Tributes to t\^e ^\emoTyof- 
 
 ^«SW^ 
 
CIass___Lji_iL 
 Book. 
 
 ^Ky^^JPT 
 
TRIBUTES TO THE MEMORY OF 
 HON. JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY, 
 
 EcprintelJ from tl)e ProccelJinfffli of ti)e iflaseacijuscttg pigtortcal ^o(ietj). 
 
•' rf/Wf 
 
TRIBUTES 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 HON. JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY. 
 
 At a stated meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 
 on the 8th of September, 1870, after the transaction of the 
 formal business, the President, the Hon. Egbert C. Winthrop, 
 spoke as follows : — 
 
 It is with no little personal sorrow that I announce the 
 death of my cherished friend, the Honorable John Pendleton 
 Kennedy, who was elected a Corresponding Member of this 
 Society in 1858. I am sure the Society will indulge me, 
 this morning, in dwelling at some length on the character 
 and career of one, who had far higher claims than any friend- 
 ship or affection of mine could give him to the regard and 
 respect of his contemporaries. 
 
 Mr. Kennedy was born on the 25th of October, 1795, in the 
 city of Baltimore ; where his father, of Irish origin, who died 
 early, was then a prosperous merchant. His mother, who 
 lived to see her son — and he was her eldest — at the height 
 of his reputation as an author and statesman, was a daughter 
 of Philip Pendleton, of Berkeley County, Virginia, of a family 
 distinguished by the virtues and accomplishments of more 
 than one of its members. Graduated at Baltimore College 
 in 1812, he soon selected the law as his profession. But our 
 war with England was just then at its commencement ; and 
 
 1 
 
his pursuits were interrupted by the excitements of the period, 
 and by the perils to wliich liis native city was peculiarly 
 exposed. With his friend, the late Mr. George Peabody, he 
 volunteered and served as a private at the battles of Bladens- 
 burg and North Point ; and with him, not many years ago, 
 received from the United States the bounty land awarded to 
 that service. 
 
 Admitted to the Baltimore Bar in 1816, he practised with 
 success for several years, at a period when that Bar was 
 adorned by such men as William Pinckney and William Wirt 
 and the late Chief-Justice Taney ; with more than one of 
 whom he was sometimes associated as junior counsel in 
 important causes, and with all of whom he was on terms 
 of personal friendship. His taste for literary life, however, 
 soon came in conflict with that for legal studies ; and as early 
 as 1818 he had become joint editor, with his accomplished 
 friend, the late Peter Hoffman Cruse, of a little fortnightly 
 serial, in prose and verse, under the title of " The Red 
 Book." This little work was continued for two or three 
 years, and its contents subsequently collected into two 
 volumes. 
 
 And now the attractions of political service and public 
 employment threatened to draw him away both from litera- 
 ture and from law. He was induced to take an active part 
 in the Presidential campaign of 1820 ; and in the same year 
 was elected a member of the House of Delegates of Maryland. 
 In that body he rendered conspicuous service for several 
 years ; a part of the time as Speaker, and always as an 
 intelligent and earnest advocate of measures for improving 
 the financial condition and restoring the credit of tlie State. 
 
 In 1823, he accepted an appointment from President Mon- 
 roe, as Secretary of our Legation to Chili ; and I have 
 heard him describe most humorously his first interview with 
 the late John Quincy Adams, — then Secretary of State, of 
 whom in later years he enjoyed the intimate acquaintance 
 
and friendship, — when he called on Mr. Adams at the State 
 Department for his instructions, preparatory to embarking 
 for his post. " Instructions ! " said Mr. Adams. " The only 
 instructions I have to give you at present are these ; " and 
 reaching up, with the aid of a chair, to a high shelf, or pigeon- 
 hole, in his bookcase, he handed him a carefully prepared 
 description and drawing of the uniform which our Legations 
 abroad were then required to wear, — not yet discarded as 
 inconsistent with Republican principles, — and told him to 
 provide himself accordingly. Mr. Kennedy's youthful aspira- 
 tions for diplomacy were not stimulated, or altogether satisfied, 
 by this view of what was expected of him ; and, before it was 
 too late, he obtained leave to resign the appointment. 
 
