeed on account of the amount of learning acquired in it, but because it was a common school, “a school of equal rights, where merit, and not social position, was the [Pg 446] acknowledged basis of distinction, and therefore the fittest seminary to give the schooling essential to the American citizen.”

While pursuing the studies preparatory for college at Monson Mass., and at the Hopkins Grammar School in Hartford, his proficiency was brilliant; and such was his eagerness for knowledge that, in addition to the prescribed course, he extended his reading among the works of the best English authors.

The five subsequent years were mainly devoted to a thorough professional training for the practice of the law, the severer study of the legal text-books being relieved by the daily reading of a portion of the ancient and modern classics. This course of study was fortunately interrupted for a few months to take charge of an academy, where he improved the opportunity to acquire some knowledge of the theory and practice of teaching. This experience had considerable influence in determining some of the most important subsequent events of his life.

Before entering on the practice of his profession he spent some time in Europe, for the twofold purpose of study and travel. Already well fitted by study and natural taste to profit by the opportunities of foreign travel, he made further and special preparation by a tour through the Southern and Western States, and a visit to all the most interesting localities in New England. “Leaving home like a philosopher, to mend himself and others,” he returned with his mind enriched by observation not only of nature and art but especially of the social condition and institutions of the people.

In the first public address which he had occasion to make after his return he said, “Every man must at once make himself as good and as useful as he can, and help at the same time to make everybody about him, and all whom he can reach, better and happier.” This was the sentiment which controlled the motives of his conduct. Fidelity to this truly grand and worthy aim induced him, not long afterwards, to abandon the flattering prospects of professional eminence which were opening upon his vision, to retire from all active participation in political affairs, after a brief but brilliant career in the Legislature of his native State, and to devote himself to the great work of educational reform and improvement. To [Pg 447] him the credit is due of originating and securing the passage, by the Legislative Assembly, while a member, in 1837, of the resolution requiring the Comptroller to obtain from School Visitors official returns respecting public schools in the several School Societies, and in 1838, of an “Act to provide for the better supervision of Common Schools.”

This was the first decisive step towards the revival of education in Connecticut. The Board of Commissioners of Common Schools established by this act, was immediately organized, and Mr. Barnard accepted the office of secretary, Mr. Gallaudet, who was first elected on his motion, having declined. He devoted his energies to the arduous duties of this office till 1842, when the Board was abolished. These duties as prescribed by the Board were:—

1st. To ascertain, by personal inspection of the schools, and by written communications from school officers and others, the actual condition of the schools.

2d. To prepare an abstract of such information for the use of the Board and the Legislature, with plans and suggestions for the better organization and administration of the school system.

3d. To attend and address at least one meeting of such parents, teachers, and school officers as were disposed to come together on public notice, in each county, and as many local meetings as other duties would allow.

4th. To edit and superintend the publication of a journal devoted exclusively to the promotion of common-school education. And,

5th. To increase in any practicable way the interest and intelligence of the community in relation to the whole subject of popular education.

Possessing fine powers of oratory, wielding a ready and able pen, animated by a generous and indomitable spirit, willing to spend and be spent in the cause of benevolence and humanity, he had every qualification for the task but experience. Speaking of his fitness for carrying out the measures of educational reform and improvement in Connecticut, and of the results of his efforts, Horace Mann said, in the “Massachusetts Common School Journal,” “It is not extravagant to say that, if a better man be required, we must wait, at least, until the next generation, for a better one is not to be found in the present. This agent entered upon his duties with unbounded zeal. He devoted to their discharge his time, talents, and means.

“The cold torpidity of the State soon felt the sensations of [Pg 448] returning vitality. Its half-suspended animation began to quicken with a warmer life. Much and most valuable information was diffused. Many parents began to appreciate more adequately what it was to be a parent; teachers were awakened; associations for mutual improvement were formed; system began to supersede confusion; some salutary laws were enacted; all things gave favorable augury of a prosperous career, and it may be further affirmed that the cause was so administered as to give occasion of offence to no one. The whole movement was kept aloof from political strife. All religious men had reason to rejoice that a higher tone of moral and religious feeling was making its way into schools, without giving occasion of jealousy to the one-sided views of any denomination. But all these auguries were delusive. In an evil hour the whole fabric was overthrown.”

The four volumes of the “Common School Journal,” issued during this period, and the four reports presented by him to the Legislature, with other contemporary documents, justify the remarks quoted from Mr. Mann. The reports have been eagerly read and highly prized by the soundest educators. Chancellor Kent, in his “Commentaries on American Law” (edition of 1844), after devoting nearly two pages to an analysis of his first report, characterizes it as “a bold and startling document, founded on the most painstaking and critical inquiry, and containing a minute, accurate, comprehensive, and instructive exhibition of the practical condition and operation of the common-school system of education.” In referring to his subsequent reports, the same distinguished jurist speaks of him as “the most able, efficient, and best-informed officer that could, perhaps, be engaged in the service;” and of his publications as containing “a digest of the fullest and most valuable information that is to be obtained on the subject of common schools, both in Europe and the United States.”

It should be stated in this connection, as evidence of the disinterestedness of his motives, that these labors were performed without any pecuniary compensation; for although the amount allowed him out of the treasury of the State, for the service of nearly four years, was $3,747, this sum he expended back again in promoting the prosperity and usefulness of the schools.

The year following the abolition of the Board of Commissioners of Common Schools in Connecticut he spent in visiting every [Pg 449] section of the country, to collect the material for a “History of Public Schools and the Means of Popular Education in the United States.” Just as he was about to commence this history of education he was invited to go to Rhode Island, and there achieve a work which is destined to form one of the most interesting and instructive chapters in the history of education in America, when it shall be written. Reluctant to accept the invitation, as it would make it necessary to postpone the work in contemplation, Gov. Fenner met his objection with the reply, “Better make history than write it.” He accepted the task, and soon organized a system of agencies which, in four years, brought about an entire revolution in the condition of the schools in the State. It is not easy to fully appreciate the difficulties and magnitude of the work undertaken in Rhode Island. From the foundation of the colony the common school had been excluded from the care and patronage of the government, and for more than a century and a half there is not the slightest trace of any legislation whatever for this great interest.

To compel a citizen to support a school or educate his children was regarded as a violation of the rights of conscience. Twenty years ago an old Rhode Islander, well to do in the world, assigned as a reason for refusing to aid in supporting a district school, “It is a Connecticut custom, and I don’t like it.”

The plan of operations adopted was substantially the same as that pursued in Connecticut. The first great work was to enlighten the popular mind on the subject of common schools, and create a public opinion in favor of right action. The next step was to frame and secure the enactment of an efficient school code, adapted to the wants of the State, which was accomplished in 1845. Then came the difficult task of organizing the new system and of carrying out its provisions; in a word, of bringing into existence in every school district the conditions of a good school. This process was progressing with a rapidity scarcely ever realized elsewhere, in the erection of better school-houses, in the employment of better teachers, in the establishment of school libraries, and in the increase of the means provided by law for the support of schools. But before accomplishing all his plans for the improvement of public education in Rhode Island the state of Mr. Barnard’s health rendered it imperatively necessary for him to resign his office. On his retirement the Legislature, by a unanimous vote, adopted a [Pg 450] resolution, giving him their thanks for the “able, faithful, and judicious manner” in which he had for five years fulfilled the duties of his office. The teachers of the State, through a committee appointed at the several institutes, presented him a handsome testimonial of their “respect and friendship, and of their appreciation of his services in the cause of education, and the interest which he had ever taken in their professional improvement and individual welfare.” [6]

Mr. Barnard returned to his old home in Connecticut. He was soon invited to professorships in two colleges, and to the superintendence of public schools in three different cities. But a more congenial work in his own State awaited his restored health. In 1849 an act was passed to establish a State Normal School, the principal of which should be the superintendent of common schools. Mr. Barnard was elected to this office, and accepted on condition that an assistant should be appointed to take the immediate charge of the Normal School. He soon had the satisfaction of seeing long-cherished hopes fulfilled. After many struggles and efforts he saw his own State taking her appropriate place among the foremost of the educating and educated States.

Our limited space will not allow even a glance at the particulars of his doings while in office from 1850 till he resigned, at the close of the year 1854, to give himself exclusively to labors of a more general and national character. He had already accomplished as much perhaps as any other individual for the promotion of education in every part of the country. By repeated visits to the chief points of influence, by extensive correspondence and numerous personal conferences with the leading persons connected with the management of systems and institutions of education, by addresses before popular assemblies, literary associations, teachers, and legislative bodies throughout the country, he had done more than any other man to shape the educational policy of the nation. His publications had been numerous, important, and widely [Pg 451]disseminated. Besides the “Common School Journal” and reports above alluded to, his work on “School Architecture” had been circulated by tens of thousands, not only throughout America but in Europe, creating a general revolution in public opinion on the subject. His work on “Normal Schools” had been published several years, from which the substance of nearly all documents on the subject since published have been drawn. The volume entitled “National Education in Europe,” begun in 1840, and containing about nine hundred closely printed pages, had been published in 1854, a work well described as an “Encyclopædia of Educational Systems and Methods,” and of which the “Westminster Review” speaks as “containing more valuable information and statistics than can be found in any one volume in the English language.” But his contributions to educational literature did not stop here.

Scarcely did he find himself relieved from the routine of official life when he projected and immediately entered upon the publication of a still more valuable and important work, viz., the “American Journal of Education.” Four large octavo volumes of this Journal are now before the public, and we may safely affirm of it that it is the most valuable and comprehensive educational publication ever printed in the English language, and it will be a lasting disgrace to the teachers and educators of America if it has to be prematurely suspended for want of sufficient patronage. Besides conducting this Journal, he has found time for other labors of a general nature. As president of the American Association for the Advancement of Education, his influence has been widely and beneficially exerted. That his services to the cause of good letters and education have been appreciated in high places may be inferred from the fact that in 1851 he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Law, from the corporation of Yale College, and in the same year from Union College, and in the year following from Harvard University.

