-^Tv:ji. '>-<-. /iT.yiT .. -■ ■■V-. ■■■ -•ti.-?. i--»^,-p.l.J. Columbia (Mnttiergftp THE LIBRARIES \ LIFE, LETTERS, AND JOURNALS OF GEORGE TICKNOR IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME n -X. / LIFE, LETTEKS, AND JOURNALS OF GEORGE TICKNOR WITH ILLUSTRATIONS VOLUME II BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 1909 COPYRIGHT, 1S76, BY ANNA TICKNOR COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY T I CONTENTS OF VOL. IL CHAPTER I. Vienna. — Prince Mettemich . . . . CHAPTER II. From Vienna to Florence. — Austrian Monasteries. — Austrian and Bavarian Alps. — Munich. — Lausanne. — Geneva. — Turin. — General Laharpe. — Count Balbo. — Pellico. — Manzoni . , 21 CHAPTER III. Florence. — Niccolini. — Madame Lenzoni. — Grand Duke. — MicaH. — Alberti Manuscripts of Tasso. — Gino Capponi. — Italian Soci- ety. — Eome. — Bunsen. — Thorwaldsen. — Princess Gabrielli — Borghese Family. — Cardinal Fesch. — English Society. — Princess Massimo. — Archseological Lectures 48 CHAPTER IV. Rome. — Dante and Papal Government. — Taking the Veil in High Life. — Kestner and Goethe. — Cardinal Giustiniani. — Letter to Mr. Dana. — Francis Hare. — Sismondi. — Mezzofanti. — Alberti Manuscripts. — Lady Westmoreland. — Mai. — Vatican Library. — "Wordsworth and H. C. Robinson 67 CHAPTER V. Florence. — Pisa. — Lucca. — Milan. — Venice. — Passes of the Alps. — "Wordsworth. — Heidelberg 87 CHAPTER VI. Paris. — Von Eaumer. — Fauriel. — Duke and Duchess de BrogUe. — Guizot. — Miss Clarke. — Coquerel. — Jouy. — Confalonieri. — Count Mole. — Augustin Thierry. — Lamartine. — Count Circourt — Mignet. — Cesare Balbo. — Mad. de Pastoret. — Louis Philippe and his Family 102 d.: lordship upon it, he seemed uncommonly well pleased. September 3. — I spent the evening, until quite late, with old Gen- eral Laharpe, who had invited a few people to meet us ; . . . . but I cared about nobody there except our host and hostess, who received us in a fine suite of rooms over the library suite, in the principal of which was a portrait of Alexander, "given to his friend and in- structor in 1814," as the inscription set forth. When the company was gone, the old gentleman, who had told me about the beginning of the correspondence and diplomatic intercourse between Russia and the United States, showed me a letter of the Emperor to him. It was dated July 7, 1803, consisted of three sheets, and was very kind and affectionate. Laharpe had sent him, just before, one of Jeffer- son's messages to Congress, which had been furnished him by Joel Barlow at Paris. To this the Emperor replied : — " I should be extremely happy " — I believe I remember the words, and that my translation is literal — "if you could put me in more direct relations with Erskine and Jefferson. I should feel myself greatly honored by it." This Laharpe showed to Barlow, and thereupon Jefferson wrote to the Emperor. A con'espondence followed, and finally diplomatic relations. Why are none of the letters given in the published works of Jefferson ? Such talk of the old gentleman made my evening interesting, and I parted from him, after eleven o'clock, with a good deal of regret. He is a truly venerable person, upon whom old age sits with a grace- fulness that is very rare. September 4. — We drove to-day on the beautiful banks of this beautiful lake, through the rich fields and vineyards of the Pays de Vaud, and in sight always of the mountains of Savoy, from Lausanne to Geneva We stopped to see the Chateau at Coppet, which we found a very comfortable and even luxurious establishment on the inside, though of slight pretensions outside. The room — a long hall — that Mad. de Stael used for private theatricals was fitted up by Auguste for a library, in which he placed the books both of his mother and his grandfather, and at one end of it a fine statue of M. 45.] GENEVA. 37 Necker, by Tieck. The family portraits, Necker and Mad. Necker, the Baron and Mad. de Stael, Auguste, and a bust of Mad. de Broglie, made in 1815, are in another room, and Auguste's cabinet is just as he left it. The whole was very sad to me, the more so, perhaps, because the concierge recollected me, and showed the deso- lation of the place, and its melancholy memorials, with a good deal of feelincf. The door of the monument in which rest the remains of Necker and his wife, ^\dth Mad. de Stael at their feet, has been walled up. Auguste is buried on the outside, and round the whole is a high wall, the gate to which is not opened at all, as both Necker and Mad. de Stael desired their cemetery might never be made a show. Whenever she herself arrived at Coppet she took the key and visited it quite alone, but otherwise the enclosure was never opened. Geneva, September 6. — . . . . Geneva is extremely changed in all respects, and bears everywhere the marks of its increased wealth. .... Society is no less changed. Sismondi is in Italy Bon- stetten, the head of all that was literary and agreeable, died two years ago, about ninety years old. Prevost, one of the coterie of Frederic the Great ; both the Pictets ; Simond, the traveller ; the President de la Rive ; Dumont, etc., etc., are all gone Indeed, it is ap- parent that Geneva is becoming almost entirely a place of commerce, and its prosperity will every day increase its commercial tendencies. September 8. — I have renewed my acquaintance with Mad. Rilliet, Huber, and M. Hess, the first of whom is the most intimate Mend of the De Staels remaining in Geneva, and the last, a man of letters attached to her household. They are all that survive of the delight- ful circle in which I passed some time, most happily, nineteen years ago. At Geneva, having met Mr. Horace Binney of Philadelphia, travelling with a daughter and niece, the two parties crossed the Simplon in company, and agreed to proceed southward, and to undergo, together, the quarantine that had now been made in- evitable for all persons wishing to reach Eome from the north. Turin, September 29. — We have not been out to-day, except just to look about a little ; but the square before our windows, with the royal guards constantly called out to salute some personage of conse- quence coming from the palace, the fine military music at noon, the show of military in some form or other passing in all directions, and the necessary thronging and bustling of the passengers, has amused 38 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1836. us very miicli. It is one of those picturesque scenes which can be found only on the Continent, and even there only in a few cities where, as here, the sovereign has a great passion for whatever is mili- tary. In the evening I went to see my old acquaintance. Count Brunetti, whom I had known as Austrian Charge d'Ajffaires at Madrid, and who is now Austrian Minister here, married, and with three or four children. He is much changed in his personal appearance by sick- ness, but is still the same manly, intellectual person I formerly knew. He is just in the horrors of moving his establishment to a larger house, so that I shall hardly see much of him. September 30. — This forenoon I had a long and very agreeable visit from Count Cesare Balbo, whom I knew very well in 1818 at Madrid, where his father was Sardinian Minister. He has had very various fortunes since I saw him last, — was exiled in 1821, for some part he took in the affairs for which Pellico suffered ; passed two years in Paris, where he married a granddaughter of Count Segur ; came back, and was still not permitted to enter Turin, but passed two years more in the country ; became an author, to amuse and fill his time, wrote a " History of the Lombards in Italy," a translation of the " Annals of Tacitus," four Novelle, which are very beautiful, some literary dis- cussions, an edition of his friend Count Vidua's " Letters," etc. He lived there most happily, and continued happy in Turin after his return, till the death of his wife, about three years ago, who left him with eight young children and his aged father. He felt himself quite overcome by his position for a long time, and especially after the death of his mother-in-law, about a year since, which finally determined him to marry again ; so about two months ago he married a daughter of the late Count Napione. His family being rich, and he an only son, his position is very agreeable ; but I think he finds his chief resources in his family and his books, and is, as I believe he always has been, a truly estimable and excellent, as well as learned and able man. In the affairs of the kingdom he, of course, takes no share, from his liberal politics ; but his aged father, who has filled nearly all the first offices of the state at different times, is still held in great consideration, though there is no difference in their politics. October 1. — . . . . When Count Balbo was with me yesterday, I happened to ask him how I could get a parcel and some letters to Pellico, whom I had ascertained to be out of town. He replied that the Marquis de Barolo, with whom Pellico has for some time lived, M. 45.] CESARE BALBO AND PELLICO. 39 was at his villa, which is next to Count Balbo's villa, and that he would deliver the whole the same evening To-day he brought Pellico to make us a visit Pellico is a small, commonplace-looking man, about fifty years old, gentle, modest, and quiet in his manners ; his health still feeble, but not bad, from his long confinement ; and with a subdued air, which shows that the spirit within him has been much bruised and crushed, and probably his very talent and mind reduced in its tone. He spoke with great pleasure of the American translation of his Prigioni, which we brought him, and said that he is now quite happy in his position, that he had found kindness everywhere among his country- men, and that his wants are very few, and that they are much more than supplied. He is, I understand, extremely religious, perhaps somewhat bigoted After Balbo was gone out he said, — with more fervor than he put into anything else, — that he was the first friend he found after he came out of prison, — " the first, I mean," said he, " that I added to those I had before I was confined ; and he has been an excellent and kind one to me ever since. He is a good man ; I owe him much." The facts of his history since his release, I learn, are as follows. "When he reached Turin, Italy was full of trouble in consequence of the French revolution of 1830, and all liberal men were suspected and watched ; among the rest Count Balbo, whose name was on a list of those to be sent to Alessandria, if he should express his opinions in favor of any change. Pellico, therefore, remained most cjuietly with his family, going out hardly at all, and in every possible way avoid- ing suspicion. Count Balbo sent him word, through Pellico's brother, that he wished to know him, but it was best for both of them not to meet until the times were more settled, as an acquaintance between them now might injure both. At the same time he advised him to live quite retired, at least for a few months. In the spring things were more settled, and Pellico was introduced by his brother to Count Balbo, who at once became interested in him. But it was not easy to interest others in him. Some were afraid of the consequences of intercourse with one who had been so obnoxious to the legitimacy of Europe, and others were unwilling to I'eceive into their society one who had worn the dress of a Galerien. Balbo, how- | ever, continued to walk with him in public, and otherwise make known his interest in him, and as the summer advanced, invited him to pass some time at a villa he had somewhat remote from Turin. He in fact spent several months there, and besides writing a good r 40 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1836. deal of one of his tragedies, began to write his Prigioni, which, however, he ventured upon with very great hesitation, and not till after Balbo had encouraged and stimulated him not a little to under- 1 take it. When the Prigioni were published, the minds of a good many persons were changed by it, but not the minds of all. Among those who now sought his acquamtance were the Marquis and Marchioness Barolo, persons of large fortune, — two hundred or three hundred thousand francs per annum, — of an old family, of intellectual tastes, and much devoted to doing good. They were always intimate friends of the Balbo family, and Count Cesare had made some movements earlier towards introducing Pellico to them ; but he had found in them a little repugnance to receiving him, and he did not press it. Now they asked him to bring Pellico to their house, and the result has been, that they have become attached to him, have invited him to take the nominal place of librarian, with the salary of twelve hundred francs a year, and established him as their inmate completely, except that in winter, when they are in Turin, he lodges with his father and mother. It is a quiet situation, and he says he is very happy in it. I doubt not it is so. The Marquis and March'oness have no children, and spend a large part of their great income in works of benevolence. When the cholera appeared at Turin last year, they at once gave up a journey they had projected to Florence and Rome, and moved into the city from their villa, devoting themselves to the means of pre- venting the progress of the disease, as well as to the hospitals, which the Marchioness, as well as her husband, visited regularly. She has constantly, at Turin, a House of Refuge for the most unhappy class of her own sex, and in her very palazzo she has established an infant school, where the poor can leave their children when they go to their daily work While Pellico was still sitting with us ... . Sir Augustus Foster, the British Minister, came in, and I was glad to find that he treated Pellico with unafi"ected kindness and consideration, and invited him to dine Sir Augustus is the same person who was Minister in the United States when war was declared with Great Britain,* and has been Minister here eleven years, till he has gro-SNTi quite a Pied- imontese in his tastes October 2. — . . . . We dined with the Marquis Barolo, at his villa, .... about six or seven miles from Turin Our road was for some time on the banks of the Po, through a rich and beautiful coun- * In 1812. M. 45.] VILLAS NEAR TURIN. 41 try, with the snowy Alps on our right hand and before us We found a beautiful villa, in the Gothic taste, with a chapel and ornamental buildings attached to it, and a magnificent view of the rich plain below and the mighty Alps beyond. The Marquis we found a tall, plain person, with gentlemanlike manners, and evidently good sense and kind feelings. Mad. de Barolo, to our great surprise, is a Frenchwoman, who, notwithstanding her well-known religious character and habitual, active benevolence, has all a Frenchwoman's grace, vivacity, and esprit. The appearance of things was everywhere elegant, tasteful, and intellectual. So was the conversation. Nobody was there but the family, consisting, besides the Barolos, of a person who seemed to be a secretary, and another who appeared to be a chap- lain, — but neither of whom joined in any of the conversation, — Pellico, and Count Balbo. About an hour after we arrived dinner was announced, which was served about six o'clock, by candlelight, in a beautiful room orna- mented with a few pieces of sculpture. The service was of silver. Pellico was gentle and pleasant, but talked little, and I could not help marking the contrast between his conversation and the grave, strong, manly conversation of Count Balbo, as well as the gay, lively com- merage of Mad. de Barolo. The dinner, which was entirely French, was extremely agreeable, and when it was over we went to the saloon, had coffee and more pleasant talk, looked over autographs, etc., till about nine, when we returned to Turin. October 3. — .... In the afternoon we drove down the Po about as far as we drove up it yesterday, and dined with Sir Augustus Fos- ter, at his villa. It is beautifully situated on the opposite declivity of the height on which stands the villa of the Barolos, and commands the other view of the Alps, the plain, and the river The party was large, consisting of Ramirez, the Neapolitan Minister, whom I knew as a Secretary of Legation in Madrid ; Heldewier, the Dutch Minister, whom I knew, also, as a Secretary at Madrid ; Truchsess, the Prussian Minister ; the Marquis and Marchioness de Podenas, the latter of whom played so great a part in the service of the Duchess de Berri ; and several other persons. It was an elegant dinner, and so far as talking with Mad. de Podenas and the good-natured Sir Augus- tus Foster could make an agreeable one, I found it so. But there was nothing special about it, except that I was struck with meeting so many persons at Turin whom I knew at Madrid. I can already count seven. October 4. — Count Balbo came to town this forenoon to see us, and 42 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1836. having spent a good deal of the day in excellent talk with him, I went to his father's palazzo in town, and dined with him, and with a small and very agreeable party he had invited to meet me. They -were Sauli, who manages the affairs of the island of Sardinia ; the Abbe Gazzera, a great bibliograiDher ; Count Sclopis,* who is engaged in a great work of codification for the whole kingdom ; Boucheron, the author of a beautiful Latin life of the Abbe Caluso ; Count Cossi, the archivist of the King ; and the Marquis Alfieri, a comiection of the poet. It was an elegant dinner, in the genuinely Italian style, and the conversation was very animated and various. A part of it turned on the relative domestic character of the Italians and the French, and there was a sharp battle well fought on both sides. ' The old Count did not dine with us, but he came into the saloon in the evening, bringing with him several original letters of Franklin, ^ one or two American pamphlets, and other things that he thought it would please me, as an American, to see. The letters of Franklin he inherited with the papers of Beccaria, — the professor of philosophy, not the jurist, — whose favorite pupil the Count was, and who cor- responded with Franklin about electricity, etc. The Count is nearly eighty years old, and much broken in his physical strength, but his mind is as clear and active as when I knew him in 1818. October 5. — I went over the University this morning with the Abbe Gazzera, where I saw nothing worth recollecting, but a good library of 140,000 volumes, with a few curious and beautiful manu- scripts. Afterwards I passed a little time with Count Cossi in the archives of the kingdom, but again saw little that was very interest- ing The rest of the forenoon we spent in a drive to Count Balbo's villa, finely situated next to that of the Marquis de Barolo ; and saw his wife, who seems an agreeable and suitable person for his position and family. I was sorry to part wdth them, for Count Balbo has really sho^Ti himself an old friend ever since we have been in Turin. Milan, October 7. — The whole morning ?vas spent in different in- quiries about the state of the cholera, to all which I obtained most satisfactory answers, so far as the disease itself is concerned, which seems to be fast disappearing from all parts of Italy The after- noon I spent in the great cathedral, enjoying the mere general effect of its solemnity, for in this respect I know of no building in Europe that surpasses it. As the twilight closed in, it was grand and impres- * The representative of Italy in the Board of Arbitrators which met at Geneva in 1873, to settle the clainas of the United States against England. I M 45.] MILAN. 43 sive indeed ; the lights at two or three altars, and the humble wor- shippers before them, adding not a little to its power. October 8. — Again I passed the mornmg in incjuiries about the cholera and cordons, .... with the general conclusion which I came to at Turin, that Castel Franco, between Modena and Bologna, is the best place for us to undergo the quarantine, without which neither Florence nor Rome can be reached. The governor of Lom- bardy was very civil to me, and showed me all the documents relat- ing to the subject, .... and from looking them over I have no doubt the cholera has nearly disappeared from every part of Italy, .... The Eoman Consul — a great name for a very small personage — was also very good-natured, and showed me whatever I wanted to see. But neither of them gave me any hope that the cordons WT.11 be removed at present, and the governor talked of the Duke of Modena and of the Pope in a way that hardly became either a good neighbor or a good Catholic, and with a freedom which no man! in the United States, holding a considerable office, would venture to use. But I have often had occasion to observe that opinions are more freely expressed in Europe than they are with us ; partly, I suppose, because opinion is so powerful in the United States, and of so little comparative consequence here, where the governments are neither | founded on opinion nor controlled by it. " The Duke of Modena," said the governor, " is a very absurd per- sonage, who keeps up his cordons, in part, to show that he is not under Austrian influence." I asked him. what might be expected from the Roman States. " Nothing is to be expected," he replied, " from a government of priests but inconsequence and imbecility." His whole talk was in this tone , In the evening we went to the Scala, the famous Scala which has | enjoyed such a reputation in Europe ever since it was built in 1778, and which the Austrian government is obliged to keep up at such great cost. Its size, indeed, which permits it to hold, with its six rows of boxes, above three thousand spectators ; the splendor of the view on one side, which is all gold except the graceful blue silk drapery that shuts the fronts of the boxes, and on the other the vast stage, with sometimes nearly a thousand actors on it ; the admirable scenery ; .... the picturesque and even poetical ballet ; and the opera itself, — make it, I dare say, what it chiefly claims to be, the most magnificent spectacle of the sort in Europe There is at this moment no society in Milan. It is the season of the villeggiatura, when it is un- J 44: LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1836. \^ fasMonable always to be seen in tlie city, and this year the cholera has made it a desert, so that hardly one box in ten had anybody in it. .... Belisario, by Donizetti, was pretty well performed by Tadolini as the prima donna, whom we had heard at Vienna October 9. — We spent a very agreeable day to-day with the Man- zoni family, at their villa about five or six miles from Milan, where they live half the year. The family now consists of the elder Mad. Manzoni, who is the daughter of the well-known Marquis Beccaria, and an interesting old lady ; Manzoni hunself, who has been a widower these two years ; and his five children, with an ecclesiastic, who is almost always found in respectable Italian families, as a tutor and religious director. To this party was added to-day, to meet us, Baron Trechi, .... who some time since expiated the sin of having more than common talent and liberal views of politics, by a fifteen- months' confinement in an Austrian prison. The whole was pleasant, but the person who most interested me was Manzoni himself, who must, I suppose, be now admitted to be the most successful author Italy has produced since the days of Alfieri, and who has, besides, the merit of being a truly excellent and respectable man. He is now fifty-one years old, for, as he told me to-day, he was born in 1785, and he has been kno^vn as an author since he published his Inni sacri, in 1816 But no degree of success encourages him to write much. He has a sensitive, retiring spirit, and what he has achieved amidst almost imbroken applause is said to be no compensation to himself for the occasional murmurs of critical censure that reach even those who least need or deserve them. In conversation he showed some of this character. He seemed, so to speak, to be strong through his fears ; and talked with the most energy where he felt the most misgiving. Thus, for instance, he was positively eloquent when he urged his fears that the attempts to introduce liberal institutions into Europe w^ould end in fastening the chains of a heavier despotism on the peo- ple, and that the irreligious tendencies of the age would but arm the priesthood with new and more dangerous power. In the question of slavery in the United States he was much interested, and said he wished the northern portion of America were separated from the southern, that New England and the other free States might be entirely relieved from this odious taint. He talked well, too, upon other subjects, especially literary subjects ; but he is more thoroughly interested, I should think, in what relates to religion and govern- ment than anything else, though his fears and anxieties will proba- M. 45.] MAXZONI. 45 bly prevent him from ever fully publishing all he thinks and feels on either of them. But he is a man of wisely liberal views in politics, I should think, and a sincere Catholic in his faith. His tempera- ment leads him to live much and quietly in the country, where he occupies himself ^\dth agriculture and botany, with poetry and litera- ture. He is rich already, and on the death of his aged uncle, the present Marquis Beccaria, he will be master of a large fortime ; though I think this will hardly much affect his habits or his modes of life, which will always be determined by his original character. He is of middling size, and his hair is quite gray, so that he looks older than he is ; he stutters a very little, and he takes snuff freely. He is simple, frank, and ardent, — at least sometimes ardent in his manner, — and left with me not only a strong impression of his talent, but of his excellent and faithful character -" October 10. — . . . . To the Brera we next went Most of its halls are not well enough lighted, but the three pictures that are best worth seeing are in very good positions. They are Raffaelle's Spo- salizio, — a work of his youth, which, notwithstanding its grace and sweetness, has so many awkward parts about it, that it cannot be looked at with great pleasure ; Guido's Peter and Paul in Discussion about the Gentiles, a grand picture full of deep meaning ; and Guer- cino's Hagar sent away by Abraham, in which the severity of the patriarch, the half-concealed triumph of Sarah, and the broken-hearted expression of the beautiful victim, who hesitates yet an instant to believe or obey the cruel command for her exile, produce altogether an effect which places it among the very first pictures in the world. I was glad to find that the beautiful Hagar was quite fresh in my recollection after an interval of nearly twenty years October 11. — "We passed the forenoon in the cathedral, which, in fact, I visit every day ; but which we to-day examined in some detail. It is a magnificent structure, inferior in size onlv to St. Peter's and St. Paul's, and built of solid marble in all its architectui-e and orna- ments, from the foundation-stone to the pinnacle This is pre- cisely one of the buildings where you care nothing about the details, though I must needs say I do not like the doors and windows on the front, or the magnificent granite pillars on the inside of the principal entrance, because thev are of Roman architecture and contradict the rest of the fabric. Still, after all, you do not think of these incon- gruities when you are there, for they are lost in the effect of the whole. Its vastness, its gorgeousness, and the richness of the dim light by which it is seen, give it full power over the imagination. 46 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1836. V October 13. — . . . . In the afternoon Mr. Binney, of Philadelphia, and his party joined us from Venice, with the intention of going South with us, whenever we shall jointly determine upon the course T%^ it will be best to take October 19. — We have passed through the territories of the Duke of Modena, and are safely shut up for a fortnight's quarantine in Castel Franco. The whole day's work has been as ridiculous as anything of the sort, perhaps, can be. In less than an hour after leaving Parma we reached the frontier of Modena, and were stopped by the guard till horses could be sent for ; as the Duke allows no foreigner to enter his territories, who does not come prepared to trav- erse them as fast as post-horses can carry him, and under an escort, to make it sure that no intercourse is held with the inhabitants on the way. The whole goes here, as elsewhere in Italy, on the absurd system that cholera is communicated mainly, and perhaps solely, by contact, like the plague. Our passport, therefore, was taken in a pair of tongs and fumigated ; the money to pay for this graceful ceremony was dropped into vinegar, and then the passport was given to two carabineers, who rode in a caleche behind us, to see that we did not get out of the carriage or touch any of the subjects of the most gracious Duke. In this way we were handed on from post to post, changing the carabineers at each station, until about three o'clock, or about six hours after we entered Modena, we crossed its frontiers again and were delivered over to the Pope's guards, who fumigated our passport anew, — though it had been in the hands of the carabineers the whole time, — and then sent us into our lazaretto, which is neither more nor less than a set of old brick barracks in a ruined fort, erected some time in the seventeenth century, and dismantled by the French. Our rooms are brick on all sides, and cheerless enough ; but the food is quite decent. In these barracks we are locked up and guarded with perhaps twenty or thirty other persons, .... we are not allowed to touch any person who came in on a different day from ourselves, nor to touch anything they have touched ; but we may all walk and con- verse together in a large, well-sodded esplanade of about ten acres, surrounded completely with the buildings which prevent us from seeing anything of the external world This is to be our fate for a fortnight ; but we have a pleasant party and abundant occupa- tions, and .... are not altogether sorry for a little real repose, after \ above five months of very busy travelling W October 30. — We have now gone through nearly the whole of this M. 45.] BOLOGNA. 47 miserable farce of a quarantine, and next day after to-morrow are to be released, and pronounced free of infection. On the whole, it has not been worse than we anticipated, and we have all been so truly busy that I do not know when the same number of days have passed so quickly. Every morning I have risen at seven, and we have all met for breakfast about nine ; after which we have occupied our- selves in reading and writing .... till twelve, when we have generally walked an hour in the most delightful weather At five we have met again for dinner, after which we took a dish of tea together and finished the evening with a game of whist Part of the time there have been fifty persons in the same condition with ourselves, and at this moment there are above twenty Americans here. Most of the parties complain much of the tediousness and vexation of the delay, and we have heartily pitied a poor Russian Countess who has heard here of the illness and death of a child at Florence, hardly twenty hours' drive from here, which she yet could not be permitted to visit November 1. — This morning we were released. The population of the lazaretto has been much increased wdthin the last two days, .... in such numbers that no suitable accommodations can be pro- vided for them This morning they crowded round the carriage as we entered it, looking like the poor souls in A^irgil who are not permitted to pass over the Styx However, we did not stop to think much of such things, but hastened on to Bologna, where we were glad indeed to find ourselves again amidst the somewhat cheer- less comforts of a huge Italian palazzo, turned into an inn. As soon as we were established we went out to see the city, with an appe- tite for sights somewhat sharpened by an abstinence of a full fort- night. .... The evening I spent Tvith Mad. !Martinetti, with whom, nine- teen years ago, I spent the only tvro evenings I ever passed in Bo- logna."'^ She is not as beautiful as she was then, when she had recently sat to Gerard as the model for his Corinna improvisating on Cape Misenum ; but she is still a fine-looking woman, and has the grace, sweetness, and intelligence of which time can never despoil her, and which have always made her house one of the most agreeable in Italy. ♦ See Vol. I. pp. 166, 167. « 48 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1836. CHAPTEE III. Florence. — Niccolini. — Madame Lenzoni. — Grand Duke. — Micali. — Alherti Manuscripts of Tasso. — Gino Capponi. — Italian Society. — Rome. — Bunsen. — Thorwaldsen. — Princess Gahrielli. — Bor- gheses. — Cardinal Fesch. — English Society. — Princess Massimo. — Archceological Lectures. JOURKAL. Florence, November 5. — A rainy day. I went, however, to see my friend Bellocq, whom I knew in Madrid as Secretary of the French Embassy there, and who is here Charge d Affaires from France, — a bachelor, grown old, and somewhat delahre', but apparently with v/ as much bonhomie as ever. I drove, too, to Greenough's house, but V" found he had gone to the United States ;*.... but I did little else except make inquiries about the cholera at Naples, which threatens to interfere with our plans. In the evening I went to a regular Italian conversazione, which occurs twice a week at the house of the Marchioness Lenzoni, the last descendant of one branch of the Medici family. Her house is beautifully fitted up with works of art, and is in all respects redolent of the genius of Italy, and .... she receives more intellectual soci- ety than anybody in Florence. She is, I suppose, about fifty years old, and, like all well-bred Italian women of her class, entirely with- out affectation or pretension. I found there Micali, the author of "Italia avanti il Dominio dei Romani," — an old man, but very fuU of life and spirit ; Forti, who is distinguishing himself as a political econ- omist ; a professor of mathematics, and two or three other agreeable people I was particularly glad to make the acquaintance of Micali, whose book, which I have valued these twenty years, has, I find, passed through eight or ten editions, notwithstanding its severe and learned character. •November 7. — This morning I went to the gallery The Tribune I found — as far as I can recollect — just as I left it eigh- ^ * Horatio Greenough, the American sculptor. r M 45.] NICCOLINI. 49 teen years ago, and I cannot express how much pleasure it gave me. , .... It is, indeed, a sort of holy place in the arts, and even the least interested visitors speak under their breath, and tread lightly, as they glide about from the monument of one great man's genius to that of another, consecrated already by the testimony of ages. November 9. — I made a visit to Niccolini, the tragic writer and general scholar, who now, I suppose, ranks the first of his class in Florence. He is about fifty-five years old, \vith a fine head, but little beauty or dignity of person, and with manners always awkward and sometimes, as I hear, a little savage. I found him disposed to be agreeable, partly, perhaps, because I came from a republic, and he is a republican, or high liberal He is engaged now in \\Titing a history of the Suabian power in Italy ; but I should think his want of all knowledge of German would be a grave impediment to his success, and that he must rely chiefly on the good proportions and finish of his book as a work of art. He is, however, much in earnest about it, and as he gives up the theatre because, as he says, he be- lieves the opera is to prevail over it more and more, I suppose he will make it all he can. November 10. — .... In the evening I had a long visit from Niccolini, who, I suppose, fancies himself to have inherited the gen- uine spirit of the old Florentine Eepublic, and who is, perhaps, as much of a republican as an Italian of the nineteenth century knows how to be. His "John of Procida," the tragedy on the Sicilian Vespers, shows this plainly enough, and when I alluded to it this evening he told me a curious story about it. The French Minister here, he said, was so much annoyed by the bitterness with which the French are treated in it, that he complained to the Grand Duke, and had its representation stopped. The severe allusions to French tyranny were, however, no doubt all intended by Niccolini for the Austrians ; and Count Bombelles — the same I knew at Berne — was so well aware of this, that, with his characteristic good-humor and plainness, he told his French colleague, " I wonder you took so much trouble about NiccoHni's tragedy ; the letter, to be sure, was addressed to you, but the contents of it were aU meant for me." November 14. — I brought a letter from Prince John, of Saxony, to the Grand Duke, .... in consequence of which I received yesterday, from Count Fossombroni, the Prime Minister, a formal despatch, say- ing that the Grand Duke would receive me to-day, at twelve, in his cabinet So to-day I went to the Pitti Palace, and after passing VOL. II. 3 . D 50 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOPw. [1836. through the regular antechambers and by the noble guards on service, was conducted through a labyrinth of passages, — one of which passed near the kitchens, — until at last I reached a small room where was one ordinary-looking old servant in attendance, out of livery. In two or three minutes he told me the Grand Duke was ready to receive me, and I passed into his cabinet, which I found a large room, exces- sively encumbered with rich furniture, and containing several tables covered with papers, and a desk, or working-table, .... before which was a beautiful bust of the Grand Duchess. C" The Grand Duke was standing just by the door to receive me, and carried me at once to a sofa, where we sat down together. He is thirty-nine years old, rather tall, thin, pale, and awkward. He talks French fluently and correctly, but with a strong Italian accent, and a little thickness of voice, which, added to a little real embarrassment, made it somewhat difficult to understand him, until he was en train. The subjects were chosen chiefly by himself, but after talking a little I about Saxony, and the princes there, and a little more about Florence I and the objects of my Aosit, he fastened upon the United States, and \ asked me a great many questions about our manners, and modes of life, our luxury, the amount of the incomes of our rich men, the way in which they are spent, etc. He was generally well enough informed to put his questions well, and always very curious and eager. Indeed, I do not know when I have seen anybody so greedy of matter-of-fact knowledge ; and whenever I said anything that struck him he took out his tablets, and made a note of it, as if he meant to seize every occasion to pick up a fact. At last, as the conversation grew more interesting to him, he kept I his tablets constantly in his hand, and wrote as diligently as a Ger- ■ man student at a lecture. On his part, he spoke of the decay of the great fortunes of the nobility in Italy with some tone of regret, though, he said, it would probably at last lead to good ; and when we talked about domestic life and the purity of its relations in America, he expressed the bitterest pain at the corruption of the mar- ried state in Italy, and added, " If we could have in this respect your foundation to build upon, we could still have a great state in Italy. But it is too late. We are quite corrupt in all our domestic relations, and it comes chiefly, I think, from the fact that the infidelity of a hus- band is not thought to be at all a ground of censure." He asked me where I thought it the greatest good fortune for a man to be bom. I told him in America. He asked why. And when I replied, that the mass of the community there, by being occupied ^. 45.] GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY. 51 about the affairs of the state, instead of being confined, as they are elsewhere, to the mere drudgery of earning their own subsistence, are more truly men, and that it is more agreeable and elevating to live among them, he blushed a little, but made no answer. Just at this moment the Archbishop was annoimced, and the Prince, saying he should like to talk with me still further, but that he had indispensable business with the Archbishop, asked me if I would go for an instant into an adjoining room and then return to him. I did so, the Archbishop not stopping above two or three minutes. When I went back he took out his tablets again, and plied me with questions about America till nearly two o'clock, which is his dinner- hour ; when, rising and going with me to the door, he thanked me for the information I had given him, and dismissed me. He struck me, on the whole, to have the character often attributed to him, of being an honest, well-meaning man, anxious to get the knowledge that will make him a faithful governor of his people ; but, though with a fair and intelligent mind, so greatly wanting in firmness and energy, that it is hardly possible he should not be led and governed by designing men. This is said to be the case now, and he is grow- ing unpopular very fast. "When he came to the sovereignty, in 1824, and for six years afterwards, he was greatly loved ; but since that time, and especially since the troubles in Italy in 1831 -32, that gi-eAv out of the French changes of 1830, he has fallen more and more into the hands of those who desire the progress of absolutism, and has become less and less welcome to his people. Where it is all to end, it is not perhaps easy to foresee. His private and domestic character is admitted by all to be good ; he lives entirely with his family, and devotes himself most laboriously to the work of government ; but after all, if he does not know how to govern, and if his system is opposed to the whole spirit of his time, his good qualities will avail him nothing, and his zealous and voluntary personal labors, by making him responsible for a great deal of what he might otherwise well leave to his ministers, will only run up a hea^aer account with his people, and one that, in the end, may be the harder to settle. I look upon him, therefore, to be in an unhappy position, and his whole air and manner to-day seemed to me to show that he feels it to be an anxious one November 15. — I passed some time this morning with the Cavaliere Micali, a very lively and courtly little old gentleman, who is as full of knowledge of all sorts, from his Etruscan antiquities do%\-n to the commonest gossip of the day, as a man well can be. He carried me from his own house to see the Eiccardi Pakce 62 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1836. On my return home I had a visit from the Marquis de' Tonigiani, second son of the head of the family, a very respectable, modest young man, who travelled a few years ago in the United States. Since he came back he has interested himself in reviving and giving efficiency to some old schools for popular instruction, in which he has partly succeeded, but in which the spirit of the government is substantially against him. Even his own family give him no hearty support, I am told, though they are pleased with it, as a sort of feather in the cap of one of their number. He talks English very well, and has a quiet, gentle manner, which, with his apparent good sense, makes me augur well for his success November 16. — I went this morning with Micali to see the Mar- quis Gaetano Capponi, a member of one of those old Florentine fami- lies whose titles have survived their fortunes, but w^ho still relish of the old stock. He is a retired, modest man, remarkable chiefly for his love of Tasso, and for his collection of books relative to Tasso, which, in fact, induced me to visit him. It is a very remarkable col- lection, comprising every edition of the poet himself of any note whatsoever, and nearly every other one, however inconsiderable ; together with whatever has been written and published separately about him. The Marquis is now just about to enter into a discussion concerning the Alberti Manuscripts, as they are called, on which he means to print a pamphlet. It is a curious subject, and if he will give an historical and plain account of the matter, he will render a very acceptable ser\dce to Italian literature The facts in the case are, I believe, as follows. The Falconieri Library at Eome, it has always been well known, contained at one time a quantity of Tasso's manuscripts, and when Foppa published, in 1666, his collection of Tasso's Inedita, he intimated in his preface that he had not published the whole con- tained in that library. Count Alberti, therefore, as he says, sought for this remainder of Tasso's autographs, and found them ten years since, and purchased them of the present Prince Falconieri, making an exact schedule of what he took, and obtaining the Prince's receipt at the bottom of it. It was soon bruited about that Count Alberti was in possession of very curious autograph manuscripts of Tasso, which left no doubt that the mutual attachment between himself and Eleonora of Este was the real cause of his confinement, and that his insanity was feigned at the command of the Duke, to avoid worse consequences. Thereupon the Prince Falconieri, without notice to Count Alberti, reclaimed his manuscripts by process of law, as hav- M. 45.] ALBERTI MANUSCRIPTS. 