 His interest in public affairs, however, continued unabated ; 
 and, in the intervals of professional labor, he prepared and pub- 
 lished a number of political essays, which attracted a wide and 
 marked attention. Having warmly espoused the views of Henry 
 Clay (of whom not long afterwards he became one of the most 
 trusted and valued friends) on the subject of American Industry, 
 he wrote and printed, in 1830, an elaborate and masterly reply 
 to Mr. Cambreleng's memorable Report on Commerce and 
 Navigation, which had a general circulation throughout the 
 country ; and in the following year he rendered eminent 
 service, by tongue and pen, at a National Convention of the 
 friends of Manufacturing Industry, held in the City of New 
 York. 
 
 But it soon appeared that his more purely literary labors 
 had by no means been abandoned or suspended, and that he 
 was destined to make no common mark — for that period, 
 certainly — in a line of literature in which our own hon- 
 ored Founder, Dr. Jeremy Belknap, had led the way in 
 1792, by his American tale, " The Foresters ; " and in which 
 Charles Brockden Brown and Washington Irving and James 
 Fenimore Cooper had since been so conspicuous. 
 
 In 1832, Mr. Kennedy published his first novel, under the 
 
4* 
 
 name of " Swallow Barn, or a Sojourn in the Old Dominion ; " 
 a work which produced a decided impression, and which 
 received high commendations from the pen of Edward 
 Everett, in the " North American Review," the only vehicle 
 at that time of well-considered literary criticism in our part of 
 the country. Its sketches of Virginia life and manners, includ- 
 ing a very notable chapter on Slavery, entitled " The Quarter," 
 furnish the best picture we have even now of that section of the 
 Union at the period to which they relate, and possess not a 
 little of historical interest and permanent value. This, too, 
 may be said, even more emphatically, of his second novel, 
 " Horse-Shoe Robinson, a Tale of the Tory Ascendency," 
 published in 1835 ; of which the scene was laid in the Caro- 
 linas, during our Revolutionary struggle, and of which the 
 hero was drawn from the life, — the incidents of his remark- 
 able career having been derived from his own lips by Mr. 
 Kennedy himself, while he was residing at the South for the 
 benefit of his health, in 1819. 
 
 A third novel, " Rob of the Bowl ; a Legend of St. Inigoes," 
 in which there is much historical matter connected with the 
 religious commotions in Maryland, in the time of the seconcj 
 Lord Baltimore, was published by him in 1838 ; and in 1840 
 he produced, in a fourth volume, under the title of " The 
 Annals of Quodlibet," a humorous and satirical account of 
 the Presidential campaign in which he was at that moment a 
 prominent actor, with an almost dramatic presentment, under 
 fictitious names, of scenes which had actually occurred within 
 the range of his own observation and experience. 
 
 Mr. Kennedy had now, however, become a member of Con- 
 gress, having been chosen as one of the Representatives of 
 tlie Baltimore District in 1838, and having been re-elected in 
 1841 and 1843. His services at Washington were of the 
 highest value and importance ; and particularly those which he 
 rendered as Chairman of the Committee on Commerce in the 
 Twenty-seventh Congress. Having been associated with him 
 
as his second on that Committee, as well as in the intimacies 
 of a common table and of apartments under a common roof, 
 I can bear personal testimony to the diligence and ability 
 which he brought to the public business. His Reports on 
 subjects connected with our Commercial System, and par- 
 ticularly on our proposed Reciprocity Treaties, were elaborate 
 and exhaustive ; and his speeches were forcible and eloquent. 
 I cannot forget that we were together, too, on that Committee, 
 when, not without hesitation and distrust, the first appro- 
 priation was reported to enable Mr. Morse to try the 
 experiment, between Washington and Baltimore, of that 
 Magnetic Telegraph, which now covers our continent, and 
 encircles the earth. Though the Report was written and pre- 
 sented by another hand, it owed much of its success, both in 
 Committee and in the House, to the earnest support of Mr. 
 Kennedy, 
 
 In 1844, he published a very striking little volume, called 
 " A Defence of the Whigs," which became almost a hand-book 
 of politicians, and which contains an admirable vindication of 
 the party with which he was always connected as long as it 
 existed. But that party had but a precarious and fitful suprem- 
 acy in Baltimore ; and at the next election, in 1845, he failed 
 of a majority, and was never again returned to Congress. 
 The following year, however, found him again in the Chair 
 of the House of Delegates at Annapolis, having been elected 
 once more to the Legislature of Maryland, after an interval of 
 five and twenty years, with a view to an important juncture 
 in the affairs of his native State. 
 