[Mr. Barnard’s subsequent labors and successes, including his services in connection with the United States Bureau of Education, will be the subject of another article, which will be accompanied by a portrait from a photograph recently taken.—Ed.]

A DAUGHTER OF THE PURITANS.

In one of the loveliest towns in New England there stood, many years ago, a large, old-fashioned, rambling house, known to all the villagers as the old Vincent Manor. It was such an old place, full of strange, dark corners and winding halls; a place that would have been famous for a game of hide-and-seek; but there were no children to roam at will over the house, to laugh out of its dusky corners, or to set the high rafters a-ring with noise. It had stood there—the house—before and after the Revolution. It had been turned into a small garrison more than once. Its walls had heard anxious councils, as men of strong nerve and resolute will made their vows of independence. Stately dames and grand gentlemen, in powder and ball dress, in ruffles and periwigs, had paced its weird corridors, or danced the slow minuet in its great salon.

But now all was changed, and Mistress Marjory—as the neighbors called her—lived alone in the old manor, the last of all her kin. She was a tall, pale woman, bearing in her stately, gracious ways all the trace of her proud ancestry, living alone, yet living for others, helping the poor and the suffering, answering the call of sorrow everywhere it reached her, loving and beloved. And her story—The story I learned one day in the great drawing-room at Vincent Manor! Ah, well, after all, perhaps it will not interest you as much as it did me. All lives have their sorrows; does the telling of one matter, after all?

But perhaps the charm and the pathos lay in the way Mistress Marjory told it, sitting in the shadows before the open wood fire, with her hands, so seldom idle, folded listlessly in her lap, and her beautiful gray eyes looking far into the past. What a pretty picture she was in her black silk dress, with its lace kerchief crossed on her bosom, with her hair, white as snow, drawn back high [Pg 453] from her brow! I like to think of her as she looked that night so long ago.

And so it is that I think you may like the story best if I tell it to you in her own words, just as she told it to me. So here it is:—

“My child-life was one full of excitement, yet little pleasure. What with our struggles between hostile Indians and the soldiers of King George, we had small time for play or serenity of living. Yet perhaps we children enjoyed our play hours more than do those of the present time, for they were so few and far between,—those peaceful, happy days,—they were treasured all the more. Of the many strange events that happened in those far-off years I have no time to tell you now. My parents had seven children—there were six boys. I was the only daughter, and next to the youngest, who was my favorite brother, one year my junior, sunny, brave-hearted, and loyal in all things.

“While the men were at work in the fields, and women busy in the house, the children on different homesteads kept watch for Indians. My brothers, of course, took turns on our place; and sometimes in the harvest days, when many hands were needed out doors, and I was not helping my mother in spinning the flax, I was set on the lookout. Those were days when the stoutest heart among us would quail at times, for danger and horror were on every side; and I—well, I was none of the bravest. But on the days when Harold knew I would be most likely put on guard he would contrive so as to have his work near the house, and so watch over me. In order to do so he would rise before the rest, and going alone in his far corner of the field,—his only defence a faithful dog, and a trusty rifle over which the dog kept watch while his master worked,—he would finish his field labor for the day by the time I was ready for my task. It was a mutual understanding between himself and my father that this should be; and I think that while my parents feared for the boy’s safety they were proud of his courage that dared so much for love.

“Well, we grew as children grow, through war and peace, through storm and calm. And when the first gun of independence was fired on Bunker Hill my father and brothers armed themselves and joined the numbers there. Two of my brothers were killed outright in their first encounter with Gage’s men. In the third battle another was taken prisoner, and with four others tried for [Pg 454] ‘treason against the king,’ and shot. My mother was a type of the bravest women of that period, but I thought she would have died then, for he was her eldest born, upon whom she had always looked with pride.

“I was eighteen then, and my heart and hands were full; but so were those of many another woman. In that time girls were women and boys were men; it was needed so, you may be sure. Well, after a while the struggle was over, you know, and they came home,—father, Robert, George, and Hal. We were expecting them, and stood at the door watching,—mother and I. And then—and then—we saw them coming, not in triumph, as we expected, but slowly, a mournful little procession. We saw father, Robert, and George, and a few neighbors, and they were bearing a burden we could not see.

“They came nearer, and then I heard mother’s awful shriek, that rings in my dreams even now; but I stood there still; all my heart seemed turned to stone. ‘Seven wounds,’ I heard them say, ‘and the last was mortal.’ O Harry, my boy—my boy! He looked up and smiled faintly, as they bore him past me into this very room, and laid him on that couch yonder. My boy! I had never seen him so white and weak,—he who had been so strong always. All my strength seemed gone, and I sank beside him as he held out his hand for me to come to him. He was but a lad in years, but he had a power of earnest courage many men of riper years do not possess. Shot six times, he had insisted upon returning, after the dressing of each wound, to the struggle going on so fiercely, heeding nothing, fearing nothing, until, in that last battle, he had received the seventh wound,—the seventh and the last. He lived two days after they brought him home; and his sufferings! I shudder now when I think of them. He died as he had lived,—strong and brave to the last. He was a handsome lad, and he was beautiful in death. Oh, how I missed him! how I have missed him all these years! Yet as I stood alone, bending over the coffin, before they bore him out of the dear home forever, I knew all his terrible pain was over, and through blinding tears I thanked God as I have never thanked him since. I felt as if I should like to die too; but soon the numb feeling passed away. Mother was failing, and she, father, and the other boys leaned upon me as woman can be leaned on, and I was [Pg 455] beginning to be happier. In the train of the French general, Lafayette, was a young soldier, Chevalier de Rosseau, and he had known Harold, and loved him. He would come often to the house, and one day he brought his sister Manon, who had followed him from France. She was the loveliest little creature I ever saw. I call her little,—although she was three years my senior,—she was so small and delicate. We became great friends, and she told me, in her pretty, affectionate way, how she had been afraid to cross the great ocean, but that she could not bear to be separated from her brother, who was all she had, and so she had, after trying in vain to live without seeing him for many months, conquered her fear and crossed to America. But after a time La Fayette prepared to return to France. Then it was that my life-trouble came to me. Chevalier de Rosseau loved me, and I loved him; but when he asked my father’s consent to wed me he was sternly refused. My father had always seemed to like the young count, and we had no fear of his opposition; you can imagine, therefore, our dismay and grief. We sought in vain for a reason for his refusal; he gave none. In vain my lover pleaded. I could say nothing. In those times a daughter’s obedience was in strict command. Countess Manon wept in vain. They went back to France. I stayed on. My brothers married and went away. My mother died, and then my father, he commanding me on his death-bed not to marry Chevalier de Rosseau. The latter, hearing of my father’s death, came once more to America, and sought again to woo me. What was the need of obeying the dead? Why should we not be happy? He urged in vain. Dead, as living, my father’s word was law. I was very young still; and I was lonely in the old house, from whence all joy had fled. The chevalier went back to France. I never heard of him again but once, and then of his death. Countess Manon was married, and came with her husband to America; here she stayed four years, and we often saw each other. We might have been sisters, and we loved each other as such. Ah, what narrow ways we have to walk! Is it well in the end? God knows. Manon and her husband returned to their own land in time, and once more I was left alone. I had many suitors, but I cared for none; my love had not died, nor will it ever. Perhaps, somewhere, some time, the life I could not [Pg 456] have on earth will be given in another world. I wait in patience. It will not be long. The other day I heard of the death of Countess Manon. My brothers are gone. I alone am left. Why is it so?—I ask myself over and over, I have not cried for years; but the tears will come to-night as I think of the past, and of beautiful Countess Manon lying cold and still in death under the sunny skies of far-off Southern France. She may not have been beautiful these later years. I forgot she was older even than I, and I am very old; but to me she always was, and always will be, beautiful. She was the last link of the old bygone years. What is the use of remembering them? If Harold had only lived I could have been happy; but I have not long to wait now. They will come for me. O Harry, Harry!—across the long space of years the newer love has never dimmed the older. Eternity waits. I shall see and know you again.”

Is it much, after all is told? I have repeated it just as Marjory Vincent said it, half to me, yet more to herself, for she scarcely heeded my presence; it was better so. Poor Mistress Marjory! There is nothing left now; even the old manor is gone. And Mistress Marjory is at rest.

JUDICIAL FALSIFICATIONS OF HISTORY. [7]

Historical societies, magazines, and students are, in a real sense, the guardians of historic truth. If a book is published which falsifies history, it is our right, and, if the falsification is important, it may be our duty, to expose the error. So, if those having the administration of a government falsify history, as the Guizot ministry of France did, when, vainly hoping to stem the tide of opposition to Louis Phillipe, it covered Paris with handbills declaring “He is not a Bourbon, he is a Valois,” it is our privilege to “put the foot down firmly,” as President Lincoln said, upon any such falsification. So, too, if a court of justice commits the indiscretion of falsifying history, as the Supreme Court of the United States did in the legal-tender case, Guilliard v. Greenman, 111 U.S., 421, it well becomes the historic student to step into the arena, as Mr. Bancroft has done, and, logically speaking, put that court to the sword. To permit such falsifications to pass unnoticed and unchallenged is a species of connivance at error; for, to quote a maxim which is recognized alike in morals and in law, Qui tacet consentire videtur: “Silence gives consent.”

An able lawyer of the Granite State bar, commenting on the decision of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire in the case of Eastman v. Moulton, 3 N.H., 156, remarked that “the Court, without knowing it, repealed nearly two hundred years of history.” [8] In like manner, it may be said that the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, in a decision recently made, has falsified the juridical history of this Colony, Province, and Commonwealth for more than two hundred years. We refer to its opinion in the divorce suit of Robbins v. Robbins, printed, with the briefs of counsel, in 1 New England Reporter, 434, and, without the briefs of counsel, in 140 Mass., 528.