53 ing been in fact, if not in form, stolen from him ; to all which the Count replied by the schedule and receipt, and the matter was quashed. So much the greater, however, was the noise the manuscripts made in the world ; the Grand Duke of Tuscany heard of them and en- tered into treaty for them ; they were brought to Florence, and he agreed to give six thousand crowns for them, if they should be found genuine by persons skilled in manuscripts. But here was the rub. Experts beyond all suspicion of unfairness examined them, and de- clined to pronounce them genuine, without absolutely declaring them to be forgeries ; the Grand Duke gave Count Alberti some hundred crowns for his trouble, and from that time — which is now three years — the general opinion has gone against their authenticity. Count Alberti, on his side, appeals to the well-kno^vTL facts touch- ing the Falconieri Library, and to the legal suit, and objects to the persons who examined his manuscripts, that they ought not to have been mere experts in handwriting, but rather men of letters, who should have judged in part, at least, from internal evidence and his- torical proofs. On the other hand, it is said that Count Alberti is an adventurer, who had formerly been an officer in the army ; that, among other doubtful characteristics and accomplishments, he has that of being able to imitate all sorts of handwriting ; that, knowing the history of the Falconieri Libraiy, he went there and found two or three sonnets, and other inconsiderable autograph manuscripts of Tasso ; that he then, probably, entered into an arrangement with the Prince to carry on the imposition of making others, which the Prince should seem to sell him by schedule ; that the lawsuit was intended merely to give form to the fraud ; that the Count has not been frank and open in showdng all the manuscripts to those who could best judge, or who had suspicions of their authenticity ; that a man of honor could never have received the few hundred crowns given by the Grand Duke, on the ground that the manuscripts were not genuine, because, if they were not, the inference is irresistible that the Count has forged them ; and that, finally, the manuscripts which seem on all accounts to be Tasso's do not touch the interesting questions of his life, while all the rest relate to nothing else, and have a most sus- picious completeness about them, comprising even several notes of the Princess Eleonora herself. Of this last party, — adverse to the genuineness of the manuscripts, — are now, I am told, all the men of letters in Florence : Niccolini, Capponi, Micali, Becchi, etc., though souKi of them, like Xiccolini, were at first believers in their authen- 54 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1836. ticity, and gave certificates to that efi'ect. I have talked with these four persons and some others about it, and they seem to have no doubt ; and, on the other side, I have found only my American /' friend, Mr. Wilde, who seems to be quite as confident in the opposite opinion. It is a strange and curious matter, no doubt, and probably something like the Shakespeare papers, which Ireland pretended to have found, but managed by an older and much more wary and skilful person. In the evening we went to the Grand Duke's first ball of the sea- son, given at the Pitti Palace. Nothing could be more unceremoni- ous. It is the only occasion on which he sees strangers, or his own subjects, except for business or in private audiences in his cabinet. .... Any strangers who are presented to him by their ministers may come whenever a ball occurs, without further invitation, but Tuscans come only as they are specially invited The entrance is by the back part of the palace, which being on the upper side of the hill, we came in on the second story We passed through many long winding passages, and one or two fine antechambers, and then came into a large and very high hall, all white, and lighted with wax- tapers built up in the form of obelisks, quite round the sides, and as bright as noonday. In this the company assembled About half past eight the Grand Duke and Duchess, with their Court, came in, all dressed simply They passed round the room, and the strangers were presented to them, to the number, I should think, of sixty or seventy The Grand Duchess is quite handsome, .... but she had very few words to say to anybody The Grand Duke made some conversation with us, talked about the dress of ladies in America, about steamboats crossing the Atlantic, and seemed quite willing to be agreeable, though he was certainly awkward in his efi'orts, and preserved, both then and through the whole evening, the same anxious look I had observed yesterday. After the presentations were over the dancing began, and the Duke and Duchess danced nearly every time. A part of the company went into four or five small rooms near the principal one, and lounged or played cards ; and between eleven and twelve a larger room was opened, with re- freshments, but no regular supper. Soon after midnight the Court disappeared, and we were at home before one o'clock. Prince Maximilian of Saxony — one of whose daughters is now Duchess Dowager of Tuscany, and another was the first wife of the present Grand Duke — is now here with his pretty young wife, and his sensible, gifted daughter Amelia, to pass the winter. They were, M. 45.] SAXON PRINCES. 55 of course, at the ball, and as soon as the Court came into the room, crossed it to us, and shook hands with us, and greeted us as old Mends, in the most good-natured manner. We, too, on our part, were very glad to see them, for they were very kind to us last winter. In the course of the evening I was presented to the Grand Duchess Dowager, and found her as intelligent and agreeable as she is always represented to be, and as all the children of Prince Max really are November 18. — . . . . I went by appointment this morning to pay my respects to Prince Max. I found him up four pair of stairs, and passed through, I should think, not less than twelve or fourteen rooms, that looked more like lumber-rooms than like apartments in a palace. But when I reached his suite, I found it richly furnished, as becomes the rank of one who is the father of a king,* and might at this moment have been a king himself, if he had not voluntarily ab- dicated. He received me vnth his little chapeau-de-bras under his arm, which I never saw him without, and led me into the Princess Amelia's parlor, where she was waiting for us. There we sat down and talked about Saxony, which seemed to please the old Prince very much He talked well and kindly, and the Princess talked with esprit for haK an hour, when, in courtly style, they rose and left the room. November 19. — . . . . This evening, as in duty bound, we went to pay our respects to the Saxon princesses. We found the Princess Louise waiting for us, looking very prettily, but most simply dressed ; and soon afterwards the old Prince Max came in with the Princess Amelia. They were extremely kind, .... and talked pleasantly, after the fashion of princesses, about small matters that could com- promise nobody November 20. — .... In the evening we drove out to Fiesole, where ;Mr. Thompson of New York has been living two years, in a very nice, comfortable villa At table, I happened to sit next to the Princess Galitzin, and it is a long time since I have talked with any lady who had at once so much good sense and so much brilliancy in her conversation. After dinner, while I was near her, Bartolini gave us an interesting account of his residence at Elba, with Bonaparte, whose sculptor he was, and who was so kind to him, both then and previously, that he is still a thorough Bonapartist. One of the works Bonaparte ordered from him was a series of very large marble vases, in which to place lights, for the purpose of illuminating a terrace where he walked in the nights ; and Bartolini was at Carrara, em- * The Regent ha\'ing succeeded to the throne in the pre\ious summer. 56 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1836. ployed about them, when Bonaparte made his escape and began the adventures of the famous Hundred Days November 22. — I went this morning to see the Marquis Gino Cap- poni, a person of great distinction here by the antiquity of his family, by his fortune, and by his personal talents ; but who, having the taint of liberalism upon him, is frowned upon by the Court, and lives iu a sort of morose retirement I found him living in a mag- luficent palace, one of the finest in this city of grand palazzos, and though nobody else occupies it but his aged mother, I found him in the true Italian fashion, perched up in the fourth story, and actually ascended an hundred and twelve steps to reach him. He is nearly fifty years old, a widower, and with no children except married daughters, — a tall, fine specimen of a noble Italian, with frank and striking manners, and altogether a picturesque and digni- fied appearance. His conversation was strong and bold, tinctured with politics throughout ; and though he lives with men of letters like Niccolini and Becchi, and affects, and I dare say desires, to give him- self up to literature, yet still his cabinet was full of newspa^Jers, and all his talk redolent of public affairs. He was once in great favor with the Grand Duke, and used to be much consulted by him ; but since the change in Court politics in 1830-32, the Marquis Capponi withdrew himself rather violently from the government, and is seen now only as a matter of ceremony at the palace. If, however, the time should come when liberal principles again shall prevail in Tus- cany, I doubt not he would exercise a controlling influence in its afi"airs. He savors most strongly of the noble old stock of the Italians in Italy's best days, and while he is very frank, free, and winning in conversation, has all the air and bearing of one born to command. In a letter to Mr. Prescott, written six weeks later, Mr. Tick' nor thus sums up his experiences in Florence : — .... The society I found still more changed, but not for the bet- ter. Of foreign, there was a good deal ; but we cared little about it, for it was merely fashionable. Of Italian there was very little. The Marchioness Lenzoni — who, besides being the last descendant of one branch of the Medicis, owns and carefully preserves at Certaldo the house which Boccaccio possessed, and where he died — opened her saloon twice a week, and received the principal Florentine no- bility, as well as the men of letters, and I met there Buonarotti, the head of Michel Angelo's family, and the head of the administration of M. 45.] COUNTESS D' ALB ANY. 57 justice for Tuscany, — an eminent and respectable man, whom I was glad to visit in the great artist's house, and to find surrounded with his memorials, and possessing a good many of his characteristic manu- scripts. I also knew there, and at their own houses, Micali, the author of " Italia avanti i Eomani," — a lively, courtly old gentleman, of good fortune, who values himself as much on his fashionable distinctions as on his considerable literary fame ; Niccolini, the tragic writer, — a rather savage republican, who fancies himseK to have sympathies with all Americans, and who is really an interesting person ; as well as some others of less note, whose names you would not recognize. But I missed the old Countess d'Albanj^s house. No such exists now in Florence ; and what made it more striking, I was offered for lodging-rooms the very suite of apartments in her palazzo over that in which I used to visit her ; the very suite, too, that was occupied by Alfieri, and where I passed a forenoon once in looking over his library and manuscripts. Au reste, she has not left any odor of sanctity be- hind her among the Florentines. In the latter part of her life she fell under the influence of a Frenchman by the name of Fabre, — you remember Dido's conjugium vocat, hoc prcetexit nomine culpam, — and when she died she left him all her property ; so the Palazzo Alfieri, as it is called, is turned into a lodging-house, and all Alfieri's books and manuscripts are carried off" to the South of France, except a duplicate copy of his Tragedies, which Monsieur Fabre gave to the Laurentian Library. This annoys the Italians, and so much the more, because Alfieri, not in legal, but in poetical form, by a sonnet, had sig- nified his wdsh that his library should be deposited in his native city of Asti ; and I remember Tassi, who was his private secretary, told me, when he showed me the books, that at Mad. d' Albany's death they would go to Asti. But it has turned out otherwise ; and the Italians console themselves for their loss by abusing the wife of the Pretender ; a satisfaction which, I assure you, some of the principal men in Florence enjoyed one night at Madame Lenzoni's in great perfection, at the end of a rather active and agreeable soiree. The want of society — intellectual, agreeable society — is very much j felt by foreigners, not only in Florence, but throughout Italy. I have » sometimes thought that it is even felt by the Italians themselves, | especially when I have found persons of the first distinction — as far j as rank and family are concerned — living in the most cheerless man- ' ner, sometimes in an upper story, and sometimes in a remote corner of one of their vast, gloomy, and uncomfortable palaces, without fires \ in winter, without carpets, and without convenient furniture ; and 3* 58 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1836. this, too, by no means the result of their poverty, but of indolent habits and perverted tastes, which, while they prevent their possessors from making an effort for better things, do not prevent them from feeling there are such things, and being partly ashamed that they do not enjoy them. No doubt the fortunes of the highest class have been impaired, even within the last twenty years, and men who could once receive in state are now obliged to sell their galleries and rent their palaces. This has been eminently the case at Venice and Bologna, and partly so at Florence. But this will not account for the state of social life throughout Italy ; still less for the low state of intellectual culture, especially among Italian women. Being anxious to establish his family for the winter, Mr. Ticknor left Florence on the 1st of December, and arrived in Eome on the 5th. They took up their quarters that same day in a large and delightful apartment on the southwestern slope of the Monte Pincio, where they had a broad view of the city, and the sunshine to brighten them all day ; and they had no reason to regret the choice during the five months they stayed there. JOURNAL. December 5. — I think we were very fortunate in securing at once such good lodgings ; and, to make us feel still more at home, my old friend, Mr. Bunsen,"^ the Prussian Minister, came in the evening and made us a most agreeable visit. He is much changed since I knew him before, is grown stout and round, and become the father of nine children ; but he is just as full of learning, activity, and warm- hearted kindness as ever. It was a great pleasure to see him. December 8. — .... The evening we spent at the Prussian Minis- ter's, Mr. Bunsen's, whose wife is an English lady. There was a large party, consisting chiefly of Germans and English. I was introduced to many, but remember few, except Wolff, the sculptor, some of whose beautiful works were in the tasteful rooms ; Lepsius, who is now dis- tinguishing himself in Egyptian antiquities ; Kestner, the Hanoverian Minister, and son of Werther's Albert and Charlotte ; Plattner, who Jias been in Rome above thirty years ; Gerhard, the famous archaeol- ogist, etc. It was, like all such soirees, agreeable in proportion as you fall in with agreeable people. To me it was pleasant because I made a good many interesting acquaintances. * See Vol. I. pp. 177, 178. M. 45.] FETE AT VILLA ALBANI. 59 December 9. — To-day there was a great fete and dinner in honor of the birthday of Winckelmann, held at the Villa Albani, under the auspices and presidency of Bunsen. He had invited me to it, when I was still in Florence, and he called to-day and took me out in his car- riage. The villa is neglected, but its palazzo, a fine building, is well preserved ; the collection of antiques — stolen, literally stolen by the French — has been replaced, and the whole is much in the state in which it was when "Winckelmann lived there, under the patronage of the well-known Cardinal Albani. Between three and four o'clock about ninety persons were collected, chiefly Germans, with a few English and Italian, and among them were the Eussian Charge d' Affaires ; Kestner, the Hanoverian Min- ister ; Thorwaldsen ; Yisconti ; Dr. Carlyle, brother to the obscure writer for the Reviews ; Wolff ; Plattner ; all the principal German artists, etc. Gerhard went round with all of us, and lectured on the Gallery and its most interesting monuments very agreeably ; after which we went up stairs, and at five o'clock sat down to an excellent dinner in a truly magnificent hall, all built of brilliant marbles. Bunsen presided ; Thorwaldsen was vice-president, at the other end of the table ; toasts were drank, speeches were made, both in Ger- man and Italian, by the president, by Gerhard, Visconti, etc. ; and there was a delightful choir of young Germans, who sang with effect several ancient Latin hymns and choruses, a part of the Carmen Seculare of Horace, and some national German airs. There was a good deal of the German enthusiasm about it, and this enthusiasm rose to its height when Bunsen — at nearly the end of the feast — went round to the neighborhood of Thorwaldsen, and making a speech, and a very happy one, took a wreath of laurel, which was sup- posed by chance to be near, as one of the ornaments of the occasion, and placed it on Thorwaldsen's head. It was a fine scene. The ven- erable artist resisted the honor just so far as was graceful, and no fur- ther, though taken by surprise entirely, for the speech was so shrewdly adjusted that its full purport was not intelligible till the wreath was on his temples. But everybody felt it was well placed, and a burst of applause followed which must have gratified him. He is a noble, gentle-looking old man, with an abundance of white hair flowing upon his shoulders in a very striking manner. I talked with him a good deal to-day, both before dinner and after, and found him as full of simplicity as he is of genius. He has a great deal of feeling, too, and was much moved when I spoke of meeting him twenty years ago at Mad. de Himiboldt's ; for she was not only one 60 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1836. of the remarkable persons of her time, but a very important friend and patron to him when he needed friends.* December 10. — I went this morning to see the Princess GabriellLt In personal appearance she is less changed than I expected to find her. In the extremely winning frankness and sincerity of her char- acter she is not changed at all. During an hour that I sat with her she told me the most extraordinary succession of facts about her own family that I ever listened to. Her father, Lucien Bonaparte, is now in England, poor ; . . . . the Prince Musignano X — Charles — is suing his father and mother for his wife's dowry ; Queen Caroline § is quarrelling with Joseph and Jerome for the inheritance she claims from Madame Mere ; the Princess of Canino is in Tuscany, furiously jealous of her husband, and yet refusing to join him in England. One of her daughters || is Mrs. Wyse, who threw herself into the Ser- pentine River in St. James's Park, a few years ago ; . . . . one son is exiled to America for having been concerned in a murder ; another is now in the castle of St. Angelo, under sentence of death, as the prin- cipal who committed it ; and so on, and so on. Of the whole Bonaparte family the Princess Gabrielli is, in short, the only one who can now be said to be in an eligible position in soci- ety, or personally happy, and she owes the whole of this to her good sense, to freedom from all ambition, and to her truly simple, kind, and religious character. Au teste, she lives perfectly retired in her palace, wdth her husband and her little boy ; her daughters are in a convent for their education ; she receives no society and goes nowhere, but is made happy, I doubt not, as she assured me she is, by her domestic relations and her religious duties. Certainly nobody could be more ^ cheerful, bright, and agreeable than she was this morning ; but though the Gabrielli family is rich, and her husband is now the head of it, and possesses the estates of his house, everything in her noble and beautiful palace looked neglected and comfortless. I was sorry to see it, for though this is the w^ay in which almost all ladies of her rank in Rome live, vet one educated as she has been should not have sunk into it. V * Wife of Wilhelm von Humboldt. See Vol. I. pp. 177, 178. t Whom Mr. Ticknor had known as Princess Prossedi, eldest daughter of Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Canino. See Vol. I, p. 182. X Half-brother to the Princess Gabrielli. § Caroline Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon I., once Queen of Naples as wife of JIurat. II Half -sister to the Princess Gabrielli. She did nat lose her life by the esca- pade here mentioned. M. 45.] PRINCE AND PRINCESS BORGHESE. 61 December 11. — .... The evening I passed at the Princess Bor- ghese's, who receives every evening, but has grande reception only once a week. Guards of honor were stationed at the gates of her palazzo, the court was splendidly lighted, and a row of thirty or forty servants was arranged in the antechamber, while within was opened a noble suite of rooms richly furnished, and a company collected just as it is in one of the great salons of Paris. The Princess, indeed, is a French- woman, granddaughter of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, who wrote travels in the United States ; and the Prince, though of Italian blood, lived at Paris for thirty years and until about two years ago, when he came to the title and estates and removed to Rome. I brought them letters, but I knew them formerly, both at Florence and Paris, .... and they received me most kindly.* The Prince Borghese is now, I suppose, fifty-five years old, very simple, direct, and, as we should say, hearty in his manners ; the Princess about forty-five, with the remains of much beauty, with a good deal of grace and elegance, and that sort of good-breeding which puts a stranger immediately at his ease. She presented me to her eldest son, the Prince of Sulmona, and to his wife, a daughter of Lord Shrewsbury, one of the most beautiful creatures I ever looked upon ; to her second son, who has the title of Don Camillo Bor- ghese ; and to her only daughter, the Viscountess Mortemart, who with her husband, an intellectual Frenchman, is passing the winter in Rome The rooms filled between nine and ten o'clock. There were a few cardinals, .... two or three foreign ministers, half a dozen English, and the rest were Roman nobility, — the Chigis, Gaetanos, the Piom- binos, etc. I talked vrith. some of them ; but, except one of the Gaetanos, I found none of them disposed or able to go beyond very common gossip. December 13. — The evening I passed at the French Minister's, the Marquis de Latour-Maubourg, who holds a soiree once a week. He is a quiet, gentlemanlike person, whom I have seen once or twice before ; graver than Frenchmen generally are, and, I should think, of very good sense. The company was much like that at the Princess Borghese's, but the tone somewhat less easy and agreeable, for the Ambassador evidently cares little about it, and the Marchioness has not come to Rome, on account of the cholera. He lives in one wing of the Colonna Palace, and has two or three fine reception- rooms. .... * See Vol I. p. 256. 02 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1836. December 14. — I passed a couple of hours this forenoon at Mr. Bunsen's. He lives very agreeably, but not showily, in the Caffarelli Palace, which stands on one of the summits of the ancient Capitol, and has, on two sides, the Tarpeian Rock for the limits of its gardens and territories. In his neighborhood he has erected one building for the Archaeological Academy, which has existed at Rome, through hie means, since 1829 ; and another building for the sick Protestants, who are not received into the hospitals of the city, and whom he formerly used to have treated in a wing of his own palace ; while, within the palace itself, he has made arrangements for Protestant worship in German, French, and Italian. Besides all this, he is the most active person in whatever of literary enterprise there is in Rome, and a truly learned man in the wide German sense of the word. I went with him this morning over his academy and hospital, and received a sort of regular learned lecture from him on whatever can be seen from the windows of his palace, or from the roof of his hospital, which comprehends a view of all the seven hills, and nearly the whole neighborhood of the city. It was very interesting, the more so from the place where it w^as given ; and the explanations of the Tarpeian Rock, and some portions of the Capitol itself, were extremely curious and satisfactory December 15. — We gave the whole morning to the Museum of the Vatican ; and, after all, it seems as if we had hardly made an impres- sion on this wilderness of statues, to say nothing of the bas-reliefs and inscriptions. One of the difficulties in the case is, that when you get into the hall of the Muses, or the cabinet of the Laocoon and Apollo, you remain, and forget the multitude of other things that are worth seeing. In the evening there was a great concert given by the Duchess Torlonia, who, since her husband's death, is the head of the banking- house She gave her fete to-night in a vast palace she owtis near St. Peter's. As we drove to it we found ourselves already ■within its reach, as it were, when we had arrived at the Bridge of St. Angelo ; for the bridge itself was lighted with torches on both sides, and horse-guards were stationed in the middle, — a show which we had all the way through the Trastevere Meeting the Prince Borghese in one of the rooms, I sat down and had a very agreeable talk with him and the Russian Charge d' Affaires We came out very early, and drove through the darkling streets on this side of the Tiber to the Capitol hill, where we passed a very sensible and agreeable hour, with a small party, at Mrs. Bunsen's M. 45.] ANCIENT KOME. 63 December 17. — We passed a good deal of a bright, lovely forenoon on the Palatine hill, the original nucleus of Eome, and its most splendid centre in its most splendid days ; the spot where Virgil has placed Evander's humble dwelling, four hundred years before the supposed age of Romulus, and the spot where Nero began the Aurea Domus, which threatened, as the epigram in Suetonius intimates (Xero, c. 31), to fill the whole city, but now, all alike, a heap of undistinguishable ruins. It is in vain to ask for one monument, or to try to verify one record or recollection ; — the house where Au- gustus lived forty years can be as little marked as that of Eomulus ; and all reminiscences of Cicero, who dwelt here in the midst of his future enemies — Clodius and Catiline, — of Mecsenas, of Agrippa, and of Horace, are vain and fruitless. The truth is, probably, that, hav- ing been the residence of the Emperors from the time of Augustus till the irruption of the Goths and the capture of the city, it was so full of wealth and works of art, that it was particularly exposed to plunder and violence. "VVe walked about in the Farnese Gardens, and saw on all sides, and especially on the declivities of the hill towards the Aventine and the CaeKan, huge substructions, into one of which we descended, and were sho^vn, with a miserable taper, frescos and arabesques, which, if not of much merit, prove how much care and ornament were bestowed on the most obscure parts of these luxurious palaces and temples December 18. — We went to church this morning, and find it more and more grateful to be allowed to have regular Sundays, though the preaching is Calvinistic, and clumsily so. But last M'uiter we had not even this. After church we walked in the Yilla Borghese December 20. — . . . . We visited, this morning, the remains of the Theatre of Marcellus, and of the Portico of Octavia. There is, after all, not a great deal to be seen of them ; but the antiquarians are much interested about them always, because the marble plan at the Capitol shows so distinctly what they were ; and everybody feels interested in what bears the name of Octavia, the sister of Augustus, whom Shakespeare has so well described in a few lines, and in Mar- cellus, whom Virgil has immortalized in still fewer."^ The Theatre was begun by Julius Caesar (Dio Cass., 53-30, p. 725, and 43, 49, p. 376), but was finished by Augustus, and dedicated, a. u. c. 741, to the memory of Marcellus, who had been dead ten years (Plin., 8, 23; Suet. Aug., 29) ' The Portico, which Augustus built afterwards, for the accommoda- * Antony and Cleopatra, Act II. Sc. 2, and .^neid. Book VI. v. 884. 64 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1836. tion and shelter of the people frequenting the Theatre, was a wide range of buildings, including two or three temples, of which remains are found now in two churches in the neighborhood, and several col- umns and inscriptions in the streets. No doubt, originally, every- thing here was in the most magnificent style, as well as on the grand- est plan ; for Pliny enumerates some of the finest works of Grecian art as having stood here, and among the rest, the very Cupid which Cicero (VI. contra Verrem) reproaches Verres with having stolen, and which was the work of Praxiteles. Now, however, so little re- mains, — it is all so scattered, — and it is scattered through such a filthy and squalid part of the city, that it requires a very decided antiquarian taste to enjoy it.* .... December 23. — I went to see Cardinal Fesch this morning, and sat an hour with him. He is now seventy-four years old, and is some- what, though not much, changed since I saw him nineteen years ago. Indeed, he is uncommonly hale and well-preserved for his years ; dresses with ecclesiastical precision and niceness, and has the most downright good-natured ways with him, as he always had. He talked a vast deal of nonsense about the cholera and cordons ; un- dertook to be learned about the plagues of ancient and modern times, but succeeded only in making a clumsy and awkward display of scraps of knowledge which .... he knew not how to put together ; and finally he told me of a plan he has now in progress, for establish- ing an academy of sculpture and design in Ajaccio, in Corsica ; but I could not find out that he had any further present purpose in relation to the matter than to erect a building, and fill it with casts and the refuse pictures of his own admirable gallery. However, if his vanity gets excited, his legacies may be worth something.f .... In the evening we had a visit from the kind Chevalier Kestner, after which I passed an hour quietly and agreeably at the Princess Borghese's, where I met the Chigis, Lord Stuart de Rothesay, and only one or two other persons. Lord Stuart, who was thirteen years British Ambassador at Paris, remembered me, and reminded me of a conversation I had with him eighteen years ago, which surprised me very much, as I never saw him but once. * Mr. Ticknor made ample and careful memoranda of his visits to ancient remains and modem collections, and of the lectures he heard from Bunsen, Ger- hard, and Lepsins. t There is a College Fesch at Ajaccio, a high school for boys, of which one wing contams pictures — said to be eight hundred in number — from Cardinal Fesch's collection, given by Joseph Bonaparte in 1842, and hardly one good painting among them. iE. 45.] PALAZZO MASSIMO. 65 December 25. — A rainy, windy, and stormy Christmas, but the first \ really disagreeable day we have had since we crossed the Alps, above three months ago We went comfortably enough to St. Peter's, and having good places there by the kindness of Mr. Kestner, saw the grand mass performed by the Pope, to great advantage December 26. — .... I dined in a gentlemen's party, at Mr. Jones / the Banker's, with Mr. Harper,* Dr. Bo\\Ting,t and a Mr. Greg, X whom I foimd a very intelligent Englishman of fortune, who means, as Dr. Bo-«Ting says, to stand for the next Parliament, for Lancaster. There were two or three other persons present, but the conversation was in the hands of those I have mentioned, and was very spirited. It turned on English reform and American slavery, and such exciting topics as necessarily produced lively talk. We sat long at table, and then I carried Dr. BoA\Ting to Mr. Trevelyan's, § where there was a small party of English, but none so interesting as himself and his wife. January 2, 1837. — .... In the evening we went for a short time to the Princess Massimo's. We brought letters to her, but did not deliver them until lately, because they have been in great affliction, on ac- count of the dangerous illness of one of the family. She is a Princess of Saxony, own cousin to the unfortunate Louis XVI., and married to the head of that ancient house which has sometimes claimed to be descended from Fabius Maximus. When she is well, and her family happy, she receives the world one or two evenings every week, but now her doors are shut. She is old enough to have a good many grandchildren, and we found her living quite in the Eoman style. We passed up the grand, cold, stone staircases, always found in their palaces, through a long suite of ill-lighted, cheerless apart- ments, and at last found the Princess, with two rather fine-looking daughters, sitting round a table, the old Prince playing cards with some friends at another, vriih. Italian perseverance, while one of her sons, attached to the personal service of the Pope, was standing vnXh. two or three other ecclesiastics near a moderate fire, whose little heat was carefully cut off from the company by screens ; for the Italians look upon a direct radiation of warmth from the fireplace as something quite disagreeable. The whole appearance of the room was certainly not princely ; still less did it speak of the grandeur of j ancient Rome. -^ * Charles Can-oil Harper, of Baltimore. t Sir John BowTing. X William R. Greg, author of " Enigmas of Life," etc. § Since Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan, Bart. 66 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. But we were very kindly and pleasantly received, and passed an hour agreeably. The rest of the evening we spent at Mrs. Trevel- yan's January 9. — A course of lectures, to be delivered thrice a week, was begun this morning at the Archaeological Institute. It is to be delivered by Bunsen, on the Topography of Rome ; Gerhard, on Painted Vases ; and Lepsius, on Egyptian Monuments. The lecture to-day was by Bunsen, on the writers upon the Topography of Rome, merely introductory, but curious and interesting. r JanvMTy 11. — Some of the principal ladies of Rome are now going from house to house, to ask contributions for making arrangements in relation to the cholera. The Princess Borghese — whose duties lay in our quarter — came yesterday to us, but we were out, and she left a note asking us to send to her palazzo any assistance we are disposed to give In the evening I met her at the Austrian Ambassa- dor's, blazing with diamonds such as I have not seen out of Saxony, and little looking as if she had been begging all day, and receiving \ sums, as she told me, as low as half a pauL* This morning I went ^^ to carry my little contribution, and was shown by her directly to the breakfast-room, that, as she said, I might see her whole family. It was a cheerful and interesting sight. Beside the beautiful Princess of Sulmona, the fine, striking Viscountess de Mortemart, the three sons, and the son-in-law, there were the chaplain, the tutor, the physician, and one or two other members of a great house, all round a long, highly polished oak table, covered with a substantial dejeuner d la fourchette, served chiefly on silver. They all seemed happy, and were very pleasant ; and I could not help contrasting it with the scenes of heartless show I witnessed in the Princess Pauline's days, in the same rooms. It was one of those scenes of the real interieur of a great house that strangers rarely chance upon, and I enjoyed its simplicity, heartiness, and good taste very much In the evening we went to Prince Musignano's, — Charles Bona- parte, — who lives in a beautiful little villa just by the Porta Pia, built by Milizia, the well-known writer on Architecture, and a part of the inheritance from the Princess Pauline to Joseph's childi-en. f I know nothing of the sort in the neighborhood of Rome so pretty and tasteful. But the evening was awkward and dull The ladies were all on one side of the room, and the gentlemen in the middle or on the other side. * Five cents of American money. t The Princess Musignano was the daughter of Joseph Bonaparte. M. 45.] ROMAN PALACES. 67 CHAPTEE IV. Rome. — Dante and Papal Government. — Taking the Veil in High Life. — Kestner and Goethe. — Cardinal Giustiniani. — Letter to Mr. Dana. — Francis Hare. — Sismondi. — Mezzofanti. — Alherti Man- uscripts. — Lady Westmoreland. — Mai. — Vatican Library. — Wordsworth and H. G. Robinson. JOUENAL. January 16. — !Mr. Bunsen lectured this morning on the Topography of Ancient Rome In the evening I spent an hour quite agree- ably at the Princess Borghese's,"^ whom I found almost alone, because everybody had gone to a great ball at Torlonia's. There I went also, afterwards, and found a brilliant and gay fete, where were assembled six or seven hundred people. The palace where it was given is the same which Henry YIIL, in the days of his Catholic zeal, gave to Car- dinal Wolsey, and to which the British government, long after it be- came Protestant, continued to lay claim. It is a fine building, espe- cially for the purpose to which it was devoted to-night ; but it seemed strange that Torlonia should thus be the heir of Henry YIII. and Cardinal Wolsey January 19. — After passing the forenoon quietly, in our usual oc- cupations, we dined with the Princess Gabrielli. It was a little din- ner given on occasion of the Prince's birthday, and it would not be easy to find anything more characteristic of the modes of life here. We were led through three or four large and fine halls, all, however, ill furnished, and were received in another where, round a huge fire- place and a small fire, we found our host and hostess ; General Gabri- elli, the brother ; Monsignor Piccolomini ; another Monsignor ; a young Count, who, at the age of eighteen or nineteen, is about to be married to a little girl not yet fourteen ; and a French lady ■ * Mr. Ticknor went frequently to the Princess Borghese's during the winter, and on one Sunday evening, when he speaks of the party there as something more brilliant than usual, he adds : " Those who chose might have the edifica- tion of seeing six cardinals at once, in the card-room at whist." ^ r L ^^ LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. Things looked dreary enough, as they always do in these vast pal- aces ; but the conversation was carried on with Italian vivacity and vehemence, and the bonhomie, simplicity, and earnest kindness of the Princess were, as they always are, irresistible. At last dinner was announced, and we were led through the same wide halls by which we had entered, across a magnificent ballroom and through a dark pas- sage, to a moderate-sized dining-room, hung in a careless way with _ pictures by Perugino, Eaphael, Claude, and Andrea del Sarto. The t dinner consisted of strange Italian dishes, and was served in the ' Italian fashion. All the attendants, who were cumbrously numerous, \ were in shabby liveries, except the major-domo, who was in black. ; Some of them were old ; all were easy and familiar, as they always j' are in these ancient families, and whenever a good joke occurred they laughed, and seemed to enjoy it as much as any of us. The conversation was lively "without any expense of wit. On this point the Italians are not difficult. They content themselves with as little of what is intellectual, in their daily intercourse, as any people well can, but their gayety is none the less for all that. Monsignor Piccolomini — a great name that has come down from the time of Wallenstein — says his mother was named Jackson, and that her fam- ily is connected with that of our President-General ; a droll circum- stance if it is true. His stories, however, are better than his genealogy. We had coffee at table, and then, after freezing a little in the saloon, after the true Roman fashion, we came home in about three hours after we left it. In the evening we had a pleasant visit from the Trevel- yans January 23. — . . . . After his lecture was over this morning Mr. Bunsen took us into the Tabularium, and explained it to us in a very interesting manner. It has been fully explored only within a few years, and is now one of the grandest monuments of ancient Rome. I walked home — as I have often lately — with an elderly English gentleman, whom I have seen a good deal of within the last three weeks, and who is full of knowledge, wisdom, and gentleness ; I mean Mr. Elphinstone, who ^\Tote the "Embassy to Cabul," was thirty years in India, was long Governor of Bombay, and refused to be Governor-General of India. It is rare to meet a more interesting man.* February 6. — .... We dined to-day at Prince Massimo's, and met there the Prince, his son ; Monsignor ; several other Italians ; three or four EngUsh, whom we are in the habit of meeting everywhere in ♦ Right Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone. M. 45.] PRINCE MASSIMO. 69 society, .... a party of thirteen or fourteen. Some rooms in their magnificent palace were opened which we had not seen before, which are worthy of the oldest of the Roman families ; particularly a large saloon painted in fresco by Giulio Eomano, in one corner of which is the famous ancient statue of the Discobolus, for which the Prince was offered twelve thousand of our dollars, and was able — which few Roman princes would be — to refuse it, He is, too, more enlightened, I am told, than most of his caste, and the family is of such influence, that the Prussian Minister told me the other day, that he knowssuo individual so likely, in his turn, to become pope, as Monsignor. ^I talked with the Prince to-day for the first time ; for, whenever I have been there before, he has been diligent at the card-table. He talked very well, sometimes with scholarship. He said, among other things, that the strangers who come to Rome occupy themselves too much ■v\T.th the arts and antiquities, to the exclusion of all consideration of Rome itself as a city, which, under all its governments and through all its changes, has so much influenced and continues still so much to influence the condition of the world. It was a remark worthy of a Roman Prince who felt the relations and power of his great name and family, which very few of them feel at all. The dinner was an elegant one, in the Roman style, -vsith sundry un- accountable dishes, all served on silver or beautiful porcelain, and with a great retinue of servants, all ostentatiously out of livery. It was, throughout, a curious and agreeable entertainment to us, for I am not aware that there is any other great Roman house where strangers are invited to dinner, or where they can see so much of Roman man- ners February 11. — I had a long visit from De Crollis this morning, and a long talk with him about Dante, and other matters interesting to me. He is one of the first physicians in Rome, Professor of Medicine in the University here, a learned and, what is more rare, a liberal- minded, enlightened man. He told me, among other things that six or seven years ago he began to hold weekly meetings of three or four persons at his house, to study an'd interpret Dante, and that they made a good deal of progress in it. Two winters ago Count Ludolf, the Ne- apolitan Minister, who is a great admirer of Dante,* desired to join * A month before this Mr. Ticknor wrote : " I discovered that Count Ludolf is a great student of Dante, and I gave nearly all the time I was there [at a ball at Prince Borghese's] to a very interesting talk with him about an edition of the Divina Commedia he is now preparing. I had not before suspected the Minister of Naples of such interests or such learning." LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. them, and the result was, that the meetings were transferred to the Famese Palace, and the number of persons, including the Marchess ^ Gaetano,* and one or two other of the Roman nobles of some literary taste, was increased to fourteen or fifteen. The thing, of course, began DOW to be talked about, and whatever is talked about is unwelcome to a government as weak and as anxious as this. About a year ago they received a very remote, gentle, and indirect hint, as mild as priestly fikill could make it, that it was feared the tendency of such meetings was not good. The hint was taken, and the meetings have since been discontinued. Yet Count Ludolf is a legitimist of unquestionable fidelity, and the whole party as far as possible from anything politi- cal. I could not help contrasting such a state of things with that in Saxony On my way to the Capitol this forenoon, walking with Colonel Mure,t I went to see a house not far from the foot of the hill, which Bunsen pointed out to us, lately, as an ancient Roman house. Cer- tainly the walls looked as if they were of ancient materials and work- manship, and certainly the whole seemed as uncomfortable as we have ever supposed the Romans lived ; but so much has been changed in the arrangements, and so much crowded in and upon the structure, that it is not possible to make much out of it After the lecture ]\Ir. Bunsen went, with old Mr. Elphinstone and myseK, through all the forums, beginning with the Forum Roma- num and ending with that of Trajan ; descending into all the excava- tions, and visiting every trace and relic of each of them, whether in cellars, barns, or churches, or in the open air. It took about three hours, and was quite curious ; for Bunsen is familiar ^vith every stone in the whole of it. He showed us, among other things, that it was possible, when these forums were in their palmiest state, to have walked from the Tabularium, or iErarium, on the decli\4ty of the Capitol, round by the Coliseum, and up to the farther end of the Forum of Trajan, — which he supposed to have ended near the Piazza di Venezia, on the Corso, — and yet have been the whole time sheltered by grand porticos and in the presence of magnificent buildings. This ]" gives an idea of what Rome once was. What it now is, our senses too faithfully informed us, as we passed through almost every possible variety of filth, wretchedness, and squalid misery, while we made our researches, * Now Duca di Sermoneta. t Colonel "William Mxire, of Caldwell, author of "Critical History of the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece." M. 45.] TAKING THE VEIL. 71 February 12. — We had another Eoman scene this morning, very- different from yesterday's. The young Countess Bolognetti, one of the famous Cenci family, took the veil at the Tor de' Specchi, the fashion- \J able, rich convent of. the nobility here ; and as the Princess Gabrielli had made arrangements for us to see it, and as the Princess Massimo — who once passed four years of her education here — offered herself specially to show it to us, we were able to see all that such an occa- sion affords, under agreeable circumstances We were received in the parlor of the convent, where was Count Bolognetti, the father, apparently about seventy years old, in a full and elegant court dress of black, with a sword by his side, lace ruffles, and powdered hair ; the Countess Bolognetti, his daughter-in-law, also m full dress, blaz- ing Tvith diamonds ; several of the nuns, old and good-natured ; and some of the Pope's noble guards. The company collected fast, .... the elite of the fashionable no- bility of Rome The Princess Massimo soon proposed to us to go to the church, in order to have good places. We found military guards the whole way, the passages ample and rich, and the church itself beautiful, with marbles and velvet tapestries, great wealth on the altar and in its neighborhood, and excellent taste everywhere Soon after we were seated, Cardinal Galeffi came and placed himself at the altar, a service of beautiful silver was offered him to wash his hands, he put on his robes, and took his seat. Immediately after- wards six nuns with wax-lights came in, and in the midst the Countess Bolognetti, richly but not showily dressed in pure white, without jewels, and with a crown of white roses on her head. At her side walked a beautiful little child, four or five years old, bearing on a cushion a jewelled crown ; . . . . representing an angel offering her the crowTi of heavenly love. She advanced to the altar, knelt before the Cardinal, and having received his blessing, returned to the body of the church, where she knelt before a little prie-dieu, looking pale, but very pretty, gentle, and solemn. .... The Cardinal celebrated high mass with all the pomp of his church, the guards knelt and pre- sented arms, and there was more or less stir through the whole church, but she remained perfectly motionless When the Cardinal had partaken the sacrament he administered it to her, and she received it with much apparent humility, after which, turning to the Abbess of the convent, an old Princess Pallavicini, she knelt to her, and asked her permission to enter the convent. This being granted, she ad- dressed herself to the Cardinal and asked him to receive her vows, to which he gave his assent, and added his blessing ; and she turned 72 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. round to the audience, and in a gentle, but firm and distinct voice, solicited their jDrayers while she should pronounce them. The nuns now took off some parts of her dress, and put on that of the convent ; she pronounced her vows of obedience, seclusion, etc. ; her hair was cut off ; ... . the Miserere was sung, the service for the dead chanted, and she was sprinkled with holy water, as the priest sprinkles a corpse. All this happened in front of the altar, as she knelt by the Cardinal. She then walked slowly and gently down into the church ; knelt in the middle of the pavement of marble on a cloth spread there ; a black pall was thrown over her feet ; she fell gi-acefully forward on her face, and the pall was spread over her whole person ; and with a few more prayers and ceremonies, what- ever belongs to an entire burial-service was fulfilled, and she rose a nun, separated from the world, and dedicated — as she believed — to Heaven. This part of the ceremony was very painful, and it was impossible for many of us to witness it without tears ; for she was a young and gentle thing, who seemed to be fitted for much happiness in this world. But she now passed down the aisle as a nun, having first received the Cardinal's benediction and had the crown set upon, her head. Near the door the nuns received her, and she embraced them aU. ; a Te Deum was sung, and she left the church with her sis- ter, another very young and pretty creature, who is also a member of the convent A tasteful breakfast and collation was prepared in the room of the Superior ; those who chose went over the convent, and saw the room of the new nun, which was prettily and comfort- ably fitted up, and the whole affair was ended In the evening Mr. Elphinstone made us a visit, and stayed quite late. He is one of the most agreeable old gentlemen I have ever known, and full of knowledge and experience of life. He is the person under whose care Mrs. Lushington made that overland jour- ney from India to England about which she has made so pleasant a little book. He was then returning from Bombay, where he had been governor He goes now to England in a day or two, and I am sorry for it The Trevelyans, too, passed the evening with us. February 15. — This evening Mr. Kestner, the Hanoverian Minis- ter, came to see us, and brought with him a portfolio, containing about an hundred letters from Goethe to Mr. Kestner^s father and mother, who are the Charlotte and Albert of Werther's Sorrows, to- gether with some other papers and a preface of his own ; the whole constituting a full explanation and history of that remarkable work. M. 45.] CARDINAL GIUSTINIANI. 