 This service rendered, Mr. Kennedy once more quietly 
 resumed his literary labors ; and, as the result of them, pub- 
 lished, in 1849, an excellent biography, in two octavo volumes, 
 of the eminent lawyer and statesman, William Wirt, — one of 
 the purest and best of the public men of his day, upon 
 whom Mr. Kennedy had delivered a Eulogy, immediately after 
 his death, in 1834. This work — in which the author sedu- 
 
 1* 
 
6* 
 
 lously avoided all personal display, and allowed Mr. Wirt to 
 exhibit himself to the best advantage in his own brilliant 
 public addresses and lively familiar correspondence — was 
 recognized everywhere as a valuable contribution to American 
 Biography, and to the history of the times ; and no better 
 book of its kind could have been placed in the hands of the 
 young men of the United States, to whom it was dedicated. 
 
 Meantime and previously, Mr. Kennedy had delivered not 
 a few occasional Discourses, mostly of an historical character : 
 one, in 1835, before the American Institute of New York ; 
 another, in the same year, before the Faculty of Arts and 
 Sciences of the University of Maryland, in which he had been 
 appointed Professor of History, and of which he was the 
 Provost for many years before his death ; and a third, in 
 1845, before the Maryland Historical Society, of which he was 
 Vice-President, on the Life and Character of George Calvert, 
 the first Lord Baltimore, which involved him in a sharp con- 
 troversy with several of the Roman Catholics of Maryland, 
 to whom he made an elaborate rejoinder, exhibiting great 
 ability and research. His Address, too, before the Maryland 
 Institute, in 1851, published with engraved illustrations of the 
 old town of Baltimore, as it was just a hundred years before, 
 was replete with valuable local descriptions and details. 
 
 In 1852, on the resignation of Governor Graham of North 
 Carolina, who had been appointed Secretary of the Navy by 
 President Fillmore, on his succession to the Presidency after 
 the lamented death of General Taylor, Mr. Kennedy was 
 called to preside over the Navy Department of the United 
 States ; and continued a member of the Cabinet, of which his 
 friends Mr. Webster and Mr. Everett were successively the 
 ciiiefs, until the change of Administration, in March, 1853. 
 This was the period of some of our most interesting Naval 
 Scientific Expeditions : that of Commodore Perry to Japan ; 
 and that of Dr. Kane to the Arctic Ocean, in search of Sir John 
 Franklin, for which Mr. Kennedy prepared the instructions, 
 
and gave to it the most effective encouragement. His name 
 was accordingly given by Dr. Kane to one of the channels 
 which he discovered, and was inscribed on his map of the 
 Arctic Regions. 
 
 The visit of Mr. George Peabody to his native land in 1856, 
 and his noble endowment of the Peabody Institute in Bal- 
 timore, where, as a young banker, he had for some years 
 resided, afforded Mr. Kennedy a new subject of interest, and 
 opened to him a new field of useful labor. He was at once 
 selected by Mr. Peabody, as the Chairman of the Board of 
 Trustees for his great gift to the Baltimore Institute ; and I 
 have the best authority for knowing how earnestly he entered 
 upon and pursued the work of organization committed to him, 
 and how highly and gratefully his services were appreciated 
 by Mr. Peabody to the last. 
 
 The darkest days of our country were now rapidly aj^proach- 
 ing. Mi\ Kennedy was never, I believe, an owner of slaves, 
 nor ever a supporter or apologist for slavery. But, on the 
 other hand, he had never co-operated or sympathized with 
 the extreme Abolitionists of the North, and had always united 
 in measures for securing to his own, and the other Southern 
 States, the rights in regard to this institution which were 
 expressed or implied in the Constitution of the United States, 
 as he understood its provisions. No northern man, however, 
 could have been more averse than he was to the extension of 
 slavery into new territories. He was,- moreover, a devoted 
 lover of the Union, and held in abhorrence all ideas either of 
 peaceable or forcible secession or nullification. Living in a 
 Border State, where the personal and party feuds which pre- 
 ceded and followed the outbreak of the Rebellion were so violent 
 and bitter, and upon which at one time it seemed as if the 
 whole brunt of the battle might fall, his first hopes undoul)tedly 
 were, as were those of many of his friends farther North, that 
 some arrangement or adjustment might be devised, with a view 
 to prevent the fratricidal strife, and avert the full horrors of 
 