The only question presented to the court in that case was [Pg 458] whether certain conduct on the part of the husband amounted in law to connivance at the infidelity imputed by him to his wife. For one hundred years a statute has been in force in Massachusetts (which, however, is only a reënactment of what had long previously been recognized here as unwritten law) providing that, in all matters of divorce, the Supreme Judicial Court shall follow “the course of proceedings in the Ecclesiastical Courts.” Various decisions of the Ecclesiastical Courts were cited to this court by counsel, showing that, according to the law which prevailed in those courts, the conduct of the husband amounted to connivance, and ought to preclude him from obtaining a divorce. In order to obviate the conclusion to which these decisions clearly tended, the Supreme Judicial Court proceeded to minimize the authority of the Ecclesiastical Courts, by suggesting that “the decisions of those Courts upon questions of substantive law are not of the same weight here as are the decisions of the English Courts of Law and Chancery;” because “the Ecclesiastical Courts proceeded according to the Canon Law as allowed and adopted in England; but the Canon Law was never adopted by the Colonists of Massachusetts: it was not suited to their opinions or condition.”

Now it is true that the Ecclesiastical Courts of England were Canon-Law Courts, as distinguished from Courts of Common Law and Courts of Chancery; but this court here has erroneously assumed that the rules and principles which governed the Ecclesiastical Courts in determining questions of connivance were different from and inconsistent with the rules and principles which governed the Courts of Common Law and Chancery in determining similar questions. Nothing could be further from the truth. In dealing with questions of this sort, the Canon-Law Courts, the Common-Law Courts, and the Courts of Chancery sought and found rules and principles in every system of morals and in every system of law which had prevailed in any past time in any part of the civilized world, and especially in the Civil Law of Ancient Rome. They all drank at the same fountain. In the Roman Law they found the maxim already quoted, and also the following, viz., Qui alios cum potest ab errore non revocat, se ipsum errore demonstrat: “He who, when he can, does not divert another from wrong-doing, shows himself a wrong-doer.” Qui non prohibit cum prohibere [Pg 459] posset jubet: “He who does not forbid when he can forbid seems to command.” Qui potest et debet vetare, tacens jubet: “He who can and ought to forbid, and does not, assents.” Qui non obstat quod obstare potest facere videtur: “He who does not prevent what he can prevent seems, to commit the thing.” Many others might be cited. In short, the maxims of the Roman Law covered all questions of connivance so completely that there was no need of devising any new rules in relation thereto; and no new rules were devised.

With respect to the Canon Law we are enabled to speak positively; for the whole of the Canon Law is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici; and the Corpus Juris Canonici nowhere attempts to define connivance, and nowhere lays down any rule by which to determine whether any particular act, or series of acts, amounts to connivance. When a Canonist had to grapple with any question of connivance of new impression, he sought, and never sought but found, ample guidance in the Old and New Testaments and in the Roman Civil Law. Perhaps the learned judges who promulgated this disparagement of the Canon Law have given as little attention to it as John Adams gave to it before he disparaged it in his treatise on the Feudal Law. There is a remark in one of Fielding’s novels which perhaps applies here, that, “generally speaking, a man will write better for having some knowledge of what he is writing about;” or words to that effect. The notes penned by Mr. Adams, in his private copy of his treatise, warrant the inference that, after that treatise was printed, he acquired a better understanding of the Canon Law than he had when he wrote it. Verbum sapienti.

In the Corpus Juris Canonici we find at the end of the decretals a collection of ancient maxims, of general application, culled chiefly from the Roman Law, and promulgated by Pope Boniface VIII. One of these maxims touches this case, and is the one first quoted in this article; and, singular to say, it has been twice quoted with approval by the very court which has put forth this disparagement of the Canon Law.—2 Pickering, 72; 119 Mass., 515.

In the same opinion, the court says, “Marriage and divorce here have always been regulated wholly by statute.” So far as it relates to divorce, this statement betrays a lack of information touching [Pg 460] the divorce legislation of Massachusetts, as a Colony, as a Province and as a Commonwealth, which is simply amazing. It would be much nearer the truth to say that divorce here has always been regulated wholly by the common or unwritten law. Prior to 1658 not a word of Statute Law was enacted touching divorce in the Old Bay Colony, and not a word of Statute Law touching divorce was ever at any time enacted in Plymouth Colony. It is understood, however, that the Court of Assistants, which was established in Massachusetts in 1639, exercised the divorce power before the same was conferred upon it by any express grant; though the records of that court during the period from 1640 to 1673 have been lost, having been burned, as is supposed, with the Town House, in 1747.

In 1658 the Court of Assistants was expressly authorized to hear and determine “all causes of divorce;” and nothing can be more certain than that that court granted divorces in many cases. [9]

The leading members of the General Court (which then included the Assistants), had been born and bred in England, and were familiar with the general principles which governed the Ecclesiastical Courts, and the High Court of Parliament, in granting divorces. They knew nothing of any rules or principles applicable to divorce proceedings except those which were recognized in the land of their birth, and of course they intended that those rules and principles should be followed, as, in fact, they were followed, by the Court of Assistants.

Although the Plymouth Colony had no statute touching divorce, the General Court of that colony granted divorces in at least six cases, as follows, viz.: in 1661, to Elizabeth Burge, of Sandwich, from Thomas Burge; in 1668, to William Tubbs, of Scituate, from Mary Tubbs; in 1670, to James Skiff from Elizabeth Skiff; in 1673, to Ensign John Williams, of Barnstable, from Sarah Williams; in 1675, to Mary Atkinson, of Taunton, from Marmaduke Atkinson; in 1680, to Elizabeth Stevens from Thomas Stevens; in 1686, to John Glover from Mary Glover. [10]

In all these cases except one, the ground on which the divorce [Pg 461] was granted was infidelity to the marriage-vow. In the case of Mr. Atkinson, the husband was presumed to have died, having been absent, and not heard of, for seven years.

Prior to 1785 there was no statute in Massachusetts which defined the causes for which divorces should be granted, or which prescribed the forms, the rules, or the principles which the court of divorce should follow, or which specified whether the divorces granted should be from bed and board only, or from the bond of matrimony; though, as a fact, most, if not all, of the divorces granted under the first charter were from the bond of matrimony.

Thus the general principles which governed the Ecclesiastical Courts and the High Court of Parliament, in relation to divorce proceedings, became and formed a part of the common or unwritten law of Massachusetts at the commencement of her history; and they have never ceased to form a part of her common law. They have been reaffirmed again and again. Thus in 1692-3, after the abrogation of the colonial charter, and the establishment of a provincial government, under the second charter, it was enacted “that all controversies concerning marriage and divorce should be heard and determined by the governor and council,” which had taken the place of the Court of Assistants. Again, in 1784-5, when the province had become a commonwealth, when the divorce jurisdiction was transferred to the Supreme Judicial Court, when the causes were defined for which that court might grant divorces from bed and board, and divorces from the bond of matrimony, respectively, it was enacted that the court should hear and determine all causes of divorce and alimony, “according to the course of proceeding in Ecclesiastical Courts and in Courts of Equity;” and this provision has been reënacted at every revision of our statutes, in 1836, 1860, and 1882. By force of this statute the general principles which governed the Ecclesiastical Courts are a part of the law of Massachusetts to-day. One short chapter of the Public Statutes contains all her statutory law touching not only divorce but several other incidental subjects. It is a chapter of fragments. Connivance, collusion, condonation, recrimination, and other defences are not even mentioned therein.

In the case of Commonwealth v. Munson, 127 Mass., 459, Chief-Justice Gray, referring to the requisites of a valid marriage ceremony, said “the Canon Law was never adopted” in [Pg 462] Massachusetts; and this is true in respect to the particular subject which that learned judge had under consideration. He never meant it as an unqualified statement, for as such it would not be true. In 1691 the marriage between Hannah Owen and Josiah Owen was declared null and void by the Court of Assistants, because Hannah was the widow of Josiah’s brother, and because by “the Canon Law, as allowed and adopted in England,” ever since Archbishop Cranmer annulled the marriage between Henry VIII. and Catherine of Aragon, no man could lawfully marry his brother’s widow. We do not stop to consider whether the Canon Law in this respect was right or wrong; we merely cite this case to show that, as to some things, the Canon Law was adopted here. In one marked instance the people of Massachusetts deviated from “the Canon Law as allowed and adopted in England,” to follow the Canon Law as allowed and adopted by the Popes of Rome; they enacted that, upon the marriage of the parents of any illegitimate child, such child should thereby become legitimate.

The colonists of Massachusetts had no such blind prejudice against the Canon Law, or the Church of England, or the Church of Rome, as prevented them from adopting whatever they found therein which their consciences and their reason approved. So far from cherishing an unreasoning prejudice against the Ecclesiastical Courts, the people of Massachusetts have preserved, in their Probate Courts, substantially the same system of law and substantially the same method of procedure which were followed in the Consistory Court of London, and in the Consistory Court of Rome; notwithstanding that system came to them associated with the name of one of the most unpopular and yet one of the ablest of their governors—Sir Edmund Andros.

There were, indeed, two complaints which the Puritans of Old England and of New England often made against the English Ecclesiastical Courts: first, that they punished with merciless severity violations of certain ecclesiastical regulations which involved no moral turpitude; second, that they were too lax in the punishment of social sins, Sabbath desecrations, etc., etc. But nowhere among the literary remains of the Puritans do we find any suggestion that the system of morals which was recognized by the Canon Law and administered by the Ecclesiastical Courts was “not suited to their opinions or condition.” We shall [Pg 463] not be understood as saying that the Canon Law in its entirety was ever adopted in New England, or even in Old England; it was not. When Henry VIII. assumed the prerogatives of supreme head of the Church of England, so much of the Canon Law as relates to the jurisdiction of the Pope was abrogated in that kingdom. So when the colonists of Massachusetts established “a Church without a bishop and a State without a king,” so much of the Canon Law as relates to diocesan episcopacy also fell into what President Cleveland would call “innocuous desuetude.” But they adopted the decalogue of Moses with as much reverence as did their fathers before them. They knew as well as the poet Lowell that “The Ten Commandments will not budge,” but that, vitalized by the life of Christ, those commandments stand “the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.”