73 He read to ns, for a couple of hours, curious extracts from different parts, and proposes to come again and read more.* .... February 16. — . . . . The evening I passed with the Trevelyans, who had asked Dr. Wiseman,t the head of the English College here, and an eloquent preacher, to meet me. He seemed a genuine priest, not without talent, very good looking and able-bodied, and with much apparent practice in the world. He talked well, but not so well as I expected. .... February 17. — Mr. Kestner came again this evening and read the rest of what I wanted to hear from his letters about Goethe, Werther, etc. It was very curious and interesting. The fact seems to be that, in the first book of Werther's letters, Werther is imdoubtedly Goethe himseK, Charlotte is Charlotte Buff, and Albert is Kestner, and much of what is described there really passed. In the second book Werther is undoubtedly the young Jerusalem,X who was a Secretary of Legation, and met the affronts there described, and whose death and last days are described, often word for word, in Werther, from a letter sent by Kestner to Goethe February 25. — We took a ride on horseback this morning out at the Porta Pia. .... Afterwards I made a long visit to Cardinal Giustiniani, whom I knew formerly in Spain, and whom I have been intending to visit ever since I have been in Rome He was a great man in Madrid when I first knew him, for he was Nuncio ; he is a greater man now, being one of the principal ministers of the Pope, and the person who receives all memorials ; and he was near being greatest of all, for nothing but the veto of the King of Spain prevented his being made pope in 1831, when Gregory XVI. was chosen. He is now sixty-eight years old, and quite stout and well preserved, though lame from a fall he suffered some years ago ; and he has the reputation of being second to none of the Sacred College in talent and business habits. He talked with me naturally about Spain, his adventures there, and his exile during the reign of the Cortes ; and finally his return to Rome, and his nomination as Car- dinal in 1826. After this, — somewhat to my surprise, — he talked about the conclave of 1831 and his own rejection. He said it was owing to the influence of Colomardes, who was then ]Minister of * This correspondence was published under the title, " Goethe and Wer- ther " (Stuttgardt, 1854). The story is also told by Mrs. F. Kemble in her '*Year of Consolation." t Later Cardinal "Wiseman, Archbishop of Westminster. X Wilhelm Jerusalem, son of a German theologian, VOL. II. 4 T4 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [183-/. Grace and Justice to Ferdinand VIL, and who wished to show an ex- cessive zeal in his master's affairs, in order to increase his own power. Colomardes, he said, believed that he, Giustiniani, had induced Pius VII. to acknowledge the South American Bishops ; but though he thought that measure a wise one, he declared to me that he had noth- ing to do with it, and that the Pope's determination, in relation to it, was taken when he was absent from Rome. Colomardes, however, sent in the veto, and Marco was the only Cardinal who knew any- thing about it, or suspected it. He told me, too, that he doubted whether the King of Spain knew it till after it was despatched ; for, haWng been exiled for adhering to Ferdinand's personal rights, and having, besides, rendered him great personal services, it was to be supposed the election would have been one of his choice. " However," the Cardinal went on, " it was a great favor done to me," — a remark which I took the liberty to think somewhat affected, until, in the evening, old Prince Chigi, w^ho holds the hereditary office of shutting up the Cardinals in conclave, and watching them till they elect, told me that it was imderstood, at the time, that Gius- tiniani really preferred the place of minister to that of pope. Per- haps he is better fitted for it ; at any rate, he is a man of talent, and is the only Cardinal I have talked wdth, since I came to Rome, who has talked as if he were so The following letter, written after more than eighteen months of European life, shows that the delightful society Mr. Ticknor had enjoyed, and the admiration and respect excited in him by many of the distinguished individuals whom he had met, did not conceal from him the dangers and weaknesses prevailing in the social systems which he studied. His generalizations about the state of Europe, and of his own country, now and after- wards, refer to conditions which have since been modified, but are none the less interesting historically. To Richard H. Dana, Esq. Rome, February 22, 1837. .... You ask me if I cannot tell you something to comfort an old Tory. I cannot. What Prince Metternich, the Phoenix of Tories, said to me over and over again, in a curious conversation I had ^vith him last summer, is eminently true to my feelings, and M. 46.] CONDITION OF EUROPE. 75 would be, perhaps, still more so to yours, if you were travelling "^ about as I am, — " U^tat actuel de VEurope m'est d^gcdtant." The old principles that gave life and power to society are worn out ; you feel on all sides a principle of decay at work, ill counteracted by an apparatus of government very complicated, and very wearing and annoying. The wheels are multiplied, but the motion is diminished, the friction increased ; and the machinery begins to grow shackling at the moment when the springs are losing their power, and when nothing but fimmess can make it hold out. Indeed, almost every- where, when you come in contact with the upper classes of society, — where in these governments power naturally resides, — you find weakness, inefl&cient presumption, and great moral degradation ; and when you come to those who are the real managers of the world, you find them anxious about the future, temporizing, and alternately using an ill-timed spirit of concession or an Ul-timed severity. The middling class, on the other hand, is growing rich and intelligent, and the lower class, with very imperfect and unpractical knowledge, Ls growing discontented and jealous. The governments are every- where trving to associate to their interests the wealth of the middling class, and to base themselves on property. But this is revolution. Pereonal interest will not work like the principle of respect to su- periors, and submission to authority as such, and it remains to be seen what "vs'ill be the result of the experiment in a population so corrupt in its higher classes, and of so low a moral tone in almost all, as that which is now found on the Continent, and, with some qualifi- cation, I must add in England also. In the United States we have the opposite defects ; but I greatly prefer them. We have the great basis of purity in our domestic life and relations, which is so broadly wanting here. "We harve men in the less favored portions of society, who have so much more intellect, will, and knowledge, that, com- pared -^dth similar classes here, those I am among seem of an inferior order in creation. Indeed, taken as a general remark, a man is much more truly a man with us than he is elsewhere ; and, notwithstanding the faults that freedom brings out in him, it is much more gratifying and satisfying to the mind, the affections, the soul, to live in our state of society, than in any I know of on this side of the Atlantic. I do not know that you would be any better satisfied with the state of the arts than you would be with the state of society here. In sculpture very little is done that is worth looking at, except in Thorwaldsen's atelier, where, indeed, grace and power seem to have retired. The other artists make abundance of long-legged things 76 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. that they call NjTuphs and Venuses and Psyches, and a plenty of chubby boys that they would pass off for Genii ; but all poetry is •wanting. There is more depth of meaning in the group that Green- ^ Gugh made for Mr. Cabot than in all of them put together.* Painting is still worse. Cammuccini here and Benvenuti in Flor- ence reign supreme, but there is not a man in Europe who can paint a picture like Allston JOURNAL. February 27. — In the evening there was a great oratorio at the Palazzo di Venezia, given by Count Liitzow, the Austrian Am- bassador It was Haydn's Creation, performed by a chorus of ninety singers and a band of fifty instruments, with Camporesi for the prima donna.f .... Mad. de Liitzow herself was in the chorus, and once sang in a trio with a good deal of sweetness ; so much does a love and consideration for the arts prevail — at least in Italy and Germany — over the consideration of rank and place. The whole entertainment, indeed, was elegant, and was given in a magnificent room, said to be the finest in Rome, which is opened only at intervals of years. Some notion of its size may be had from the facts that there were eight hundred people in it, nearly all com- fortably seated on cushioned chairs, and that, being finished in the style of the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, it was necessary to make the pilasters taller, and the giiffins of the frieze larger, than they are in that beautiful ruin in the Foriun, because the proportions of the room required it. March 1. — . . . . I went to Mr. Bunsen's lecture, whicli was stiU on the Forum. In the evening I dined with Mr. Hare,J an English gentleman of fortune and high connections, who lives here for his health, and has his family with him. He is an accomplished, scholar- like person, and has been established here so long that he is to be ac- counted almost a Roman ; but he is withal very agreeable and acute. Nobody was at table but the Prussian Minister, Colonel Mure, Mon- * A group representing a child-angel ushering a newly arrived child-spirit into heaven. It is now owned by Mrs. T. B. Curtis, of Boston. t Who, as Catalani herself told Kestner, drove her off the stage, and reigned as the prima donna in London, till she had retrieved the broken fortunes of a foolish husband. For the six or eight years after she completed that object she had lived retired in Rome, and it was esteemed a privilege to hear her. \ Francis, eldest brother of Augustus and Julius Hare, authors of " Guesses at Truth." M. 45.] OVERBECK. 77 signer Wiseman, and Lady Westmoreland, who, if not a very gentle person, is full of talent, spirit, and talk. .... Afterwards we went to Prince Massimo's, and took Anna with us, by special invitation, to see we knew not what. It turned out to be a glass-blower, who made small articles with a good deal of neat- ness, and amused some children and gro^vn people very well. Such an exhibition would not have been thought very princely in Paris or London, nor very remarkable anywhere ; but the good-nature of the Eomans is satisfied ^vith very small entertainment. March 3. — . . . . In the afternoon we went to Overbeck's atelier. .... He had little to show us, except the cartoon for a large picture, which is to be an allegory on art, and is full of his deep meanings. I saw nothing, however, better than his Christ entering Jerusalem, the original of which I saw here almost twenty years ago, and which is now at Lubeck. He himseK is gentle, mild, and interesting, be- ginning to grow old In the evening the Sismondis, with ]\Iiss Allen, made us a long and very agreeable visit, uninvited. He is growing old, and has given up his "Histoire des Frangais" from weariness, and seems disposed to seek, hereafter, chiefly for comfort and rest. He cares, he says, nothing about the arts, and therefore looks, even in Rome, to social intercourse for his chief pleasures ; and having an excellent and sensible wife, enjoys himself with his plain common-sense not a little. Their fortune is moderate, but equal to their moderate wants ; and, indeed, he has lately been able to spare enough to make happy a favorite niece in a love-match, to which her friends would not consent on account of the want of means between the parties. It was a beautiful and characteristic piece of kindness on the part of Sismondi, and made a good deal of talk when we were in Florence. March 4. — I made a very agreeable visit to Sismondi, who is my next-door neighbor, and found with him Barbieri, the great Italian preacher, whom I knew at the Marquis Gino Capponi's, in Florence. I was glad to see them together, and I liked Barbieri more than ever for his gentleness and spirit of persuasion. He set out from the North of Italy upon an engagement to preach during Lent at Palermo, but has been prevented from getting there by the total non-inter- course between Naples and Sicily. At Rome he does not preach. The authorities of the Church do not wish to exhibit the powers of a man who, while he preaches in a pure, simple, and even classical style, and draws crowds after him, such as have hardly been seen since the Lliddle Ages, makes yet very little effort to raise contribu- 78 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. i-i tions of money from his audience ; and, though his faith is not ques- tioned, insists much less on the dogmas of the Church than on the reformation of the people. I went, too, to see Count Alberti, who has the famous contested manuscripts of Tasso, and made an appointment with him to come and look them over. H« seemed to me to have all his nation's acute- ness and dexterity, and was extremely polite, and somewhat pre- possessing in his manners March 5. — . . . . We went to see Thorwaldsen in his own house. He received us in a slovenly dishabille, too neglected to be quite fit to see ladies ; but this is the only way he is ever found, and we forgot his appearance in his good-nature and his kindness. He showed us everything ; his collection of pictures, chiefly of living German art- ists, with one or two ancient ones, and a pencil-sketch by Rafi'aelle over the head of his bed, and a few things of his ovm in progress, especially the fresh model in clay of a statue of Conradin — mentioned by Dante — which he is making for the Cro'^Ti Prince of Bavaria, who intends it for the grave of that unfortunate Prince at Naples.* .... Thorwaldsen has for some years refused to receive any fresh orders, and I think for a good while he has ceased to do more than to model, and to touch the marble enough to call it his work. His skill with the chisel was, I suppose, always small, and a statue modelled by him, and executed by such artists as he could easily procure in Rome, would probably be finer than anything entirely by his own hand. The poetry of his bas-reliefs seems to me to exceed anything in mod- em sculpture. He showed us one to-day containing, first, Apollo in his car, followed by the Muses and the Graces, and then a procession to consist of all the great poets, artists, etc., of all ages. He has mod- elled it as far as Homer, and if it is ever finished it will be a magnifi- cent work indeed March 7. — Mezzofanti came to see us to-day, the famous linguist, who talks some forty languages without having ever been out of Italy. He is a small, lively little gentleman, with something partly nervous and partly modest in his manner, but great apparent simplicity and good-nature. As head of the Vatican Library he is quite in his place ; besides which, he enjoys a good deal of consideration, is a Monsignor * Note by Mr. Ticknor : "The last of the Hohenstaiiffeii is now buried so obscurely in a church in Naples, that his grave is rarely noticed ; but Dante's verse and Thorwaldsen's statue will prevent him from ever being forgotten." This work was left unfinished by Thom^aldsen, but was completed by Schopf, and set up in the church of the Madonna del Carmine at Naples, in 1847. ^. 45.] ALBERTI 3*IANUSCPJPTS. 79 and a Canon of St. Peter's, and may probably become a Cardinal. His English is idiomatic, but not spoken with a good accent, tbougb "with great fluency. The only striking fact he mentioned about himself was, that he learnt to talk modem Greek, easily, in eight days March 10. — I passed, this forenoon, a couple of hours with Count Alberti, looking over the Tasso manuscripts. Cogswell, Gray,* Sir H. Russell, and Sir W. Dundas were there on my invitation ; and two Italians, a Countess somebody, and another. The whole matter is curious, very curious. The collection is large, — above an hundred pieces, I should think, — and begins with the first note of Eleonora to Tasso, when he sent her his first madrigal, and ends with a sort of testamentary disposition made at St. Onofrio, the day before his death. The great question is the question of genuineness. None but Ital- ians, and very few even of them, are able to settle it. Only two things occurred to me to-day : one was the suspicious completeness of the manuscripts on certain interesting points, and the other was the singular way in which they seemed to fit a great number of small cir- cumstances in the life of Tasso about which there is no doubt. I did not like it, either, that Count Alberti intimated nothing about their questioned authenticity, and explained very imperfectly how they came into his possession, though on some parts of their genealogy he was tediously diffuse. On the other hand, the belief at Eome in favor of their genumeness is as strong as the belief at Florence is against it. Bunsen, Mr. Hare, Count LudoLf, and Marquis Gaetano have expressed themselves to me strongly on the subject, but there has been no ex- amination here, and some of them did not seem to know there had been one anywhere. However, the manuscripts are about to be published at Lucca, and I think they will not then escape a very severe and critical examina- tion, from men who will be competent to it, both from their literary knowledge and their skill in such documents.f March 12. — I visited Cardinal Giustiniani this morning, and had a * Two old friends just arrived in Rome. t Mr. Ticknor's judgment was correct. Count Albeiii proceeded to publish the manuscripts at Lucca, in 1837, under the title of "Manoscritti inediti di Torquato Tasso." So clearly was it proved, however, that they were not genu- ine, that in 1842, six numbers having appeared, the editor was imprisoned for counterfeiting the writing of Tasso. See Michaud's "Biographic Uuiverselle," — article by De Angelis and Gustavo Brunet. 80 LITE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. talk with him that was curious, considering that he is one of the Pope's ministers. It was about the Abbe de Lamennais' last book, " Les Affaires de Rome," which has made so much noise lately, and the brief for forbidding which is now on the pillars of St. Peter's. I told him I had just read it, and he entered into a full discussion of the • views of the Court of Rome touching Lamennais himself, whom he treated throughout as a turbulent democrat seeking power. He said, when the Abbc^ was here in the time of Leo XII., he produced a great sensation, and was greatly admired ; and that the Pope himself had even the project of making him a Cardinal, from which he was dis- suaded. The present Pope, he said, had always understood him, and that the other day the Pope showed him a copy of the " Affaires de Rome," in which he had marked the inconsistencies and contradictions it contained, which are likely to have been considerable in amount and number, if not in weight and importance. No doubt if the Court of Rome were true to its principles and ancient usages, the Abbe de Lamennais would now be excommunicated ; no doubt, too, they would be glad to do it, but the state of the world does not permit them. John Bunyan's Allegory is come literally true. In the afternoon we went to St. Peter's, always a great pleasure, and heard some good music ; and the evening was divided between a sensible, intellectual visit to the Sismondis, and a fashionable one at the Princess Borghese's. March 13. — . . . . In the evening I dined with the Countess of "Westmoreland, who lives here in much elegant luxury at the Villa Negroni. The party was large, and among the persons present were Colonel Mure, Lord Maidstone, Count Ludolf, Sismondi, Madame d'Orloff, — the wife of the reigning favorite of the Emperor Nicho- las, — the Abbe Stuart, Monsignor Wiseman, and Mr. Hare. The hostess is an intellectual person, something strange and original in her character, but very pleasant ; and as nearly every one of her guests was more or less accomplished and scholar-like, we had a very agreeable time and stayed late. March 15. — We passed a most agreeable morning in the Loggie and Stanze of Raffaelle, in the magnificent halls where are his tapes- tries, .... and in the picture-gallery, with the Transfiguration, the Madonna di Foligno, and all the other wonderful works collected in these three rooms, the like of which there is not in the world. I am sorry to think, however, that the}'' are ill placed here for their preservation. I have constantly noticed that the Madonna di Foligno seems to have suflfered since I saw it twenty years ago ; and Temmel, M. 45.] HOLY WEEK. 81 the German artist, who has been copying in these very rooms ten years, and who is probably more familiar with the pictures they con- tain than any man alive, has told me this evening that they are much altered within these ten years. He says they were first put up in one of the long halls in the series where the tapestries now hang, and that there they sufi'ered from the heat ; and that w^here they are now they suffer from dampness, so that, as he says, those most acquainted with the matter are getting to be really anxious for their ultimate fate. March 19. — Holy Week begins to-day, and, like all strangers, I sup- pose before it is over we are to sup full of ceremonies. This morn- ing we went at half past eight to the Sistine Chapel, and remained there till one o'clock, — the gentlemen standing the whole time, — to see the offices of Palm Sunday performed by the Pope March 22. — I w^ent this morning with Mr. and Mrs. Gannett * to see some of the principal churches and one or two remains of an- tiquity It was, however, the first day of the Miserere in the Sistine Chapel, and we drove to the Palazzo Massimo, where the inde- fatigable kindness of the old Princess had appointed a rendezvous for a few ladies, whom she was willing to carry under special favor and patronage to the Papal chapel, by a staircase different from the usual one The Miserere, or the Fifty-first Psalm, .... closed the whole just as deep twilight came on, and lasted five-and-twenty min- utes. It was no doubt very fine After it was over we went into St. Peter's, .... and heard the latter part of a beautiful Mise- rere sung in the chapel of the choir, and walked up and dowTi in the nave and aisles by the imperfect light of the few tapers that were scattered through the different parts of the vast pile, and seemed only to render the solemn darkness of the rest of it more visible and sensible March 24. — We passed a Eoman forenoon again to-day, going to the grand ruins on the south side of the Palatine hill, including those in the Villa Mills, and returning by the Circus Maximus, the Tem- ples of Vesta and Fortuna Virilis, the Ponte Eotto, the house called Rienzi's, and the Cloaca Maxima April 6. — I went this morning to see Monsignor Mai, the famous discoverer of the Palimpsest manuscripts. It was not my first visit to him He is now Secretary of the Propaganda, and likely before long to be made a Cardinal ; * an easy, round, but still Intel- * Rev. E. S. Gannett and his wife were giiests of Mr. and Mrs. Tickuor, tliey having lately arrived from Boston. t He was made Cardinal the same year. 4* . y 82 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. lectiial-looking man, very kind in his manner, and with more the air of a scholar in his looks, conversation, and the arrangement of his rooms, than any Italian I have seen in Rome. I talked with him, of course, about his famous discoveries, espe- cially of the " Republic of Cicero," and of his other publications ; but this was chiefly when I saw him before. To-day I took ]\Ir. Gannett, and we gave our time chiefly to examining the famous Vatican manu- script of the Greek Bible, counted to be of the fourth century, and the oldest of all the manuscripts of the Scriptures. It is imcommonly well preserved, except that the beginning is wanting, and the Apoca- lypse, which Mai himself admits may never have been there ; but these deficiencies have been supplied by a manuscript of, apparently, the tenth century. He has it now in his possession, by permission of the Pope, to publish, and he showed me the other day some of the sheets. The work is far advanced, and will be out, he thinks, in the course of a year, preserving even the minutest defects and errors of the original* We spent the afternoon among the frescos and oil- paintings of the Vatican, where — especially in the Stanze of the Disputa and of Constantine — we seemed every moment, in the mul- titude of subsidiary figures and ornaments, to find something new, graceful, and beautiful. These rooms are, indeed, better worth study- ing than anything, to the same amount, which the art of painting has produced, and it is melancholy to see how they are going to decay. April 9. — We dined at the Prince Gabrielli's, and had much such a dinner as we had there before The Princess showed us her private chapel, in which mass is said every morning as an indulgence to her rank. It is in modest and excellent taste. A door opens from one side of it into a sort of balcony or tribune in a church adjacent ; a luxury in religion which the higher Romans much affect. She is deeply and sincerely religious, and could not help, to-day at table, telling me, as she has often told me before, how much she is anxious that I should become a Catholic, and that she prays for it constantly. April 16. — .... The evening we passed at Lady Westmoreland's, where Mr. and Mrs. Hare, the Abbe Stuart, and two or three other people were invited to meet us, and where, until half past eleven o'clock, we had an excellent dish of genuinely English talk, no small luxury at Rome ; for, in their respective and very difl'erent ways, the Countess, Mr. Hare, and the Abbe Stuart are three of the best talk- ers I know of. April 19. — . . . . We went to the Vatican Library As a * Note by Mr. Ticknor : " It was not published, I thiuk, till 1850." M. 45.] VATICAN LIBRARY. 83 library in the commoii and practical sense of the word, it is hardly to be spoken of at all ; and of the twelve or fourteen persons who were using it this morning, not one was occupied with anything but a manuscript. Its size is quite uncertain. From Mezzofanti, from Nibby, from Mai, and two or three other persons, who are, or have been employed as librarians, I have received entirely different ac- counts, making the manuscripts range from twenty-five thousand to thirty-five thousand, and the printed books from seventy thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand. Indeed, it is difficult to tell, for all its treasures are shut up in low cases, which are kept locked, and give you no means of estimating their contents, but to imlock them all and count them. We were shown at first through all the halls, and the cases that contain curious works in ivory, ebony, amber, and so on, were opened to us. It was not much, almost nothing, compared with the magnificent collection at Dresden, or even the moderate one at ^ Vienna. Then we saw the manuscripts, which are, of course, precious in- deed, since the library is the oldest in Europe, and their collection began as early as 465, and was put into the shape most desirable by Nicholas Y. and Leo X., as well as greatly enriched by the last : the Virgil of the fourth or fifth century, with its rude but curious min- iatures ; the Terence, less old, probably, but very remarkable ; the autograph manuscripts of Petrarca and Tasso ; the beautiful manu- script of Dante, copied by Boccaccio, and sent as a present to Petrarca ; the manuscript of Dante, which claims to have belonged to his son, and the exquisite one which is ornamented w^th miniatures ; the copy of the work of Henry VIII. against Luther, which was given to Leo X. by the King, and brought to the cro\\Ti of England the title of Defensor Eidei ; and two or three autograph letters of Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn, one of which, at least, was written in French. I saw also two other copies of Henry Eighth's work, signed — as I believe all were — with his own hand ; and, from what I read in them, they were bitter enough against Luther. The copy sent to the Pope had on the bottom of the last page this distich — if distich it can be called — autograph : — *' Angloru Rex Henricus, Leo decimo, mittit Hoc opus et fidei teste et amicitie." Truly royal Latin and royal spelling, worse than Bonaparte's. Among the incunabula I saw, as it were, everything ; parchment copies without end, the princeps editions of Homer, Virgil, Horace, •^ in short, anything I asked for, except that the poor little sub-libra- 84 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. rian hardly knew where to fiiid. everything. ^lezzofanti was ill, so that we lost the pleasure of going round with him. Among the copies on parchment is one of the four, known to ex- ist, of the Ximenes Polyglote, and indeed, if a rarity is wanted, it may ahnost be assumed to be here, whether it can be found or not. But as to anything modern, anything useful, anything practical, it is not to be thought of. The nearest approach to it is probably the beautiful library of Count Cicognara, of 4,800 different works, bought a few years since. But they all relate strictly to the arts of design, sculpture, painting, etc. One thing struck me very much. In two places I saw the Edict of Sixtus V. posted up, threatening with ex- communication any one — librarians inclusive — who should, without a written permission of the Pope, take any volume away. Can anything more plainly show the spirit of the government and religion ? . . . . April 20. — Prince Borghese invited me, last evening, to come this morning and see three frescos which he has lately had taken from the walls of one of his villas, where they were painted by Raffaelle, who occasionally lived there. I went, and found him ill in bed with the grippe, now prevalent here, and his two sons with him ; all very agree- able, and as it should be. The Prince of Sulmona went with me to the frescos. They are small, extremely graceful representations of the marriage of Venus and Mars, and have been taken down and put in frames under glass with wonderful skill. April 21. — .... To-day is the accredited anniversary of the foun- dation of Rome, and the Archaeological Society celebrated it with a solemn sitting, and the Prussian Minister gave a dinner afterwards to about twenty artists, diplomats, and men of letters. I went to both, and enjoyed them in their respective fashions not a little. At the Society a report was made of the doings of the last year, and several papers read, the best being one by Dr. Lepsius At the dinner were the Bavarian, the Saxon, the Baden Charges, Kestner, Thor- waldsen, Wolff the sculptor ; .... in short, the full representation of German intellect and talent now in Rome, with no foreign admix- ture but myself. The talk, of course, was of a high order April 22. — I went by appointment this morning to Thorwaldsen's, and had a long talk with him about sundry matters connected with the arts, in continuation of a conversation begun yesterday at din- ner. He was very interesting, for he talks well, and seems, at least, to have a good deal of earnestness and unction. Just now he is much troubled at being obliged to go to Copenhagen to superintend the put- ting up his great works there M. 45.] LEAVING ROME. 85 April 23. — I went to see Cardinal Giustiniani this morning, think- ing that, as one of the Pope's ministers, he could give me some light upon the future plans of the government about quarantines. But it was plain that he knew little or nothing about it April 24. — The Prussian Minister, with his usual indefatigable kindness, came this morning and settled the question about Naples for us. He had been to the Cardinal Secretary of State's Office, and read the despatches received to-day from the Nuncio, and the measures of the government here in consequence, in order to be able to tell us the whole truth After we had settled this point I had a long and interesting talk with Mr. Bunsen on matters relating to the Koman government and society, about which he feels all the interest of one who has lived here twenty very active and happy years, where he was married, and where his nine children were born to him ; but though he loves Rome as few Romans do, no man sees more clearly its present degraded state and its coming disasters. April 25. — . . . . We dined at Prince Musignano's, a great din- ner given by him on his being made a Roman Prince, in his own right, by the Pope. Two or three Cardinals were there ; the Mexican Min- ister ; Monsignors four or five, and among them Capuccini, perhaps the most important person in the Roman government ; Alertz ; * Prince Corsini ; and so on. It was a luxurious and elegant dinner, very well managed as to conversation. Au reste, Cardinal Odescalchi, the Mexi- can, and Alertz, \vT.th whom I sat, were very agreeable, the Cardinal curious about America, and thoroughly ignorant. Capuccini gave no hopes about the cordons. So, no doubt, we decided well not to go to Naples. After a pleasant excursion to Albano and Frascati, in all the radiance of an Italian spring, and accompanied by their friends Gray and Cogswell, and young Ward, also from Boston, they returned to Rome for a single night before setting out for the North. An agreeable incident occurred on that last evening, which is thus described in the Journal : — I was just going out to make a visit to Mr. Bunsen, when I met a message from Miss Mackenzie of Seaforth, desiring me to come to her, as there was a gentleman at her house who had asked to see me. I went, and to my great surprise found Wordsworth ■with his Jidus * A German, physician to the Pope. ^J 86 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. AchateSy Robinson of the Temple."*^ We had some excellent talk, and then both of them came home with me. They came to Rome yester- day, and will stay here two or three weeks, after which they travel slowly to the North, and go to the Tyrol and Upper Austria. I am not without the hope of meeting them again, .... or I should be ex- tremely sorry to see them but for such an instant. Wordsworth has, of course, seen little of Rome except St. Peter's, but that has produced its full poetical effect upon him. It was in talking about this that we finished our last evening in Rome. April 28. — At half past eight, as we were enjoying our last view of Rome from the Pincio, we saw our carriage cross the Piazza del Popolo beneath us. We hastened down to it, and in a few moments we left behind us the Porta del Popolo, fumum et opes, strepitumque RomcBf a, indeed, such words can be applied any longer to this city of the past. We crossed the Ponte MoUe, .... looking back often to the dome of St. Peter's and the castle of St. Angelo, as we caught glimpses of them between the villas and over the hills. ^^^ * Mr. H. C. Robinson in his Diary says : " We drank tea with Miss Macken- zie. She had sent messages to Collins and Kestner, but neither came. On the other hand, by mere accident seeing a card with Mr. Ticknor's name, I spoke of his being a friend of Wordsworth; on which she instantly sent to him, and, as he lived next door, he was soon with us, and greatly pleased to see Words- worth, before setting off to-morrow for Florenee." M. 45.] FLORENCE. 87 CHAPTER V. Florence. — Pisa, — Lucca. — Milan. — Venice. — Passes of the Alps. — Wordsworth. — Heidelberg. A SLOW and lingering journey from Rome to Florence, by the Perugia route, in exquisite spring weather, could not be otherwise than delightful, and in Perugia Mr. and ^Mrs. Tre- velyan added a zest to every pleasure by their presence. Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor reached Florence on the 5th of May, and left it on the 20th. Florence, May 6. — .... Having letters to them, I gave the evening to the Bonapaites. Louis — Count of St. Leu — lives m a good palazzo, Lung^ Amo. I was received by two gentlemen in wait- ing, and found him in his salon ; a fat, plethoric, easy old gentleman, nearly a fixture in his elbow-chair. He talked well enough, and very good-naturedly, about everything except French politics, in relation to which he was bitter, and accused the present government of a want of bonne foi et loyaut4, accusations which sounded oddly from one of his name and kindred. Several persons came in, and I should think he leads an agreeable life here, in rather pleasant society. But I was vexed to have one ItaUan address him as Svax Maestd. The good-tem- pered Count cared so Httle about royalty when he was really a king, that I do not think he ought to permit himself to be poorly flattered now with the buried title. At the Countess Survillier's — the wife of Joseph — I found much the same state of things, but perhaps a little more air of lady-like comfort and a little less ceremony. She is feeble, and is only seen wrapped in shawls on her sofa, where her daughter, the Princess Char- lotte, is devoted to her. Everything about her seemed gentle and in good taste, and her manners were excellent. The Princess is plain in person and face, but has vivacity in conversation, and a good deal of talent in the arts. She is the widow of that son of Louis who died of wounds received m the insurrection of 1831, and is much loved and 88 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. valued by her family for her good qualities. Several persons came in while I was there, and among them the Princess Jablonowski, whom I knew formerly as the beautiful Anna Jouberton.* She has been married twice, the first time to Prince Ercolani, and a few years ago to her present husband, and is still a fine-looking person, though in feeble health. She seemed to like to remember the olden times of her early youth. But I did not stop long, for the Princess Charlotte told me that the Marchioness Lenzoni would not receive after to-night, and that she ex- pected me. So I accompanied her there, and found Niccolini, Forti, two or three artists, and a room full of other similar people, all very pleasant, and stayed there till eleven o'clock. Alay 15. — .... The evening I spent -with a small party at the Prince de Montfort's, — Jerome Bonaparte's, — who lives here in more elegance than any of his family, and in excellent taste. His beauti- ful daughter did the honors of the house with grace, but there is a shade of melancholy over her fair features not to be mistaken. She was engaged to be married to her cousin Louis, who attempted that foolish insurrection last autumn at Strasburg, and who is now in America, having given his j^aroZe not to return for ten years, without the consent of France.t .... May 16. — It being a plain duty of courtly civility, we went to-day to pay our respects to Prince Maximilian and the Princess Amelia. .... They are now in villcggiatura at Castello, a small villa of the Grand Duke, three or four miles from the city. The drive to it was beautiful, .... and everything is now in the freshness and luxuri- ance of spring They received us with kindness and emjjresse- ment, and talked upon subjects which they knew would be agreeable to us. I was struck, however, with their air and manner when they spoke of the present meeting of the Diet or Estates in Saxony, which is an innovation brought in by the Constitution of 1831. Their coun- tenances fell at once, and their tone was as of something unpleasant ; for though the Diet has never done anything that could annoy the reigning family, and though Prince Max, and especially his daughter, * Daughter of Madame Lucien Bonaparte, Princess Canino, by her first hus- band. + Note by Mr. Ticknor : " This fact about his parole was mentioned to me by his father's Chevalier de Compagnie, and therefore it seems difficult to disbe- lieve it ; but the young man is returned to Europe already, — July, 1837, — and denies having given any such promise. The French government, however, in- sists that he did." The young lady was the Princess Mathilde. M. 45.] PETRAIA. 