Civil War. He was in complete accord with the great Boston 
 Memorial to that effect, which, under the lead of Mr. Everett, 
 and in company with others of all parties, I had a share in 
 the privilege of bearing to Congress in January, 1861. In 
 this spirit, he published, a few weeks before the first fatal 
 blow had been struck, a pamphlet entitled " The Border 
 States ; their Power and Duty," which presented the great 
 questions before the country with boldness and signal aljility, 
 and appealed to the Border States to interpose, Ijy some 
 separate concerted action, for the settlement of all issues in 
 dispute, and for the ultimate preservation of the Union. 
 Reviewed in the light of subsequent developments and of 
 final results, this appeal would probably be regarded with less 
 approbation than it was at the time of its publication. But 
 even then, as it soon proved, the time for discussion had 
 passed, s^nd little remained but to resist force by force. In 
 that contest, Mr. Kennedy's influence and efforts were strongly 
 and unqualifiedly on the side of the Government and the 
 Union, and no coldness of friends, or dangers from enemies, 
 could deter or daunt him. 
 
 During the progress of the War, he communicated a series 
 of Letters to the " National Intelligencer," under the assumed 
 name of " Paul Ambrose," in which he ably discussed " the 
 principles and incidents of the Rebellion as these rose to view 
 in the rapid transit of events ; " which were collected and pub- 
 lished in a volume, with his own name, in 1865. This was 
 the last work which he gave to the public ; and he soon after- 
 wards embarked for Europe, in the hope of reinvigorating his 
 somewhat shattered health. 
 
 It was not his first visit abroad. He had crossed the Atlan- 
 tic twice before, and was no stranger to some of the best of 
 English and European society. In those visits, he had renewed 
 the intimacy with Thackeray and Dickens which he had 
 enjoyed while they were in America, and had formed many 
 other friendships with the literary men of France and England. 
 
9 
 
 During his last tour, he was selected by Mr. Seward as one of 
 the United-States Commissioners, at the grand Exposition 
 of the Industry of all Nations in Paris, and in that capacity 
 rendered valuable services ; especially as one of the small 
 select Commission, under the Presidency of Prince Napoleon, 
 to which the subject of a uniform Decimal Currency was 
 referred. 
 
 Mr. Kennedy had more than once contemplated giving to 
 the press his " Notes of Travel," of which he has left many 
 manuscript volumes, carefully composed and revised, which 
 may still, I trust, furnish the material of a posthumous pub- 
 lication. 
 
 On his last return home, in October, 1868, he presided at a 
 great Republican Mass Meeting in Baltimore ; and made an 
 earnest and eloquent appeal to the South to acquiesce cordially 
 in the results of the War, and to unite " in that new pathway 
 which Providence has ordained to be the line of our future 
 march to the highest destiny of nations." This was his last 
 public word. 
 
 In looking back on the life which has been thus rapidly 
 sketched, and comparing his capacities for usefulness with his 
 actual career, one cannot but feel how much has been lost to 
 the best service of the country, in his case as in too many 
 others, by the accidents of politics, and the caprices of parties. 
 As a Senator, or as a Diplomatist, he would have done 
 eminent honor to the nation at home or abroad ; and he 
 seemed particularly suited, by his abilities, his accomplish- 
 ments, and his tastes, for prolonged and continuous service 
 in spheres like these. But it was not in his nature to seek 
 them, and it was not his fortune to enjoy them. I may be 
 pardoned for recalling, in such a connection, those striking 
 lines of Coleridge : — 
 
 " How seldom, Friend ! a good great man inherits 
 Honor or wealth, with all his worth and pains ! 
 It sounds like stories from the world of spirits 
 
' 10 • 
 
 If any man obtain that which he merits, 
 Or any merit that which he obtains. 
 
 Goodness and greatness are not means, but ends ! 
 
 Hath he not alwaj^s treasures, always friends, 
 
 The good great man ? — tliree treasures, love, and light, 
 
 And calm thoughts, regular as infant's breath ; 
 
 And three firm friends, more sure than daj- and night, — 
 
 Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death." 
 