DORRIS’S HERO.

“Spin, spin, Clotho, spin,” hummed a gay, masculine voice. “Methinks, fair Mistress Dorris, even the Fates themselves could not be more devoted to their task than are you to that busy little wheel.”

Pretty Dorris Gordon glanced up from her seat by the long window opening into the cool, grassy orchard, where the sun played hide-and-seek with the shadows and then came back to rest caressingly on her bent head crowned with its own sunshine of chestnut hair, but she stayed neither busy hand nor foot as she answered,—

“Since your mighty mind is bent on mythological comparisons, Capt. L’Estrange, ’tis but a poor compliment to a fair lady when a gallant officer compares her to three old Fates,—unless he qualifies the remark somewhat. Could you not add something about my fairy fingers weaving the destiny of man? I fear your [Pg 464] quick French wits have been dulled by that cold British bullet in your arm.”

“Nay, ’tis not the British bullet, but yourself, ma belle cousine, that bewilders my French wits and inspires me instead with American patriotism,” is the quick retort.

“Far better than your last speech,” laughs Dorris, taking from her belt a deep-red rose fastened by a true-love knot of blue ribbon to a snowy white bud. “So much better that I will bestow on you my colors. See! the red, white, and blue! Wilt wear them like a brave and gallant knight?”

“They shall be like Henri of Navarre’s plume: ever foremost in the struggle for right,” the young officer answered, bending to kiss the little hand which held the proffered treasure. “I well know no empty compliment will please you as that promise, and indeed its sincerity will soon be tested, for my arm is so much better that I am ready for action, and next week I am off.”

“So soon?” cried Dorris. “Oh, that I were a man, to fight for the stars and stripes!”

“I am always sure to find the words here set to the tune of Yankee Doodle,” breaks in a new voice with a light laugh. “Still, you deserve a laurel wreath for that enthusiastic wish. Will a humble offering of roses be unworthy of notice, fair Goddess of Liberty?” and a shower of sweet-scented blossoms fell over Dorris’ head and shoulders.

“O Mr. Endicott! goddesses are not crowned so unceremoniously. Imagine Paris pelting Venus with that apple that made so much trouble,” says Dorris, glancing up half angrily, half mirthfully, at the tall intruder leaning so easily against the window. “I am almost minded to make you hold this skein of yarn, as a penance, while I wind it.”

“Alas! she descends from a goddess to the most prosaic of mortals,” sighs Endicott; then springing through the low window, “I am ready to obey; but that skein is imposing. What is its destiny?”

“And why, oh, why this inseparable devotion to that unfeeling wheel?” adds L’Estrange. “I came for a stroll, and, voilà! she cannot leave her spinning. Is it a trousseau, that must be ready when some lover comes home from the war?”

Dorris’s bright face saddens suddenly, the perfect mouth loses [Pg 465] its arch curves, and a shadow creeps into the brown eyes as the long lashes droop over them.

“The skein is to be knit into socks for the soldiers,” she says simply; “and as for my wheel, I love it because it is connected with one who has been more to me than any lover. ’Tis but a homely story, but I will tell it to such old friends as you. I need not tell you that I have a brother in the army, but you do not—you cannot—know how dear he is to me, how he has taken the place of both father and mother. It seems as if brother and sister had never been bound by ties so close, and when this war came upon us I watched him day by day, knowing well the thought in his heart, and trembling for what I knew must come; and yet when Rex came to me and said, ‘Little sister, my country needs me: can you be brave, and bear it, if I go?’ oh, then it seemed to me that I could not bear it! But I thought of the brave Lafayette leaving his home and loved ones to fight for us, a foreign nation, and my heart smote me that I could not be willing to offer my mite for my own dear country, and I bade my brother, ‘Go, and God-speed.’ It was only a few weeks before that he had given me this wheel, and almost his last words were, as he stood smiling in the door-way, ‘Remember, Dorris, I shall expect to find on my return one dozen handkerchiefs spun and woven by yourself and that wonderful wheel.’ I have remembered that careless injunction, and have obeyed it. There lies awaiting his return the pile of snowy linen, but we have not heard from him for long, long weeks, and sometimes my heart seems breaking, with the constant dread that haunts it. Do you wonder now that I love my dear little wheel?”

Impulsive, warm-hearted, patriotic Dorris ends with a little sob in her voice, and L’Estrange welcomes the entrance of the host and hostess of the old-time mansion, as it covers the awkward emotion of the moment. As he advances to pay his devoirs to them Keith Endicott seizes his opportunity to say softly, as he bends over the head buried in the now idle hands:—

“Sweet friend, you said you wished you were a man, to fight for the flag; remember, even though ’tis hard, ‘They also serve who only stand and wait.’”

Then, while Dorris tries to change the sob into words, he follows the others into the wide, long hall, where the breezes, sweeping [Pg 466] in through the open doors at either end, fill the summer air with delicious coolness, and the scent of roses mingles with that of newly-mown clover. The breezes, too, bring to Dorris bits of conversation from the hall; but they fall on unheeding ears until an abrupt speech from her uncle claims her attention.

“Endicott,” says his voice, “why don’t you join the army? Such men are being called for,—young, strong, and able. Why don’t you go?”

Dorris almost holds her breath as she awaits the answer. She scarcely knows how many times she has asked herself that very question. The answer comes quietly, almost indolently, though she knows that Endicott’s reticent nature must be annoyed beyond measure.

“Why don’t I? Really, I do not know, sir. Young, strong, and able, an idle fellow enough. I think it must be because it hurts, and I’m a dreadfully selfish fellow.”

What reply could be made to his careless, easy tones? And the talk drifted smoothly on—the more smoothly, perhaps, since no one believed a word that he said, for Keith Endicott ere this had earned the name of the soul of bravery and honor; but Dorris dropped to the ground the roses that had lain all this time in her lap, as if an unseen thorn had wounded her, and, rising, went away to her own cosey room, where she flung herself into an arm-chair and fell into a deep study, looking from her window through the trees to where the blue waters of the Charles gleamed and rippled in the sunlight. It was a lovely spot, this home of her aunt in the suburbs of Boston,—a home which Dorris had called her own since her parents’ death, years before, when she and her brother had been confided to her aunt’s tender care. And Dorris loved every spot of this rambling, old, colonial mansion, from its spacious ballroom, and its wide porches, to her own room, with its faded tapestry hangings, its great fireplace and bright brass andirons, its hanging book-shelves with their store of well-chosen volumes, the English titles varied here and there by a Latin or French classic (for Dorris had studied with her brother, and was quite proficient in both languages; indeed, L’Estrange delighted in calling her a bas-bleu in a vain attempt to tease her), its tall, brass-handled secretary with its secret drawer, which Dorris called so tantalizing, because she had no secret to hide in its [Pg 467] depths, and the eight-day clock ticking away in the corner, which now struck the hour, waking Dorris from her revery into words:—

“I wonder why he does not go: he is no coward; it is not that. I verily believe it is as he said: he is selfish, and does not want the trouble. How he laughs, and disbelieves in everybody, even himself! and what a narrow life he must lead! And yet, sometimes I think better, as I needs must, of my old playmate. Just now he spoke to me with real feeling, and truly, it was a sweet and comforting thought he offered me. And yet the other day, after church, when Gen. Brewster spoke so cordially to Henri L’Estrange and Lieut. Allen, and then bestowed rather a contemptuous glance on Keith,—I mean Mr. Endicott,—I caught him quoting, under his breath, ‘The world is a farce, and its favors are follies; but farces and follies are very dear to human hearts.’ I could not help saying, ‘When its favors are well-earned I think they cease to be follies.’ It was, at the best, bad taste to cavil in that way at Henri, who is so brave and enthusiastic, and has come all the way from his own and his father’s native France because his mother’s land needed brave, true men. And he is going away next week; if he could only send us news of Roy!”

“Dorris!” called her aunt’s voice. “It is quite time you were ready for dinner, dear. And do you not think you were failing in courtesy to your guests to leave them so abruptly?”

“Cousin Henri has had enough of my society, to-day, Aunt Dorothy, and I’ve no patience with Keith Endicott; you heard how he answered uncle. But I’ll come in a moment, auntie,” answers Dorris; and the arm-chair loses its fair occupant.

Quaint, dainty little Dorris! What would not I—I, your great-granddaughter, in this degenerate year of 1885—give to see you just as you looked then, thinking over this and that in a manner not so very unlike the maidens of this generation! Ah, well! I must perforce content myself with that miniature of you as “Madam,” in your lavender brocade, with the feathers in your powdered hair, and the row on row of pearls about your throat. Very stately and dignified you look there; and yet, Great-grandmother Dorris, I can see the spice of “innate depravity,” as I doubt not your grave pastor would have called it, and catch a glimpse of the quick temper and warm heart in those bright eyes and that saucy little nose.

[Pg 468] The evening before Capt. L’Estrange’s departure has come, and a few of the many friends he has made during his short furlough spent with the Gordons are gathered there to make the last hours of his stay such as shall afford him pleasant recollections in the future. Dorris makes a charming little hostess as she flits from room to room, and at last pauses on the porch before a group of three, L’Estrange, Endicott, and Lieut. Allen, an old friend who is home on sick-leave, who welcome warmly and admiringly the slight, graceful figure in its white dress, with a bag of red, white, and blue hanging from her dimpled elbow, a fancy of Dorris, enhanced by the red and white roses and blue forget-me-nots in her hair,—flowers which she found on her spinning-wheel, with no clew to the giver.

“Mon Capitaine Henri, Aunt Dorothy wants you for a moment,” she says now. “They are all enjoying themselves, so I came out here to rest. Lieut. Allen,” she adds graciously, as her cousin disappears, “I am glad that we are to have one representative of the army left after my cousin leaves us.”