89 are persons of truly good sense, the instincts of aristocracy could not be quite suppressed. There is not a drop of its blood in Europe that does not tingle at the name of a representative government. The Grand Duke having desired me to let him know when I should be here again, I desired the French Minister to give notice to the Master of Ceremonies, .... and I suppose he knew from the Saxons that I was to visit them to-day. While, therefore, we were quietly talking, a Court messenger came in, and announced that the Grand Duke would receive me immediately if I would come to Petraia, another little villa a quarter of a mile off. ... . The annunciation produced quite a stir, for it made it necessary for the Saxon princes to dismiss us at once However, there had been some talk of our seeing a prospect, and the Princess Amelia hurried us up stairs — through servants' halls, antechambers, and once through a room where women were ironing clothes — to a saloon, where we could see the city, the valley of the Amo, and a long stretch of the river and of the richest country in the world. But we could stop only an instant to enjoy it We drove up the hill to Petraia, which we found an old building that had belonged to the Medici, modernized and fitted up as for a common family. Nothing announced the presence of the Prince but the guards. .., A livery servant showed me up stairs to the antechamber, and while he went to make known to the Grand Duke that I was there, I looked into a little ancient chapel, with some pretty good frescos in it, and a very good copy of the Madonna dell' Impaunata The Grand Duke received me in a little room which he uses as a cabinet de travail, with bare walls, no carpet, and only a few chairs, and a table wath papers and portfolios on it, for the whole of its furniture. .... After the first formal compliments were over, I spoke of the Maremme. It is a favorite subject -wdth him, for he has spent im- mense sums of money to rescue them from the malaria, and do, on that part of the coast, what Peter Leopold did for the now beautiful Val di Chiana. He talked well about it, but it remains still doubtful whether his treasure and labors have not been thrown away. Taking ^ up Dr. Baird's French " History of American Temperance Societies," he made many inquiries about them ; said there was very little intem- perance in Tuscany ; spoke of spirituous liquor as an unnatural, arti- ficial, noxious beverage, but treated wine, like a true Italian, as a gift of God, and one of the comforts and consolations of life, as healthy, and as nourishing. Coming accidentally upon the subject of the Medici, he spoke with great interest and admiration of Lorenzo ; said 90 LIFE OF GEOFvGE TICKNOR. [1837. there were great quantities of his letters on public affairs, and many to his friends, in the archives of the state here, those on public affairs being generally in cipher ; that they were almost all written with his own hand ; and that Lorenzo was so laborious in his habits, that he had found seventeen such, written in a single day, most of them long, and some important. Of the poetry, he said he had published all he could find, except such portions as were indelicate, which he felt it a duty to suppress ; and he ended by saying he should send me a copy of it, having still, he added, two or three left. The whole literary- credit of the work he attributed to the Abbe Fiacchi,* and said he was himself only a collaborator, directed how it should be printed, and that one hundred and fifty copies should be struck off. He in- tended, after this, to have published the letters of Lorenzo ; but just at that moment he came to the government, by the death of his father, and so the project has been given up. While this conversation was going on the Grand Duchess sent to him twice, to say it was time to go to dinner with Prince Max, .... but it was plain he liked to talk about Lorenzo, and he had his talk out. At last, at the end of an hour, he dismissed me in the usual form, and I went to the grounds behind the chateau, where Mrs. T. had been sketching Just as we were going to our carriage, the Duke came along on foot, with his secretary. He stopped an instant, and pointed out to us a little villa near, where Varchi lived, and wrote his " Istorie Florentine " ; and then, as the Grand Duchess came by, he got into the carriage with her and drove off. May 18. — We went to the gallery this morning, and after going for a short time through its principal rooms, .... we sat ourselves down to the collection of original drawings by Perugino, Eaffaelle, etc., and had a luxurious hour over them Afterwards we drove and climbed to San Miniato in Monte, a grand old church long since deserted, where we found old pictures and frescos in abundance, .... and a magnificent view of the ever-beautiful valley of the Amo, and the ever-picturesque Florence When shall I see the like again ? We dined in the evening at the French Minister's, where every- thing was as tasteful and as comfortable as possible, and where we •met the Belgian Minister, Count Vilain Quatorze, and his wife ; the * Note by Mr. Ticknor : " It is to Fiacchi the Grand Duke alludes in his prefatory letter to the Accademia della Crusca, — a letter, by the by, which Ital- ian scholars say is much better written than the reply from the Academy, which follows it. The Abbe Zanoni, also, had something to do with the edition." M. 45.] BOCCACCIO'S HOUSE. 91 Sardinian, Count Broglia di Monbello ; Mr, Abercrombie, son of the Speaker of the House of Commons ; the Duke de Dino, Talley- rand's nephew and heir ; and two or three other persons Mr. Abercrombie, who was formerly at Berlin, talked about the private dislikes of Ancillon and Humboldt in a very amusing manner. On first leaving Florence for the ISTorth, Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor made a visit of one night to the Marchesa Lenzoni, at her villa at Certaldo. Just before entering the last [the modern village of Certaldo], the Medici arms, over rather an imposing gateway, informed us that we had reached the villa of the Marchioness Lenzoni, who had invited us to come and pass a day with her, and see whatever remained of Boc- caccio's time, all of it being on her estates. She received us very kindly, and settled us at once in excellent and comfortable rooms. She then sent for her fattore, — or man of busi- ness, — for the priest of the place, and for a Florence lawyer, and put us into their hands to show us what we wanted to see in Certaldo, being herself a little indisposed. We passed through the lower vil- lage, .... and then, climbing a precipitous hill, entered the little nest of stone houses where Boccaccio's fathers lived, and where he himself died and was buried. Everything seemed still to belong to the Middle Ages, so primitive was the look of the houses and the people. Of Boccaccio's house, — which belongs to Mad. Lenzoni, — there is now remaining a tower, and a series of small rooms running up three stories on each side of it, all most cheerless and uncomfortable, — according to our present standard of comfort, — but truly marking his times. Mad. Lenzoni has put some old furniture in it, the frag- ments of his tombstone, the early editions of his works, and a very good fresco of Boccaccio himself, by Benvenuti, the best of the Hving Florentine artists. The whole is in excellent taste, and cared for as such a spot ought to be ; Mad. Lenzoni's intention being to fill the principal room "with whatever may best serve to recall the memory of the great man who died in it. "We went to the church where he lies buried, and where is the tablet he erected to his father ; to the vicar's house, which is just as it was in the fourteenth century ; and, indeed, walked over most of the little town, and through its precipi- tous streets, fuiding everything curious, and very little to remind us of days less recent than Boccaccio's. The views from the top of the tower and from all the heights about are fine. r ^ 92 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. ^ In the evening we had a specimen of the genuine Italian villeggia- tura that was curious. Mad. Lenzoni, as the lady of the land, opens her saloon every evening to all her tenants who are of condition to be received in it ; a great pleasure to them, and the only one of the sort, no doubt, that they get in the year As soon as the clock struck eight they appeared ; the Florence la\vyer, the schoolmaster, the priest of the upper and the priest of the lower villages, the doctor, his wife and her sister. They were all respectable people, who came in their every-day dresses and in the simplest manner, to enjoy themselves at the great lady's conversazione. But it was all done in a very business- like way. As soon as they came in, two or three packs of well-used cards were produced, and everybody played except Mad. Lenzoni, the doctor, — who from fatigue slept a good deal, — and ourselves. But there was talk enough besides, and things went on evidently according to a very settled system until ten o'clock, when they all went together, .... having passed an evening very much to their satisfaction, I think, though one in which not the slightest refreshment was offered to them May 21. — Mad. Lenzoni had a good deal of fever in the night, and being too unwell to get up this morning, we took our breakfast by ourselves, and then went to her chamber and made our adieus to the kind old lady in her bed, which was covered with the letters the post had just brought her Few persons visited the old Etruscan and mediaeval towns in the western part of Tuscany forty years ago ; but Mr. Ticknor stopped to enjoy the remarkable and interesting antiquities of San Gimignano and Yolterra, and did not reach Pisa until the 23d of May. Pisa, May 24. — Carmignani, the principal jurist in this part of Italy, — to whom I had a letter, — came to see me this morning. He is about sixty years old, plain in his person, simple in his man- ners, and very frank in his conversation, at least on political sub- jects. He was much acquainted with Mazzei, who left him his lit- erary executor ; but he does not seem to have valued him very highly, except as an extremely amusing person who had seen much of the world, and passed through a great many remarkable adventures from the time he fled from the Inquisition in Pisa, about 1770, to the time when he quietly returned there in 1800. He died, I think, about M. 45.] PISA. 93 1816. Cannignani readily promised to send me his memoirs and pa- pers to look over, and see what I can find in them — ^ The evening was made pleasant to us by a visit from Rosini, the author of the " Monaca di Monza," of "Luisa Strozzi," etc., — around, easy, good-natured, vain, and very agreeable person, about as old as Carmignani ; somewhat jealous, as an author, of the reputation of Manzoni, Grossi, and the rest of his successful contemporaries, and extremely frank in suffering it to be seen. He is full of anecdote, and talked about Mad. de Stael and Schlegel at the time they were here in 1815-16, of Manzoni, and of himself. He seems extremely well pleased that the "Monaca di Monza" has gone through eigh- teen editions, and declares that he is no imitator of Manzoni or any- body else ; for that in 1808 he had made collections for an historical romance on the times of Erasmus, in which Lorenzo de' Medici, and the coterie around him at Florence, were to have been introduced ; that he showed his materials and his plan to his friends at the time, and went so far as to get a head of Erasmus to be engraved for the frontispiece, but was turned aside from his project by the times and his friends. He talked, too, a good deal of politics, and as freely as Carmignani, but with less discretion and good sense. May 25. — Carmignani, who cannot receive visits at his house, be- cause it is undergoing great repairs, came to see me again this morn- ing, and sent me Mazzei's Memoirs of himself and a quantity of letters and papers from Franklin, Jefferson, the King of Poland, — Stanislaus, — whose Charge d' Affaires he was at Paris, Abbe Mably, John Adams, etc. It all looked very curious, some of it quite piquant ; but I could onlv read a little, for it is a large folio volume of about four hundred closely written pages. "What I did read, however, gave me the im- pression that Mazzei was a mere adventurer."^ Carmignani talked very well about him, as well as about everything else. -^ * Mr. G. T. Curtis, in recalling facts about his uncle, illustrating the retentive- ness of his memory, says, " I was sitting with Mr. Ticknor one clay in his library, about a year before his death, when he was rather feeble in health. That emi- nent lawyer, Mr. Sidney Bartlett, came in, and happened to mention that he had just had occasion to give a professional opinion on the title to the estate of Monticello, formerly Jefferson's, and he repeated the names of some of the places in the neighborhood. Mr. Ticknor remarked that Philip Mazzei named those places. Mr. Bartlett asked, * Who was Philip Jlazzei ? ' Mr. Ticknor, with great animation, exclaimed, * Don't know who Philip Mazzei was ? ' He then for the space of ten or fifteen minutes made a rapid sketch of Mazzei's history, tracing him into the society of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison, in Vir- ginia. The whole was told with great spirit and vivacity." 94 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. r He [Carmignani] entered into the discussion with Eosini, etc., about the line in Ugolino, — "Poscia, piu che'l dolor, pote 11 digiuno," but there, I think, he took the WTong side ; though with Niccolini, perhaps, he would rather err than go right with Rosini. Both, how- ever, are such good-natured men that their literary difference has not broken their personal good-will. After he was gone I went to see Rosini, whom I found in a literary chaos of books and manuscripts. He showed me a long poem he is now \mting on the war of Russia in 1812 ; the beginning of a history of painting in Italy, to serve as a pendant to Cicognara's " History of Sculpture " ; a quantity of odes, sonnets, and other melanges, about all which he talked with the most good-humored vanity ; and the first part of a romance on the subject of Ugolino, about which he talked with more reserve, but to which, I suspect, he feels that he intrusts a good deal of his reputation. When we had talked an hour or more, he went out with me, .... and to the cathedral, where I left him to hear his mass. But he soon rejoined me in the Campo Santo, and we had an interesting walk round its fine cloisters and by its extraordinary monuments of ancient art, about which he has written so pleasant a book Lucca, May 27. — We had to-day, between Pisa and Lucca, one of the most beautiful, nay, I may say delightful, drives that we have had in Europe ; the weather perfectly fine and the country sufficiently bro- ken on our right to be picturesque, while in the plain through which we passed the cultivation was so luxuriant — the trees, the whole way, hung with the young and graceful vines in all the freshness of their spring vegetation — that it seemed as if the entire land had just been arrayed for a fete Lucca stands delightfully, in the midst of a plain almost unrivalled for fertility, with hills that surround it in every variety of form and character ; . . . . and the rich and exact cultiva- tion comes up to the very walls themselves The people, though the population is the most dense in Europe, — being 456 to the square mile for the whole territory, — looked comfortable and well-off, so abun- dant are the resources of its soil, where to-day we have frequently seen, in the same fields, the olive, the vine, wheat, and sometimes figs, and mulljerries for silk cultivation, added At the old Church of the Dominicans .... are two pictures by Fra Bartolomeo, — one the Virgin imploring mercy for the people of Lucca ; and the other, God the Father, and St. Mary Magdalene and St. Catherine beatified in his M. 45.] LUCCA AND MILAN. 95 presence. Few works of art by any artist are eq^ual to them. We went twice to see them, and stayed long each time. The cathedral is a grand old building, erected 1060 - 70. Its front is covered with a rich and gorgeous sculpture of minute labor, .... and over the doors are bas-reliefs by John of Pisa, and Nicholas. Inside, not only its bold and solemn style throughout is effective, but there are interesting works of art, — very interesting. A Madonna by Ghirlandajo is excellent ; two kneeling angels in marble on the altar of the sacrament, by Civitelli, 1470, — whose works are hardly found except here and in this neighborhood, — and a St. Sebastian, also by him, in 1484, are marvellous for the time when they were produced, and beautiful and full of deep meaning for any age. An altar-piece by John of Bologna, with the figures of the Saviour and St. Peter on one side and Paul of Lucca on the other,* is one of the few satisfying representations of the Sa\'iour I have ever looked upon, or perhaps I should rather say one of the few that do not otfend the feelings when you look at it. It is of 1579 We went, too, to the palace where the Duke of Lucca has, not a large collection of pictures, but an admirable one, distributed through a few beautifullv furnished rooms, where thev can be seen in good lights and with great comfort. Among them are RaflfaeUe's Madonna of the Candelabra, — a fine work, but not among his best or purest ; Gherardo della Notte's incomparable Christ before Pilate, etc., .... really quite an admirable collection. It was the last thing we saw in Lucca, which we left with regret, so beautiful is the situation of the town itself, and so many beautiful things does it contain. Ten more days, passed in the circuit through Spezia and Genoa, brought them to Milan, where Mr. Ticknor writes : — Milan, June 7. — When we were fairly established, I went out to see if I could find some persons whom the cholera had kept out of the city when we were here last autumn ; and I was doubly pleased, not only to find the Marquis and Marchioness Litta in their palace, but to learn that Manzoni — who has recently been married again — is still in town ; that all the Trotti family are here ; and that the Marchioness Arconati is on a visit to them from her exile in Belirium. I therefore went to the Trotti Palace this evening, where I found the old Marquis, above eighty years old, with the Marchioness, almost equally old, surrounded by their children and grandchildren and * Statues. 96 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. friends in the happiest and simplest manner. Mad. Litta was there [one of the daughters] ; Mad. Arconati [another daughter], alwa3's intellectual and agreeable ; and several of the friends and relations of Count Confalonieri ; and I had a very pleasant visit of one or two hours. June 10. — . . . . One morning Mad. Arconati, with her brother, the Marquis Trotti, and two or three other persons, took us out to an old and deserted villa of the Marquis Trotti, and showed us there a very large establishment for raising silk-worms, the great staple of this part of Lombardy .... Two evenings we spent at Manzoni's, whose house is the only one in Milan, I am told, where society is freely received. His wife was ill, and we did not see her, but his venerable mother was there, his daughters, and a few of his friends, the Casatis, Baron Trechi, and some others. Among them was one of Confalonieri's brothers, whom I met at Prince Metternich's last summer. Both evenings were very agreeable, for it was impossible not to feel that the people were kind and good. ( Manzoni talked well, and upon subjects where he might have been excused from talking at all, because it would have been no discredit to him to have been ignorant ; such as the commercial difficulties in the United States, which he regarded in their most important point of view, their moral effect on the people ; the slave question, on which he is a thorough abolitionist, so far as to hold that it is our duty at once to do something which shall insure emancipation at some future time, however remote, so that the principle should be now acknowl- edged. I Of his timid sensitiveness I have heard many more striking facts : Buch. as, that he does not like to be in any sort of solitude, not even to go alone to say his prayers in church ; that he makes no visits, because he does not know whom he may meet, etc. Yet with all this he has a high and even bold sense of duty, and not a little moral courage, maintaining his liberal opinions on all occasions with frank- ness. His popularity as a writer is extraordinary. Nothing like it has been known in Italy for a century ; nor has any man since Al- fieri produced so striking an effect on the popular feeling. Traces of the " Promessi Sposi " are found everywhere, from the Pitti Palace — where the Grand Duke is having a room painted in fresco with de- signs from it — to the chintz on the sofas and chairs in the taverns, which are often covered with its story. Of the editions of it there seems to be no end. Meantime, he himself loses nothing either of the M. 45.] NORTH OF ITALY. 97 simplicity or shyness of his character ; and the timidity, which seems to be based in a sort of principle and persuasion with him, is in no deoree affected by his fame and success, unless, indeed, it be rather ', increased by them. Mad. Arconati, who has been intimate with him from childhood, says he has drawn his own principles and character in the last speech of Adelchi, where he says, among other things in the same tone, that he has hved in a state of the world where it has been necessary either to do or to suffer wrong. But such evenings as we spent at Manzoni's are spent by few in Milan. The great ambition of the Milanese ladies is to have a fine equipage with which to drive in the beautiful public promenade, and a box at the opera to go to afterwards. We tried them both. We drove with the Littas two evenings, just at sundown and twilight, and saw the fashion of the city, perhaps from two to four hundred equi- pages, driving round rapidly for a little while in the really noble space arranged for it on the old ramparts, .... and then stopping for a little time in the middle, where the gentlemen on horseback and friends on foot or in other carriages come and speak to them. Many of the equipages were very rich and tasteful, .... and the whole show was very brilliant and graceful. The last evening we were ia Milan we went for an hour to the Marquis Trotti's, and found the same circle of children and friends gathered around the courtly old gentleman that I saw there the first evening. After staying there a little while we went to the opera, for which Mad. Litta had sent us the key to her box The interest and enjoyment of two delightful days at Como were much increased by the unexpected presence of Mr. TVords- worth and Mr. Eobinson for a part of the time. At Bergamo, "the birthplace of Bernardo Tasso and of Tiraboschi, and the spot whence comes that peculiar Bergamesque dialect which, in the person of Harlequin or Truffaldino, amuses all Italy," an- other cordial meeting with Mr. Wordsworth and ^Mr. Eobinson occurred; but after breakfasting together the parties separated, Mr. AYordsworth going to the Lago d'Iseo, Mr. Ticknor to the Lago di Garda, promising a reunion at Venice. There our party arrived first, on the 1 7th of June. Venice, June 17. — It seemed very strange to us to come into a city so silent and yet so grand ; magnificent in its palaces and VOL. 11. 5 G 98 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKXOR. [1837. churches, but looking deserted ; with streets of water, over which men glide noiselessly as spectres ; . . . . and with houses that seem to have no foundation, as you step in and out of them We rowed about in our gondola like Turks, ate ices and drank sherbets in St. Mai'k's Square with the thousand other gay idlers, .... and went home late, only to listen to music from the gondoliers and thoughtless minstrels, who seemed to fill the summer night with their harmony. The whole was purely Venetian June 22. - - ... . We finished the evening, as usual, with a lounge in St. Mark's Square, where we had the pleasure of being joined by Wordsworth and Robinson, who arrived this afternoon, and talked very agreeably of their adventures. They found nobody at Iseo who remembered anything about Lady Mary Montagu's residence at Louvere.* June 23. — . . . . In the evening we had the genuine gondolier music of the country. We procured four or five gondoliers, who went in one gondola, while we went in others, .... and embarking just at dark, rowed down the Grand Canal towards the Lagune. As soon as we were fairly in motion they began to sing. They took at first Tasso, and began in a sort of recitative, and in their soft Venetian dialect, to chant the episode of Armida They were themselves much excited by it, and stood up and gesticulated as if they were im- provisating. At first it did not produce much effect, but the recur- rence of the same melody in the recitative soon got the command of our feelings, and it became striking Wordsworth, who was with us, enjoyed it very much, and we were all put into a sort of spirit of reverie by it. The gondoliers evidently enjoyed it We stopped them at the end of an hour and asked them for some of their national airs. With these, too, they were quite ready, and sang a great many of them, intermingling them occasionally ^vith parts of operas, which the whole of them sang with much spirit. It was a beautiful even- ing, and we rowed about, over towards the Lido .... till after eleven o'clock June 24. — We passed almost a long day in the Doge's Palace, giv- ing it entirely to the pictures there, which seem the more astonishing and admirable the more we see them. At two o'clock we saw the * Lady Mary Wortley Montagu went to Italy for her health , and remained there twenty-two years, in the closing period of her life. During many of these years she passed her summers in the profound seclusion of Louvere on the Lago d'Iseo. She returned to England in 1761, where she died ten months afterwards. M. 45.] TYROL. 99 doves fed. .... Wordsworth was with us in the evening, and we had an excellent dish of talk June 26. — We left Vemce this morning mth less reluctance than we otherwise should have done, if the weather had not of late heen 80 warm that we begin to be impatient to get into the mountains, where we have the project of making, in company with Gray and Cogsw^ell, a somewhat long and whimsical, but as we hope agreeable journey of a few" weeks The "whimsical journey" was, in fact, a voyage en zigzag through different passes of the Alps ; out of Italy by the Eren- ner ; in again over the Stelvio, and down the lovely Yaltelline to the Lake of Como ; out once more by the Spluegen ; through the Via Mala and over the Arlberg to Innsbruck, — a course sug- gested by !Mr. Wordsworth as the best way of seeing and en- joying the Alps. !Mr. Ticknor reviews the experiences of these three weeks as follows : — Inxserijck, Jul'^ 16. — . ... I do not know that we could have done more in the same time to see what is grand and solemn, or graceful and gentle, in the valleys and mountain-passes of the North of Italy, the Tyrol, and the portions of Switzerland we did not visit last year I feel, indeed, now as if I were well enough acquaint- ed with the mountain-country between Vienna and Marseilles ; for wdth our visits to Upper Austria and Switzerland last summer, added to my former passages of the St. Bernard and the Maritime Alps on horseback, I have made seven passages of the Alps, — namely, part of the Brenner, the whole of the Stelvio, the Spliigen, the Arlberg, the Simplon, the St. Bernard, and the Corniche, — and seen all the princi- pal lakes, mountains, and valleys on each side of them. Of all this, the lakes of Upper Austria are the most winning and satisfying as lakes, except the Lake of Como, which is of the same sort ; the Tyrol is the most picturesque country, and its people, their costumes and houses, the most curious and striking ; the Ortler Spitz, the Jung- frau, and the Mont Blanc are the grandest of the mountains ; the Valtelline and the valley of the Inn the loveliest of valleys and at the same time the grandest ; the Mandatsch Glacier the most solemn of the glaciers, and next after this, the Glacier of Grindelwald and the Mer de Glace After a week at Munich — where they again met Mr. "Words- 100 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1S37. worth and Mr. Eobinson — they parted not only from these English friends, but from their Boston fellow-travellers, Gray, Cogswell, and Ward, and went on to Heidelberg, where they remained nearly four weeks, "as a pause and rest after just three months of uninterrupted travelling and sight-seeing." Of his acquaintance and interests there, Mr. Tickuor writes thus : — Creuzer, the classical scholar, whom I knew here twenty years ago, seemed to me little changed. Schlosser, the historian, is in manner just what his books might lead one to suppose, — decided, and a little bruyant, strong and genial, if not good-natured. He lives quite by himself, and is probably the most quarrelsome of the very quarrel- some professors here ; but to me, who entered into none of their manifold feuds, he was pleasant. Ullmann, the principal theological professor, is a quiet little man, with a good deal of knowledge in elegant Uterature, who was very much disposed to be useful to me, and at whose house I met agreea- ble people, more luxuriously entertained than is common in profes- sors' houses in Germany. But Mittermaier, a man just fifty years old, is more a man of the world, notwithstanding his great learning, than any of them. He is President of the Chamber of Deputies in Baden, and therefore a man of a good deal of political consequence in this part of Germany ; and his frank and popular manners form rather a striking contrast to those of his caste generally. Besides this, however, he is a laborious and successful professor, and his works on the criminal law have given him reputation throughout Europe. His house is probably the most agreeable, for personal intercourse, in Heidelberg, since there is a greater variety of persons found there than is found elsewhere In all these families intercourse was simple, according to the Ger- man notions of simplicity ; but in all of them — except Ullmann's — the ladies of the family seemed to have a good deal of the household work to perform. At Mittermaier's, in particular, it was curious to see the daughters bring in the evening lights, and set and serve two rather large supper-tables, assisted by a single waiting-girl. "We knew, too, the old Baron Malchus and his daughter. The old gentleman was Minister of Finance to Jerome Bonaparte when he was King of Westphalia, and afterwards to the King of Wurtem- berg ; and he used to make us rather long visits, and talk, much at large, of the days of his power and dignity. I have seldom found a person who had such an immense mass of statistical details in his M. 46.] HEIDELBERG. 101 head, and as he has kept up a good deal of intimacy and influence, with not only the Bonapartes, hut the Wurtembergers, since his ab- dication of public affairs, he has a great deal of pleasant and useful matter-of-fact conversation. Some of his accounts of the Bonapartes, of their present state and condition, .... showed how completely this great family has come to point a moral and adorn a tale ; how completely it has sunk beneath the fears of the potentates whom it formerly displaced from their thrones, and treated as puppets and slaves. Our most agreeable acquaintance, however, was the family of the Marquis Arconati, who has taken a house at Heidelberg for the sum- mer, to be near his only child, who is at the University here. They came to see us, with Berchet, the morning after our arrival, and dur- ing our whole visit treated us as old friends. It was a great pleasure to us, for Mad. Arconati has few equals, among her sex, for intelli- gence and a perfectly uniform and simple elegance of manners. We dined with them twice, and were much with them besides, and count upon the pleasure of meeting them again in Paris. At their house we met Quinet, who, I hear, — for the first time, — is to be num- bered among the li\ing French poets of some note ; a man about five- and-thirty, with a good deal of self-sufficiency ; au reste, with some- thing epigrammatic and smart in his conversation On the way to Paris in the autumn, — having left Heidel- berg on the 24th of August, — the party stopped at Frankfort and Wiesbaden. At Bonn, — I had an agreeable meeting with my old friend "Welcker, kind and learned as ever, liberal in his politics, so as to be obnoxious to the Prussian government, but so true and honest in his character that no government ought to fear or dislike him. A part of the evening I spent with August von Schlegel, where I met Tourguenefi", a learned Russian, Secretary of the St. Petersburg Academy, and a great ad- mirer of Dr. Channing. It was very agreeable, but Schlegel in his old age is more of a fat than ever. He can talk with comfort of nothing but himself. 102 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. CHAPTEE VI. Paris. — Von RauTmr. — Fauriel. — Duke and Duchess de Broglie. — Guizot. — Miss Clarke. — Coquerel. — Jouy. — Confalonieri. — Count Mole. — Augustin Thierry. — Lamartine. — Count Circourt. — Mig- net. — Cesare Balbo. — Mad. de Fastoret. — Louis Philippe and his Family. JOURNAL. Paris, September 18.* — I was at Bossange's book-shop and two or three other similar establishments to-day. They are less ample and less well supplied with classical books of all kinds than they used to be. The living literature, too, does not much figure in them, and from what I could judge and learn, especially in a long and somewhat curious conversation with the elder Bossange, I suppose the booksellers now are driven for a good deal of their profits to reprint- ing popular authors with extravagant ornaments, like " Gil Bias," " La Fontaine," and " Paul and Virginia," which have recently been published with engravings on every page September 20. — I had a visit from Von Raumer this morning. He is in Paris to consult and make extracts from the Archives of the Foreign Afiairs, and is now near the end of a two-months' labor for his great historical work, like that which he gave to it, last year and the year before, in London. He says he has found an immense mass of materials, and that he is permitted to search where he likes, and copy, with only the formality of an examination, which is made by Mignet, the historian. It was not my intention to make acquaintances or visits at Paris till the winter shall come on, but to-day I was driven to make one that I found very agreeable ; I mean that of M. Fauriel. I wanted his work on the Romances of the Provengal, and desired Bossange to procure it for me some days ago. Not finding it, or any trace of it, he applied to Fauriel for some indication in relation to it. Fauriel told him, what was new both to Bossange and myself, that the Essay on Romances had been printed only in a periodical ; and * He had reached Paris September 11. ^. 46.] PAEIS. 103 being surprised that an American shovdd inquire for it, Fauriel sent me last evening a copy of it, with a very civil note. Of course I called on him to-day and delivered him a letter of introduction which Schlegel had given me at Bonm I found him a man above sixty years old, I should think, li\Tiig ia the Faubourg St. Germain, in a quiet and modest manner, and surrounded with a library of extremely curious books, in the early literature of France, Germany, Spain, and Provence. His conversation was more accurate and careful than is commonly found in his countrymen, but still lively ; and his knowl- edge in early Spanish literature, on which we chiefly talked, is such as I have not found before in Europe. It exceeded that of WoK at Vienna, as much as his years do, and gave me great pleasure. October 1. — I went this morning to see Camillo Ugoni, the author of the " History of Italian Literature in the Eighteenth Century," in order to make some inquiries of him about Count Confalonieri, who has lately been in Paris, and been sent away by the Police.* .... Ugoni I found a pleasant Italian, about sixty years old, ■wd.th the ap- paratus of a man of letters about him ; but I talked with him only concerning Confalonieri, whose intimate friend he is, and, I believe, also a fellow-sufferer in exile from political causes. On my return home I found aU Paris in motion in the upper part of the city, chiefly with a fete at the Gardens of Tivoli, but partly, also, with the St. Germain EaUroad. It looked very little like Sun- day. Indeed, so few shops are shut, and all works — even those for the government — are so diligently carried on, that I cannot distin- guish Sunday from other days. We attended service at the Oratoire, where Monod, son of the person who was a preacher there twenty years ago, officiated. The sermon was thoroughly Calvinistic. He seemed serious and earnest October 5. — The Duke and Duchess de BrogUe being announced in the papers as having come to town, I went to see them this morn- ing, and I am glad I did ; they received me as an old friend, — as if it were but a short time since I was last in their saloon. But they are, of course, a good deal altered. The Duke, who is above fifty, shows that he has had cares upon him, and that he has not been Prime Minister with impunity ; but still he has preserved his natu- ral and original manner, a singular mixture of pride, warm-hearted- ness, and modesty, which gives him a slight air of embarrassment, and makes him blush a little whenever he expresses a strong or de- cided opinion. Mad. de Broglie is just forty years old, but does not ♦ See Vol. I. pp. 161, 256. 104 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. look so much. ; is still pretty ; and has that charm she always had, of perfectly simple and even naive mamiers, added to great frank- ness and talent. Her daughter, the Viscountess d'Haussonville, was there, and is beautiful ; . . . . and a M. Doudau, who is a sort of secretary to the Duke, and who has the reputation of heaucowp de moyens. We talked chiefly about old times, and the changes that years have brought, — the death of their beautiful daughter Pauline, and of Miss Randall ; the death of Auguste de Stael, etc., — till Ville- main came in, who has grown quite stout, with his added reputation, and then I came away, promising to dine with them to-morrow, and meet Guizot, who is expected in town on business to-night. I asked the Duke about Confalonieri's case ; and he said he was as much in the dark about it as everybody else, and extremely sorry not to find him in Paris October 6. — I dined at the de Broglies', and went an hour before dinner, because Mad. de Broglie said she wanted me to come so early that we might have some quiet talk before company should come in. She was very interesting ; told me much of her life and of her family during the last twenty years, and talked largely of her religious opinions, which are Calvinistic, knowing mine to be Uni- tarian. Of her children, and of her husband and his public career, she spoke with all her natural frankness ; and about America and our institutions she was curious, but is evidently less democratically inclined than when I knew her before. Her conversation was al- ways earnest, sometimes brilliant, and I was sorry when the approach of dinner interrupted it. Her pretty, or rather beautiful daughter came first, with her husband ; then M. Doudan and then Alphonse de Rocca, the youngest son of Mad. de Stael, now about twenty- five, extremely ugly in the lower part of his face, like his mother, — very good-natured, it is said, but with a moderate capacity. The Duke de Broglie came last, with Guizot, who, having had his hints beforehand, pretended to remember a great deal more about me than my vanity could render credible.* He talked at first, with much French esprit, upon a recent article of Montalembert on the Revival of the Arts, upon an Edinburgh review on Bacon attributed to Ma- caulay, and such matters. I thought, in all this, there was something got up for effect, a little more of the fashionable air of the salon than became his character and position. But all Frenchmen — or almost all — desire this repu- tation for esprit, and are not insensible to the succes de salon; and * See Vol. I. p. 25a M. 46.] GUIZOT. 105 this was the first time M. Guizot had seen the de Broglie family for several months. At table he talked more like a statesman, on the French elections now approaching, and on American politics. He treated I^Ir. Van Buren, compared with the other Presidents of the United States, as a person not known in Europe. But on American affairs the Duke de Broglie seemed better informed, and talked better than he did October 8. — Gans of Berlin came in early this morning to see me, fuU of activity and Hvely conversation as ever. He has been travel- ling in the South of France, to restore himseK after a considerable ill- ness, and seems very round and hearty, as if the experiment had quite succeeded. .... October 9. — I visited Guizot this morning. He is poor, and lives very modestly in a small apartment, where it would be quite impos- sible for him to receive fashionable company ; but I believe that he has never sought to make a fortune, and that, being without debts, he is contented. He was very curious this morning in his inquiries about the United States, and showed that he has ceased to believe in the stability of our popular institutions. It was not so formerly. He professes to be very anxious on the subject ; to consider it a great calamity to the world if the experiment of liberty in the United States should fail ; is much concerned about our mobs, the ques- tion of slavery, etc. But if he talked the other day, at the Duke de Broglie's, like an homme d'esprit and like a statesman, he talked this morning like a politician In the evening we went to Mad. de Broglie's. Though she does not receive regularly, a good many persons came in, most of them men of letters, or men marked by intellectual endowments. I was partic- ularly glad to see Ste. Beuve, a modest little gentleman of about fifty- five ; for if I had not seen him now, I should have missed him alto- gether, as he is just going for the winter to Lausanne, No man alive has so good a knowledge of French literature in the fifteenth and six- teenth centuries as he has ; and I obtained some good indications from him this evening, which will make me regret his absence this winter the more. October 16. — Mad. de Broglie made us a long visit this morn- ing, and talked politics and religion in abundance, which it was agreeable to listen to, because she is so frank and sincere, but in which it is not possible for me to agree with her, because she is so Calvinistic, and looks ^\dth so much less favor than she used to on free institutions 5* 106 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. October 25. — .... In the evening we went to see a Miss Clarke, an English lady, living with her aged mother over in the old Abbaye aux Bois, in the Faubourg St. Germain."*^ She brought us letters lately from Mrs. Fletcher. She has lived in France a large part of her life, and keeps a Kttle bureau d'esprit all of her own, d la Fran- gaise. Au reste, she is, I believe, an excellent person, and is a friend of Mad. Arconati, as well as of other good people. We found there Fauriel, who is, I believe, to be seen in her salon every night, and one other Frenchman, I think Merimee. There was much talk both in English and French, which Miss Clarke seems to speak equally w^ell. Fauriel was witty and cynical, as usual ; and the lady very agreeable. The latter part of the evening I spent at Mad. de Broglie's, where I met Pageot ; Rossi,t formerly a great politician in Geneva, and now, it is said, preparing himself for a peerage in France ; the Duke De- cazes, so long the Minister, and the favorite of Louis XVIII. ; Vieil- Castel, one of the principal employes in the Department of Foreign Affairs ; Jan\der, the well-known debater in the House of Deputies, on the Doctrinaire side, etc., etc. It was very agreeable. October 26. — We drove out, in beautiful weather, this afternoon, to Vincennes, and saw the outside of the fine old castle ; but as it is a military depot, we were not permitted to see the inside. The strong- est recollection that now dwells on it, of course, is that connected with the death of the Duke d'Enghien. On our way back we went to the suburb, or village, of Picpus ; and there, in a cemetery behind the convent of the Sacre Cceur de Jesus, saw the grave of Lafayette. This convent consisted of distinguished women, who devoted themselves to the business of education ; and in its cemetery a few of the higher aristocracy had their graves. The Revolution broke it up, and made it the resort of a Jacobin club. In 1804 it was restored, and the tombstones that had been overthrown were replaced. I should think about fifty families of the higher and older aristocracy have their places of rest here, but everything looks fresh and recent. Mad. de Lafayette was buried near some of the Noailles, and her husband desired to be placed near her. There is nothing remarkable about the two stones, except their simplicity. They are exactly alike, — no titles are given to Mad. de Lafayette, and to her husband only Major-General and Deputy; and on each gravestone is recorded the * Since Madame MoM. t Pellegrino Rossi, assassinated in Rome, November 15, 1848. M. 46.] DUKE AND DUCHESS DE BROGLIE. 107 date of their respective birtlis, of their marriage, and of their deaths, and the two stones are united by a cross. October 27. — Ugoni — who has been frequently to see us of late, chiefly to talk about Confalonieri, whose case excites everywhere great remark — carried me this evening to the weekly soiree of Mad. Mojon.* She is an Italian, her husband a Spaniard, long a professor of medicine and physician at Genoa, and both are great friends of Confalonieri, Sismondi, and other persons of mark. They live here to enjoy their fortune and educate their children. I found several agreeable people there, and passed a pleasant evening October 30. — At the Duke de Broglie's, to-night, I met Count Mole, now the French Premier, and holding the place of President of the Council, which the Duke formerly held. It was curious and amusing to see the two ministers together, who, without being posi- tively enemies, cannot certainly be very good friends. Their talk was chiefly about the elections, which are to happen next week, and which they seem to think might be less favorable to the Ministry than had been hoped. M. Mole is an intellectual-looking man of about sixty, and talks well. After he was gone, I had some curious conversation A\ath the Duke de Broglie about the King and about Confalonieri's case. October 31. — I went this morning — at her request — to Mad. de Broglie's at their breakfast-hour, and sat out a part of their family breakfast, where I talked politics with M. de Broglie, who has less confidence in free institutions than he used to have. Afterwards I went with Mad. de Broglie into her boudoir, where she showed me a picture by Scheifer, representing her daughter Pauline, who died at fourteen It is a small picture, arranged like the picture of an Oratoire, and I could not help being struck by the circumstance that her Calvinism approaches here, as in other instances, to the faith or the feelings of the Romish Church. This is the more natural, to be sure, as her husband, to whom she is devotedly attached, is a Catho- lic ; but still I think it also lays in her own character and feelings. At any rate, she is a very interesting person ; full of simplicity, sin- cerity, and talent. I talked with her a good deal this morning about christianizing the poor and those who neglect all religion, and she showed much practical familiarity with the subject, as well as a strong interest in it. * Mad. Bianca Milesi-Mojon translated Mrs. Barbauld's Hymns and some of Miss Edgeworth's Tales into Italian ; and a sketch of her life was published by Emile Sonvestre, in 1854. 