 Mr. Kennedy, as a man, was greater and better than all his 
 books. One certainly looks in vain in all that he wrote or 
 did for the full measure of those gifts and acquirements of 
 mind and heart, that learning and wisdom, that wit and 
 humor, that whole-souled cordiality and gayety and kindness, 
 which shone out so conspicuously in the intimacies of daily 
 intercourse. A truer friend or more charming companion 
 has rarely been found or lost by those who have enjoyed 
 the privilege of his companionship and friendship ; and among 
 those may be counted not a few of our most distinguished 
 authors and statesmen. A delightful week which I passed 
 under his roof, many years ago, gave me an opportunity of 
 witnessing the esteem and affection in which he was held by 
 my only fellow-guest, Washington Irving, — whose Life, indeed, 
 contains more than one letter to him, beginning, " Dear Horse 
 Shoe," and ending " Geoffrey Crayon." 
 
 Though far advanced in his seventy-fifth year, and though he 
 had occasionally suffered not a little of late from severe phy- 
 sical infirmities, Mr. Kennedy was naturally of so genial and 
 joyous a temper, and sympathized so warmly with the young 
 and gay, that the idea of his being an old man had hardly yet 
 occurred to any one but himself. In the eyes of those around 
 him, he seemed to have nothing of age except its experience 
 and its mellowness. He was not insensible himself, however, 
 to the approach of the inexorable hour. In a letter which I 
 received from him not many weeks ago, — one of the last of 
 a series running through a term of more than thirty years, — 
 he said to me with more of sadness than I had ever known 
 
11 
 
 him to write, certainly in regard to himself: " It is but small 
 consolation to me — when I look at my letter-file, and see 
 three or four of your letters asking for a word of recognition, 
 — to argue my good intentions, and my infirmity of hand, for 
 that silence which I daily resolve to break : for it is so per- 
 sistently followed by a new delinquency, in the breach of my 
 resolve, as to bring me nothing better than a new regret. 
 But I know you will pardon these habitual shortcomings, — 
 like the good and trusty friend you have always been, — and 
 indulge me in that constrained silence, which is, in truth, 
 only the sign and warning of one more inevitable, that comes 
 with gentle step and, I trust, a friendly message to make it 
 welcome." 
 
 A few weeks more at Saratoga Springs, by the advice of his 
 physician, and a few weeks afterwards at Newport, where he 
 had fixed his summer residence for several years jDast, com- 
 pleted his earthly career. A hidden malady was developed, 
 which, after two days of agony, patiently and bravely borne, 
 and one day of tranquil slumbers, released him to his rest. 
 I may not omit to add that, in a blessed interval of wakefulness 
 and ease, he eagerly renewed those pledges of Christian faith 
 which he had often given in health, and was able to take leave 
 of those dearest to him, as he said, " in perfect peace of mind 
 and body." 
 
 He died at Newport, on the 18th of August ; and his remains 
 were at once removed to his native city, to repose in the neigh- 
 boring Green Mount Cemetery, at the dedication of which he 
 had delivered the Address, in 1839. 
 
 Mr. Kennedy left no children. His wife, who, with her 
 sister, has rendered his home for more than thirty years so 
 dear and delightful to himself, and so attractive to his friends, 
 is a daughter of the late Edward Gray, Esq., of Baltimore, one 
 of the worthiest and most respected merchants of that city ; of 
 whom Irving, on hearing of his death in 1856, wrote thus, in 
 words which I can indorse with all my heart : " To be under 
 
12 • 
 
 his roof, in Baltimore, or at Ellicott's Mills, was to be in a 
 constant state of quiet enjoyment to me. Every thing that I 
 saw in him, and in those about him; in his tastes, habits, 
 mode of life ; in his domestic relations and chosen intimacies, 
 — continually struclc upon some happy chord in my own 
 bosom, and put me in tune with the world and with human 
 nature." 
 
 Mr. Kennedy received the Honorary Degree of Doctor of 
 Laws from Harvard University in 1863 ; and has been, for 
 some years, an Associate Fellow of the American Academy 
 of Arts and Sciences. 
 