“I thank you, Miss Gordon,” answers the young soldier, “but my stay is limited; you see I hobble around now with the aid of a crutch. I only wish I could go with your cousin.”

“Yes, we fought side by side at Saratoga. You know what a close conflict that was. Such a din of shot and shell that an order could be scarcely heard in the tumult. It was hot work I can assure you.”

Dorris is leaning forward in breathless interest, and as he pauses asks a characteristic question: “How did you feel then? What were your thoughts?”

“Well, it was a most absurd thing, but I found myself, though I could scarcely hear my own voice, repeating a verse from one of the old cavalier ballads:—

“‘We were standing foot to foot, and giving shoot for shoot;
Hot and strong went our volleys at the blue;
We knelt, but not for grace, and the fuse lit up the face
Of the gunner, as the round shot by us flew.’”

Endicott smiles. “But it was a good battle-cry, Allen. I remember your reciting verses at Cambridge in your college-days, [Pg 469] but it was generally ‘A sonnet to your mistress’ eyebrows,’—some fair one who had conquered your heart for a week perhaps.”

Dorris is not to be diverted from the absorbing topic of ball and bayonet, and returns to the charge.

“Oh, I did not know where I was hit. In the midst of the fight I wondered why I couldn’t move my left foot; it was like lead in the stirrup, and looking down I saw the mark where the ball had struck, and the blood following it. It was a little quieter then, so I got the sergeant near me to clip, and ease my foot a little. But you should have seen L’Estrange: he was wounded then; and when the order came to charge he rushed on, waving his sword, with the blood dripping from his arm. How the men rushed after him! And when he came back supporting another poor fellow, and insisting on his being cared for first, you should have heard the men cheer him.”

“And you, Allen,” suggests Endicott,—“how did you get on with that wound of yours?”

“Well, I was rather faint by the time we were ready to go back to camp; but somebody set me straight in the saddle when I reeled, and I managed to get back all right.”

“To tell the truth, I was so much better off than most of the poor fellows, Keith, I made him help the rest. That was all.”

“So you took the chance of enjoying a British surgeon’s tender mercies, for the sake of men, who, perhaps, could not live anyway. Allen, you always were a good-natured Don Quixote.”

Allen laughed as if he saw something beneath the words which excused their lightness, but Dorris frowned, as she looked admiringly at the manly fellow so ready to see his comrade’s unselfish bravery, so unconscious of his own. She often saw the wounded soldier leaning on Endicott’s arm, and their words seemed grave and earnest, while Endicott’s face seemed for a time to lose its cynical sneers. And then Dorris had relented, only to harden again at some irreverent words of this incorrigible Keith. A sharp retort was on her lip now, but she restrained it as L’Estrange once more joined the group, and the talk drifted into quieter channels, the young soldiers a little graver than usual. At last [Pg 470] L’Estrange spoke with tender regret of the peaceful scenes he was to leave so soon behind him, and Endicott answered:—

“Yes; think of all the drives and walks and talks, and all the charms of civilized life you forego, and then of the camp-life and forced marches, and chances of broken arms and legs, which you endure, and all for that one sweet virtue,—patriotism.”

“Mr. Endicott cares so little for that sweet virtue that he will enjoy your pleasures while you fight his battles. If you will excuse me now I will return to the parlors;” and with little head proudly erect, Dorris started to enter the house, entertaining the fond hope that she had at last paid Keith for all his trials of her patience and patriotism. Alas!

and some one had carelessly left a footstool on the porch, and as Dorris’s foot struck it Endicott was the one to spring forward and save her from falling. Lifting her eyes to acknowledge the courtesy, she met such a look of quiet reproach that her “Thank you” came very humbly from so proud a young lady; and when she reflected on the subject at that trying moment which we have all experienced when we have regained our temper, and are taking a mental retrospect of the occasion when we very foolishly lost it, it was in vain that she tried to justify herself by repeating his sneering words. Remembering the look that followed them, she said, in self-abasement, “I had no right to judge him,” and in her humiliation avoided meeting him so successfully that for several days after her cousin’s departure she neither saw nor heard of him, until at last she heard with relief that he had gone away for a short time, on receiving news of the death of a cousin,—his nearest relative. But when week after week passed, and Aunt Dorothy had several times wondered aloud what had become of Mr. Endicott, Dorris began to wonder as well, and to miss the magnetic presence that made him so charming to all; indeed, she discovered, to her own uncontrollable disgust, that she missed him even more than her cousin, whose warm and generous nature had endeared him to all his new friends.

In the meantime Lieut. Allen called to say farewell to his [Pg 471] former playmate, and the friend of his later years. What if Dame Rumor said he cherished a latent desire for a nearer title than either of these. Dorris said they were only firm and true friends; and the tenor of their talk seemed to prove that she was right, for as she turned from the old-time spinnet, where she had been singing the lovely little serenade of Thomas Heywood:—

“Pack clouds away, and welcome day;
With night we banish sorrow;
Sweet airs, blow soft; mount, larks, aloft,
To give my love good-morrow.
Wings from the wind to please her mind,
Notes from the lark I’ll borrow;
Bird, plume thy wing, nightingale, sing,
To give my love good-morrow!”

“If it was any one but my old friend Max I should make you a very low courtesy, and say, ‘By your leave, fair sir, it is a matter of not the slightest consequence to you;’ but I’ll tell you the truth and nothing but the truth: I’m waiting for my hero, Max.”

“For your hero? Yes; I thought you were. And what is he like? A fairy prince like the Sleeping Beauty’s?”

“Satirical? I’m in the deepest earnest. Won’t you describe him? I really wish to know.”

“Well,” began Dorris, “it is not exactly an easy thing to describe an imaginary person. He is no fairy prince, Max, but a strong and earnest man, a true and noble soul; a man who, for a good cause, would peril anything, a knight like Bayard of old: sans peur et sans reproche.”

“No,” is the prompt reply. “If there are such men, I have never met them. But I would far rather wait for the dim ideal than try the commonplace reality.”

“But is all the reality commonplace? Let me tell you a story, [Pg 472] Dorris; I shall not bore you, for it is not long: When I joined the army, in the first of the war, I went to tell an old friend, and to take leave of him. He was a peculiar fellow, seemingly cold, light and satirical, half-sneering at the ardent blaze of patriotism that was burning all around him, seeming to have no intention of serving his country in her need. And yet I knew him to be the truest, noblest, tenderest, and most loyal fellow among all my friends. He looked at me with real envy, and then exclaimed: ‘I wish to Heaven I could go with you, Allen!’ and I answered: ‘Why don’t you? I have never asked before because I knew you had some worthy reason.’ After some hesitation, he began: ‘Because you have never doubted or questioned me I will tell you why I am here, when every feeling is against my inactivity. You will keep my secret?’ Of course I promised, and he went on: ‘You know I am very wealthy, Max, that my income is, for these times, extremely large; but you do not know that, by my grandfather’s will, the next heir, in case of my death, is my cousin, a man who aids and abets the Tories in every possible way, a man unscrupulous and unprincipled to the last degree. I have but one life; I might lay it down in my first battle, and that property, over which I have no control, would be worse than useless to my country. It would aid her foes, and, much as she needs men, she needs money even more. So I stay here, and put my income, as fast as I get it, to the national use. You know what my income is. I’ll show you my expenses’; and he showed me the merest fraction—less than I spend myself, I began to expostulate on his endurance of suspicion and blame for what might be so nobly explained, but he would only say, ‘Oh, it would sound quixotic and sentimental; and, after all, what does it matter? I know myself that I am serving my country to the best of my poor ability.’ But at last, Dorris, he is rewarded, for he was born to be a soldier; and when, three weeks ago, he received news of the sudden death of that cousin, he immediately enlisted, and is now serving his country in the way he has so long desired. What do you think of such a man as he?”

“He is a hero,” answered Dorris, steadily, though a suspicion, quick as a ray of light, had flashed through her mind as to who this hero was. “A hero as true as any my fancy could paint. Who is he—this noble friend of yours?”

“Keith Endicott,” is the quiet answer, adding, quickly, as he [Pg 473] rose to take his leave. “Forgive me, sweet friend, that I could no longer bear that you should do injustice to him, for those quick words of yours the last evening we were all together have rankled in my heart, as I know they have in his, ever since.”

Dorris was not too proud to acknowledge when she was in the wrong, and with winning grace she said, as she gave him her hand:—

“I thank you for the lesson you have taught me, Max. I was wrong to judge him so hardly, but be assured I will make full amends when we meet again.”

Then the good-bys were said, the good wishes given, and the last of Dorris’s three cavaliers had left her.

Summer has gone, and snow lies white upon the ground, and we find Dorris seated before the old desk, whose secret drawer is no longer empty, but holds a faded cluster of roses and forget-me-nots, writing busily in her diary a record not only of the day’s doings but of the varying emotions which each day brought to life. The words the busy hand is tracing are these:—

“Jan. 2, 1779. Yesterday was the beginning of the New Year, and as I wondered what it would bring me,—joy or grief, pleasure or pain,—I saw a carriage come up the drive-way and then stop, while the driver assisted to the door a figure in a soldier’s uniform. In a moment I was in the hall, and my arms around my brother—for it was my own bravest Roy. He had often written us, but we received none of his letters: they were either intercepted or lost. But, oh, how can I forgive myself when I think to whom I owe my brother’s life! that, when Roy was surrounded by enemies, and desperately wounded, it was Keith Endicott who rushed to his aid, and, fighting against fearful odds, bore him alive from the field, at the cost of a sabre cut on his own hand. It was he who saw Roy daily in his long struggle with death, and when that dreadful presence was banished it was he who cared for his safe transportation home, to enjoy the rest which is the only means of giving him back his old strength and vigor. And Roy almost worships Keith, as well he may, saying he is the idol of the soldiers, who have dubbed him the hero of the regiment.