108 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. November 6. — I spent an hour this evening very agreeably at the Countess de Ste. Aulaire's,* where I found only her daughters and two or three gentlemen, this not being one of her evenings of reception, though I supposed it was when I went. Her character, her talents, and her graceful and winning manners plainly fit her for her place as the wife of a foreign ambassador ; but, like all the French, she rejoices in the opportunity to come back to Paris. I talked -with her about the elections and French politics, which are at this moment the absorbing subject. She is of course ministerial, but it was striking to see how much she fears the Chamber of Deputies, now grown, by the changes of the times, of great and preponderating consequence. No such opinions and feelings could have been expressed when I was here before ; and I find them on all sides, though expressed with more reserve by such men as the Duke de Broglie and Count Mole than by a lady like Mad. de Ste. Aulaire. On the case of Confalonieri she expressed herself with equal frank- ness ; as did also Rossi, whom I visited this afternoon. The whole of that affair, indeed, is very discreditable to the French government, and especially to the King ; but persons standing in the same rela- tions of party and personal friendship to the President of the United States and his Cabinet, as the Duke de Broglie, Rossi, and Mad. de Ste. Aulaire do to the French throne and administration, would not have spoken out their opinions as freely and truly as these persons have spoken them out to me. This is a difference between the coun- tries discreditable to us, and which I feel as a moral stain upon us. November 7. — I spent some time this morning in the King's pri- vate librar}^, originally Bonaparte's, and which I knew under Barbier as the library of Louis XVIII. It is an uncommonly comfortable and well-arranged establishment ; better than any of the sort I know of, except the Grand Duke's at Florence, and larger than that. Jouy, the author of the " Hermite de la Chaussee d'Antin," is the head of it, a hale, hearty, white-headed old gentleman of about sixty-five. Like everybody else, now, he talked about politics and the elections, and rejoiced at the success of the Ministry. He seemed to be throughout very content, and has occasion to be so. He made a good fortune by his periodicals, and admits very frankly that he wrote for that purpose ; wrote as long as the booksellers would pay him well, and wrote a great deal too much. And he has now a good, easy place under government, where he occupies himself with his lit- erary studies, and has settled all his arrangements for an agreeable old e^e. • See Vol. I. p. 256. ^.46.] COUNT GONFALON' lEPJ. 109 Novembers. — Being at Guizot's this morning, he told me some curious particulars about the King. He says, the King commence beaucoup de fautes, et en finit fort peu ; that he feels his talent and power of action, and sometimes decides without consulting his minis- ters ; that when he himself was Minister for the first time, the King twice so decided in affairs that were of his department, but that, hav- ing himself immediately caused it to be understood that he had no responsibility in those cases, the King never did it afterward ; that the King sometimes asked him to leave his brouillons of memoires, etc., with him, to be looked over, but that he always refused, because he did not choose the King should consult others about his unfin- ished and unexplained projects, or make a separate work and decision of his own upon them, etc., etc The King, too, Guizot says, is very anxious and sensitive on the subject of the punishment of death, examines each case of capital conviction himself, and makes a written abstract of the reasons for and against a pardon, in parallel columns, and decides with care and conscientiously without the inter- vention of his ministers. In the afternoon I saw Confalonieri. He was in bed, broken down in health, and much broken in the brightness and strength of his in- tellectual powers, but full of kindly affection and gratitude. I went over the whole of his strange case with him ; his case, I mean, so far as the French government is concerned, and told him, what he did not before know, how completely it was the King's personal affair. I did not stay long with him, for it was not well that he should talk much. He has been in Paris, this time, three days. To-morrow he is to have an operation performed, and when he is sufficiently recovered will go to the South of France. It is a great pain to see him so dif- ferent from what he was when I knew him at Milan in 1817, and at Paris in 1818-19. The Austrian government seems to have suc- ceeded. It has crushed him, broken his spirit, broken his heart ; and his nature was so noble and lofty that it seems as if tyranny were encouraged and strengthened, by his present condition, to proceed as far as it has power. It seems as if it had now found new and better means to work withal than it had ever discovered before November 12. — The case of Confalonieri is so remarkable, and, from accidental circumstances, I have become so fully and exactly possessed of details that are almost unknown even in Paris, and some of which Confalonieri himself learnt only from me, that I have thought I would write it out in full. It is strongly illustrative of the way in which things are managed, not only in France, but by no LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. other governments in Europe ; and I dare say no proper account of it will ever be pubKshed, and the whole truth will never be known. Count Confalonieri, belonging to one of the first and richest families in Lombardy, was, by his position in society, by his talents, by the nobleness of his character, and by his personal relations throughout Europe, not only one of the most prominent persons in Italy, but altogether the first and most important of the victims of Austria in 1821. When in the United States he wrote to his old friend, the Duke de Broglie, then Minister for Foreign Afiairs to Louis Philippe, to inquire whether his presence in France would be unwelcome to the government. The Duke — who told me this fact — said he replied that he ought not to have permitted himself to ask such a question ; that France was, as it were, his natural asylum ; and that the sooner he should be here the more happiness he would give his friends. On receiving this assurance he gave notice in New York, to the Austrian Consul, of his intention to come to France, that he might not even seem to do anything covertly, and embarked for England. He there gave a new and somewhat formal notice to the French Charge d' Affaires, — the Ambassador being absent, — and desired him, if he had any doubt about his reception in France, — where the Duke de Broglie had been displaced by Count Mole, — to wi-ite for instruc- tions ; to which the Charge replied, that there could be no doubt in the case, and that he should hold it to be a pleasure as well as a duty to viser his passport. Under these circumstances he crossed the Chan- nel, and arrived in Paris about September 20, where he established himself in a private hospital to undergo a surgical operation, intend- ing to pass the winter in the South of France, as his constitution is much shattered by his confinement and sufferings for sixteen years in the Spielberg. When he had been a few days in this Maison de Sante he was sud- denly sent for to the police, and there, very rudely, as he told me, or- dered to leave France, and to go back to England by the very road by which he had come from it, quitting Paris within twenty-four hours. Confalonieri replied that, to a gentleman, any command on such a sub- ject was quite unnecessary ; that to make him anxious to leave the country it would have been sufficient to have intimated to him that his presence in it was unwelcome ; and that he should not fail at once to obey the injunctions of the government. But the next day the Prefect of Police came to him in the Maison de Sante, four miles from his office, in person, with mitigated instructions, and followed up this sort of visi- tation for three successive days, with offers of kindness, and intima- M. 46.] CONFALONIERI SENT FROM PARIS. Ill tions of an unaccountable regret, which Confalonieri received very politely, but declined, unless it were understood that the government had changed its opinion about his residence in France. He accepted, however, the permission to go to Belgium instead of England ; and on the 29th of September set off to join his friends the Arconatis, at their castle of Gaesbeck, near Brussels. Meantime the newspapers had got possession of the matter, and the government was attacked for its harshness. The Temps, the Min- isterial paper, replied, and defended the king by three assertions : 1. That Confalonieri had come to Europe contrary to his promise given to Austria, that he would not return. 2. That the king in 1823, being then Duke of Orleans, had used his influence with Austria to have Confalonieri's sentence changed from death to imprisonment, and im- plied that it was partly at least through this influence that it had been so changed. 3. That the king had, two years since, again used his intervention with Austria and procured Confalonieri's full libera- tion, on condition that he should not be received in France. Confa- lonieri, feeling his honor attacked by this semi-official statement made with great formality, replied by a few decisive words in a note, to which he subscribed his name : 1. That, as to the promise to Austria, he never made any whatever ; a fact well known, but since proved by the publication of the paper which contained what he did sign on his release from prison. 2. That, as to the two interferences spoken of and said to have been made by the Duke of Orleans and the King of the French, he had remained in complete ignorance of both of them up to the moment of the publication in the Temps Every- body has known, since 1823, that the commutation of Confalonieri's punishment was procured, at the last possible moment, by the agony of his wife at the feet of the Empress ; and that the Duke of Orleans, as the head of the liberal party then existing in France, would have injured instead of helped her cause, if he had been known or even suspected to favor it The assertions, however, about the two interferences were made anew in the official paper after Confalonieri's note appeared ; the matter seemed to grow more and more serious, and people began to wonder how it was to end At last it came out. It was ascertained that the Austrian Charge d'Afiaires, Baron von Hiigel, — Count d'Appony, the Ambassador, be- ing in Vienna, — as soon as he knew Confalonieri was here, went to Count Mole, the Minister for Foreign Afiairs, and declared that Con- falonieri had broken his word, that it was an outrage to Austria to permit him to be in France ; and, in short, took up the matter so vio- 112 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. lently that Mole said afterwards he expected little less than a speedy demand to have Confalonieri delivered up to Austria, or something equally extravagant. Mole, however, is a cool and a cautious man, and did not commit himself by any decisive answer. Whereupon Von Hiigel drove out the same evening to St. Cloud, and made similar representations to the King in person, who, less cautious than his Llin- ister, declared at once that Confalonieri should be sent out of the country Further and more strange developments soon followed. Von Hiigel turned out to be deranged in mind, and his representations to the King and Mole were found to be wholly unauthorized by his govern- ment, were found to be, in fact, the first outbreak of his insanity. His recall was asked for by France, and he is just gone off to England, because, I suppose, they think, with the Clown in Hamlet, that it wQl not be seen in him there, where all the men are as mad as he. This made things bad enough. But Prince Mettemich took care to make them worse. He felt his advantage instinctively, and used it with his inevitable shrewdness. He made no explanations or statements to France, for these might have been answered, and so the difficulty cov- ered up, if not got over by diplomatic ingenuity. But as soon as Con- falonieri was settled in Belgium he sent a despatch to the Austrian Minister at Brussels, "WTitten wholly in his oa^tl hand, and directing him to show it to Confalonieri, declaring that the Austrian govern- ment had nothing to do vdih the proceedings in France, and claimed no right, and had no wish, to prevent his residing there Meanwhile the King's enemies say, as V. did last evening, "Le voila ! il a menti de nouveau, et pour si petite chose ! " or Avdth the spirituel , " Un fou I'a effraye avec un mourant." .... In Brussels, the Belgian government, urged by Count Merode, gave Confalonieri to understand, at once, that he should not in any event be molested there. But this was not necessary ; for it was impossible the French government should stand where it now stood. It must either go forward or go back. After some hesitation, therefore, and an attempt to persuade Confalonieri indirectly to ask for permission to return to France, — which of course failed, — Count Mole was obliged to write him a letter, offering him the leave he would not solicit. Even now, however, the newspapers were full of misrepresenta- tions. It was said " mistakes had been committed in consequence of Confalonieri's unexpected appearance at Paris " ; that " in consequence of representations from his physicians he had received permission to go to Montpellier" ; that "the Count had written from Brussels/' ^.46.] BARON PICHON. 113 etc., etc., all of which is false, and only intended to let the public come gradually at the truth. However, Confalonieri arrived here on the 5th instant, and on the 9th it was finally admitted, by the govern- ment journals, that there was no longer any objection to his being in Paris. Deceraher 11. — I dined to-day at Mr. Harris's,* where were Gen- eral Cass, our Minister, Prince Czartoriyski, formerly Prime Minister of Alexander of Eussia, General Lallemand, and a few others. But the person who most interested me was Baron Pichon.t I sat next to him at dinner, and talked wdth him afterwards till half past ten o'clock, long after the rest of the company was gone. He was Secre- tary of Legation to Genet and Fauchet in the United States ; after- wards in the office of Foreign Afi"airs here, during the Directory and under Talleyrand ; then again in the United States, Secretary and Charge d'Afiaires from 1801 to 1805, and I know not what else, until he was Governor of Algiers under Louis Philippe, to whom he is now Conseiller d'Etat. Among other things he told me that Tom Paine, who lived in Monroe's house at Paris, had a great deal too much in- fluence over Monroe ; that Monroe's insinuations and representations of General Pinckney's character, as an aristocrat, prevented his recep- tion as Minister by the Directory, and that, in general, Monroe, ^viih whose negotiations and affairs Pichon was specially charged, acted as a party-democrat against the interests of General Washington's ad- ministration, and against what Pichon considered the interests of the United States. Of Burr, he said that he was the most unprincipled man he had almost ever known, and that he hardly knew how he could have become so, to such a degree, in the United States. He said that be- tw-een 1801 and 1805, while Burr was Vice-President of the United States, he made suggestions and proposals to Pichon, for throwing the United States into confusion, and separating the States under the influence and \\dth the aid of France ; and that when Burr was in France afterguards, he renewed the same ofi'ers and suggestions, both to Talleyrand and to Bonaparte. Of Hamilton he spoke with great praise and admiration ; but said he must qualify it somewhat, because Hamilton once said to him that Tallejrrand was the greatest of modem statesmen, because he had so well known when it was necessary both to suff"er wrong to be done and to do it. Talleyrand, he said, who had been the entire cause of * Earlier our Charge d' Affaires m Paris, for a time, t See Vol. I. pp. 132 and 261. 114 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. his — Pichon's — fortune, and with whom, for the greater part of his life, he had "been extremely intimate, hates the United States. He has never — Pichon thinks — forgotten Washington's refusal to receive him at his levee, because he did not think it suitable, in the delicate position of affairs with France, to receive an ^migr^ in the presence of the French Minister. At any rate, since the 18th Brumaire, he had always expressed himself openly against the United States, and used his influence recently against granting our claims for the famous twenty-five millions. Burr once said to Pichon, " The rule of my life is, to make business a pleasure, and pleasure my business." December 14. — . . . .In the latter part of the evening I went to a fashionable party at the Marquis Brignole's, the Sardinian Ambassa- dor. Count Mole and several other of the ministers were there, most of the foreign diplomacy, and a good deal of the fashion of Paris. But this is the first party that has been given this season, and the whole force of the beau monde is, therefore, by no means collected. It was, like all such parties in the great capitals of the Continent, a collection of extremely well dressed people in beautiful and brilliantly lighted rooms. Among them I found a few old acquaintances, espe- cially the Duke de Villareal, recently Prime Minister in Portugal, and son of the Souza who published the magnificent " Camoens." I knew hJTTi when he was Minister of Portugal at Madrid, and had much pleasant talk with him about old times. The Circourts were there, Count d'Appony, Countess de Ste. Aulatre, and a good many persons whom I knew, so that I had an agreeable visit. December 18. — I went, as usual on Mondays, to Fauriel's lecture on Spanish Literature ; which, as usual, was much too minute on the antiquities that precede its appearance. In fact, now, after an intro- ductory lecture and two others, he has not completed his view of the state of things in Spain at the first dawning of tradition, seven hun- dred years before Christ. At this rate, he will not, by the time we leave Paris next spring, have reached the Arabs. He lectures at the Sorbonne, whose ancient halls are now as harmless as they were once formidable, and has an audience thus far of about fifty or sixty per- sons, not more than half of whom are young men. He is very- learned and acute, but too minute and elaborate. In the evening I went to Mad. Martinetti's,* who is here for the winter. She is as winning as ever, and as fuU of knowledge and ♦ Countess Rossi-Martinetti of Bologna. See Vol. I, p. 166, and Vol. II. p. 47. M. 46.] AUGUSTIN THIERRY. 115 accomplishments, but her beauty is somewhat faded. There were a few people there, and it was pleasant, but I did not stay long. December 19. — In the evening I went to Count Mole's, at the Hotel des Affaires Etrangeres, where, as on the evening when I was pre- sented, I found his large saloon full of the foreign ambassadors, and the great notabilites of the country. As the Chamber of Deputies began its session yesterday, there were many of them present, not a few who came for the first time ; and the way in which the old huis- sier, seventy years old, who has stood at the door of all the minis- ters from Bonaparte's time, announced these different individuals, was often amusing. He evidently did it sometimes in a tone which, but for his gray hairs, would have been impertinent, since it distinguished the rank of those who entered, if they were Frenchmen. I found a good many persons whom I knew Among the new acquaint- ance I made, the most agreeable were Koenneritz, the Saxon Minister, and Mignet, the author of the " History of the French Revolution " ; a man of about forty, evidently full of talent and striking qualities. DeceTnber 22. — I went this afternoon to see Mignet and Rossi, cer- tainly two of the most distinguished persons I have yet become ac- quainted with in Paris ; and talked with them, of course, on political subjects, or subjects connected with politics and history. In the evening I went with Count Circourt, and made my first visit to Thierry, the author of the admirable history of the Normans. It is rare to see so striking an instance of the triumph of intellectual power and moral energy over personal infirmities. He IS about forty years of age ; but fifteen years ago he lost his sight entirely, and for the last eight years has been paralyzed in his lower extremities, so as to be incapable of moving himself at aU. But after his blindness was upon him, and after the paralysis was already begun, — but not so far advanced as it is now, — a lady of in- tellectual habits and accomplishments, and of an eligible position in society, became attached to him and married him, from a desire to devote herself to his happiness, which she has done faithfully and cheerfully for seven years He, meanwhile, has gone on with his difficult studies as if no infirmity had befallen him. Under the auspices of the government he is employed in collecting manuscript materials from all parts of France for a history of the tiers ^tat, and is, besides, engaged in a historical work on the Mero- vingian race. He has published, too, his letters on the GommwneSy and many reviews, and other single articles on the same difficult and obscure subjects ; all written with great felicity of manner, and 116 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. showing laborious and careful research into the original and unpub- lished sources of French history. I found him this evening, with two or three friends, in an uncommonly pretty and well-arranged par- lor, sitting in his arm-chair, with a sort of comforter of silk thrown about the lower part of his person. His infirmities were plainly upon him, but there was nothing or very little that was painful in their character. He talked with great distinctness of opinion and phrase upon a wide variety of subjects ; such as the different races of men in the early ages of the world, the impossibility of two races becoming mixed on equal terms, the state of Canada at this moment, Cooper's novels, etc. He says he is, though entirely liberal in his politics, less inclined to republican, or democratic, institutions than he used to be, because he thinks the people are, from the tendencies of their nature, less disposed to choose the most elevated minds for the most important places, or to intrust their affairs generally to the wisest and most disinterested hands. At ten o'clock I left him, — for his visitors do not stay late, on ac- count of his health, — and went to the Duchess de Broglie's. I went to see her in the forenoon, a couple of days ago, when she first re- turned from Broglie ; and she then told me that she intends to receive le monde every Wednesday night, but that her friends would find her, besides, on Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays. So I went this evening, — Friday, — and found about a dozen persons there : Eynard, Rossi, Lebrun, etc. It was extremely agreeable, and I stayed till the tea-table was brought in at eleven o'clock. So much for French hours ! There was an extremely animated talk for some time about Arnauld, Pascal, and the writers of Port-Royal generally ; and if it had continued, I dare say I should have stayed later. December 23. — .... I left a dinner at Colonel Thome's some- what early, to go to Lamartine's, who, being in rather feeble health, does not like to receive late. He is a man of fortune, and lives as such ; besides which, he is eminently the fashionable intellectual man of his time in Paris. He has just been elected to the Chamber of Deputies from three different places, a distinction which has happened to no other ; and in the Chamber he has a little party of his own, about fifteen or twenty in number, who generally support the Ministry, but are understood to vote independently, and to desire nothing from the government ; so that, in the present balanced state of parties, he has a good deal of political power in his hands. As a poet, he is, of course, the first and most fashionable, and he has always round him a considerable ^.46.] LAMARTINE. 117 number of young aspirants for fame, to whom he is said to be more kind than is even discreet or useful for them. I found him in a beautiful hotel and a tasteful saloon, in which were five or six pictures by his wife, and among the rest an excellent likeness of himself. About a dozen gentlemen were there, of whom I knew only Tourgueneff and Count Circourt. He knew I was coming, and when my name was announced re- ceived me frankly, and almost as if I had been an old acquamtance. His wife seems about forty years old, and was dressed in black, — a color she has constantly worn since the death of their only child, a daugh- ter of fourteen, who died on their journey in the East. She avoids the world and general societj^, and receives only gentlemen who visit her husband. She talked w^ell with me about the Abbe de Lamennais, and his " Livre du Peuple " ; and showed herself to be, what I believe she really is, a lady of much intellectual accomplishment, Lamartiue himself, I think, is about forty-five years old, thiu ia per- son, but dignified and graceful in his mamiers, and with a very fine style of head, — a head and countenance, indeed, that may be called poetical. He is, I should imagine, nervous and sensitive ; and walks up and dowTL in the back part of his saloon, talking with only one, or at most two persons, who walk with him. This, I am told, is his habit, and that it is not agreeable to him to talk when sitting. In the course of half an hour, thus walking and talking with him, only two things struck me, — his complete ignorance of the present English lit- erature, and the strong expression of his poetical faith that the recent improvements in material life, like steam and railroads, have their poetical side, and will be used for poetical purposes with success. He was as curious about America and American literature as was polite, but I think cares really very little about either. His table was cov- ered, and even heaped, with recent publications by living authors, who wish to get a word or a smile from the reigning favorite ; for nobody now publishes anything in elegant literature \\dthout sending him a copy, I am told. December 25. — .... In the evening I went to Jomard's, at the [Koyal] Library. He is now the head of that vast establishment, as well as the head of all Egj'ptian knowledge in the world ; indeed, from the time of Bonaparte's expedition to EgA^t doA\Ti to the pres- ent day, he has been one of the principal members of the Institute, and one of their most learned men. He is now old, and his eyes are bad, but he has much reputation for kindness of disposition, and re- ceives, gladly and agreeably, all men of learning. 118 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. To-night was Hs first soiree for the season, and I found his rooms filled with books, curiosities, and interesting people. Among those I was most glad to see, and with whom I chiefly talked, were Aime Martin, the editor of Moliere, who was outrageous in his ignorance of America ; and Ternaux,* whose acquaintance I made diligently, because Fauriel tells me he has one of the finest libraries of Spanish literature in the world. It was more of a meeting for learned men than any I have seen in Paris. December 26. — I spent an hour this morning with Mignet, at the Affaires Etrangeres, where, since 1830, he has had a comfortable and agreeable office at the head of the Archives. Considering the part he took in the Kevolution, and the length of time that has elapsed since he published his History, he looks to me very young. In fact, he does not seem to be thirty-five years old ; but he must be older, and is one of the finest-looking men I have seen in France. He is, too, acute, and has winning manners. I do not wonder, therefore, that he is popular. This morning, after some general conversation, he was curious to learn from me any particulars I could give him about Mr. Edward Livingston, on whom it is his duty, as Secretary of the Acad- emy of Moral Sciences, to pronounce an eloge next spring. Count Balbo, who is here from Turin, on account of the death of Villeneuve, father of his late wife, dined with me ; and we had a great deal of agreeable talk upon old matters and old recollections, as well as upon things passing. Afterwards I went with him to see Mad. de Pastoret, the Mad. de Fleury of Miss Edgeworth.f She is, of course, much altered since I knew her in 1818-19 ; but she is well, and able to devote herself, as she always has done, to works of most faithful and wise charity. Her fortune, and that of her family, is large ; but being Carlists, and sin- cerely and conscientiously so, they gave up offices in 1830, to the aggregate amount of 180,000 francs a year, including the dignity of Chancellor of France. The Marquis de Pastoret is now the legal guardian of the Duke de Bordeaux,:}: though from his great age the duties of the office are chiefly exercised by his son, the Count. Once a week, however, he holds publicly, in his hotel, a Council on the * M. Henri Temaux-Compans. t See Vol. I. p. 255 et seq. " Madame de Fleury " is the title of one of the Tales of Fashionable Life, by Miss Edgeworth, which is founded on incidents of Madame de Pastoret's experience. M. de Pastoret received the title of Marquis from Louis XVIII. X Comte de Chambord. M. 46.] FRENCH INSTITUTE. 119 affairs of the Duke de Bordeaux, or Henry V., as they of course call him. The goveminent is wise enough not to notice this sort of sin- cere and honest treason ; and lately, therefore, when a violent Car- list was reproaching the reigning family with un esprit vraiment perse- cuteur, Mad. de Pastoret said, in her gentle and beautiful, but decided manner, " Je crois. Monsieur, que nous sommes une forte preuve du contraire de tout cela." Mad. de Pastoret has the distinguished honor of being the first per- son to imagine and establish an infant school, and she told me to- night that she had Lived long enough to see the grandchildren of her first objects of charity coming daily to receive its benefits, with — in several instances — the same matrons to take care of them. Un- til lately she was the Lady President of these institutions in France ; but this year the Ministry thought fit — perhaps wisely — to put them under the protection and control of the University, and as she said to-night, " the wife of M. de Pastoret could not with propriety enter into relations with the Minister of Public Instruction " ; so that she resigned her place, without, however, giving up her interest or diminishing her real exertions in the cause. I was delighted to see her again, and to find her still, though nearly seventy-five years old, so full of the talent, gentleness, and practical wisdom that have al- ways marked her character. Among other little things I learnt from her to-night is the fact that " de Fleury " is not an invented name, but the name of an estate belonging to her, and taken as such by Miss Edgeworth, whom she knows, personally, extremely well. After spending an hour with her I went to Guizot's and spent an- other. His modest rooms were full of peers and deputies, of whom I think an hundred, at least, were there at different times while I stayed ; among them were Decazes,* Lamartine, and nearly all the principal Doctrinaires December 27. — We spent three or four hours this morning at the meeting of the class of Moral Sciences of the Institute. It was their annual meeting, and their fine rotunda was filled with a fashionable audience of gentlemen and ladies. The members of the class of Moral Sciences were there in their uniform, the other Academicians in their common dress. It was a goodly show, and a dignified one. The pres- ident announced the prizes for the next year, and then gave, with very little ceremony, a medal of fifteen hundred francs to a young man named Barthelemy de St. Hilaire for a dissertation on the Organon of Aristotle. After this Mignet read, for above an hour, an eloge and * See Vol. I. p. 253 et seq. 120 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. biography of Roederer, very brilliantly written, and in reading which he was often interrupted by very hearty rounds of applause ; and the whole was concluded by parts of a memoir of the state of the civil law of France, considered in its relations with the economical condition of society, by Rossi, — again frequently interrupted by applause, — which was admirable for its soundness, wisdom, and strength, worthy of a solemn academical occasion. As a meeting, it had more of dig- nity in it, and seemed better to fulfil its purpose, than any meeting of the sort at which I remember to have been present. There was really a good deal to be learned at it by those who went with a wish to be taught. In the evening I went a little while to Baron Pichon's, where I found a form of soiree different from the common one at Paris ; almost everybody gravely seated at whist, — deputies, peers, and all. But I had some strong talk with M. Pichon himself, with whom it is not easily possible to have anything else, so masculine is his mind and so practical and business-like the tone of his faculties. However, I could stay only a short time. We had promised to take Mad. Martinetti to the de Broglies' to-night. It was the evening of her grande recejption, and, arriving at about ten o'clock, we found her beautiful saloon open, and the notahilit^s of the time coming and going. The Russian Ambassador was there ; Guizot and a plenty of Doctrinaire peers and deputies ; the Countess de Ste. Aulaire and her accomplished daughters ; the Duchess of Massa ; the well-known Princess Lieven, who figured so long in London ; Jamder, one of the most eloquent of the Chamber of Deputies ; the d'Haus- sonvilles, etc. Everything was very brilliant, but it was less agree- able than on the petites soirees. We stayed late, however, for Mad. Martinetti enjoyed it so well that she did not at all like to come away. December 28. — .... In the evening I was presented at Court, which took a tedious while ; for I left home before seven o'clock and did not get back till nearly ten, the first hour being spent in assem- bling, with eight or ten other Americans, at General Cass's and get- ting to the palace, an hour and a half at the palace itself, and half an hour to find my carriage and get home I think about an hun- dred and thirty persons were presented. Of these, perhaps seven or eight were Austrians, sixty or more English, one Russian, — my friend Tourgueneff, — and the rest chiefly Germans, with a few Italians and Spaniards. The Russians are hardly permitted to come to Paris now, or, if they do come, hardly dare to be presented at Court, so M. 46.] ROYAL FAMILY. 121 small is the iU-will of the Emperor, and so detailed his inquisition into private affairs. Tourgueneff avowed it to me as we went up the stairs. When we were all arranged in a row round the two halls of audi- ence, with the ambassadors and ministers in the order of their recep- tion at Court, the King, the Queen with the Princess Clementine on her arm, the Duchess of Orleans, Madame Adelaide, and the Duke of Orleans entered and went round, speaking generally a word to each individual as he was presented ; for we were all gentlemen, the ladies being presented later. It took them a little more than an hour. One thing was soon apparent from their manners. They wished to please. .... The King came first. He is stout without being fat, and clumsy from having too short legs. He spoke English to all the Eng- lish and to all the Americans, and spoke it uncommonly well. He asked me about my former visit to Paris, inquired particularly after Mr. Gallatin, and praised Boston and its hospitalities, which he said he remembered with much pleasure and gratitude. He took some time to say this, of course, and bowed and smiled most profusely. The Queen came next. She looked much older than he does, is very thin and gray-headed, and seemed worn and anxious. But she, too, smiled abundantly, and asked me about the differences between Paris now and when I was here before ; which adroitly relieved her from the necessity of saying much herself. She spoke French to me, as did all the ladies to those who could understand it. Her lovely daughter, with the most intellectual countenance in the family, looked very naturally uninterested, and only courtesied to each as she passed, with- out thinking it necessary to smile or to speak to anybody. She was dressed with perfect simplicity, in a light pink satin, without lace or ornament of any kind on any part of her person. She must be admit- ted to be lovely, perhaps beautiful, but certainly she had a very dull time to-night. After her came the Duchess of Orleans, the only one much dressed. She wore many diamonds, and, without being beautiful, is very good- looking, graceful, and winning. She spoke to me in German, and said some very pretty things about Germany, and how much she still loves her " Vaterland," where, she said, the people are so true and so happy. Her manner was more natural than that of any of the rest of the family. Indeed, perhaps it was quite natural. Mad. Ade- laide, who followed, is short and stout, like her brother, whom she resembles both in countenance and in an air of firm, full health. VOL. II. 6 122 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1837. She spoke to me, in French, of the great pleasure her brother had in the United States, and how well he remembered onr hospitalities ; and said, with great emphasis, repeatedly, that they were always glad to see the Americans at the Tuileries. And so she played her part. The Duke of Orleans, who closed the scene, spoke English well, but had nothing to say. He is a pretty fellow, but looks feeble in intel- lect, and was embarrassed in the merest commonplaces of asking me about my joumeyings and residence in France December 29. — .... In the evening we went first to Mad. Mojon's, where the party was much as usual ; and to Mrs. Garnett's About half past ten I went with a couple of friends to the great gambling-house which passes under the name of Frascati. It was the first time in my life I ever was in a large establishment of the sort, or, indeed, at any, except such as are seen at watering- places ; and I shall probably never see another, for it is one of the good deeds of Louis Philippe's government that, after having abol- ished lotteries, it has now ordered all public gaming-houses to be closed from January 1, 1838, that is, in two days. This evening we found the rooms full, but not crowded The usual marks of superstition accompanied some of the more regu- lar gamblers. One person kept a sou constantly in a particular posi- tion on the table as a sort of luck-penny ; and another, a woman, as soon as she had put down her money, shut her eyes, and muttered something without looking up, till the result was announced. The person that interested me the most, however, was a middle- aged man, who played upon a somewhat ingenious system ; waiting, perhaps, thirty or forty times, till he found three numbers that had not come up at all, and then playing and doubling on those three till he won. He was a large gainer while I watched him ; but I take it, his system, like the systems of all gamblers, would not stand before La Place's " Calcul des Probabilites," and that, in the long run, the table would ruin him, as it does everybody else. I reached home by twelve o'clock, having found my visit little curi- ous or interesting. Perhaps it would have been more so if I had stayed later ; for the company was increasing fast when I came away, and the older faces there looked as if it would take a long sitting to work them up to anything like external excitement, so hard were they, and settled. But to me it was all simply wearisome and disa- greeable. December 30. — I took the whole of this evening to go with Count Circourt all the way to the Bibliotheque de 1' Arsenal, to see Charles ^. 46.] CHAELES NODIER. 123 Nodier, who is its librarian. It took us nearly an hour to drive there, and another to return, and yet in the time of Henry IV. , and even in the time of Louis XIII., that was the fashionable part of the city ; so much is everything changed in Paris. The bad part of the matter, however, was that we did not see Nodier. Circourt had warned me beforehand, that when his daughter and her husband chance to go out, Nodier, who is a whimsical old fellow, not being able to make up his party of whist with his wife alone, goes to bed and takes to his bib- liographical studies. Unluckily, as we entered his grim old residence, at nine o'clock, we met his daughter in a ball-dress just coming out for a party in the gay quarter of the city from which we were just arrived ; and instantly afterward received Mad. Nodier's melancholy exclamation that her husband was in bed. Nothing remained but to sit down and be agreeable to Mad. Nodier for nearly an hour, which we did faithfully. Luckily, she is an agreeable person herself, so that we were not so badly off as we might have been. The best of the matter was the drive of two hours with Circourt, who, at my request, related to me in great detail, and with picturesque effect, what he knew of the outbreak of the Eevolution of July, 1830, when he was the confidential Secretary of Foreign Affairs for Prince Polignac. 124 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. CHAPTEE VII. Thierry. — Duchess de Rauzan. — Bastard's Work on Painting in the Dark Ages. — Montalemhert. — Mad. Murat. — Mad. Amable Tastu. — Princess Belgiojoso. — Thiers. — Debate in the Chamher of Peers. — Chateaubriand. — Politics. — Farewells. — General View of Society, etc. JOUENAL. January 2, 1838. — I passed this evening with Thieny, who talked w^ll on the subject of the Communes in France ; of the manuscripts relating to the history of the country still in existence ; of the new plan of a Commission relating to them, just submitted by the Minis- ter of Public In»-truction, which Thierry thinks will fail ; of the poli- tics of the times ; and of the affairs of Canada. He is much skilled in etymology, and thinks our etymologies of the word " Yankee " are all wrong, and that, having arisen from the collision and jeerings of the Dutch and the English, in New York and New England, it is from the Dutch " Jan," — pronounced Yan, — John, with the very common diminutive " k^e," and '■' doodlen," to quaver ; which would make the whole, " quavering," or " psalm- singing," " Jacky," or " Johnny." " Doodle-sack " means bag-pipe. Johnny would refer to John Bull ; and if " doodlen " be made in the present tense, "Yankee-doodle" would be "Johnny that sings Psalms." " Hart-kee," my little dear heart, and hundreds of other diminutives, both in endearment and in ridicule, are illustrations of the formation of the word. It amused me not a little, and seems probable enough as an etymology ; better, certainly, than to bring it, with Noah Webster, from the Persian. January 5. — We went last evening to Miss Clarke's, where there was rather more of a party than usual, collected by formal invita- tion. Eauriel was there, of course, and Mohl ; but there was, also, a number of ladies, among whom were Mad. Tastu, the well- known authoress ; the Princess Belgiojoso, — the well-known lady of fashion, and one of the most striking and distingue'es persons in M. 46.] COUNT B.VSTARD'S WORK ON PAINTING. 125 Parisian society ; the Countess de Roy, who also figures in the sa- loons, etc. I met, too, several men of note, whom 1 was glad to talk with, — Baron d'Eckstein, the opponent of Lamennais ; Merimee, the author of "Clara Gazul," and now employed by the government to collect whatever relates to the ancient monuments of French art ; Mignet, the historian ; EUe de Beaumont, the great geologist ; the two Tourgueneffs, etc. It was as intellectual a party as I have been with since we came to Paris, except at Jomard's ; and I enjoyed it very much. Merimee, however, disappointed me. He is affected, and makes pretensions to exclusiveness. He ought to be above such follies. January 6. — I went this evening to the fii'st soiree of the season at the Duchess de Rauzan's, the headquarters of the more intellectual and more fashionable of the Carlists. She is the daughter of the ad- mirable Duchess de Duras, whom I used to know here, nineteen years ago ; * and she remembered me enough to signify her pleasure that I should come to see her. So I went, but she does not receive till half past ten o'clock at night, and that is a little too ultra-fashionable for my comfort. I found there the Marquise de Podenas, who was the lady that managed so long the affairs of the Duchess de Berri ;* Mile, de Bethune, of the old Sully family ; a fine, white-headed old Duke, of the time and with the manners and dress of the reign of Louis XYI. ; Count Circourt ; the Baron d'Eckstein ; Count Bastard, etc. The last person has been employed for twenty years — with the as- sistance of the successive governments that have prevailed in France — in collecting from manuscript miniatures the materials for a his- tory of painting, from the fall of the art in the fourth century to its entire restoration under Eaffaelle. The first numbers will come out in May next ; there will be forty-two in all, and the average cost of each copy of each number will be eleven hundred francs. He prints, and illuminates, and paints sixty copies for the government and nine for himself ; and though the government allows him two millions of francs, yet, like a true Carlist as he is, he complains that it should come through the budget, and be distributed through seven years, instead of being given all at once, and without condition. He interested me very much for an hour by the details of his undertak- ing. His reason for taking his materials for the History of Paint- ing in the Middle Ages from manuscripts entirely, is, that he can in * See Vol. I. p. 254 et seq. t See ante, p. 41. 126 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. no other way get them quite authentic, while in the manuscripts he can get them with accurate dates. January 8. — We went this evening a little while to Thierry's, by appointment with the Circourts, whom we met there. Thierry him- self we found in the same chair and in the same position in which he is always seen, but with the same spirit that raises him above his bodily infirmities. He talked about Manzoni, and repeated long pas- sages of the "Adelchi"; he talked about the present state of painting in France ; and about the Canadians, in whom he takes a great in- terest, and to whom, for the sake of their French names and origin, his heart warms, till he wishes them success.* On all these various points he talked well, ^vith interest, and even with enthusiasm, for- getting, apparently, — when he spoke of painting, for instance, or the opera, — that he cannot hope ever again to enjoy either of them. "We finished the evening at Mad. de Broglie's, where we met Ville- main ; Duchatel, one of the ministers of Louis Philippe ; with Gui- zot, Lady Elgin, and two or three others ; besides Doudan and the d'Haussonvilles, who are always there. It was a tres petite soiree, and very agreeable January 10. — It was the first grand ball of the season to-night at the Tuileries, and we went, with the rest of the world, to see the show. It was, what is rare in such cases, worth the trouble Between three and four thousand persons were collected in the grand halls ; but still there was no crowd, so vast was the space, and so well was the multitude attracted and distributed through the different rooms. Nothing could well be more brilliant than the lighting, nothing more tasteful than the dresses. I have seen more diamonds both in Dresden and in Madrid ; and, indeed, the Duchess of An- glona, to-night, made more show than anybody else, with the dia- monds that, I suppose, I used to see worn by the old Duchess of Ossuna, twenty years ago Having quite accidentally fallen in with Mad. Martinetti, the Count and Countess Baldissero, and the Spanish Ambassador Campuzano, we made one party with them till about one o'clock, when the ladies went in together to supper. We gentlemen stood and saw them pass through, to the number of more than fifteen hundred. It was a beau- tiful sight. After the King and Queen, nobody attracted so much attention as the very picturesque Princess Belgiojoso. But the whole was striking. The supper, which was in the theatre of the palace, was, I am told, both magnificent and tasteful, and ofi'ered a coup * This was during the Canadian insurrection, called the Papineau Rebellion. ^.46.] PRINCESS BELGIOJOSO. 