 Professor James Eussell Lowell then said : — 
 
 Mr. President, — In the few words I shall say of Mr. Ken- 
 nedy, I shall speak of him as it is fitting to speak of a man 
 who made affection easy, and whom a short acquaintance had 
 invested with something of the tender privilege of long friend- 
 ship. Death should give a shelter from vague eulogy no less 
 than from impertinent criticism. Here is no place for those 
 invidiosi vert, on which, one is sometimes tempted to think, 
 the Anglo-Saxon conscience is apt to lay an undue emphasis. 
 
 It is very likely that Mr. Kennedy could not be called a man 
 of genius in the creative sense of that somewhat elastic word ; 
 but it is surely something to his honor, that, amid the mani- 
 fold distractions of a busy and public life, he should have 
 cherished the sweet and pure ambition of letters, of a higher 
 and more durable success than politics and popularity can 
 offer. In a society so prosperously active as ours, it is of good 
 example to have had an intellectual ideal, and perhaps it is 
 fairer here than elsewhere to measure a man rather by his 
 aims than by his performance. After all, unless we adopt the 
 plan of Pepys, and allow shelf-room only to books of blue blood, 
 we must be willing to find a place for many volumes that 
 could not make their claims valid with the heralds of literature. 
 An exclusive commerce with the great may make us unduly 
 
13 
 
 fastidious, and it is wholesome to unbend our faculties now 
 and then from the strain of that Alpine society in the company 
 of authors who simply know how to be agreeable. I think 
 Mr. Kennedy's books have this pleasant quality, — a secret not 
 seldom missed by writers more pretentious and of greater 
 power. They are refined, manly, considerate of our grosser 
 apprehensions ; they attempt no solution of the problem of 
 the Infinite (as it is called) ; they abound in cheerful pictures 
 of natural scenery ; and they will have a real value for the his- 
 torian, from their lively notices of manners already remote. 
 Perhaps the strongest impression they leave upon the mind is 
 that they were written by a gentleman, a profession of greater 
 consequence than is generally conceived. 
 
 Perhaps we overestimate the worth of mere literary ability. 
 The lion has been the painter this time, and authors have not 
 been slack in impressing on mankind the supreme importance 
 of their function. Nevertheless it may well be suspected that 
 the power of expressing fine sentiments is of a lower quality 
 than the less obtrusive skill of realizing them in the life and 
 character. This talent Mr. Kennedy possessed beyond most 
 men. One could not be in his company for never so short a 
 time, without being touched by that gentle consideration for 
 others which is the root of all good breeding. His courtesy 
 was not the formal discipline of elegant manners. There was 
 a sense of benefaction in it. Whoever came near him felt the 
 friendly charm which his nature radiated, so that his very 
 house seemed steeped in it and welcomed you no less heartily 
 than he. He was in the highest sense a genial man. He 
 had a singular gift for companionship, for being something 
 better than his l)Ooks, and his finer qualities were lured out by 
 the sympathy of the fireside. He was excellent in anecdote 
 and reminiscence. His talk had just that pleasant suspicion 
 of scholarship in it that befits the drawing-room, and never 
 degenerated to the coarser flavor of pedantry. He could 
 quote his bit of Horace or Virgil on occasion, which used to 
 
14 • 
 
 be the neck-verse of cultivated men. He had the somewhat 
 rare excellence of being playfully earnest ; and, though he had 
 strong convictions, never made them the scourge of other 
 men. 
 
 But though gentleness was a prime quality in this gracious 
 temperament, he could, when the times demanded, show quali- 
 ties of stouter fibre. During the war of the Rebellion he 
 stood firmly by the Nation, though it cost him a social position, 
 which, to a man of his affectionate nature and social instincts, 
 was dearer than any thing but duty. In the North it was easy 
 to be loyal, — it was sometimes even profitable; but in Mary- 
 land loyalty meant ostracism, and might mean something 
 worse. For Mr. Kennedy it sundered lifelong ties of friend- 
 ship, and habitudes of society scarce less painful in the break- 
 ing. He might have escaped it all by a judicious impartiality 
 between right and wrong ; nay, even by a little of that caution 
 which we call meanness if it fail, and prudence if it prosper. 
 But he was a brave man, and chose the nobler privilege of 
 danger. 
 
 How much fame may fall to his share, it would be out of 
 place to compute too closely. Suffice it that lie at least escaped 
 its vulgar makeweight, notoriety. Surely he has something 
 better, as it is sweeter, in gentle memories that will perish 
 only with the last of those who knew him. 
 