“The New Year has truly brought me happiness, for my brother is with me safe once more; our armies are fast gaining ground, our [Pg 474] victories are more numerous, and hope dawns that the flag of liberty will yet wave triumphantly over a free and happy nation; and I can once more mingle a song and not a sob with the busy hum of my wheel.”

Two years have passed; Yorktown has been fought and won, and Dorris’s hopeful words are verified. The flag of liberty is unfurled over a free and happy nation,—a nation with its history yet before it, with only its darkest and yet most glorious record traced indelibly on the annals of the world. The New Year has come again, and Dorris, with her spinning-wheel, is wondering what it will bring her. The door opens suddenly, and some one announces, “Col. Endicott, Miss Gordon.”

For a moment Dorris loses sight of everything but a tall figure in the quaint Continental uniform, and only hears the old, light tones say, “Will the fair Goddess of Liberty welcome the soldier as he comes back from fighting his own battles, as she bade him?”

And Dorris, with a blush for the memory he recalls, bravely confesses her fault and her gratitude, and ends very humbly, “Can you forgive me, Col. Endicott?” stealing a look up at the grave face.

“Forgive you, dear child! Do you not know that I have loved you all the time? Now that you know I am a little better than you thought me can you trust me for the rest? Can you love me a little, sweet Dorris?”

There was no lightness now, only deep, loving tenderness; and Dorris answered trustingly:—

And there we will leave them, while the dancing fire-light shows us the pretty scene beside Dorris’s dear little spinning-wheel, and the silvery beams of the rising moon bring to Dorris the beginning of a new and happy life with the advent of a new year.

But ah, Great-grandmother Dorris, stately and demure in your lavender brocade, and your feathered and powdered hair, do you know you were not so very unlike the Dorrises of to-day, after all? And they have spinning-wheels, too, with their flax tied with blue ribbons. And think you that these wheels see no romances? Ah, but they can’t tell them, you know, pretty Grandmother Dorris.

EDITOR’S TABLE.

It often happens that the worst effects of wrong-doing are visited upon neither the criminal nor upon those who have suffered in person or property by his crime. This fact is emphasized by the recent suicide of a convict’s wife, in one of our New England States, after having killed her two children. This incident furnishes a dreadful commentary on the condition of those dependent upon convicted criminals who are paying the penalty of their crimes. For the convict there is abundant sympathy. As the St. Louis Globe Democrat well puts it, societies are organized for the purpose of improving his mind, and cooking-clubs toil and perspire at Christmas and Thanksgiving to the end that his body may not suffer; tract-distributors provide him with reading matter, and sewing-circles warm him with flannel under-wear; doctors look after his health, and legislators vie with each other in seeing that he is not overworked; but, if there is any society organized for the purpose of helping the wife whom he has disgraced, and most likely left penniless at home, its name has not yet been made public; if any sewing-circle has undertaken to clothe his children, the fact has not been heralded to the world. Yet the heaviest part of the punishment falls not on the convict but on his family, the members of which, by one of those unjust society decisions from which there is no appeal, are stigmatized with disgrace on account of an offence in which they had no part. This is grossly unjust, and those who are benevolently inclined should take the matter in hand and see what can be done for the wives and children of convicts.

New England has no representative in the national legislature upon whose career she can look with more of pride and satisfaction than that of Gen. Joseph R. Hawley, of Connecticut. A man of sound learning, and many of the highest qualities of statesmanship; he is unpretentious in manner, lives simply, is free from egotism, and full of the generous and manly qualities which inspire confidence and compel friendliness. Few men, of this generation at least,—as will be universally recognized a little later if not now,—have approached nearer to the popular ideal of a representative American in public life. There could be no better evidence of the manly independence which he brings to the discussion of measures of importance than his attitude with reference to the bill intended to provide for the maintenance of an army of such size and efficiency as to provide for [Pg 476] all possible contingencies arising from foreign aggression or internal troubles. In recognition of the fact that we have lawless elements in all of our large cities always ready to avail themselves of any pretext for riot and incendiarism, he urged the wisdom of providing such safeguards against these uprisings as would be afforded by disciplined and efficient troops ready for instant service at any point. Some of the demagogues in the Senate, hypocritically posing as friends of the working-men, endeavored to distort this common-sense and patriotic view into an intention to use the army for the crushing of the working-men. There have been few better speeches in the Senate in recent times than Senator Hawley’s temperate but cutting reply to these pseudo-friends of labor. It affords sufficient evidence, if any were wanting, that the true friends of the working-men are those who have the courage of their convictions, even when to utter them may afford opportunity for misrepresentation and abuse.

The report of a recent attempt to wreck a train on the Maine Central Railroad is not so startling as it would be were this species of crime of less frequent occurrence; but it is noteworthy as being the sixth attempt of the kind at the same place within a few years. It is very fortunate that so many of these dastardly efforts to bring innocent people to destruction prove futile. In fact it is comparatively seldom that the boldest attempts at train-wrecking result in loss of life. The awful possibilities, however, which lie within the hands of the train-wrecker suggest most forcibly that this crime should be treated with unusual severity. The person who would indiscriminately bring the passengers of a moving train to death must invariably, if sane, be a criminal of the darkest dye. Murder of an individual, even when coming within the first degree, is not often without some particular aggravation on the part of the victim. But train-wrecking must always be the result of the purest malice,—of diabolism unalloyed. No palliating circumstance ever suggests itself. The villain attempts to kill not one who has involved himself in a quarrel with him, but peaceable, unsuspecting men, women, and children, without distinction. And attempts of this kind have become so frequent, and the crime is at once so cowardly, so insidious, and so dastardly, that no pains to apprehend the villain can ever be too great, nor can any penalty that is allowed for any crime be too severe for this. If capital punishment is to be on our statute books for anything, it should certainly be for the train-wrecker. Let there be a law which shall with certainty bring to the hangman’s noose every person who makes even an attempt to destroy a moving train, and this fiendish crime may be less frequent than it now is.

HISTORICAL RECORD.

March 19.—Under this date Mayor Chapman, chairman of the Committee on Invitation for the Centennial Celebration at Portland, Maine, which is to occur on the 4th of July next, issued a circular saying: “The Committee on Invitation of the Centennial Committee desire to have a record prepared of the names of Sons and Daughters of Portland who are residents in other places, to whom invitations to attend the Centennial Anniversary can be sent. For that purpose they request information of such absentees, including those who were born here—those whose parents, or husbands, or wives were natives of our city, and also those not natives who were former residents. Such information can be communicated by letter or otherwise to John T. Hull, Clerk of Committee, at Room No. 18, City Hall.”

March 21.—Fire at Newburyport destroyed two shoe factories and a three-tenement block; another block was nearly destroyed, and other buildings were damaged. Total loss, $75,000.

April 1.—Celebration at Lowell of the fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the city. In the forenoon an historical address was given by C. C. Chase, formerly principal of the High School; in the afternoon Mayor Abbott gave an address, followed by an oration by Hon. F. T. Greenhalge.

April 4.—Fire at Westboro’, Mass., destroyed shoe factories and damaged other buildings, with a total loss of $90,000.

April 7.—The State election in Rhode Island resulted in the election for governor of George Peabody Wetmore for a second term. The prohibitory constitutional amendment was adopted.

April 7.—Quarterly meeting of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Judge Cowley, of Lowell, read a paper on “Judicial Falsification of History.”

Rev. Increase N. Tarbox, D.D., the historiographer, reported that since Jan. 1 there had been fifteen deaths among the members. Memorial sketches of seven deceased members were reported, namely: Nicholas Hoppin, D.D., a resident member, born in Providence R.I., [Pg 478] Dec. 3, 1812, died in Cambridge, Mass., March 8, 1886. Ex-president William Smith Clark, resident member, born in Ashfield, Mass., July 31, 1826, died in Amherst, Mass., March 9, 1886. George H. Allan, a resident member, born in Boston, Mass., June 16, 1832, died in Boston, March 15, 1886. William Temple, a resident member, born in Reading, Mass., Sept. 15, 1801, died in Woburn, Mass., March 18, 1886. Archbishop Richard Chenevix French, corresponding member, born in Dublin, Ireland, Sept. 7, 1807, died March 27, 1886. John Bostwick Morean, corresponding member, born in New York City, Oct. 12, 1812, died in same city, March 10, 1886. John Gerrish Webster, life member, born in Portsmouth, N.H., April 8, 1811, died in Boston, Feb. 7, 1886. Francis Minot Weld, life member and benefactor, born in Boston, April 27, 1815, died in Jamaica Plain, Feb. 4, 1886.

April 7.—Terrible disaster to a Fitchburg Railroad train near Bardwell’s Ferry, on the State road. Ten persons were killed and twenty-two injured.

April 13.—Regular meeting of the Bostonian Society. The following life members were admitted: Charles Francis Adams, Jr., Thomas Mack, William Minot, Jr., Jonathan A. Lane, Clarence J. Blake, M.D., Amos A. Lawrence, Nahum Chapin, William Caleb Loring, J. A. Woolson. The essay was by Alexander S. Porter, on “Real Estate Values in Boston During the Present Century.” The highest priced land which the essayist had heard of in Boston is the estate bought by H. D. Parker at the corner of Tremont and School streets, 1,984 square feet, for $200,000, or about $100 per foot. The cheapest he had heard of was that of Harrison Gray Otis, on the west slope of Beacon Hill, he having obtained it by squatter sovereignty. In closing he said that real estate has proved to be a safe investment in Boston, and many wealthy families have gained a large share of their wealth simply by the rise of real-estate values.

April 13.—At an adjourned meeting of the people of Lexington who are interested in the formation of an historical society, an organization was effected by the choice of the following-named officers: president Hon. A. E. Scott; vice-presidents, M. H. Merriam, W. A. Tower, Miss K. Whitman, Miss M. E. Hudson; treasurer, L. A. Saville; recording secretary, A. E. Locke; corresponding secretary, Rev. E. G. Porter; historian, Rev. C. A. Staples; custodian, Dr. R. M. Lawrence.