127 cCceil wliich would have satisfied an Oriental fancy ; but though, after the ladies had supped, the gentlemen were admitted, the crowd was 80 dense and the struggle so im^ruly that I would not undertake it. January 12. — This evening I carried Count Balbo to Thierry's, and introduced him to them. Balbo has Avritten a good deal on the early history of modern Europe, and occupied himself with the Com- munes of Italy, so that they had high converse together, which I en- joyed. Thierry was striking in his positions and in their illustration, as he always is. January 13. — I went this evening to the Princess Belgiojoso's. Her house and style of reception are as picturesque as herself, and savor strondv — even to the hot climate she makes in this cold weather — of her Italy. There was much fashion there, and many men of letters : Mignet, Fauriel, Mohl, Quinet, Baron d'Eckstein, etc. I saw, too, for the first time, the Count de Montalembert and his graceful wife, who w*as a Belgian Merode. I was surprised to find the Count, Avho is already so famous by his ultra Catholic and liberal tone, both in the Chamber of Peers and in his WTitings, to be so young a man. He ^vill certainly be much distinguished if he lives, notwith- standing his sort of poetical fanaticism, which accords but ill with his free tone in politics. His conversation is acute, but not remarkable. January 14. — I spent the early part of the evening at the Countess Lipona's, the name under which Madame Murat passes here."* She is a very good-looking, stout person, nearly sixty years old, I suppose, and with lady-like and rather benevolent manners. She lives in good style, but without splendor ; and, like the rest of her family, allows those about her to call her Reine. Prince Musignano was there, and perhaps in the course of an hour twenty people came in, for it was her reception evening ; but the whole, I suppose, was Bonapartist, for I happen to know that those who wish to stand well with Louis Philippe avoid her doors ; a weakness on his part as great as that which, on hers, permits her to be called Queen January 17. — I passed a large part of to-day with H. Ternaux, who was formerly in the United States, since which time he has been in French diplomacy My object was to see his library, which is curious in many respects, especially in old Spanish literature and in early American history. He kept me occupied till dark, in looking at a succession of rarities and curiosities, such as I have not seen before for many a day. * Caroline Bonaparte. Lipona is an anagram of Napoli, her former king- dom. 128 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. January 20. — At Lamartine's this evening, walking up and down his salorij — as is his wont, — he talked a good deal about himself. He said he wrote no poetry till he was twenty- nine years old, prevented, as he thinks, by the fowjue de ses jpassions. He left it again as soon as he obtained diplomatic employment, because he much prefers the business of the state to anything else, and holds it to be a duty higher and more honorable. He liked his place as Minister at Florence very much, and he likes his occupations as DejDuty. In the summer, when in the country, he still writes poetry, and has finished this year a poem of some length ; but he makes everything of the sort to yield to public aflairs. Indeed, he says he regards poetry as the occupation of youth and of old age, each of which has its appropriate tone and vein ; while middle age should be given, as Milton, Dante, and Pe- trarca gave it, to the business of the country and to patriotism. There was, perhaps, a little affectation in this, but not much. His charac- ter seems frank, if not entirely natural. In speaking on politics, he said that he was the first person who urged Thiers to adopt the sys- tem of Spanish intervention, and that it was long before he could persuade him to it ; but that he little imagined Thiers would be so absurd as to make it a cabinet question, when it was one which would need much time to be understood aright even in the Chamber of Deputies, and much more to be comprehended by the nation. I did not think much of his conversation on these points ; it was chiefly an unsuccessful defence of himself, which to me, a stranger, he ought to have known was uninteresting, and, as far as he himself was con- cerned, he ought to have known was unimportant January 27. — From nine to ten this evening I spent with the ven- erable and admirable Marchioness de Pastoret. At first she was quite alone ; afterwards the Duke de Pauzan came in, some of the Crillons, the Choiseuls, etc. She receives in the simplest way, in her bed- chamber ; and this circumstance, with the names of historical import that were successively announced, seemed to carry me back to the days of Louis XIV. at least, if not to those of Henry IV. It was, of course, the purest Carlism ; but if it was nothing else, it was entirely respectable and elevated in its tone. Nothing else can approach Mad. de Pastoret January 28. — In the afternoon we made a yiqH to Mad. Amable Tastu, on the whole the most distinguished of the present female authors of France. She is about five-and-forty years old, I should think, very gentle in her manner, and of an excellent reputation. Her husband has lost his fortune, and not showing energy enough to M. 46.] MAD. AMABLE TASTU. 129 recover it, ^lad. Tastu has for some years supported her family by her pen. Her poems, in three volumes, are the best of her works, and indeed she has not published much else. These are very good of their sort, and sometimes remind me, as she herself does, both in her fortunes and her character, of Mrs. Hemans. She talked well this afternoon, and her French, both in accent and in jihraseology, was particularly beautiful. Her appearance denotes feeble health, and I am told that she works too hard, 'v\Tituig much for the periodicals to earn a subsistence Janiuiry 30. — .... The beginning of the evening I spent at Thierry's. There was no company, and I had a great deal of pleasant talk with him about his occupations, and his projected history of the Mero\'Lngians ; a prodigious work for one broken down with such calamities as he is."^ Afterwards I went to Guizot's, and found a plenty of deputies, the Greek Ambassador, in his costume, and the Baron de Barante, with his beautiful wife, now sjDending the winter in Paris, on leave of absence from St. Petersburg, where he is French Ambassador, t He is much altered since I knew him before ; but still looks well, and talks as becomes the author of the " History of the Dukes of Bur- gundy." As I arrived late, only a portion of the evening's party re- mained, and I was glad of it ; for Guizot's rooms are small, and his friends numerous. January 31. — .... I dined to-day at the Duke de Broglie's ; a dinner made in honor of the Baron de Barante, and the Count de Ste. Aulaire, French Ambassadors at St. Petersburg and Vienna, now here on leave of absence. It was, of course, a little ceremonious, and a good many of the principal Doctrinaires, Guizot, Duchatel, etc., were there. Barante, however, was missing, and was waited for half an hour ; and when we sat down at table it was plain that it was a political dinner ; for, except Eynard of Geneva and myself, every individual was of political note. The whole conversation, too, was in the same tone, and was curious, since it turned, for some time, on the character and prospects of Thiers, whom, I must needs say, they treated with great generosity. Ste. Aulaire has all the acuteness and esprit he used to have ; but he is grown very old, and looks, more than anybody else I have seen here, like a genuine Frenchman of the ancien regime, his hair powdered, and his physiognomy belonging * " Recits des Temps Meroviugiens," 18i0 ; a charming work, made directly from the early chronicles. t See Vol. I. p. 256. 6* I 130 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. ' [1838. to the theatre rather than to real life. After dinner I talked a long time with him about Vienna, Prince Metternich, etc., and found him very amusing. Nothing, however, of his conversation indicates in him the author of the " Histoire de la Fronde," while in de Barante it is quite different. Afterwards Count Montalembert, Tourgueneff, Villemain, and a crowd of other people came in, as it was grande recejJtioiij and I came home February 3. — I divided the evening between the Princess Belgio- joso's and the Duchess de Rauzan's ; both their saloons were full. In both, too, I found Berryer, the leader of the Carlists in the Chamber of Deputies, and their most able agent and defender in France. He talked well. Before I knew who he was, I had a long conversation with him, Mignet, and the Princess, on the present state of the French theatre, and was much struck with his acuteness. But the hours kept at these fashionable places are intolerable February 5. — I dined to-day at Baron De Gerando's, Avith a tolera- bly large party of men of letters, whom he had asked to meet me, or at least he had asked Fauriel and one or two others on my account ; Patin, the Professor of Latin at the College de France, the remiolagant of Villemain ; Droz, of the Academy of Moral Sciences, etc. The talk was, of course, all on literary subjects, and Fauriel was clearly the first spirit at table. In the evening, it being De Gerando's reception evening, a crowd came in ; members of the Institute, peers, deputies, and men of letters in abundance. At ten I went to the de Brosrlies', where I found only Guizot and four or five others, and had a most agreeable time February 6. — This evening I went with Mignet, and was intro- duced at Thiers' house. He lives in a good deal of splendor, with his father-in-law, the banker Dosne, and his rooms to-night were full, chiefly of deputies, among whom, however, I distinguished no con- siderable notability, except Marshal Maison and the Count Montalem- bert, who is of the Chamber of Peers. However, I went only to see Thiers, and looked but little about me. He is a short man, wearing spectacles, a little gray-headed, though hardly above forty years old, and with a very natural and earnest, but somewhat nervous manner. He talked to me for half an hour, wholly about his projected history of Florence to the time of Cosmo de' Medici, and talked with great spirit and knowledge. He intends it as a development of the charac- ter of the Middle Ages, and means to divide it into four parts, viz. Political History, History of the Laws and Constitution, History of the Communs, and History of the Arts and Letters. Thiers, I ought M. 46.] CHAMBER OF PEERS. 131 to add, surpassed even my expectations, in tlie brilliancy as well as the richness of his conversation. February 9. — This evening, at Mad. Mojon's, I found the custom- ary sprinkling of Italians, Academicians, and political personages. Coquerel was there, and I talked wdth him much at large on the religious poUtics of France. He thinks well of the prospects of Protestantism, in which I suppose he may be right ; but he counts much on the Duchess of Orleans, in which, I doubt not, he is \\Tong. Her position will prevent her from favoring Protestantism, even if she should continue to be a Protestant. All, however, agree that tha religious principle makes progress in France, though the external signs of favorable change in this respect are certainly very slight. Afterward, at the Duke de Broglie's, I introduced the same queS' tions. The party was small, but suitable for the subject, and brilliant Tvdth talent, consisting of Duchatel, Lebrun, Duvergier, Guizot, Re- musat, Viel-Castel, Doudan, Villemain, and one or two ladies, besides the Duchess. It was like a rocket thrown on straw. They all spoke at once, and seemed all to have different opinions. At last Guizot and Mad. de Broglie were heard, and they both thought religion is making progress in France, and that it will continue to do so. Sev- eral of those present were Protestants, and expressed their feelings very warmly, to which Villemain and, after him, Guizot spoke with great indignation of the present condition of the stage and of elegant literature. It was very interesting February 10. — The Duke de Broglie said last night that there would be a good debate to-day in the Peers, on the law for Hos- pitals for the Insane, and that he would have good seats for us to hear it. So we went. The room is well arranged for business and discussion The Duke came to us and explained what was going on. The forms are good, except that of speaking from the Tribune, which, however, is not insisted upon here as pedantically as it is in the other house, though stdl the more formal speeches are made from it "We heard, successively, Montalivet, the Minister of the Interior ; the Due de Bassano, so famous under Bonaparte, and now a most venerable, white-headed old gentleman ; La Place, son of the mathematician ; Barthelemy ; Pelet de la Lozere ; Gasparin ; Villemain ; Tascher de la Pagerie, connected by blood with the Bona- partes, and representing their interests ; Girod de I'Ain ; Montalem- bert, the fanatic and Carlist, etc. The discussion was carried on in the most business-like manner, and to practical purpose. Indeed, for these great ends the House of Peers is admirably constituted, 132 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. being filled with men, most of whom have distinguished themselves by business talent among the deputies ; but, unhappily, all being nominated by the King, and holding their places only for life, with a miserable pension, they enjoy, as a body, not the smallest political influence in the state. This is, in truth, a great misfortune, because many of the men, thus neutralized by their advancement, are such as ought to exercise in some way or other the power of the state. In- deed, this state of things is so obvious that such men as Thiers and Guizot cannot be induced to enter the Chamber of Peers. February 13. — I went to-day to see Chateaubriand. He lives in the extreme outskirts of the city, far beyond St. Genevieve, in a sort of savage retirement, receiving few persons, and coming into no soci- ety. He has set up there a sort of hospice, where he supports twelve poor men and twelve poor women, in extreme old age ; not, indeed, out of his own means, but by an annual contribution which he levies every year, far and wide, even in the palace of the abominated Louis Philippe. He received me kindly in his study, which did not seem very comfortable, but which contained a superb copy of a Holy Fam- ily, by Mignard, given to him by the late Duchess de Duras, at whose delightful hotel I used to see him, in 1818 and 1819.^ He is much altered since that time. The wrinkles are sunk deep into his face, and his features are grown very hard ; but he has the same striking and somewhat theatrical air he always had, and which is quite well expressed in the common engraved portraits. He talked of Mad. de Duras wdth feeling, or the affectation of it, and of the days of Louis XVIII. with a little bitterness, and very dogmatically, not concealing the opinion that if his judgment had been more folio w^ed, things would not now have been where they are. His w^ork on the Congress of Verona, now in the press, will, he says, explain many things the world has not known before ; and, from all I have heard, I am dis- posed to think it will create some sensation when it appears, and probably offend — as he has often before offended — some of his best friends. Indeed, in all respects, save his looks, he seemed to me little altered. He asked me, when I came away, to visit him occasion- ally, but made many grimaces about it, and said he was a poor her- mit and pilgrim, who had nothing to offer to a stranger used to the grands salons of Paris. I am something of his mind, and shall hardly go again. On my way home I stopped at the Seminary of St. Sulpice to see one of the priests who is a professor there. I was surprised at the * See Vol. T. pp. 137, etc., and 254, 255. ^.46.] VARIOUS SOCIETY. 133 extent of the establishmentj and the number of e'leves, in their gloomy dresses and with their formal air, who were walking about in the vast corridors. It was, however, all monkish, as much as if it had been in Austria or Rome ; and I could not but feel that it was all out of joint \\'ith the spirit of the times, in France at least. I recollected our conversation at de Broglie's the other evening, and could not but think, if the Catholic religion requires for its support such establish- ments as this, it can hardly be suited to France, or likely to make progress there. February 14. — Di^dded a long evening between Thierry and the de Broglies. Poor Thierry was in bed, suffering more than usual ; but two or three friends were with him, and he showed how com- pletely his spirits and animation are indomitable. At de Broglie's all was as brilliant as luxury, rank, and talent could make it. The contrast was striking, and not -without its obvious meaning ; yet both were interesting, and I enjoyed both. February 15. — A formal, luxurious, splendid dinner at Ternaux's, where were Jaubert, the eloquent and witty Doctrinaire leader ; Jouf- froy, the popular, liberal professor ; Jomard, whose modesty and learn- ing I admire more the oftener I see him ; Santarem, a Portuguese nobleman, of the rare scholarship which is sometimes, though very seldom, found in his nation ; and several others. I talked much with Santarem, and wish I were likely to see more of him, for he is a very extraordinary person ; but he leaves Paris in a few days. February 17. — We spent the evening at the Delesserts', where we met Eynard, the mover of the Greek affairs, and his winning wife ; Temaux and his wife ; Guizot ; and a few more. It is a magnificent establishment, in the style of Louis XIV., and the conservatory, mak- ing a sort of additional saloon, is, when lighted up in the evening, extremely beautiful. About half a dozen of the pictures, too, are of high merit ; and the grave, dignified old Baron seems in good keep- ing with the whole. They are, too, aU good, kind, and true people, and you feel that you are well when you are there ; a feeling by no means universal in the brilliant saloons of Paris. February 18. — I went to Thiers' to-night before ten o'clock, intend- ing to stay only half an hour, and then make some other visits ; but I was tempted by the brilliancy of the ex-minister's conversation, and remained till after midnight. There were only three or four persons present ; but among them was General Bugeaud, who lately com- manded in Africa, and Jusuf, in his Arab costume, who has made such a figure latelv bv a sort of romantic atrocities on the Alcferine 134 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. frontier, — one of the most picturesque creatures I ever looked upon. The political embarrassments of the Ministry, involving the African affairs, and leading Thiers to the hope of returning to power, gave piquancy to some parts of the conversation. Thiers did not conceal his full consciousness of his position, and Bugeaud did not conceal his desire to have certain things done in Africa if Thiers should come in Minister, while between the two Jusuf cut up and down like a true Arab, until at last Bugeaud became so vexed with him, that he said rather pettishly, " If you go on in this way, Jusuf, you will end by having your handsome head cut off." The point was, whether the occupation of Africa should be merely military and desolating, or whether it should be conciliating and agricultural ; Bugeaud being for the first, and Jusuf for the last. Both showed great adroitness, but both got angry, and so Thiers obtained the advantage of both, and, as he always does, used them both for his own purposes. He was at times very brilliant and eloquent, especially when showing the effect of a military desolation of Northern Africa. February 19. — Mad. de Pastoret had a grande reception this even- ing, with the ancien regime about her. I alluded to it, but she said : " No, we are not in favor ; we have our old friends only about us." At that time there were some of the greatest names in French history before her ; Crillon, Bethune, and Montmorency. I told her I was going to Mad. de Broglie's, and she spoke of her with great affection and regard, but said their different views of religion and politics kept them quite asunder. She said she knew Mad. de Stael well at one period, but I think the same causes prevented her from ever see- ing much more of the mother than of the daughter. February 23. — Mrs. Fry — the famous Mrs. Fry — has been here a few days, with her husband and a " friend Josiah," and has excited some sensation. Her object is to have something done about the French prisons, which are no doubt bad enough ; . . . . and though she will, I think, bring nothing to pass, she produces the same sort of impression of her goodness here that she does everjnvhere. We were invited to meet her this evening at the de Broglies'. There were few persons there, the Ste. Aulaires, Guizot, Portalis, Pasquier, Villemain, Eynard ; in short, the small coterie, with Barante and two or three others She is quite stout, very fair, with not a wrinkle in her placid countenance, and a full, rich blue eye, beam- ing with goodness. She expressed her opinions without reserve, and, whether those about her agreed with her or not, nobody opposed her. She had the air of feeling that she was charged with a mission, but M. 46.] children's BALL. 135 was not offensive or obtrusive ; liked to listen, and was pleased with what she heard Mad. de Broglie sympathized fully with her religious feelings, and spoke of her to me after she was gone, with deep sensibility, and a sort of despair of seeing her spirit prevail in France. But Portalis, the President of the great Court of Appeals, and Guizot, the practical politician, comprehended her, as I thought, very little February 24. — The Queen gave a ball to-night to the children of those who have the entree, to which no other persons but their parents were admitted ; and I cannot help thinking it was one of the most beautiful sights that can be seen in the world. I am sure I never saw anything of the kind so beautiful. It began early, about eight o'clock, and by nine o'clock full five hundred beautifully dressed children, between four and sixteen years old, as bright and happy as such a scene would naturally make them, with about a thousand other persons, including the whole Court and the ministers, were col- lected in those magnificent halls, where there was abundance of room for everybody to see and enjoy the fairy -like show. There was no etiquette. The King, the Queen, and the rest of the royal family, including the very graceful Duchess of Orleans, moved about the rooms without ceremony ; and the children, often ignorant who ad- dressed them, talked to them wdth the simplicity and directness of their years. One little girl of five years old complained to the King that her shoes pinched her dreadfully, and asked him what she should do ; and another said she had not had a good time, for her partners had been disagreeable Yet even in so bright a scene, care and business could intrude. I saw the King once talk half an hour with two of his ministers, with as anxious a look as I ever beheld. This, however, was an exception to the tone of the evening, which was as light-hearted as possible. At about eleven the supper-rooms were opened, and the children were all seated ; while the Queen and the Court walked round and served them, and saw that they were pleas- antly and comfortably attended to in all respects February 26. — There is great trouble in the government, and it seems to be doubtful whether the Ministry can keep their places. In order to see the signs of the times a little more nearlv and accuratelv, I went this evening to the three houses where they can be best con- sidered, and found the experiment amusing. First, at Count Mole's, the Hotel des Affaires Etrangeres, I found the magnificent official salons almost deserted. Whenever I have been there before, I have found crowds of deputies ; but to-night, when I asked Count dAp- 136 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. pony if their number was not uncommonly small, he said that in the course of the half-hour he had been there he had seen but four ar- rive ; and the wary, smooth politician did not conceal the pleasure it gave him. Count Mole looked more sallow than ever, was awkward and em- barrassed, and talked to me some time, which he has not done before since the first evening I was there, and which he did to-night only because I am a perfectly neutral person, to whom his conversation, could not be misinterpreted to mean anything whatsoever. The for- eign ministers were chiefly there, watching carefully, like spies, and some of them showing that they were amused, more than I thought it quite polite they should. After staying till it was plain the company would not increase, I drove to Guizot's. The first thing I noticed was, that all access was thronged. It was some time before I could draw up to the door and be set down, and when I got in I could hardly see who was there for the crowd. Barante was much excited. His place as Ambassador at St. Petersburg is safe with Mole, of course, but he would like to have Guizot come in, and especially de Broglie, and he would like, too, to come in himself, which is just within the range of possibilities. Lamartine was more moved than usual, but he overrates his political consequence ; though, being the real leader of a few in the Chamber, he has certainly some power, now that the three or four parties in the Chamber are so evenly balanced. Jaubert, Dnchatel, Duvergier, and the rest of the clique were very active ; and though Guizot was as dig- nified as ever, there was a rigidity in his features that showed how much he was excited. He was frequently called aside, and whispered to mysteriously, as were several others of the leaders. Among those that were the most busy was the Due Decazes, who must feel his position a curious one on such an occasion, having been so long the minister and favorite of Louis XVIII., and now playing a part so eager, and yet so inferior. The whole scene was striking, and was a striking contrast to the quietness of the Hotel des Affaires Etran- geres. Just so it was at Thiers'. The Place St. George, on which he lives, was full of carriages, and though I arrived late, the crowd was still coming. The ex-minister was in excellent spirits, and all about him seemed so too. Arago, Marshal Maison, Mignet, Odillon-Barrot, and the rest of the leaders of the party were more gay than the correspond- ing personages whom I had just left at Guizot's. Thiers himself talked vrith everybody, and seemed pleased with everybody, even M. 46.] BARON DELESSERT. 137 with Count Montalembert, and some of the Carlists, who came there I hardly know how. He bustled about, perhaps, a little too much for his dignity ; but I think he knew his men and his vocation per- fectly, and when I came away, between twelve and one o'clock, he seemed quite unwearied. February 28. — I spent the greater part of the evening at Thierry's very agreeably. He takes a great interest in the movement of the French in Canada. " Ces noms Frangais," he said to-night, " me vont au ccEur ! " He is unlike his countrymen in many respects, but this is genuinely and completely French. He cannot endure the disgrace and defeat of men who bear such names. The last of the evening I went to Lamartine's, but the atmosphere was altogether political. It is a pity. He is not a great poet, cer- tainly, but he ought not to be absurd enough to fancy himself a poli- tician. March 3. — .... I dined to-day at Baron Delessert's. The party was not large, but among them was De Metz, the Judge of their Upper Court, who has been lately to the United States, at his own expense, merely to see our prisons, and printed a book about them since his return ; Guizot ; Remusat ; and two or three other depu- ties. Mad. Frangois Delessert pleases me more the more I see of her, and the old Baron, with his uprightness, his solid wealth, his science and politics, is quite an admirable person. He reminds me of " the old courtier of the queen, and the queen's old courtier," * so completely has he the air of belonging to the best of the old times. But I talked chiefly to-day with De Metz, who is full of intelli- gence and talent, and one of those able, sound, conscientious magis- trates of whom any country may be proud. Like Tocqueville, Julius, and Crawfurd, he returns having changed his opinion about solitary confinement, and now thinks the Philadelphia system preferable to the Auburn. Between nine and ten I took Guizot in my carriage to Mad. de Broglie's, where we had, en tres petit comity, a very gay and brilliant talk, partly political and partly literary, in which the generally de- graded tone of French letters at the present time was not spared. On my way home I stopped at the Duchess de Rauzan's, where there were heaps of Carlists, the Bethunes, the Crillons, the Cir- courts. Count Bastard, .... and among the rest Jusuf, with his picturesque costume, and that sort of spare Arab beauty which Scott * From a song given in " Percy Reliques " as from the Pepys collection. 138 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. has given to Saladin in the Crusaders Berryer was there, and brilliant. March 4. — .... I was tired in the evening, but went to Thiers', where, with a few other distinguished persons, chiefly politicians, I met Cousin, Villemain, and Mignet, and had a very agreeable talk. Cousm, however, I like as little as any man of letters I have seen. He has a falsetto, and a pretension with his vanity, that takes away much of the pleasure his talent and earnestness would give March 6. — We went this morning with Count Circourt, and passed some hours in looking over the materials, and, as far as finished, the extraordinary work of Count Bastard, on the Arts of Design, from the fourth to the sixteenth century ; the most splendid work of the kind that was ever issued from the press He has succeeded, thus far, admirably. But the amount of labor and money it has cost him is truly enormous. He has been obliged to have his paper made of linen cambric, in order that it might not in- jure the colors laid on it ; he has been obliged to have all his colors specially made to suit his purpose, and he has been obliged to employ miniature painters of high merit to execute the designs, after the slight engraved outline has been struck off. In this way his own private fortune, which was large, was soon absorbed ; Louis XVIII. and Charles X. gave him two million six hundred thousand francs ; and when Thiers was Minister he took up the project with great zeal, and appropriated half a million a year for five years to it. Nine numbers are abeady prepared, and the whole number is to be forty-two ; and each contains five or six plates I must needs say, I never thought art could go so far. The imitation was absolute, and when an old Missal was put beside its copy, it seemed hardly possible to distinguish."'*" .... March 9. — .... We made a hard forenoon's work of it this morning, in the Annual Exhibition of living artists ; in the new col- lection of pictures the King has just caused to be brought from Spain ; and in the collection of original drawings by the old masters In the evening I went to Mad. Mqjon's, where, besides such persons as I commonly have met there, I found Tommaseo, the author of the " Duca d'Atene." He is quite young still, and seemed full of feeling and talent. I talked with him a good deal, and, among other things, he told me he was employed on a work on the Philosophy of History. * This great undertaking remained incomplete. Twenty numbers were pub- lished, at the price of 1,800 francs each ; but in the later ones the work was negligent, and, government aid being withdrawn, the enterprise dropped. ^.46.] LEAVING PARIS. 139 I should not have thought his talent lay that way, for the " Duca d'Atene " is a picturesque book, showing history through the imagi- nation ; but we shall see.* March 10. — I made some visits of ceremony to take leave, and in the evening went to Mad. de Pastoret's, whom I found almost alone, and had some very agreeable talk with her. She is the only true rep- resentative I know of the old monarchy, and would be a most respect- able one of any period of any nation's history Our friends the Arconatis are come to Paris, and it gave us great pleasure to-day to have a visit from them and Count Arrivabene. Mad. Arconati is certainly one of the most distinguished women I have known, distinguished alike for her talent, and for her delightful, gentle, lady-like qualities of all kinds. March 13. — To-day we made many visits, and did a great deal of packing. We received, too, several visits, among the rest a long one from the Circourts, two of the most gifted and admirable persons we have kno"\vn during our absence In the evening I went to Thiers' and Guizot's, that I might finish my impressions of French society by its appearance in the two salons in Paris whose political consequence is the most grave, whose aveniTy as the French call it, is the most brilliant. Both the great statesmen parted from me with much kindness of manner, and multitudinous expressions of good-will, a little of it French, but some of it serious and certain, especially in Guizot's case. I went, too, for a moment to the de Brocrlies'. Mad. de Broglie was not at home, but had left word for us to come to see her at her daughter's March 14. — More bidding good by ; sad work ! The saddest was with the de Broglies We stayed, of course, only a short time, and when we came away. Mad. de Broglie followed us to the head of the stairs, and saying to me, " Nous sommes amis depuis \dngt ans," embraced me after the French fashion, adding, " Si je ne vous revois pas dans ce monde, je vous reverrai en ciel." t As in relation to other cities, Mr. Ticknor on leaving Paris * Tommaseo was associated with Manin in the revolution at Venice, in 1848. t Mad. de Broglie died suddenly in September following, of brain fever. M. Guizot, when mentioning her death, calls her "I'une des plus nobles, des plus rares, et des plus charmantes creatures que j'ai vuapparaitre en ce monde, et de qui je dirai ce que Saint Simon dit du Duo de Bourgogne, en deplorant sa perte, ' Plaise a la misericorde de Dieu que je la voie eternellement, ou sa bonte sans doute I'a mise.' " Memoires, etc., de men Temps, Vol. IV. p. 259. 140 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. devoted several pages of his Journal to remarks on the public institutions, and the changes he observed since his last visit there. "We give one or two passages. Speaking of the theatres, he says : — The tone is decidedly lower, more unmoral, worse than it was twenty years ago ; and when it is recollected how much influence the drama exercises in France on public opinion, it becomes an im- portant fact in regard to the moral state of the capital and country. The old French drama, and especially the comedy, from MoHere's time downwards, contained often gross and indelicate phrases and allusions, but the tone of the pieces, as a whole, was generally re- spectable. The recent theatre reverses all this. It contains hardly any indecorous phrases or allusions, but its whole tone is highly im- moral. I have not yet seen one piece that is to be considered an exception to this remark. The popular literature of the time, too, is in the same tone. Victor Hugo, Balzac, the shameless woman who dresses like a man and calls herself George Sand, Paul de Kock, and I know not how many more, belong to this category, and are daily working mischief throughout those portions of society to whom they address themselves. How is this to be explained 1 Is it that the middling class of society, that fills the smaller theatres and reads the romances of the popular writers, is growing corrupt ; that the progress of wealth, and even of education, has opened doors to vice as well as to improvement ? I fear so At any rate, I know nothing that more truly deserves the reproach of being immoral and demorahzing than the theatres of Paris, and the popular literature of the day. It is all much worse than it was twenty years ago. Society, so far as it has changed at all, has changed by becoming more extensive, and more political in its tone. The number of those who go into the higher salons is much increased, and especially in those that are purely poHtical, like Mole's, Guizofs, Thiers', etc., and the numbers that resort to each fluctuate disgracefully, exactly accord- ing to the poHtical position of the host. It was quite ridiculous to see how this principle operated once or twice this winter, when the Ministry were supposed to stand insecurely. But in all the salons it is perceptible. Even the Tuileries is not an exception. Party Unes decide who shall and who shall not go there. Carlists, of course, are never seen. Deputies in citizens' dresses and black coats go only to show that they are in the opposition ; and many a Bonapartist cannot or will not be seen there, though the King himself treats M. 46.] VIEW OF FRENCH SOCIETY. 141 them kindly enough as a party, and even permits Mad. Murat to live in Paris for the prosecution of claims against the government, and lately received Prince Musignano with a sort of distinction which he [Musignano] boasted of more than once to me I went to about twenty, or, occasionally, five-and-twenty of the principal salons, and they were all infected with the different shades of the political parties that now divide France ; a state of things much worse for society, as well as for the practical administration of government, than if there were but two great divisions running through the whole Now here are five different sets, and though it was possible to escape from them all, and go to the lit- erary and philosophical salons of Lamartine, De Gerando, Jomard, Jouy, and some others, yet it is a chance if you would not, after all, ^ even there, fall into the midst of political disputes between some of xJ^ those who, even on this neutral ground, could not help the ascend- ^^ ancy of the partisanship that governs them everywhere else. The Diplomacy — except at Lord Granville's, which was always flooded with English, and at General Cass's, which was nothing but stupid — had no open salons this winter The effect of the whole of this is, that the society of Paris is less elegant than it used to be. Its numbers are greater and its tone lower, and politics are heard everywhere above everything else Everything in France, its government, its society, its arts, the modes of Hfe, literature, and the morals and religion of the country, are in a transition state. Nothing is settled there. Nothing, I think, is likely to be in our time. To WiLLiAii H. Prescott, Boston. Paris, February 20, 1838. .... I have no time to write you, as I should be glad to, about ourselves. We have made a genuine Parisian winter of it, and are not at aU sorry that it is drawing to a close. For two months I have been so much in society that it has, at last, fairly wearied me, and I am obliged to stop a little. Anna, who Hkes the salons less than I do, goes out less ; but enough to see all the forms in which, from the politics or the taste of the people, they appear One thing strikes me in all these places. I find no English. Though there are thirty thousand now in Paris, they can hardly get any foothold in French society, and it is only when you are at a great ball — at Court or elsewhere — that you meet them. These balls are 142 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. separate tilings, entirely, from the proper French, society. We have been to few of them, and found them very splendid, very crowded, and very tiresome ; so much of the last that we were guilty, only last night, of neglecting an invitation to the palace, where we should have met above three thousand people ! At the Austrian Ambassa- dor's, a little while ago, we met two thousand. But though such crowds go, and though the balls at the palace are more splendid than anything of the sort I have seen in Europe, I have never yet found a single person who would say they were agreeable. So perverse is fashion, and so severe in its sway. One more place I must add, separate from all the rest ; the neat and quiet salon of Thierry, the historian of the Norman Conquest, long since totally blind, and, from a ten-years' paralysis of his lower limbs, incapable of motion, but with his faculties as active and his habits of labor as efficient as they ever were. He is now the person, relied on. by the government as head of a commission to collect all manuscripts relating to the history of the cities and of the tiers etat in France ; besides which he is writing, himself, a history of the Merovingian dynasty. I have passed several most agreeable even- ings with him, — one last week, when he was so ill as to be in bed, but still directing two or three young men about the great work of collecting the manuscripts. He is a wonderful man, and his let- ters on French history, and other small works published within ten years, give no token of his infirmities, over which his spirit seems completely to triumph. As the time draws near for leaving this exciting, but wearing state of society, we feel more and more impatient to get home. I hope we shall be able to embark before midsummer, so as to get a good pas- sage, and see you all the sooner. Love to alL We are all quite well ; but I am grievously pushed for time. G. T. To William H. Prescott, Boston. Paris, March 5, 1838. My dear William, — I send you a single line by this packet, to let you know that three days ago I received from Bentley the six copies of your "Ferdinand and Isabella." One I sent instantly to Julius,* by Treuttel and Wiirtz, his booksellers here, as he desired ; one to Von Raumer by a similar conveyance, with a request to him * Dr. Julius, of Hamburg, a scholar and philanthropist, had been in the United States in 1834-35. ^46.] "FERDINAND AND ISABELLA." 143 to review it ; one to Guizot, whose acknowledgment I received the same evening, at de Broglie's, "wdth much admiration of a few pages he had read, and followed by a note this morning, which I will keep for you ; one to Count Circourt, who will write a review of it, and of whom Thierry said to me the other night, " If Circourt would but choose some obscure portion of history, between a. d. 500 and 1600, and write upon it, he would leave us all behind " ; one to Fauriel, the very best scholar in Spanish literature and Spanish his- tory alive, as I believe, and one of the ablest men, as a general scholar, I know of anywhere, whom I have also asked to notice it, or cause it to be noticed under his superintendence ; and the other copy, keep- ing for myself, I have lent to Walsh. Moreover, in a few days I expect to have Shattuck's American copy, .... for a gentleman named Doudan, attached to the household of the Duke de Broglie ; a man of first-rate qualities of esprit, who writes occasionally most beau- tiful articles for the " Eevue Frangaise," who promises me to render there an account of your book In a fortnight we hope to be there [in London], nothing loath to quit Paris, which fatigues me by its bad hours and exciting society I am impatient to get to London, and still more impatient to get home. I am wearied of Europe, as I am of Paris. 144 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. CHAPTEK VIII. London. — Henry Nelson Coleridge. — Hallam. — Elizabeth Barrett. — Lockhart. — Jeffrey. — Sir Edmund Head. — Story of Canning. — Story of the Duke of Sussex. — Milman. — Elphinstone. — Cam- bridge. — TFhewell. — Sedgwick — Smyth. — Journey North. JOURNAL. March 19. — We had a very good passage across the Channel Notwithstanding a little regret at leaving the picturesque old Con- tinent, and a good deal of regret at leaving a few friends, and the easy society of the salons at Paris, I was well pleased to set my feet once more on British earth A letter from Kenyon inviting us to dine with him next Saturday, and one we received, just as we were packing up in Paris, from Lord Fitzwilliam, asking us to pass a week or fortnight at Milton, made us feel welcome on the kindred soil, and reminded us anew how far-reaching is English hospitality. March 20. — From Dover to Rochester. English posting is cer- tainly very comfortable. The four fine horses we had, with two neat postilions, going always with a solidity that makes the speed less per- ceptible, contrasted strongly with the ragged beasts of all kinds to which we had been for three years accustomed London, March 23. — We had a good many visits to-day, .... but the only person that came, whom I was curious to see as a stranger, was Henry Nelson Coleridge. He must still be under forty, I think, but his hair is quite white, and the contrast this forms with his rich black eyes, and no less black eyebrows and whiskers, gives him quite a picturesque and original look. His manner is a little shy and embarrassed, and the tones of his voice are very mild and concili- ating, so that the first impression he makes is pleasing. His conver- sation fully sustains this impression. He talks well and agreeably, but not brilliantly. What I chiefly asked him about, was the publi- cation of his uncle's works, but the details he had to give me were not very curious. March 24. — I had a long visit this morning from Hallam, whom I ^,46.] MK. HALLAM. 