 The Hon. George S. Hillard next addressed the meeting : 
 
 I should not have added any thing to what has been 
 said in honor of Mr. Kennedy, were it not that I am one of 
 the few now present that were personally acquainted with 
 him. This acquaintance was not of long duration, nor was 
 it intimate ; indeed, my personal knowledge of him hardly 
 began before he was sixty ; but I knew him well enough to 
 feel able to give my emphatic assent to all that has been said 
 in commendation of him by Professor Lowell and yourself. 
 
 No one could see and know Mr. Kennedy without feeling 
 
15 
 
 that he himself was more and better than his writings, 
 excellent and estimable as these are. He was a man whose 
 elements of growth were self-derived. He was born in a 
 Southern state, and had the best training which that portion 
 of the country could furnish at the time of his youth. The 
 natural drift of men so born and taught was to politics ; but 
 he resisted this general proclivity. He gave himself to 
 literature and law, and slid into politics incidentally and 
 accidentally ; and as literature was his first, it remained to the 
 last his strongest love. 
 
 Mr. Kennedy was delightful in all the social relations. He 
 was given to hospitality, and no man appeared to more 
 advantage when dispensing the gifts of hospitality. His 
 conversation was frank, easy, and hearty. Men in our 
 country, who have been much in public life, are apt to fall 
 into a cautious and non-committal style of discourse. They 
 are prone to talk with a vigilant self-observation, as if they 
 feared that their words might be reported to their disadvan- 
 tage by some unfriendly hearer. But he had none of this cold 
 and timid prudence. He spoke out that which was in him, 
 not fearing sometimes to utter what an ever cautious temper 
 would have left unspoken. His conversation had the fresh- 
 ness, the freedom, the courage of youth. His mind, his heart, 
 never grew old. 
 
 Of his works of fiction my recollection is but indistinct ; 
 but I freshly remember his " Life of Wirt," and I think it one 
 of the most graceful, genial, and delightful pieces of biography 
 that the literature of our country has to show. And let me 
 here express the hope that some competent hand will do for 
 him what he did so well for his friend ; and the corre- 
 spondence and unpublished manuscripts of Kennedy will 
 surely afford to the biographer a theme not less full and 
 fruitful than that furnished by the life and labors of the 
 eminent lawyer, and more than respectable man of letters, 
 whom he so well commemorated. 
 
16 
 
 The President then read the following letter from Pro- 
 fessor Oliver Wendell Holmes : — 
 
 164 Charles Street, Sept. 8th, 11 a.m. 
 My dear Mr. Winthrop : 
 
 I am much disappointed in finding myself still so far indisposed that 
 I do not feel like going to the meeting to-day. 
 
 The circumstance that I was probably the last member of our 
 Society who met Mr. Kennedy made me anxious to have an oppor- 
 tunity to add a few words to the tribute you will pay to his memory, 
 which I feel sure will be all that affectionate esteem and the knowledge 
 of a life-time can render it. I could really have contributed nothing, 
 except the memory of my few interviews, the two last of which, within 
 less than a week of Mr. Kennedy's death, were singularly delightful. 
 He was full of talk, so cheerful, so genial, so varied, — sometimes on 
 jjolitical and historical matters with which he was familiar, sometimes 
 relating personal experiences of which he had such a fund in his 
 memory, always lively, entertaining, graceful in his discourse, — that 
 I have rarely sat in a company when one man did more to keep all 
 the rest happy in listening to him. There was no look of warning, no 
 tone that could suggest a melancholy foreboding ; but, bright and brave 
 in the face of fast gaining infirmity which he would not betray to 
 sadden others, he shed sunshine about him to the last. 
 
 It is singular that, having met him so few times, I should feel as if 
 I knew him so well, and regret liis loss so deeply. It was not merely 
 because he was of a true and generous natui'e, and of a fine intelligence 
 and culture, but because he was so frank and hearty with those whom 
 he honored with his friendship, that a week with him was like a year 
 with a man of a nai-rower mould and colder feelings. 
 
 I have written at a moment's notice, as I did hope to be with you ; 
 but if you can make any use of my note, pray do so. 
 
 Believe me, dear Mr. Winthrop, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 O. W. Holmes. 
 
 The meeting was then dissolved. 
 

 EJa12