[Pg 479] April 13.—Celebration of the incorporation of the new town of Hopedale. At sunset a salute of eighty-six guns was fired by Battery B, of Worcester, Hopedale being the eighty-sixth town incorporated in Massachusetts during this century. Joy bells were then rung for one hour. Then followed an illumination with fireworks. This town was set off from Milford after a hard struggle in the Legislature.

April 13.—Dedicatory exercises of the new county building in Ellsworth, Me. The Rev. Dr. Tenney opened the exercises by prayer, and Hon. John B. Redman introduced Hon. N. B. Coolidge, chairman of the county commissioners, who presented the buildings to the court and county in appropriate remarks. Mr. Coolidge was followed by C. A. Spofford, president of the Hancock county bar; Chief-Justice Peters, who reviewed the history of the county in an interesting speech; Judge Haskell, of Portland, and Hon. Eugene Hale.

NECROLOGY.

March 21.—Death from apoplexy of Col. B. W. Hoyt, secretary and treasurer of the New Hampshire Club, treasurer of the B. W. Hoyt Shoe Company of Epping, and special commissioner of the Boston & Maine Railroad.

March 23.—Judge Joseph McKean Churchill, of the Central Municipal Court of Boston, died at his home in Milton, aged 64 years. He was graduated from Harvard in 1840, and from the Law School in 1845. He served as captain in the Forty-fifth Massachusetts Regiment during the war. He was appointed to the bench in December, 1870.

April 3.—Death at Philadelphia of Theodore C. Hersey of Portland, Me. He was born in Gorham, Me., in 1812. He early went to Portland, where he formed a partnership with St. John Smith in the West India trade. Mr. Hersey was one of the proprietors of the International line of steamers, and for many years was its president, resigning, on account of ill health, about a year ago. He was one of the founders of the Board of Trade, and its president in 1863-68 and 1873-74, and a charter member of the Merchant’s Exchange.

[Pg 480] April 4.—Death of George L. Claflin, a prominent wholesale druggist, of Providence, R.I., aged 63 years. He had been a member of the Common Council and the General Assembly, and took an active part in banking and insurance corporations.

April 5.—Death of Dr. George A. Bethune, of Boston. He was born there, in 1812, and was graduated at Harvard College in 1831. He studied medicine in the Harvard Medical School, and also abroad, and having made eye and ear diseases a specialty, practised until about ten or fifteen years ago, when he retired. He was at one time connected with the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

April 6.—Death, at Brunswick, Me., of Hon. William G. Barrows. He was born in Bridgton, Me., January, 1821, and was graduated from Bowdoin College in the class of 1839. He was admitted to the bar in 1842, and settled for practice in his profession at Brunswick, where ever since he had resided. From 1853 to 1855 he edited with marked ability the Brunswick Telegraph. In 1856 he was selected judge of Probate Court for Cumberland County, and reëlected in 1860. In 1863 he was appointed associate justice of the Supreme Judicial Court and reappointed in 1870 and 1877, serving three terms of seven years each. At the expiration of the latter term he declined a reappointment, preferring the retirement of private life. He was a member of the Maine Historical Society, and one of its most earnest supporters. He was warmly interested in the establishment of the Brunswick Public Library, and one of its most liberal supporters.

April 7.—Unexpected death of Prof. Thomas Anthony Thatcher, LL.D., professor in Yale College of the Latin Language and Literature. He was born in Hartford, Jan. 11, 1815. He was fitted for Yale at the Hartford Hopkins Grammar School, and entered the college in 1831, graduating four years later. Then he taught in the New Canaan, Conn., Seminary for two years, and then in the Oglethorpe University, Georgia. He became a Latin tutor in Yale in 1838, and four years later was made a professor. In 1843 he went to Germany and studied two years. While there he was offered and accepted a position as tutor to the Crown Prince of Prussia and his royal cousin, Prince Frederick Charles. His “De Officiis” of Cicero and Madvig’s Latin Grammar are widely known.

April 8.—Dan Stone Smalley died at his residence, on Green street, Jamaica Plain, at the age of 75 years. He was for many years teacher of the Eliot Commercial School in Jamaica Plain.

[Pg 481] April 9.—Death at Bement, Ill., of Hon. Lewis Bodman, formerly of Williamsburg, Mass., and senator from Hampshire county.

April 10.—Sudden death of Hon. Elbridge Gerry of Portland, Me. He was born in Waterford, Oxford county, Me., Dec. 6, 1815. He received an academical education. After its completion he studied law, and was admitted to the bar in his twenty-fourth year. In the following year he was appointed clerk of the House of Representatives of Maine. At twenty-seven he was chosen state attorney for his native county. At thirty-one he was elected to the State Legislature as a Democratic representative. In 1849 his political career culminated in his election to Congress. He retired from public life in 1851, and settled down to the practice of his profession in Portland. His son is vice-consul at Havre, France.

April 10.—Sudden death at Dallas, Texas, of John T. Ferris, manager of the Union Mutual Life Insurance Co., of Portland, Me. He was a man greatly esteemed in his large circle of acquaintances.

April 12.—Death of Thaddeus Fairbanks of St. Johnsbury, Vt. He was born at Brimfield, Mass., Jan. 17, 1796, and went with his father to St. Johnsbury when he was twenty years old. His many inventions in the line of weighing-machines are too familiar to need enumeration. He was the only American who was honored at the Vienna Exhibition by being made a Knight of Imperial Order of Francis Joseph. To his munificent gifts the academy at St. Johnsbury owes its worth.

April 12.—Dr. Abram M. Shew, superintendent of the Connecticut Hospital for the Insane at Middletown, died suddenly at the age of 45. He was appointed assistant physician of the New York Asylum for Insane Convicts at Auburn in 1862; in 1866 he went to Middletown, to superintend the building of the Connecticut Hospital for the Insane, and had since remained in charge of that institution. He was a native of Watertown, N.Y.

LITERATURE.

It is with a much more than ordinary degree of expectancy that the literary public has awaited a complete and adequate biography of the poet Longfellow. It comes to us at last as the work [11] of the poet’s own brother, Samuel, who has, however, modestly assumed to have only edited the elaborate volumes which have recently come from the publisher’s hands. This is true to a large extent, for the Life is for the greater part composed of portions of Longfellow’s voluminous diary and correspondence; but these are interspersed throughout with his brother’s own narrative, full of reminiscences and charming comments.

The work is not to hardly any degree analytical in its character; it is a vivid panorama of a most deeply and widely interesting career. We are made familiar by means of these volumes with the daily life of Henry W. Longfellow. Much of this insight is afforded, as has already been seen, through the published letters and diary. The interest of these is far greater than is usually the case with such compilations. Longfellow’s life was to such a degree an intellectual one, that those who would know him best must find his own pen his best biographer. The comments in his journal are delightful, and the letters are highly interesting reading. They are from and to a host of friends, including Sumner, Hawthorne, Samuel Ward, Park Benjamin, Carlyle, and many others of equal note. Of course there is much in both letters and journal of personal matters, even such as regarding an invitation to dine, or some other passing slight event; but there is no apparent reason why anything should have been omitted that has been inserted in this work. Not only the poetry but the every-day life, the experiences, and the associations of Longfellow are worth knowing to those far beyond the pale of his own particular group of friends. Nothing has been inserted here, however, that seems to offend the sense of propriety, and the editor has certainly given evidence of the best of wisdom, care, and delicacy. Where he becomes the biographer he confines himself mostly to simple narrative; indeed, his final “summing up,” after the last has been told that could be told of his illustrious brother’s earthly career, is given in a single page.

There is very little to criticise regarding this Life. Of its kind it could not be more satisfactory. It is not the work of the theorist, the analyst, critic, or the eulogist. It is the full, plain, unvarnished story of the life of “the good son, devoted husband, affectionate father; the generous, faithful friend; the urbane and cultivated host; the lover of children; the lover of his country; the lover of liberty and of peace.”

INDEX TO MAGAZINE LITERATURE.

Art, Architecture. Slyfield Surrey. Basil Champneys. 22.—A Chapter on Fireplaces. I. H. Pollen. 22.—The Romance of Art. F. Mabel Robinson. 22.—The Annunciation in Art. Julia Cartwright. 22.—American Embroideries. S. R. Koehler. 22.—Art in Phœnicia. Wm. Holmden. 22.—Boydell’s Shakespeare. Alfred Beaver. 22.

Biography, Genealogy. Sketch of Christian Huygens. 5.—Tribute to General Hancock. Wm. L. Keese. 6.—Elizabeth, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. Margaret Deane. 7.—Glimpses of Longfellow in Social Life. Annie Fields. 1.—Gouverneur Morris. Henry Cabot Lodge. 11.—Memoir of Ashbel Woodward, M.D. P. H. Woodward, Esq. 12.—Descendants of Josiah Upton. William H. Upton. 12.—Genealogical Gleanings in England. Henry F. Waters. 12.—Notes and Documents concerning Hugh Peters. G. D. Scull. 12.—John Harvard. John. T. Hassam. 12.—Early American Engravers. Richard C. Lichtenstein. 12.—Letters of Governor Greene. 13.—Journal of Lieut. John Trevett. 13.—Fanny Davenport. Lisle Lester. 16.—Franz Defreygar. Helen Zimmem. 22.—James Otis, Jr. Rev. H. Hewitt. 23.

Education. The Elective System of the University of Virginia. Prof. James M. Garnett. 3.—National Aid to Common Schools. Senator J. J. Ingalls. 4.—The Hand-work of School Children. Rebecca J. Rickoff. 5.—Relation of the Secondary School to the College. H. M. Willard. 8.—The Evolution of a College Republic. Louise Seymour Houghton. 8.—The Philosophical Phase of a System of Education. Charles E. Lowrey. 8.—Physical Education. A. T. Bruce. 8.—The First day in the Georgics. Miss A. A. Knight. 8.—Moral Education in the Public Schools. Kate Gannett Wells. 18.