145 never saw before, because he was not in London, either in 1819 or 1835, when I was here. It gratified me very much. He is such a man as I should have desired to find him ; a little sensitive and ner- vous, perhaps, but dignified, quiet, and wishing to please. Before he came, he had taken pains to ascertain that there was a vacant place at the Athenaeimi Club, where only twelve strangers are permitted at a time, and offered it to me ; but though this was quite an agreeable distinction, I declined it, since, being here with my family, I care nothmg about the club houses. But this is good EngUsh hospitality, and a fair specimen of it. Mr. Hallam is, I suppose, about sixty years old, gray-headed, hesi- tates a little in his speech, is lame, and ha^ a shy manner, which makes him blush, frequently, when he expresses as decided an opinion as his temperament constantly leads him to entertain. Except his lameness, he has a fine, dignified person, and talked pleasantly, with that air of kindness which is always so welcome to a stranger. March 25. — .... After we came home [from church] Senior came in,* and was as lively, spirited, and active as ever, and full of projects for our convenience and pleasure. Rogers followed him, and talked in his quiet way about all sorts of things and people, showing sometimes a little sub-acid. It has always been said he will leave memoirs behind him. I hope he will, for who can write anything of the sort that would be so amusing ? . . . . Before he left us Lord Lans- downe came in, and stayed above an hour He talked well. He seems to be something worried and annoyed by our bad behavior on the frontiers of Canada, and spoke a little wdth the air of a minis- ter of state, when he came upon this delicate subject. Of the condition of France, politically considered, he spoke wisely, and was curious to hear what I could tell him, adding that he had kno^vn, from 1814, the relations of the two governments, and that, excepting when the Duke de Broglie was Premier, they had never felt, in England, that they could depend implicitly on the representations of the French govern- ment ; an honorable testimony from one upright minister to another, which was creditable to both. March 26. — We had visits this morning from Taylor, — Philip Van Artevelde, — Southey, — who is just come to town for a short visit, — Dr. Holland, and the admirable old Professor Sm}i;h, which were all as pleasant as morning visits well could be. "We dined again at Kenyon's, who wanted us to meet a Dr. Raymond, one of the high dignitaries of the Church, attached to the Durham Cathedral ; a person * Nassau W. Senior. VOL. II. 7 J U6 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. whom I found a little precise in liis manners, but more of a scholar in modern elegant literature than Englishmen of his class commonly are, and a very well-bred gentleman. His sister was there too, and so was a Miss Barrett, who has distinguished herself by a good poetical trans- lation of the " Prometheus Vinctus " of ^schylus.* The dinner was very agreeable ; indeed, Kenyon always makes his house so, from his own qualities March 27. — A very busy day. As soon as breakfast was over we had a long visit from the delightful old Professor Smyth, which was followed by visits from H. C. Kobinson and two or three other per- sons. These were not fairly over before Kenyon came to take us to the club houses, the Athenaeum, the University, the Travellers', and the United Service of the Army and Navy. These are the four most splendid of these recent inventions, groAving out of the increasing lux- ury and selfishness of the present state of society in London. I do not know that anything can be more complete. The Athenaeum is the most literary, and there we found Hallam, reading in its very good library, which owes much to his care It was beautiful weather, and we took a drive in Hyde Park, wherq we met the Queen on horseback She looked gay, but has grown quite stout since I saw her at York. After a walk in Kensington Gardens, which was quite delightful in this warm spring day, .... I made a most agreeable ^dsit to Sydney Smith, who now finds himself so well off, — thanks to the Whigs whom he is abusing in his pamphlets, — that he has rented a small house in town, where he spends a few months while he takes his turn as Canon of St. Paul's. He was very kind and very droll to-day March 28. — Another long, laborious London day. The morning was given to business, visiting, and receiving visits. Sydney Smith returned my yesterday's call, and talked for an hour in the most amus- ing manner, at the end of which he said, taking up his hat, " And now I '11 go and pray for you " ; for he was going to some service at St. Paul's. We dined vnth the s, .... but we did not stay late, for we were engaged at Lansdowne House, where we found a very select party, made in honor of the Duchess of Gloucester, daughter of George III. .... All the Ministry were there, .... the Duke of Cambridge, the foreign ministers. Lord Jeffrey, — just come to town, — Lord and Lady Holland, the last of whom is rarely seen anywhere, except at home, etc Lord Durham is a little, dark-complexioned, red- * Mrs. Browning. M. 46.] LONDON SOCIETY. 147 faced -looking gentleman, who was not very much, sought, though his position is now so high ; Poulett Thompson talked very well, but looked too foppish ; Lady Holland was very gracious, or intended to be so ; and Lord Holland was truly kind and agreeable We, of course, were obliged to stay late, and I was willing to do so, for I had a great deal of pleasant talk. But though we did not leave the party till nearly one o'clock, several persons were announced as arriv- ing while we were waiting for our carriage. March 29. — .... We were out at Senior's — a mile beyond Hyde Park Comer — to breakfast, by half past ten o'clock, Chad- wick was there, the Secretary of the Poor Laws Commission, and said to know more than any man in England about the great subjects of pauperism and popular education. Lord Shelbume, too, was of the party, and two or three other persons. The talk was a good deal political in its tone, including such subjects as Rowland Hill's plan for a post-office reform, the state of the manufacturing population, etc. Chadwick seemed very acute, and I had a long talk with him, because we brought him home with us. From what he said, and from what I have seen and heard elsewhere, I am persuaded that the nature, the wants, and the means of popular education are little understood here, in practice at least. Among some other places I went to afterwards was John Murray's, — the publisher's, — where I fell in with Lockhart, with whom I have exchanged cards this week, but whom I had not seen. He is the same man he always was and always will be, with the coldest and most dis- agreeable manners I have ever seen. I wanted to talk with him about Prescott's " Ferdinand and Isabella," and by a sort of violence done to myself, as well as to him, I did so. He said he had seen it, but had heard no opinion about it. I gave him one with little ceremony, which I dare say he thought was not worth a button ; but I did it in a sort of tone of defiance, to which Lockhart's manners irresistibly impelled me, and which I dare say was as judicious with him as any other tone, though I am sure it quite astonished Murray, who looked .... as if he did not quite comprehend what I was saying. We dined at Mrs. Villiers',* and had a very delightful little party; .... we were only nine in all, just Horace Walpole's number for a dinner Lord Jeffrey talked all the time, and extremely well. He admires Mrs. Lister very much for her \dvacity, talent, and beauty, and made himself as agreeable as he could to her ; and cer- * Mother of Lord Clarendon, of Edward Villiers, and_ot-Mrs. — afterwards Lady Theresa — Lister. See Vol. I. pp. 407, 418. 148 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. tainly lie was very agreeable. The superciliousness lie showed when he was in America, and the quiet coldness I used to witness in him sometimes in Edinburgh, in 1819, were not at all perceptible to-day. He was very lively, and yet showed more sense than wit. We talked a good deal about the late atrocious duel of Cilley at Washington ; about his recollections of the United States, apropos of which he gave a very humorous account of his own wedding, and of a dinner at President Madison's ; about the elder days of the " Edinburgh Re- view" ; and about the present state of society at Edinburgh, which he represents as much less brilliant than it was when I was there for- merly. After the ladies were gone we talked about what is now a much- vexed question, in relation to Scotland, — how far the government is bound to provide religious instruction for the poor. Jeffrey said he had been to see Lord Melbourne about it, and took a party view of the matter altogether, as I thought. I maintained that the soil should provide all instruction that is necessary to preserve the order and purity of society for all that live upon it ; and I think I had much the best of the argument, drawn from our New England institutions and the Boston Ministry for the Poor. At any rate, I carried Lister and Edward Villiers with me against Jeffrey, who admitted almost everything but its political expediency in Scotland March 30. — Made a long visit to Hallam this morning, whom I found in his study, — a very comfortable room in the back part of his house, well filled with books, some of which were rare. He talked well, and among other things I asked him about the universities, knowing that his relations to them are somewhat peculiar, as he was educated at Oxford, and sent his son to Cambridge, where he much distinguished himself at Trinity. His replies were such as I anticipated, very cold as far as concerns Oxford, on which he has thus decidedly turned his back, but less favorable to either than I supposed they would be. But he is a wise man, a little nervous in his manner and a little fidgety, yet of a sound and quiet judgment. His objection to the English universities, which he expressed strongly, was, that, with such great resources of property and talent, they yet effect so little. Hallam's establishment is not a showy one, but it is rich and respectable We dined at Edward Villiers', where we met old Mrs. Villiers, Mrs. Trotter, — another of the Ravensworths,"* — Bouverie, the son * Mrs. Edward Villiers was a daxighter of Lord Ravensworth. M 46.] SIR EDMUND HEAD. 149 of Lord Radnor, Sir Edmund Head,* — a remote cousin of Sir Fran- cis, — Stephenson the great engineer, and one or two others. It was agreeable, but I took most to Sir E. Head, a man of about thirty- five, who has much pleasant literary knowledge, and who has been in Spain and studied its literature. Stephenson showed genius in his conversation, and altogether we were enticed to stay late. April 1. — A delightful breakfast at Kenyon's. Southey and his son were there ; Chorley, the biographer of Mrs. Hemans, and much given to music ; and two or three others. Southey, who is in town for two or three days, is grown older since I saw him three years ago at Keswick, more than those years imply. The death of his wife, .... which might have been thought a relief to his sufferings on her ac- count, has yet proved an addition to them, and he has now all the appearance of a saddened and even a broken man. Still, he talked well this morning, — though in a voice lower than ever, — and was once warmed when speaking of Wordsworth, for whom his admiration seems all but boundless. Coleridge (H. N.) says he is weary of life, and certainly he has all the appearance of it. I made, too, this morning, a pleasant visit to the kind old Professor Smyth, of Cambridge, .... and arranged with him to be in Cam- bridge on the 14th (Easter), to pass a couple of days there ; and then went to Sir Francis Doyle's, whom I found much changed, by severe and long-continued disease, but still with the same distingue, gentle- manlike air he had when I knew him three years ago. I dined with Bates, the banker. Van De Weyer,t the Belgian Min- ister, was there, — an acute and pleasant person, talking English al- most perfectly well, — and Murray, formerly secretary to Lord Lynd- hurst, and now the Secretary of the great Ecclesiastical Commission, — a very good scholar and a very thorough Tory, who talks with some brilliancy and effect. In the evening I had an engagement to go to Lord Holland's, who is now passing a few days at his luxurious establishment in South Street. I found there Lord Albemarle, Pozzo di Borgo, Lord Mel- bourne, the Sardinian Minister, Young Ellice and his beautiful, high- bred wife, Allen, and some others. Pozzo di Borgo was brilliant, and Lady Holland disagreeahle. Lord Holland talked about Prescotfs " Ferdinand and Isabella," as did John Allen, and gave it high praise ; Allen pronouncing the chapters on the " Constitutions of Castile and * Twenty years later this acquaintance between Sir E. Head and Mr. Ticknor grew to an intimate friendship. This was their first meeting. t Soon afterwards Mr. Bates's son-in-law. 150 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. Arragon " — paiticularly the last — to be better than the correspond- ing discussions in Hallam's "Middle Ages." This I regard as de- cisive. No man alive is better authority on such a point than Allen. Southey, too, this morning, was equally decided, though he was not 80 strong, and did not go so much into detail. Lord Albemarle, Lord Holland, and Allen talked about Dr. Channing; and Lord Holland said he regarded him as the best writer of English alive. So we are getting on in the world. Such things could not have been heard in such saloons when I was here twenty years ago. April 2. — Breakfasted with Sydney Smith, where we had only Hallam and Tytler, the Scotch historian ; just a partie carr^e, of the first sort. The conversation, at one time during the breakfast, was extraordinary. It fell on the influence of the aristocracy in England, on the social relations, and especially on the characters of men of let- ters. To my considerable surprise, both Hallam and Smith, who have been to a singular degree petted and sought by the aristocracy, pronounced its influence noxious. They even spoke with great force and almost bitterness on the point. Smith declared that he had fomid the influence of the aristocracy, in his own case, " oppressive," but added, " However, I never failed, I think, to speak my mind before any of them ; I hardened myself early." Hallam agreed with him, and both talked with a concentrated force that showed how deeply they felt about it. In some respects, the conversation was one of the most remarkable I have ever heard ; and, as a testimony against aris- tocracy, on the point where aristocracy might be expected to work the most favorably, surprised me very much. Speaking of the " Edinburgh Review," IVIr. Smith said that it was begun by Jefirey, Horner, and himself ; that he was the first editor of it, and that they were originally unwilling to give Brougham any direct influence over it, because he was so violent and unmanageable. After he — Smith — left Edinburgh, Jeffrey became the editor ; " but," said Smith, " I never would be a contributor on the common business footing. When I wrote an article, I used to send it to Jeffrey, and waited till it came out ; immediately after which I enclosed to him a bill, in these words, or words like them : ' Francis Jeffrey, Esq., to Rev. Sydney Smith, — To a very wise and witty article, on such a subject, so many sheets, at forty-five guineas a sheet.' And the money always came. I never worked for less." Hallam told a droll story about Canning's occasional unwillingness to devote himself to business. The principal person in the manage- ment of Indian affairs — who related the fact to Hallam — had occa- M. 46. J LANSDOWXE HOUSE. 151 sion once to press Mr. Canning, as Premier, for several weeks, to look over and determine some matters quite important to the condition of India. The business was disagreeable, and Canning disliked to touch it, though the delay was becoming iajurious to the service. At last, much uro-ed, he promised to come to the proper office, on a certain evenino", and finish the business. He came, but said he hated the whole thing ; that he had come only because he had given his word ; and then, turning suddenly on the Secretary, " Now, if you will let me off from this business to-night, I -will treat you to Astley's." The Secretary saw it was idle to do, or to attempt to do, anything like serious work with the Premier while in such a humor, and accepted the imdtation to the amphitheatre, leaving India to suffer till Can- ning's sense of duty should make him industrious. After the singular conversation about the influence of the aristoc- racy this morning, it seemed somewhat odd, at dinner-time, in that trulv aristocratic establishment at Lansdowne House, to stumble at once upon Sydney Smith We had to wait dinner a little for Lord Lansdowne, who, as President of the Council, had been de- tained in the House of Lords, fighting with Brougham, whom he pronounced to be more able and formidable than at any previous period of his life. Lord Lansdowne seemed in excellent spirits. Not so Lady L. As she went in to dinner, surrounded by the most beau- tiful monuments of the arts, and sat down with Canova's Venus be- hind her, she complained to me, naturally and sincerely, of the weari- ness of a London Hfe, and said that it was almost as bad at Bowood, with Lord Lansdowne always coming up to town to attend the Coun- cil But the talk was brilliant. Senior is always agreeable, but, by the side of Sydney Smith and Jeffrey, of course he put in no claim ; and I must needs say, that when I saw Smith's free good-humor, and the delight with which everybody listened to him, I thought there were but small traces of the aristocratic oppression of which he had so much complained in the morning. Lord Jeffrey, too, seemed to be full of good things and good sayings Fine talk it certainly was, often brilliant, always enjoyable. The subjects were Parliament and Brougham ; the theatre* and Macready ; reviewing, apropos of which the old reviewei's hit one another hard ; the literature of the day, which was spoken of lightly ; Prescott's " Ferdinand and Isa- bella," which Lord Lansdowne said he had bought from its reputa- tion, and which MUman in his quiet way praised. .... April 3. — Breakfasted at Dr. Holland's, where I met only Hallam. Of course I had a most pleasant time, for there are hardly better 152 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. talkers in London. Dr. Holland came fresh from a professional visit to the Duke of Sussex, whom he had found reading his Hebrew Bible, whose margins were filled with his Highness's notes ; a rare instance of royal exegesis, but I apprehend rather a whim of the Duke than the result of very solid learning. Dr. Holland told us a somewhat strange story of the Duke's boyhood, which the Duke had told him this morning. George III. — as is well known — was strict with his children ; and one day when with their tutor, in a sort of regular school-hours, the Duke was seized with that asthma which has pursued him through life, and for which he was — when he related the fact — consulting Dr. Holland for the first time. The disease made his breathing at once audible ; and the tutor, mistaking the noise for a voluntary one, ordered the young Duke to be quiet. He replied that he could not, and the noise was continued, until the tutor, after two or three re- bukes and threats, called him up and flogged him soundly ; a disci- pline which the Duke assured Dr. Holland was not of rare occur- rence We dined in the city, with our excellent friends the Yaughans, where we met Lough, the sculptor, who was quite amusing. He married in Italy, and returning last summer with two or three chil- dren, he had much difi&culty in reconciling them to the appearance of things in London. When they saw the sun through the fog, they exclaimed, " Che brutta luna ! " * and could not be persuaded to call it anything else. April 5. — Hallam — by previous arrangement — came to us this morning, and gave us the whole forenoon at the British Museum, of which he is a trustee, and through the whole wilderness of which he carried us, in what is called " a private view." This is understood to be a considerable favor and distinction, but I must needs say, it proved a tnil.y wearisome one Hallam's patience was admirable, and he was agreeable to the end of the almost endless visit. April 6. — We dined at Hallam's, a party made for us, and it would not be easy to make one more delightful : Whewell and Pro- fessor Smyth, of Cambridge ; Milman ; Sir Francis Palgrave, the his- torian, and Keeper of the Records at Westminster ; Empson, the suc- cessor of Sir James Mackintosh ; a sister of Hallam, and his young daughter, with one or two more, just enough, and of the most agreeable varieties. The conversation was as various as the people. The only regular talk or discussion was on the German universities, * " What an ugly moon ! '* M. 46.] MR. AND MES. HENRY N. COLERIDGE. 153 and I was well pleased to find that in such an academical company- justice was done to them. It would not have been so twenty years ago. But Whewell and Hallam are above all common prejudices, at least April 7. — "We made a most delightful visit to Miss Joanna Baillie. .... She talked of Scott with a tender enthusiasm that was con- tagious, and of Lockhart with a kindness that is uncommon when coupled with his name, and which seemed only characteristic of her benevolence. It is very rare that old age, or, indeed, any age, is found so winning and agreeable. I do not wonder that Scott in his letters treats her with more deference, and Myites to her with more care and beauty, than to any other of his correspondents, however high or titled We dined at Henry N. Coleridge's. He Lives very pleasantly near Eegent's Park, and old Mrs. Coleridge, the widow of S. T. Coleridge and mother of his wife, lives with him. The Head Master of Eton was there, — a stiff dominie, but not without agreeable talk, — and two or three barristers, with as many ladies, and the dinner was agreeable. Coleridge himself has a good deal of acuteness. In talking of Southey and Wordsworth, he said — what is- accord- ing to my own impression — that Wordsworth has a keen enjoyment of life, and he added that Southey is become extremely weary of life. Not long since, he said, somebody was predicting what they should see, if he and Southey lived ten years longer. Without directly in- terrupting him, Southey clasped his hands and cast his eyes upward, ejaculating parenthetically, "Which God in his infinite mercy for- bid ! " and seemed to shudder all over at the thought of his possibly living so long. He has been in this melancholy state, I under- stand, ever since Mrs. Southey first gave signs of insanity, about five years ago. Mrs. Coleridge, the elder, presided at the table, her daughter not being well enough, from recent illness, to be in her place ; but she came down into the saloon afterwards Her health has long been bad, and she showed to-day but slight traces of the round, hap- py, and most beautiful creature I knew, just sixteen years old, in 1819, at Southey's. But she was very lady-like and gentle in her manner, and showed occasionally bright flashes of spirit and fancy. She is very pleasing, too, and I dare say has much of the extraordinary tal- ent her father gives her credit for. We enjoyed our visit, and, though tired with a laborious day, stayed late. A'pril 9. — We went this morning, by the invitation of Sir Francis 7* 154 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. Palgrave, and visited the old records in the Chapter House at West- minster ; the oldest records in the kingdom, of which he has the charge. They proved extremely curious ; for among them were Doomsday Book, in two volumes of unequal size, but singularly legi- ble, and well arranged in a close, neat hand ; all the oldest records of the administration of justice in the kingdom ; the contracts between Henry VII. and the Abbot of Westminster, for building the Abbey, with the donations for that purpose of the pious monarch ; treaties of Henry VIII., and I know not what else ; besides another large room full of a wild confusion of old parchments. The very archi- tecture of these repositories, with its unhewn or unsmoothed timbers, — dating from 1250, — was in keeping, and added to the curious ven- erableness of the whole arrangement. When we had seen all this we went to the Cloisters, where Milman, amidst the remains of the monastery of the elder religion, has a most tasteful and quiet mansion, arranged .... by Inigo Jones. He came immediately out and went over the Abbey with us. We ad- mired, of course, the magnificent choir, one of the finest specimens of rich Gothic in the world ; the elaborate chapel of Henry VII., .... and the other architectural wonders and beauties of this rare and solemn pile. But, after all, the parts that have historical names attached to them are most attractive In the Poets' Corner it was not without a very thrilling feeling, that, on reading the inscription to Goldsmith, I suddenly found myself standing on the grave of John- son, who wrote it The whole visit was most interesting April 13. — Made a truly delightful visit to Mrs. Somerville at Chel- sea, who is certainly among the most extraordinary women that have ever lived, both by the simplicity of her character and the singular variety, power, and brilliancy of her talents. Afterwards I went to see Lord Jeffrey, who is unwell, and confined to his room, and from whom I wanted a little advice about my coming journey to Scot- land. I found him with Empson, .... a very agreeable man of great knowledge I went afterwards to the Albany, to dine with the admirable, de- lightful old Mr. Elphinstone, the gentle, learned old gentleman we knew at Rome His establishment here is truly comfortable and agreeable, in the midst of a fine library ; but it is not luxurious, and the secret of the whole is, that he is a wise man, who makes him- self happier with the society of the first mark and intellect in Lon- don, which is all open to him, and who knows that he is happier than he could be made by an Indian income bought by ten years' more absence from home. Felix qui jpotuiU M. 46.] CAMBRIDGE. 155 The party to-day consisted of Empson ; Eicliardson, so much men- tioned by Lockhart as Scott's friend ; Mackenzie, son of the " Man of Feeling," long Secretary-General in India ; Phillips,* the barrister ; Murchison, the man of fashion and the great geologist ; Professor Wil- son, of the London University ; Colonel Leake, the Greek traveller ; and Wilkinson, the Egyptian traveller. We sat at a round table, just ten of us, and the service of plate, given to Mr. Elphinstone when he left Bombay, which covered the table so that the cloth could hardly be seen, was one of the richest and most tasteful I ever looked upon. There was not a person whom I met there to-day that was not a remarkable man, — remarkable by his culture and accomplishments, and by the consideration he enjoys in society. Of course, it was very agreeable. We talked about Scot- land and Scott ; about Lockhart, with whom Murchison is very inti- mate ; about India, Eome, Bunsen, and the Archbishop of Cologne ; about America and American literature ; and — as its antipodes by antiquity and everything else — of Egypt. In short, the conversa- tion was as various and pleasant as possible, and I stayed dreadfully late We did not sit down till half past eight, nor did we get up till midnight. On the 14th of April Mr. Ticknor left London with his wife and his eldest daughter, and reached Cambridge early the same day. The following characteristic note awaited them there : — Peter House, Wednesday. My dear Sir, — The chickens will wait your pleasure at the Bull at six, and I shall come down to you at eight, to show you the way to my cell. I am angling for some sirens, whom if I catch, your ladies will have some choice music. I have mounted you to the second story, that your bedroom may be close to your daughter's. The spring has peeped in upon us, and will not, I hope, change her mind after her April manner ; still, our walks are not yet in any beauty. With best remembrances to your ladies, Wm. Smyth. JOURNAL. Ajpril 14. — .... While the servants were "unpacking the carriage and imperials, we went out and took a walk behind Trinity and some of the other colleges, in the gardens that border the banks of the CanL * Thomas J. Phillips, mentioned in Vol. I. p. 443. 156 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. .... Some parts of the glorious old establishmerit I found much altered and improved ; a new and grand quadrangle to Trinity, a superb screen and hall to King's, and other large improvements, fin- ished or going on, among which is a fine University library ; so that Cambridge is gaining upon Oxford, where no such improvements have taken place for a long time We went [to Professor Smyth's rooms] before nine, and had a very agreeable party. Whewell and Sedgwick, the two great men of the University ; Clark, the head of the Medical Department ; Peacock, next to Whewell and Sedgwick in general reputation ; a considerable number of ladies, among them two Miss Skrines and Miss Wilkins^ who sing very well, and whom Smyth calls his nightingales We had a little supper, and what between the music and excellent talk, stayed very late. April 15. — Easter Sunday At two o'clock Dr. and Mrs. Clarke, and some other of the professors, came and carried us to the afternoon service at King's College Chapel. It was very fine, espe- cially the music, and everything produced its full effect in that mag- nificent and solemn hall, the finest of its sort, no doubt, in the world. Afterwards I went with WheweU and Sedgwick .... to dine in the Hall of Trinity, a grand old place, vast, and a little gloomy and rude, with its ancient rafters ; but imposing, and worthy of the first college in the world, for the numbers of great men it has produced It is the fashion for a nobleman, when he comes here, to be furnished with a silver cover, forks and spoons, etc., and to leave them when he goes away It chanced to-day that I had poor Lord Milton's cover, with his name and arms on it, which led to some sad talk with the Fellows, who retain a very lively recollection of his \^dnning char- acter and striking talents. At our table there were several strangers, the most remarkable of whom were Sir Francis Forbes, just from India, and the famous Joseph Hume, M. P., of radical notoriety. After dinner, according to ancient custom, a huge silver cup or pitcher was passed round, containing what is called Audit Ale, or very fine old ale which is given to the tenants of the CoUege when they come to audit their accounts and pay their rents. We all drank from it standing up, each, as his turn came, wishing prosperity to the College. When this was over an enormous silver ewer and basin, given by James First's Duke of Buckingham, were passed down, filled with rose-water, into which each one dipped his napkin Finally, a small choir of selected singers came into the hall and sang the Latin chants appropriate to the day, with great richness and power, M. 46.] TRINITY COLLEGE. 157 attracting a crowd in at the doors, among whom were several ladies, who looked oddly out of place in such a monastic refectory. It was a fine finale to the grave and ceremonious entertainment. We now adjourned to the Combination Room, where, in great lux- ury and comfort, a dessert and wines were arranged for the members of the table of dais. "We had done pretty well, I thought, in the way of wine in the Hall, where there was an extraordinary amount of health-drinking, but here we had it on a more serious and regular footing. "We had, too, a plenty of good conversation ; among the rest, on Serjeant Talfourd's Bill, and the Post-Oflace BiU At last the bell rang for evening prayers .... and broke us up. The chapel was brilliantly lighted, and the JVIaster and Fellows, in their robes of ceremony, made a striking appearance ; though the whole, with the turnings and bowings to the altar, and frequent genuflections, looked a little too much like what we had a surfeit of at Rome last year From the chapel — where the ladies, with Mrs. Clarke, had joined us — we went to Professor "Whewell's rooms in Trinity, the same where, twenty years ago, I used to pass my time with the present Bishop of Gloucester, Monk, who was then Greek professor here. We had a pleasant party, .... enjoyed a nice cup of academical tea, gossiped very merrily, looked over rare books, prints, and a good many spirited drawings and sketches from nature, by Whewell, who seems to have all talents ; had some excellent stories told with much humor by Smyth, and political talk from Hume, which sounded quaintly inappropriate in these Tory cloisters ; and finally, at eleven o'clock, wound up the whole with a gay -petit souper, and were gal- lantly escorted home by the good Professor Smyth, just before mid- night. April 16. — .... Before breakfast was over we had a visit from Sedgwdck and Smyth, who were as agreeable as possible, and eager to lionize the town to us We went with them first to the Uni- versity library, .... and afterwards to the Trinity College library, which is well worth seeing ; for, like everything else about this rich and magnificent College, its library is large, curious, and well pre- served. But there are two collections in it that hardly permit a stranger to look at anything else. The first is a large mass of the papers of Sir Isaac Newton, both mathematical and relating to his office as Master of the Mint, with correspondence, etc. ; and tlie other is the collection of Milton's papers, chiefly in his own handwriting, including Comus, Lycidas, Arcades, Sonnets, etc., and some letters, 158 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. which have been bound up, and preserved here about a century. Nothing of the sort can be more interesting or curious, especially the many emendations of Milton's poems in his own hand. Twenty years ago I remember being shown, at Ferrara, the origi- nal manuscript of Ariosto's " Orlando Furioso," and the old librarian pointed out to me, at the bottom of a blotted page, these words, with a date, all in pencil, "Vittorio Alfieri vide e venero," adding that when Alfieri wrote them, his tears fell so fast that they dropped on the paper and blistered it. It was impossible to avoid having some- thing of the same feeling when looking at these venerable remains of two of the greatest men, in the opposite departments of science and poetry, that the world has ever seen There was one thing, however, that Professor Smyth was anxious to show us, and we went, of course, to see it. It is an original por- trait of Cromwell, kept in the apartments of the Master of Sydney College. It is in colored chalks, beyond all doubt done from the life, and done, too, after anxiety had made deep lines of care in his face. Smyth will have it that it justifies and illustrates completely the descriptions of his corroding sufferings, given by Hume with such vivacity, immediately after the death of Mrs. Claypole, and immedi- ately before his own. In fact, Mr. Smyth had been carrying the vol- ume of Hume with him all the morning round Cambridge, and now read the passage to us with great spirit and feeling, to justify his opin- ion. No doubt the picture is very striking, and so is Hume's account of Cromwell, and both belong to anything but a man of an easy or tranquil mind. But I doubt whether Cromwell ever suffered so much from remorse, as Hume, in this particular passage, supposes. Indeed, a few pages later he seems to admit it. .... When we had rested, we went to dinner at Professor Smyth's. He has a very comfortable bachelor establishment in Peter House, the same, I think, that was occupied by Gray the poet, whose succes- sor he is in the chair of History, a place given to him by Lord Lans- downe when the Whigs were in power, above thirty years ago. He received us in his library, which is well stored with a somewhat mis- cellaneous collection of books, in history and poetry, and the little party soon collected there to the number of eight or ten, including the yice-Chancellor Worseley, Master of Downing, Mr. and Mrs. Skinner, counted among the agreeables of Cambridge, and Professor Peacock, counted among the very agreeable. We had a cheerful, pleasant time in the very comfortable dining-room. Worseley is more of a belles-lettres scholar and knows more continental literature than M. 46.] NORTH OF ENGLAND. 159 is commonly found in these cloistered establishments, and Peacock is an excellent talker. We were invited to a party at the Skrines', but declined, so as to stay as late as we could with our admirable old friend, whose kindli- ness, gayety of heart, and talent have been our constant deUght since we have been in Cambridge. At last, between eleven and twelve, we took our leave, and the old gentleman, coming down stairs and fol- lowing us to the gate of his College, gave us a sort of paternal bene- diction in the open street. We parted from him with great regret. A night passed at Milton, Lord Fitzwilliam's delightful place in Northamptonshire, where the kind hospitality of three years before was renewed, was followed by a course of cathedrals and show-houses, on the northern route, from Ely to Alnwick, until the Scottish Border country was reached. The hills which we crossed, in order to strike the Tweed at its most favorable point, were dreary and barren enough, and the ranges of huts or hovels we saw, scattered through their ridges, in which live a sort of bondmen, of a peculiar character, were anything but agreeable to look upon. I did not before suppose that anything so nearly ap- proaching servitude was still to be found in England ; but here it is, not better than was the condition of the serfs in Bohemia before Joseph II.'s time, or those in Silesia before they were liberated by the present King of Prussia. I doubt whether there is anything so bad now in Europe, out of Bussia.* * William Howitt describes this condition of the people in his " Rural Life of England," in a chapter on the ''Bondage System of the North of England." 160 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. CHAPTEE IX. Abbofsford. — Edinburgh. — Maxwells of Terregles. — Wordsworth and Southey. — Manchester. — Mr. and Mrs. Greg. — Oxford. — Althorp. — London. — Return to America. JOURNAL. April 22. — We drove to Melrose, " fair Melrose," .... took horses and went on to Abbotsford. My feelings were hardly more changed on approaching it, from what they were when I approached it nineteen years ago, than was the place itself. We had been read- ing on our journey the last sad volume of Lockhart's Life, with the account of Scott's pecuniary troubles, and their tragical result. The first glimpse of Abbotsford made us feel that we knew their cause ; we put our feet in its court-yard, and were sure of it The house is grown very large. It is somewhat fantastic in its forms and appearance, but still from several points produces a good effect. The grounds immediately adjacent to it are pretty, and the garden, with its conservatories, is such as should belong only to a large and free fortune, one much larger than Scott's was. The in- scription in it struck me as beautiful and happy, though I believe it would be difficult to find the very words in the Yulgate, or elsewhere, — " Audiebant vocem Domini ambulantis in Horto." But it is one of those " accommodations " which are very characteristic of Scott. We went, of course, all over the house, seeing things most of which it was painful to look upon But there was not much else [ex- cept some pictures] to recall the cottage which I visited in 1819 so happily, and, indeed, it was not without a good deal of difficulty that I found the room in which I was lodged, now neglected and given up to mean uses, but then one of the best in the house. It is all a pity. The house was then well suited to his fortune, and is now only the monument of his ruin In a niche [in the library] where he himself had placed a cast of Shakespeare's head, there now stands the bust of himself by Chantrey, idealized, no doubt, and with more of M. 46.] EDINBURGH. 161 smootli symmetry than belonged to his head at any period, but a beautiful work of art and an admirable likeness. It will be the type of his head with posterity, because the one that will best answer to the claims of his genius and his works Already what relates to Scott himself is more curious than all he collected relating to others, however famous and distinguished. Since 1832, from fifteen hundred to eighteen hundred persons have come yearly to visit his home, and the pilgrimage will not cease while the stones he piled up remain one upon another, and the English contin- ues a living tongue. But it is now, and must long remain, a sad and sorrowful place " Follies of the ^^ise " are inscribed on all its parts, in letters posterity will not forget, even if they learn nothing by the lesson that was so bitter to him that teaches it. Ajpril 23. — We left Scott's peculiar country, the Tweed side, this morning for Edinburgh. But the road Ave travelled was up the Gala- water, and was his road, the road by which he habitually went to Edinburgh At Fushie Bridge we had a little talk with the veritable Meg Dods, of " St. Ronan's Well," a personage well worthy of her reputation. Her real name is ^Mistress Wilson We ar- rived at Edinburgh about noon I was desirous to see Napier, the editor of the " Edinburgh Re- view," in order to do what I could to have " Ferdinand and Isabella " noticed in that journal, and therefore I sent my letters to him at once I received immediately an extremely civil note in reply, saying that he wished to see me ; and being unwell, and unable to go out, begged me to call on him in the evening. I went, of course. On reaching his door, I was a little disconcerted to find that he lives in what Scott so mournfully calls " poor 39," the very house in which I had passed so many pleasant hours with Scott in 1819 I was received up stairs in Mrs. Scott's drawing-rooms, fitted up for a bachelor and man of letters, but lighted as if to receive a party, — a fancy in which, I believe, Napier indulges himself every night. He is thin and pale and nervous, and I am told, what between his Law Professorship in the University, and the labor of editing the " Edin- burgh Review " and the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," he is kept feeble and ill nearly the whole time. He received me kindly, with em- pressement, and came at once to the business, as I wanted him to do ; and, before I had been with him half an hour, it was fully agreed that there should be an " Edinburgh Review " of " Ferdinand and Isabella " ; that Allen should write it, if Napier can persuade him to do so, — which I do not anticipate ; that otherwise a review by a K 162 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. young Spaniard, by name Gayangos, which I know Allen will pro- pose, shall be accepted ; and, if both these fail, that then the subject shall be given to Dunlop, the author of the " History of Fiction," who, I suppose, will do it as a sort of hack work, but of whom Napier feels sure. I was glad, however, to have it settled, for the book deserves all that any of its author's friends can do for it. Napier said it had been sent to him, but that he had not looked at it, and knew nothing about it ; so that the whole of his kindly prompt- ness was owing to the letters I brought him, which, to be sure, would carry as much weight with them as any in the Three King- doms.* .... I asked Napier about Lockhart's Scott. He says he cannot re- view it, partly because Lockhart is editor of the " Quarterly," and partly because of the connections of the work on all sides in Edin- burgh ; but that it is full of prejudices and errors ; that many per- sons in Scotland are much offended by it, the children and friends of the Ballantynes most justly so, etc. : much of which is no doubt true, and some is prejudice on Napier's part. April 25. — I went to see my old friend Mrs. Grant.t I found her in comfortable quarters, and cheerful ; . . . . but from age and its in- firmities she is a fixture, unable to leave her chair without help. But she was as cheerful as she used to be, when she was twenty years younger, and had her children about her, of whom John only re- mains I was especially struck with the fresh admiration she expressed for Scott's memory She is certainly a remarkable person. I dined with Napier. It is not quite agreeable to go thus to " poor 39," and find it so altered ; and when I was up stairs before dinner, I really felt more awkwardly and sad than I should have thought possible But there were pleasant people there ; my old friend Thos. Thomson, gro^vn a Benedict, but full of pleasant antiquarian and literary talk ; Bell, the Professor of Ci\dl Law ; and Sir William Hamilton,:): the man of all knowledge and all learning. We talked about everything ; among the rest of phrenology, which they treated with little ceremony, and spoke slightingly of Combe. Animal mag- * From Lord Holland and Sydney Smith. Lord Jeffrey and John Allen had also written to Mr. Napier on the subject. Don P. de Gayangos wrote the review. t See Vol I. p. 278, and note. J The distinguished Professor of Logic and Metaphysics of the University of Edinburgh, author of "Discussions in Philosophy, Literature," etc. ^. 46.] SIR CHARLES BELL. 163 netism, too, I find, is beginning to make a noise here, as it does in London, but finds less favor. Brougham was mucb discussed ; and it was plain he has great authority in the " Edinburgh Review " because he writes so much and so well for it, and not because they have a great respect for him or his opinions. Napier avowed openly, that he tried very hard to get him to strike out the passage in a recent number abusing Lord Melbourne, but could not succeed, and did not seem to be aware that he ought then to have refused the article. April 26. — "We had a visit early from Lord Fullerton, who offered again to go with us about the town ; but I know it so well from my former long visit, that I did not think it quite right to bore him to such an extent ; and so, taking a few directions from him, we sallied forth again We dined at Lord FuUerton's, where we met Thomson and his wife, Graham, Sir William and Lady Hamilton, Wilson, and two or three others. Lord FuUerton's wife is a beautiful woman, and so is his eldest daughter ; and the dinner was pleasant. The person I was most curious about was Wilson, the successor of Dugald Stewart, and the editor of " Blackwood." He answered much to the idea given of him among the roisterers of the " Noctes Ambrosianae." He is a stout, coarse, red-faced person, with a great deal of red, bushy hair flying about his face and shoulders, taking snuff freely, and careless in his dress, talking brilliantly, sometimes petulantly, and once or twice savagely. He is a strange person. He talks of coming to the United States Boat-building has been a passion with him, and when he lived near Bowness, he practised it a good deal.