History. A Famous Diplomatic Dispatch. Allen Thorndike Rice. 4.—The Newgate of Connecticut. N. H. Egleston. 6.—The Convention of North Carolina 1788. A. W. Clason. 6.—Church Records of Farmington, Ct. Julius Gay. 12.—Papers in Egerton MS. 2395. Henry F. Waters. 12.—Soldiers in King Philip’s War. XIV. Rev. Geo. M. Bodge. 12.—Newbury and the Bartlett Family. John C. J. Brown. 12.—Memoirs of Rhode Island. Henry Bull. 13.—The Militia of Rhode Island, 1767. Mrs. E. H. L. Barker. 13.—Records of Trinity Church, Newport, R.I. H. E. Turner, M.D. 13.—Friends Records, Newport, R.I. H. E. Turner, M.D. 13.—Lafayette’s Visit to Rhode Island, 1784. 13.—Memoirs of Hampton Court. Henry C. Wilson. 16.—The Virginia Cavaliers. K. M. Rowland. 17.—The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and 1799. R. T. Durrett. 17.—The Reign of Terror in Tennessee. J. A. Trousdale. 17.—An Illustrious Town. Andover. Rev. F. B. Makepeace. 23.—Webster Historical Society Papers. I. Hon. Stephen M. Allen. 23.—The New England Library and its Founder. Victoria Reed. 23.

Literature. Our Experience Meetings. Julian Hawthorne, Edgar Fawcett, Joel Chandler Harris. 9.—Shylock vs. Antonio. Charles Henry Phelps. 11.—Problems of the Scarlet Letter. Julian Hawthorne. 11.—Mr. Howell and the Poets. Robert Burns Wilson. 17.—Poe’s Last Poem. Henry W. Austin. 17.—Tennyson’s Later Poems. P. B. Semple. 17.

Military. Sherman and McPherson. Gen. U. S. Grant. 4.—Plan of the Tennessee Campaign. Anna Ella Carroll. 4.—Chancellorsville. William Howard Sicles. 6.—Shiloh. Gen. W. F. Smith. 6.—Our First Battle. Alfred E. Lee. 6.—The War in Missouri. Richard H. Musser. 17.

Naval. Life on the Alabama. P. D. Haywood. 1.—Cruise and Combats of the Alabama. Capt. John McIntosh Kell. 1.—The Duel between the Alabama and the Kearsarge. Dr. John M. Brown. 1.

Miscellaneous. An Arctic Journal. Dr. Octave Pavy. 4.—The Whipping-post. Lewis Hocheimer. 5.—The Overcrowding of Cities. Dr. Prosper Bender. 6.—Smoking from College-girls’ Point of View. Elizabeth Porter [Pg 484] Gould. 8.—The Query Club. Frances E. Sparhawk. 8.—Leaves from a ’49 Ledger. C. F. Degelman. 10.—Creole Slave Songs. Geo. W. Cable. 1.—Toy Dogs. James Watson. 1.—Scores and Tallies. Grant Allen. 9.—Children, Past and Present. Agnes Repplier. 11.—Various articles on Young Women and Marriage. 16.—American Fame Abroad. Edith Langdon. 16.—Generalities of Washington Society. Flora Adams Darling. 16.—The Modern Barber: A Study. Henry M. Gallaher, D.D. 16.—Modern Woman and Dress. Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher. 16.—New England Manners and Customs in Time of Bryant’s early Life. Mrs. H. G. Rowe. 23.—New England Characteristics. Lizzie M. Whittlesey. 23.

Politics, Economics, Public Affairs. Gambetta’s Electoral Tour. Madame Adam. 4.—Constitutional Reform in Rhode Island. Abraham Payne, W. P. Sheffield. 4.—More about American Landlordism. Henry George. 4.—An Economic Study of Mexico. David A. Wells. 5.—The Land Question Stated. Alex. G. Eels. 10.—The Taxation of Land. John H. Durst. 10.—The Progress of Kansas. Gov. John A. Martin. 4.—English Rule in India. Annita Lal Roy. 4.—The French Problem in Canada. Geo. H. Clarke. 5.—The Consolidation of Canada. Watson Griffin. 6.—A Shoemaker’s Contribution to the Chinese Discussion. Patrick J. Healy. 10.—The Future Influence of China. Irving McDowell. 10.—Certain Phases of the Chinese Question. John F. Miller. 10.—Strikes, Lockouts, and Arbitration. George May Powell. 1.—Responsible Government under the Constitution. Woodrow Wilson. 11.—The Speaker of the National House. J. Lawrence Laughlin. 18.—Present Conditions in Georgia. Henry Wadsworth Reed. 18.—Civics and Economics. Alexander Johnston. 18.

Recreation, Sports. Botany as a Recreation for Invalids. Miss E. F. Andrews. 5.—Ranch Life and Game Shooting in the West. Theodore Roosevelt. 7.—American Steam Yachting. E. S. Jaffray. 7.—What Steam Yachting costs in England. Dixon Kemp. 7.—Sport in Florida. James A. Henschall. A Chat about Driving. S. Sidney. 7.

Religion, Morals. The Spiritual Problem of the Manufacturing Town. William W. Adams, D.D. 3.—The possibilities of Religious Reform in Italy. Wm. Chauncy Langdon, D.D. 3.—Christianity and Popular Education. Washington Gladden. 1.—Reformation of Charity. D. O. Kellogg. 11.

Science, Natural History, Discovery, Inventions. External Form of the Manlike Apes. R. Hartmann. 5.—The Factors of Organic Evolution. Herbert Spencer. 5.—The Teeth of the Coming Man. Oscar Schmidt. 5.—Earthquakes in Central America. M. De Montessus. 5.—The Gems of the National Museum. George F. Kunz. 5.—The Cotton-Harvester. Hugh N. Starnes. 17.

Theology, Polemics. The Rite of Blood-Covenanting and the Doctrine of Atonement. Rev. J. Max Hark. 3.—Mr. Gladstone and Genesis. Prof. Huxley. 5.—Comments. Prof. Henry Drummond. 5.

Travel, Adventure, Description. Around the World on a Bicycle. Thomas Stevens. 7.—Crossing the Atlantic in a Blockade Runner. Capt. Roland F. Coffin. 7.—After Geronimo. Lieut. John Bigelow, Jr. 7.—Work and Sport on the Congo. Henry M. Stanley. 7.—On the Trail of Geronimo. Fred W. Stowell. 10.—Reminiscences of Calaveras. 10.—Italy from a Tricycle. II. Elizabeth Robins Pennell. 1.—Two Days in Utah. Alice W. Rollins. 9.—The Tiber

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In the old records this name is variously spelled Acushena, Accushnutt, Cushnet, Acushnett, Acushnet, etc. The spelling now always used is Acushnet. Apponegansett was often spelled without the initial A.

[2] The original township of Dartmouth was owned by thirty-six proprietors at the time of its settlement. This old proprietorship was a quasi corporation, which existed for 170 years. It conveyed all the lands sold until at last nothing remained. Its meetings were then mere formalities, and they finally died for lack of attendance.

[3] This included, besides, $130,000 in advance wages, 13,650 barrels of flour, 10,400 barrels of beef, 7,150 barrels of pork, 97,500 gallons of molasses, 78,000 pounds of sugar, 39,000 pounds of rice, 39,000 pounds of dried apples, 19,500 pounds of cheese, 16,300 pounds of ham, 32,500 pounds of codfish, 18,000 pounds of coffee, 450 whale-boats, 205,000 yards of canvas, etc.

[4] The world will ever be grateful to whaling for having rescued from penal servitude John Boyle O’Reilly, the gifted Irishman, who has given to the world so many beautiful poems.

[5] “Massachusetts Teacher,” January, 1858.

[6] Mr. Mann, in his Report to the Board of Education in Massachusetts, in 1846, refers to this work as follows: “Within the last year the State of Rhode Island has entirely renovated her school system. Under the auspices of that distinguished and able friend of common schools, Henry Barnard, she is preparing to take her place among the foremost of the States.” In 1856 he speaks of Mr. Barnard’s work in Rhode Island “as the greatest legacy he had left to American Educators; the best working model of school agitation and legal organization for the schools of the whole country which had yet been furnished.”

[7] Substance of an address before the New England Historic-Genealogical Society, April 7 1886.

[8] The Early Jurisprudence of New Hampshire. An address delivered before the New Hampshire Historical Society, June 3, 1883. By John M. Shirley, Esq.

[9] See Cowley’s pamphlet, “Our Divorce Courts,” &c., pp. 11, 13, 28-30. In the last revision of his History of the United States, Mr. Bancroft has corrected the errors which disfigured all the earlier editions of that work, and which are exposed on p. 10.

[10] See the supplementary chapter in the late John A. Goodwin’s “Pilgrim Republic,” soon to be published. Perhaps the case of Wade was rather a decree of nullity than a divorce.

[11] Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. With extracts from his Journals and Correspondence. Edited by Samuel Longfellow. 2 volumes. Boston: Ticknor & Co.

1	The Century.	13	Rhode Island Historical Magazine.
2	Harper’s Monthly.	14	The Forum.
3	Andover Review.	15	New Princeton Review.
4	North American Review.	16	The Brooklyn Magazine.
5	Popular Science Monthly.	17	The Southern Bivouac.
6	Magazine of Am. History.	18	The Citizen.
7	Outing.	19	Political Science Quarterly.
8	Education.	20	Unitarian Review.
9	Lippincott’s Magazine.	21	New Englander.
10	Overland Monthly.	22	Magazine of Art.
11	Atlantic Monthly.	23	New England Magazine.
12	New England Historical and Genealogical Register.

CONTENTS

THE

New England Magazine

AND

BAY STATE MONTHLY.

TRINITY COLLEGE, HARTFORD.