* .... April 27. — We drove out this morning to see my old friend Mrs. Fletcher, around whom, in the early days of the " Edinburgh Re- view," Brougham, Jeffrey, and all that clique were gathered, and whose talents still command their admiration and regard. She is living with her daughter, the author of " Concealment," at the little village of Duncliffe She received us very kindly, and talked most agreeably, so agreeably that we should have been very glad to accept more of her hospitality, if our time would have permitted We had a visit from the Fullertons, and dined at Sir Charles Bell's, the well-known surgeon, and author of one of the Bridge- water Treatises. Lady Bell is quite a delightful person, and must once have been beautiful, for she is still fine-looking ; and Sir Charles, though beginning to grow old, is fresh, perfectly preserved, and abounding in pleasant knowledge and accomplishment. Sir Wil- * See Vol. I. p. 278, and note. 164 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. liam and Lady Hamilton were there ; Mrs. McNeill, wife of the Brit- ish Ambassador to Persia, whom I knew in London and Vienna ; and Wilson, who is her brother, and two or three others. I think it was very like a dinner at home. Certainly it was very agreeable ; but we stayed much later than we should have done in America, for it is the way here, and was so twenty years ago. April 28. — Our friend Mrs. Alison,* .... whom we have seen frequently since we have been in Edinburgh, invited us to go with her this forenoon to see Mrs. Dugald Stewart, who lives quite re- tired near Leith. We found her much broken, but still as lady-like and gentle as ever, and with one of those beautiful faces of old age whose beauty consists in their moral expression. Her very intelli- gent and excellent daughter devotes herself wholly to her. We dined with the Kev. Mr. Ramsay t and Mrs. Ramsay ; the latter being our old Boston acquaintance. Miss Cochrane. Mr. Sinclair and Mr. Territ, the two preachers in the old church that was Dr. Alison's and Dr. Morehead's, .... were of the party ; Miss Sinclair, the daughter of the famous Sir John, and herseK an authoress, J Mr. Forbes, brother of the late Sir William, and one or two others, were there. Forbes is an intelligent, spirited, accomplished gentleman, upon whom much reliance is placed that the Edinburgh monument to Sir Walter Scott shall be what it ought to be ; but the rest were a sort of Tory and high Orthodox clique, whose talk was corresponding to their principles. Mr. Ramsay is a quiet, hard-working clergyman of the principal Episcopal church in Edinburgh ; and his wife is a truly kind, excel- lent, lady-like person. April 29. — .... It was our last day in Edinburgh, and we gave it to the Alisons, who had invited us for any day we could reserve for them. The party was small, but very agreeable, — Sir Charles and Lady Bell, Professor Wilson, Sir W. Hamilton, young Mr, Gregory, brother of Mrs. Alison and son of the famous Professor Gregory. Miss Alison, daughter of the old Dr. Alison, — a very imcommon and striking person, who devotes herself wholly to her father, — came in after dinner. We all stayed late, even for Edinburgh ; and Sir William Hamilton came home with us, and bade us farewell in the kindest manner, on our doorsteps. * Who had been at Edgeworthtown in 1835. t Dean Ramsay, author of " Reminiscences of Scottish Life," etc. J Authoress of "Modem Accomplishments," "Modern Society," etc. M. 46.] MAXWELLS OF TERREGLES. 165 After an excursion as far north as the season allowed, and a visit of one night at Carstairs, on the Clyde, the handsome estab- lishment of ^Ir. Monteith, the party arrived on the 5th of May at Dumfries, and went the next day to Terregles, the old seat of the Maxwells and Earls of I^ithsdale. Here they were expected by Mr. and Mrs. Marmaduke Maxwell, old acquaintances of the party at Wighill Park in 1835. It is one of those ample estates with a large, hospitable, luxurious house upon it, such as abound through the whole island. Its present possessor is Marmaduke Constable Maxwell, and the estate has be- longed for four centuries and more to his ancestors, the great Maxwell family, which rose on the fall of the Douglases, and for a long time was the most powerful family in all the South of Scotland For a long period they were the proud Earls of Nithsdale, a title which was forfeited, .... for adherence to the Stuarts, in 1716. For the last century they have been simply the retired, rich old Catholic family of the Maxwells. When we arrived the brothers * were at ser- vice in their own chapel, and IVIrs. Maxwell, who is a Protestant, re- ceived us. She is little altered by her change of name and position, and must always be gentle and lady-like. The brothers came soon afterwards, — honest, frank, intelligent men, just in the prime of life, — and with them was Mr, Weld, another rich Catholic, somewhat older, and brother of the late Cardinal Weld Nobody else was in the house but ^Ir. Keed, a Catholic priest After a little refreshment we walked out on the lawTi and round the park and some of the grounds. The old trees, fuU of rooks, were wit- ness to the antiquity of the family, while the nice, new stone cottages, which are necessarily rented at a rate that barely pays for their re- pairs, bore no less witness to the kindliness of its present head. The dinner was in the French style, and very luxurious ; after which the brothers, who hold Sunday to be a jour de fete, and are very- fond of music, played on a fine organ, and sang glees and airs May 7. — The first thing this morning, after a luxurious Scotch breakfast, they showed us some of the curiosities of their ancient house. The most interesting, if not the most remarkable, was the cloak with which the last Countess of Nithsdale, in 1715, disguised her husband, and freed him from the Tower I inquired about this extraordinary woman, and find they have a good many memorials * Mr. Henry Maxwell was stajing at Terregles. 166 LIFE OF GEOKGE TICKNOR. [1838. and letters of hers, besides tlie delightful one that records the story of her lord's escape. The other very curious relic they showed us was a prayer-book belonging to Mary Queen of Scots. The family were at all times her faithful adherents, and just before she left Scotland to put herself under the protection of Elizabeth, — which the Maxwells most stren- uously resisted, — she stayed a night with them, and in the morning, when she went away, left this prayer-book as a keepsake. Having shown us these and other curiosities, Mrs. Maxwell pro- posed to take us to their great memorial, the ruins of Carlaverock Castle, the scene of their family's ancient splendor, and not only so, but the scene of Allan Cunningham's Sir Marmaduke Maxwell, and the Ellangowan Castle, of Scott's "Guy Mannering." We gladly con- sented, and, driving through Dumfries, went do-\vn through a fine country, to the point where the Nith joins the Sol way. There we found these grand ruins, standing in the solitude of their neglected old age. The first castle, which was destroyed by fire in the year 1300, has left few or no proper remains ; the present widespread ruins belong to the castle that was built immediately afterwards, and which was maintained till it was taken by Cromwell, who could not prevail on the Earl of Nithsdale to surrender, though reduced to great ex- tremity, until he had the written orders of the King to that effect. .... The ruins are finely situated, extensive, and picturesque, and were shown to us by an old warder, — maintained there by the Max- wells, — now eighty-three years old, who kept a school in the village fifty-three years, and who, in showing them, repeated long passages from Grose, .... besides fragments from Burns, and snatches of old poetry in honor of the castle and the family On the 8th of May, arriving at Keswick : — Southey received us as usual, in his nice and somewhat peculiar library, but seemed more sad, and abstracted even, than he did when we last saw him. One of his daughters only was at home. Bertha, a very pleasing person ; and there was, besides, Mrs. Lovell, the sister of his late wife, and a Polish Count, a very intelligent man, who seemed to have travelled everywhere I talked chiefly with Southey himself, who seemed to like to be apart from those around him, and to talk in a very low, gentle tone of voice. He showed me a curi- ous letter from Brougham, soon after he became Chancellor, asking Southey's advice about encouraging literature by rewards to men of letters ; and his answer, saying that all he thought desirable was M. 46.] KESWICK AND RYDAL. 167 a proper copyright law. He showed me, too, some curious books, in which he takes great delight, and with which he has filled his modest house, the bedchambers, staircases, and all. But his interest in all things seems much diminished, and I left him wdth sad feel- ings. May 9. — .... We were expected at "Wordsworth's, and were most heartily welcomed, with real frank kindness, as old friends. It was nearly their dinner-time, .... and we took the meal with them. It was simple as possible, .... and the servants took our places when we left them, and dined directly after us. Afterwards we walked an hour .... on the terrace, and through the little grounds, while Mr. Wordsworth explained the scenery about us, and repeated passages of his poetry relating to it. !Mrs. Wordsworth asked me to talk to him about finishing the Excursion, or the Eecluse ; saying, that she could not bear to have him occupied constantly in wTiting sonnets and other trifles, while this great work lay by him untouched, but that she had ceased to urge him on the subject, because she had done it so much in vain. I asked him about it, therefore. He said that the In- troduction, which is a sort of autobiography, is completed. This I knew, for he read me large portions of it twenty years ago. The rest is divided into three parts, the first of which is partly written in frag- ments, which ;Mr. Wordsworth says would be useless and unintelligi- ble in other hands than his own ; the second is the Excursion ; and the third is untouched. On my asking him why he does not finish it, he turned to me very decidedly, and said, " Why did not Gray finish the long poem he began on a similar subject ? Because he found he had undertaken something beyond his powers to accomplish. And that is my case." We controverted his position, of course, but I am not certain the event will not prove that he has acted upon his belief. At any rate, I have no hope it will ever be completed, though after his death the world will no doubt have much more than it now pos- sesses. We remained two or three hours with him in this sort of talk, and recollections of our meetings, .... and then took a cheerful leave of him and Mrs. Wordsworth, feeling that we left true friends behind us, even if we never see them again. After passing a day or two at the Dales', near Manchester, where they were most kindly invited by Mr. and Mrs. W. R. Greg, whose acquaintance they had made in Rome, Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor went on to Oxford. 168 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. May 15. — We walked about in a beautiful morning among the exquisite gardens and the grand old colleges with which the town is tilled It is such a pleasure as is afforded by no place I have ever visited, except Oxford. "When we came home, I found a note from Buckland, sajnng he was attending a meeting of the Oxford Gas Company, and inviting me to his lecture at two o'clock. So a little before two I M-ent to his lecture- room. There I found the active and energetic little gentleman, in a short jacket, very busy in nailing up maps, plans, and engravings, and in arranging all sorts of specimens to illustrate his subject. He seemed very glad to see me, and talked as hurriedly as ever till his class came in, which consisted of about thirty-five good-looking young men, sev- eral of whom wore the nobleman's gown and cap. His subject was the stratification of rocks, and his manner was quite easy and business- like In the course of the lecture he took occasion to compli- ment Hitchcock, and Eaton, another American geologist As soon as he could leave the room, he was hurried away to preside at a meeting held to organize a society for encouraging the cultivation of bees, for he is the centre of all movement and acti\dty at Oxford. He asked me to go with him, and I soon found myself in the midst of a collection of masters of colleges and their wives, .... and many of the principal persons at Oxford, assembled by the zeal of one of the Fellows of Christ Church, — Cotton,"^ — a man of fortune, who hopes to do much good by persuading the cottagers of the country about to cultivate bees. Buckland made it all very amusing, .... and everj'thing was done that Mr. Cotton desired. It was now late. Buckland asked me to go home and dine with him, but I was very tired, .... and came back to the comfort and quiet of our excellent inn May 16. — I breakfasted with Dr. Buckland, and met Dr. Dun- can, one of the principal persons at the meeting yesterday ; Cotton ; Peters, the principal person in Merton College ; the Marquis of Kildare ; Marryat, a dandy brother of the traveller ; and one or two others. We had a lively time of it for a couple of hours, and Buck- land finally commended me to Cotton and Peters, saying he had made the breakfast in order to bring me acquainted with those persons who would be most likely to be agreeable and useful to me in Oxford. Cotton went with me at once to the Bodleian, where I wished to make some researches and inquiries, and where he is himself employed on a manuscript of St. Chrysostom, and presented me to Dr. Bandinel, * W. C. Cotton afterwards ■went to New Zealand with Bishop Seh\'yn. M. 46.] BODLEIAN LIBRARY. 169 the principal librarian. I was struck with the name, and found he is of an Italian stock, and claims to be descended from Bandinelli, the Italian novelliere. At any rate, he is a pleasant, kindly person, and has more bibliographical knowledge than anybody I have met with in England, except Hallam I was curious for old Spanish books, but the Bodleian, vast as it is, and even with Douce's rare col- lection added to it, making in all nearly half a million volumes, is yet miserably deficient in Spanish literatiu-e I was much disap- pointed, for I thought I should have found a great deal in odd cor- ners ; but Bandinel evidently had the whole collection by heart, just as Von Praet used to have the Eoyal Library at Paris, and he could find nothing really rare or valuable. I went afterwards with Cotton to Peters at Merton, and went over his fine old College, with its curious and strange library, where some of the books are still chained, and the arrangement is much the same as in the Laurentian at Florence, both belonging to nearly the same period May 17. — I breakfasted this morning with Cotton, in his nice suite of rooms in Christ Church, and met there Peters, Bunsen, — son of my old friend, the Prussian ^Minister, who is here preparing himseK for the English Church, — and two or three others. It was a favorable and agreeable specimen of the University life, something too luxurious, perhaps, but still it was plain there was a good deal of learning and literary taste among them. .... At two o'clock I went again to Buckland's lecture In the course of his remarks, he said America could never be a manufacturing country without coal in great quantities. After he had finished, I told him we depended on water-power, of which we had great abun- dance. He said he thought that would not be sufiicient, as it was frozen up five months in the year. I set him right about this also. He seemed sur^^rised, but took it aU well, better than most professional men would have done. I dined with him, and met a brother of Denison, a man of fortune, who Kves at Shotover, — Milton's Shot- over, — Dr. McBride, Dr. Hawkins, and some others of the masters of colleges, and Dr. Bandinel. It was a genuinely academic dinner, and things had much less the air of the world than they had at Cambridge, compared with which, no doubt, Oxford is a very monastic place. But it was pleasant and good-natured. Their talk was of books and geol- ogy, of the church, and such things. Alay 18. — Cotton invited the ladies to breakfast with him this morn- ing, and invited two or three persons to meet them, among the rest a VOL. II. 8 170 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. Iklr. Ruskin, who has one of the most beautiful collections of sketches, made by himself, from nature, on the Continent, I have ever seen. The whole affair was tasteful and pleasant, and very luxurious for cloisters, certainly Althorp, May 19. — The approach to Althorp is through a fine, rich, and broken country, and the moment we had passed the porter's lodge we felt the quietness and comfortable repose that come over one in these rich, aristocratic establishments. The grounds of the park are uneven and beautiful in their variety, and such rich clumps and copses of venerable oak I do not remember to have seen else- where. The house is large, but not remarkable ; but the moment we entered it we recognized the superb staircase that figures in Dibdin. .... Lord Spencer had gone to Northampton to attend a meeting of the justices, which the best of the nobility are anxious never to miss. I asked if anybody was stopping in the house, and was glad to hear there was not, but that Mr. Appleyard, the last Earl's librarian, and who knows the library better than anybody else alive, was ex- pected to-night ; a most agreeable attention, as I afterwards found, on the part of Lord Spencer, who had him down from London for the express purpose of showing the rarities to us. We went to our rooms, and, in the peculiar English phrase, "made ourselves comfortable" amidst their manifold luxuries. Soon afterwards Lord Spencer came home dripping, for it rained hard, and, like a true country gentleman, he was on horseback. He sent his compliments to us, ... . and when we went down to dinner .... we found him as good, frank, and kindly as we had found him at Wentworth, three years ago. The dinner .... was made agree- able by his conversation, which was uncommonly free, as if he were not afraid or unwilling to say what he thought about anybody ; but his good-nature makes him charitable, and his honesty is proverbial. .... Lord Spencer went on with an admirable series of stories and sketches of Pitt, whom he knew much in his early manhood, when his father was Pitt's first Lord of the Admiralty ; of Sheridan, who was associated with his own earlier friends ; and of Brougham, from whom he has now separated himself, but who was long his very inti- mate companion, if not friend. Pitt he described as more successful and less good-natured in con- versation than I had supposed him, and particularly as liking to make some one in his company his butt, in a way that was neither consist- ent with good taste nor very good manners ; but which he said made him, as a boy, delight to be in Pitt's society. M. 46.] ALTHORP. 171 Sheridan he undervalued, I think, and especially placed his con- versation quite low ; and Brougham he thought, since he became Chan- cellor, had been misconducting nearly the whole time. He said that within his own knowledge it had been determined, when Lord Mel- bourne took office the second time, that Brougham should be left out, on the ground that he would do more injury to the administration as a member of it, than as an opponent ; that Brougham, however, persisted in believing that he had been rejected by the King personally ; that he — Lord Spencer — had tried to undeceive him twice, but that Brough- am would not be approached on the subject, and that when the Queen came in and he could no longer doubt why he was excluded from the Ministry, he took the unprincipled and violent course he has pursued ever since. Lord Spencer looks upon him as politically ruined. He talked, too, a good deal about himseK, and explained the circum- stances under which he took office with Lord Grey, and how he car- ried it as leader of the House of Commons, without being able to make a speech. It was all very curious and interesting ; for, though he does not talk fluently or gracefully, he is full of facts, from an ex- perience and familiarity with whatever has been most distinguished in affairs or society for the last thirty-five years, and his fairness and honesty are so sure that you can trust implicitly to his statements. We sat, therefore, late with him, and went to bed reluctantly. May 20. — We walked to church, about a mile through the park. .... Lord Spencer told me that his family was originally from Warwickshire, where they still possess estates, and that they removed to Althorp in the time of Henry VII It is the fashion, he added, to hold only by annual leases in this part of the country, but there are several families on the estate who have been there by annual renewals of their rent-holds from the time when the Spencers first came here ; a fact very remarkable in itself, and very creditable to both parties When we had lunched, Mr. Appleyard and Lord Spencer began in earnest to show us the library, and taking us to the beautiful room built by the late Earl, and called the Poet's Library, where the most splendid books are collected, they took down successively some of the most magnificent works of art, of the sort, that I ever beheld. Among them were the original drawings for the Magna Charta, that was pub- lished some years since ; those for the coronation of George IV. ; and the outlines of Flaxman for ^Eschylus, interleaved in a beautiful copy of the original, and presented to the late Countess Spencer by Flaxman, with a manuscript inscription. The large paper copies of books in this 172 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838L room are extraordinary, both for their beauty and number, especially the folios ; and the bindiag of all the books, without being showy, is as rich and solid as money could make it In the Long Library is a cabinet containing the Historical Plays of Shakespeare, illustrated by Lady Lucan, Lord Spencer's grandmother. I looked there among the early Italian and English books, where almost nothing was want- ing that could be asked after or thought of. The whole number of volumes in the library is about 110,000, no doubt the finest private library in the world, and all collected by the late Earl. The collection of rarities is said to have cost above £ 200,000. And so the present Earl finds it expedient to economize, which he does very cheerfully He refused to let his father re- trench, saying that he would do all that was necessary to restore the estate, which, to be sure, is not much encumbered In the sa- loon, after dinner, we had a succession of curious things brought to us from the library, sketches by the old masters, illuminated books, etc., which occupied us till nine o'clock, .... when Lord Spencer read prayers in the dining-hall to the ^v^hole family. It was a very solemn scene, and became well the man and his position in so- ciety May 21. — Immediately after prayers and breakfast Lord Spencer invited us to take a walk and see the place. We went first to the village, .... afterwards to the church, which can be traced back to the fourteenth century, which, with its graveyard, is a picturesque ob- ject on all sides. In one of the chapels, or chancels, the Spencers lie buried, from soon after 1500 to the last Earl and Countess. The park is the same John Evelyn describes, and different monu- ments in it, from 1567, show when different woods, still subsisting, were planted, and by whom It is, too, the scene of Ben Jon- son's beautiful masque " The Satyr," which was performed amidst its shrubbery when the Queen and son of James I. were entertained here on their way to London in 1 603. Indeed, Althorp has always been poetic ground ; . . . . but, as Gib- bon says, the brightest jewel in the coronet of the Spencers is the Faery Queen Oui* walk, which did not seem long. Lord Spen- cer told us had extended above five miles. When we were rested we went to look at the pictures We had been constantly seeing in the dining-hall, saloon, and library, works of art, such as the famous Eembrandt's Mother, the fragment of a cartoon by Raffaelle on the murder of the Innocents, two or three portraits by Titian, etc., .... a collection of perhaps an hundred pic- M. 46.] KARE BOOKS. 173 tures in all, that place it among the best in England. But we Avent now to see the family portraits on the grand staircase and gallery, a crowd of Vandykes, Sir Peter Lelys, and Sir Joshuas, with now and then a Holbein, and one Pompeo Battoni We lunched, and then Lord Spencer gave us over to the librarian to show us the rarities of the library, the incunabula, the unique cop- ies, and the other curiosities for which the late Earl spent such in- credible sums of money The series to illustrate the earliest history of printing down to the first book printed with a date — the Psalter of 1457 — is, I suppose, the most complete in the world, cer- tainly the most complete I have ever seen. Afterwards there is only an embarras cle richesses, but I occupied myself chiefly with the earliest specimens of the English press, and especially the English poets, where, again, nothing seemed wanting. Of course we stared at the famous Valdarfer Boccaccio, 1471, which was sold, in 1812, at the Roxburgh auction, for £ 2,260, and which was sold again in 1819, at the sale of the Duke of Marlborough's — Marquis of Blandford's White Knight's — library, for ^918.16 ; both prices, I suppose, unexampled in their absurdity. Lord Spencer told me two odd facts about it : that Lord Blandford was not worth a sou when he bought it, and yet had given orders to go up to ,£5,000 for it, and was obliged to leave it in the auctioneer's hands above a year, before he could raise the money to pay for it ; and that the last purchaser was Longman, against whom Lord Spencer, when he found out who his competitor was, would not bid, because he thought it was improper for his oAvn bookseller to run him up, and of whom he would not afterwards buy it at any advance, because he would not suffer him to profit by his interference. The book is certainly a great cuiiosity, but it is made so chiefly by the folly of those who have owned it and those who have written about it. We had a most pleasant dinner and evening, Lord Spencer telling us a great many anecdotes of Lord Brougham, illustrating the incon- sistency and unprincipledness of his course since he ceased to be Lord Chancellor I was sorry to break ofi" such talk and go to bed, for it was the last evening we could give to Althorp, where we cer- tainly have been most kindly received, and where we have enjoyed a great deal. But, as Sancho says, " there is an end to everything but death." On this Sunday passed at Althorp, Mr. Ticknor wrote the fol- lowing letter : — 174 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. To Miss Maria Edgeworth, Edgeworthtown. Althorp Park, Northampton, May 20, 1838. My dear Miss Edgeworth, — It is seldom the lot of a letter to give so much pleasure and so much pain, as did the one we have quite lately received from you, — so much pleasure from the kindness it expresses toward us and our children, in the renewal of your invita- tion to Ireland, and the words in which you renew it, — so much pain because we cannot accept it.* It is truly a grief to us ; and I do not feel sure you had a right to make it so heavy ; and yet I would not, for much, part with one of the kind phrases that constitute its weight. The fact is, we have talked a great deal about another visit to Ireland, which with us is another name for Edgeworthtown. When we first had the happiness of seeing you, we felt pretty sure of it ; for we thought then we should remain four years in Europe. But of late we have changed our purpose. Mrs. Ticknor, for whose health I came abroad, has long been quite well and strong. My eldest daughter, who is now fifteen, needs to be at home, where she is destined to live, and cannot have what the French call une existence compUte any longer in lands of strangers. The youngest cannot be anything but a plaything while she is all the time in hotels, and at five she must begin to be something more serious. And I feel, myself, that I have duties to perform which are not on this side the great waters. So we are going home. I will not even disguise from you that some of us are very anxious to do so, and even a little homesick withal. But still we leave many things, many friends behind us to regret, and when I say that there is not, among them all, anything we shall more regret than not being able to make you another visit at Edgeworth- town, I shall only repeat what was our first remark at Kome when we began to talk of shortening our absence, and what we have re- * We give a part of the letter from Miss Edgeworth, to which the above is an answer : " We are very eager, very anxious, to see you again at our own home, retired and homely as it is. You flattered us you were happy here during the two short days you gave us. 0, pray ! pray / come to us again before you go from our world forever, — at least, from me forever. Consider my age ! and Mrs. Mary Sneyd begs you to consider her. I trust you will Be pleased, my dear friends, to like or to love us all as much as ever you can, and pray prove to us that you will take as much trouble to come to Edgeworthtown, after having become acquainted with us, as you took when you only knew the au- thorship part of "Your affectionate friend, "Maria Edgeworth." M 46.] LORD BROUGHAM. 175 peated a great many times when, we have spoken of it since. We shall think of you much when we pass the bright coasts of your island in June ; we shall think of you still more when we are amidst our own home, and always with great pleasure and much gratitude In Scotland we saw the Alisons often, and it brought us near to you ; for you may remember that it was under your hospitable roof we made their agreeable acquaintance. We saw, too, Abbotsford, which is still more intimately associated with you in our minds. But I cannot tell you how sad a place it is, so deserted, so cold, so full of heart-rending recollections and memorials. We did not feel half so bad when we stood by its master's grave at Dryburgh. Indeed, I almost wish it were burnt up, or destroyed in some way, for it is a monument of the weakest part of Sir Walter's character ; that love of a magnificence beyond his means, which, by causing his pecuniary embarrassments, caused his premature death. It is altogether a most painful, melancholy place. The very air seemed oppressive as we went through it And now, farewell. I do not despair of seeing you in the course of this world's chances and changes yet once more, for there is a greater chance that I shall be in Europe three times now, than there was originally that I should come once. So, I still say au revoir. Yours faithfully and affectionately, G. TiCKNOR. Eeaching London on the 22d of May, !Mr. Ticknor was again plunged, for two weeks, into the excitements of "the season." On the day after his arrival he received and paid some visits, and thus describes Lord Brougham : — He has gained a good deal of flesh since I knew him in 1818-19, and is even improved in that particular since I saw him at York three years ago. But in other respects I do not think he is changed for the better. He showed a very disagreeable disposition when he spoke of Jeffrey and Empson It was really ungentlemanlike and coarse to speak as he did, of two persons who were formerly his associates, and are still, in all respects of general intercourse, his equals. What struck me most, however, was his marvellous memory. He remembered where I lodged in London in 1819, on what occa- sions he came to see me, and some circumstances about my attend- ance on the committee of the House of Commons on Education ; which I had myself forgotten, till he recalled them to me. Such a memory, 176 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. for such mere trifles, seems abnost incredible. But Niebuhr had it ; 60 had Scott, and so has Humboldt ; four examples — including Brougham — which are remarkable enough. I doubt not that much of the success of each depended on this extraordinary memory, which holds everything in its grasp. \ I dined with the Geological Club, and afterwards attended a meet- ing of the Geological Society We sat down to table nearly thirty strong ; Whewell of Cambridge, the President of the Society, in the chair, and Stokes, the witty lawyer, as its Vice-President. Among the persons present were Sedgwick and Buckland, Murchison, Lord Cole, Mr. Ponsonby, the Marquess of Northampton, Babbage, Hallam, and especially Sir John Herschel, just returned from the Cape of Good Hope, and decidedly at this moment the lion of London. I sat between Sir John and Babbage, and had an excellent time. Sir John is a small man, and, I should thiuk, a little more than fifty years old, and growing gray ; very quiet and unpretending in his manner, and though at first seeming cold, getting easily interested in whatever is going forward At half past eight we adjourned in mass, after a very lively talk, from the tavern, which was the well-known " Cro\\Ti and Anchor," in the Strand, to the Geological Rooms at Somerset House Sedg- wick read a synopsis of the stratified rocks of Great Britain ; an excel- lent, good-humored extemporaneous discussion followed, managed with much spirit by Greenough, the first President, and founder of the Society ; Murchison ; Lyell, the well-known author ; Stokes j Buck- land ; and Phillips of York May 24. — Dined at Holland House, with Lady Fitzpatrick, Mr. Akerley, — who has done such good service as chairman of the com- mittee on the Poor-Laws, — Lord Shelburne, Sir James Kempt, — who is thankful to be no Ioniser Governor-General of Canada, — Lord John Russell, Allen, and two others. It was a pleasure to dine in that grand old Gilt Room, with its two ancient, deep fire- places, and to hear Lord Holland's genial talk, for I cannot help agreeing with Scott, that he is the most agreeable man I have ever known. The reason, I apprehend, is, that to the great resources of his knowledge he adds a laissez-aller, arising from his remarkable good-nature, which is quite irresistible. We passed the evening in the great library, Addison's picture-gallery, one of the most luxurious and agreeable spots in the world. I talked a good deal with Sir J. Kempt about the Canadas, which he seems to regard much as we do in the United States, and condemns — as Lord Holland did plainly — M. 46.] MR. THOMAS GRENYILLE. 177 the whole course of Sir Francis Head, as far as the United States are concerned. He had intended to ask Head to dine to-day, and as I expressed a good deal of regret that I had not seen him, he said he would invite him soon, and let me know when he would come ; but seemed a little surprised that I should be pleased to meet one who had just been abusing my country so thoroughly, confessing, at last, that he had omitted him to-day, thinking I might be unwilling to meet him. Lady Holland, I really think, made an effort to be agreeable, and she certainly has power to be so when she chooses ; but I think I could never like her. Alay 25. — Began the morning with a long and most agreeable visit from Sedgwick of Cambridge, one of those visits which are only made in England, I think, and there only when people take some liking to one another Few men, anywhere, are so bright and active-minded as this most popular of the English professors. Aftenvards I went by appointment to see old Mr. Thomas Gren- ville, elder brother of the late Lord Grenville, and uncle of the present Duke of Buckingham. He was one of the negotiators of our treaty of 1783, and was first Lord of the Admiralty ; but retired from affairs many years ago, on the ground that he preferred quietness and hieraTj occupation to anything else. A few years ago he declined an addition of £ 10,000 a year to his large fortune, saying he had enough, and that he preferred " it should go on " — as he expressed it — to the next generation that would be entitled. He is now nearly eighty-four years old, and lives in that old, aristo- cratic quarter, St. James's Square, next to Stafford House. He is admirably preserved for his age, and took apparent pleasure in show- ing me his library, about which Lord Spencer had written to him, asking him to show it to me. It consists of tu^enty-two thousand volumes ; but what is remark- able about it is, that not only is every book in rich, solid, tasteful binding, but it may almost be said that every book is in some way or other a rarity, if not by the small number of copies known to ex- ist of it, at least by something peculiar in some other way. Such beautiful miniatures I never saw before in books, as in two or three that he showed me ; and in individual cases, for instance Milton and Cervantes, his collection of the original editions is absolutely com- plete, which I have never seen elsewhere. Of course it is not to be compared to the library at Althorp, though even there it would fre- quently fill gaps ; but take it altogether, — the library, its owner, and 8* L 178 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. his house, — it is one of the most perfect, consistent, and satisfactory things I have ever seen May 26. — .... To Mortimer House to dine with Lord Fitzwilliam. Besides the family, there was the Bishop of Hereford, — Musgrave, — the Bishop of Durham, — Maltby, — Sedgwick, Lord and Lady Rad- nor, and Miss Bouverie, — their pretty daughter, — Lord Brougham, and Dr. Birkbeck, the father of Mechanics' Institutes and popular lec- turing. He is a nice, round, warm old gentleman Sedgwick was eminently agreeable, as he always is ; and Brougham was violent and outrageous, extremely rude and offensive to Maltby and Sedgwick, but very civil to Lady Charlotte and Lady Radnor. I never saw any- body so rude in respectable society in my life. Some laughed, some looked sober about it, but all thought it was outrageous. Sedgwick was the only person who rebuked him, and he did it in a manner rather too measured and moderate for my taste About eleven o'clock we got away from Lord Fitzwilliam's and went to Mr. Babbage's, who, at this season, gives three or four routs on successive weeks. It was very crowded to-night, and very brill- iant ; for among the people there were Hallam, Milman and his pretty wife ; the Bishop of Norwich, — Stanley, — the Bishop of Hereford, — Musgrave, — both the Hellenists ; Rogers, Sir J. Herschel and his beautiful wife, Sedgwick, Mrs. Somerville and her daughters. Senior, the Taylors, Sir F. Chantrey, Jane Porter, Lady Morgan, and I know not how many others. We seemed really to know as many people as we should in a party at home, which is a rare thing in a strange capital, and rarest of all in this vast overgrown London. Not- withstanding, therefore, our fatiguing day, we enjoyed it very much. May 27. — To-day being Sunday, we have kept as quiet as we could, refusing invitations In the afternoon we had a very long and agreeable visit from Rogers, who showed great sensibility when speaking of his last visit to Scott, which he said he was obliged to shorten in order to keep an appointment with other friends, and then added — as if the thought had just rushed upon him, and filled his eyes with tears, — " and they too are dead." It was some time before he could command himself enough to speak again. While we were at dinner Senior came in, and stayed with us very agreeably, having come to ask us to dine with them some day before we go ; but we have none left. May 28. — .... On our return home we had visits from the Misses Luxmoore* and their brother, the Dean of St. Asaph, .... who * To whom Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor had made a visit in Wales in 1835. ^.46.] LONDON DINNERS. 179 have taken a house for a few weeks to enjoy London, and from the pretty Mrs. Milman, whose kind and urgent invitations to dinner we were really sorry to refuse. After they were gone we went to visit Lady Mulgrave, who is just arrived from Ireland She is " fair, fat, and forty," I should think ; but she has a certain sort of beauty still, most sweet and winning manners, and a great deal of tact and intelligence. She is fit to be a queen, every inch. Indeed, all these Eavensworths are remarkable people. Scott's visit to them, which he so well describes, shows what a race they are. May 29. — We are beginning now to be extremely busy, in our labors to finish up this three-years' absence from home, and get our aff'airs ready for embarkation In the evening I went to a late and very aristocratic dinner at Murchison's, the great geologist and man of fortune, at the west end of the town, who seems to have his house really at the ultra west end, so that I thought I never should get there. The party, however, was worth the trouble, for it was a striking mixture of talent and aristocracy and fashion. The talent might be considered as repre- sented by Sedgwick, Lubbock, — the mathematician, whom I Hked a good deal, — Lockhart, and Murchison ; and the aristocracy and fash- ion, by the haggard, dried-up Lady Davy, Sir Charles Dalbiack, — the Commander of the Cavaby, — the Duke and Duchess of Eoxburgh, — both young, handsome, and well-bred, — and the Earl of Dartmouth, who renewed an acquaintance I had with him formerly at Rome, and invited me to his place in Staffordshire. It was all quite agreeable. Even Lockhart was softened by the society, and introduced the sub- ject of " Ferdinand and Isabella," which he would not have done if he had not been very amiable He promised, when he should be in the country, to look it over, and if he finds it what he expects to find it, to give it to some person who understands Spanish literature, to make an article about it This is a good deal, and it is still more that he was really good-humored about it It was a pleas- ant time with such people, but we did not stay late ; and when we left, I took Sedgwick to the Athenaeum, and there bade him farewell with much regret. He goes to Cambridge to-morrow. May 30. — .... A party at Mr, Bates's, entirely American, ex- cept Baron Stockmar, a Saxon, formerly confidential secretary to Prince Leopold, now much about the Queen. I had him pretty much to myself, and found him very acute, and full of knowledge. He talks English almost like a native. May 31. — We breakfasted, by very especial invitation, with Rogers, 180 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. in order to look over his pictures, curiosities, etc. ; and therefore no- body was invited to meet us but Miss Rogers and the Milmans. "We had a three-hours' visit of it, from ten till past one, and saw certainly a great amount of curious things ; not only the pictures, but draw- ings, autographs, little antiques ; in short, whatever should belong to such a piece of bijouterie and virtti as Rogers himself is. Nor was agreeable conversation wanting, for he is full of anecdotes of his sixty or seventy years' experience. Among other things, he told me that Crabbe was nearly ruined by grief and vexation at the conduct of his wife for above seven years, at the end of which time she proved to be insane We dined with our friends the Edward Villiers', where we always enjoy ourselves, and where we always meet remarkable people. To- day there was a Mr. Lewis,* evidently a very scholar-like person ; Sir Edmund Head ; Henry Taylor, the poet ; and Mr. Stephen,! the real head of the Colonial Office, an uncommon man, son of Wilberforce's brother-in-law, the author of "War in Disguise." He is, I appre- hend, very orthodox, and, what is better, very conscientious. He told me that his father ^\Tote the " Frauds of Neutral Flags " — which so annoyed us Americans, and brought out Mr. Madison in reply — wholly from the relations of the subject to the slave-trade ; his pur- pose being to resist all attempts on our part, or on the part of any other nation, to stop the English right — or practice — of search, be- cause without that he was persuaded the slave-trade could never be practically and entirely abolished. The present state of things seems to justify his fears, if not his doctrines. June 1. — . . . . After all, however, I found time to make a visit to Carlyle, and to hear one of his lectures. He is rather a small, spare, ugly Scotchman, with a strong accent, which I should think he takes no pains to mitigate. His manners are plain and simple, but not polished, and his conversation much of the same sort. He is now lecturing for subsistence, to about a hundred persons, who pay him, I believe, two guineas each To-day he spoke — as I think he commonly does — without notes, and therefore as nearly extempore as a man can who prepares himself carefully, as it was plain he had done. His course is on Modern Literature, and his subject to-day was that of the eighteenth century ; in which he contrasted Johnson and Voltaire very well, and gave a good character of Swift. He was impressive, I think, though such lecturing could not well be very * Afterwards Sir George Comewall Lewis, t Afterwards Sir James Stephen. -\r M 46.] MISS ROGERS. 181 popular ; and in some parts, if he were not poetical, he was pic- turesque. He was nowhere obscure, nor were his sentences artifi- cially constructed, though some of them, no doubt, savored of hi^ peculiar manner. June 2. — .... I dined at Kenyon's, with a literary party : Reed, the author of " Italy" ; Dyce, the editor of " Old Plays," whom I was very glad to see ; H. N. Coleridge ; and especially Talfourd, the author of " Ion" ; with a few others. Talfourd I was glad to see, but he disappointed me. He is no doubt a poet of genius, within certain limits, and a very hard-working, successful lawj^er, but he is a little too fat, red-faced, and coarse in his appearance He talks strik- ingly rather than soundly, defending Cato, for instance, as an admi- rable, poetical tragedy ; and was a little too artificial and too brilliant, both iu the structure and phraseology of his sentences and in the gen- eral tone of his thoughts However, we got along very well together, and about eleven o'clock I took him to Babbage's, where there was a grand assembly, lords and bishops in plenty The only person to whom I was introduced, that I was curious about, was Bulwer, the novelist ; a white-haired, white-whiskered, white-faced fop, all point device, with his flowing curls and his silk-lined coat, and his conversation to match the whole : June 3. — "We began the day with a breakfast at Miss Rogers's, in her nice house on Regent's Park, which is a sort of imitation — and not a bad one either — of her brother's on St. James's. She has some good pictures, among which is Leslie's Duchess and Sancho, the best thing of his I have seen of late years ; and she keeps autographs, curi- osities, and objects of virtu, just like her brother. Best of all, she is kind and good-humored, and had invited very pleasant friends to meet us, — Leslie, Babbage, Mackintosh, and her brother, who was extraor- dinarily agreeable, and made us stay unreasonably late. We then made some visits P. P. C, and on coming home received many, which we were sorry to receive, because they were intimations that our expected departure would hardly permit us to see these kind friends again As soon as they were gone I hurried out to dine at Holland House. It was a larger party than is quite common at that very agreeable round table We dined, of course, in the grand Gilt Room, and had at table Mr. Ellice, one of Lord Mel- bourne's first cabinet, and brother-in-law of Lord Grey ; Lady Cow- per and her daughter. Lady Fanny, — mater pulchra, filia pulchrior ; Lord John Russell, the Atlas of this unhappy admuustration ; . . . . Lord and Lady Morley ; Stanley, of the Treasury ; Gayangos, — the 182 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. Spaniard I was desirous to see, because he is to review Prescott's book ; and Sir Francis Head It was certainly as agreeable as a party well could be. I took pains to get between Head and Gayangos at dinner, because I wanted to know them both. The Spaniard — about thirty-two years old, and talking English like a native, almost — I found quite pleasant, and full of pleasant knowl- edge in Spanish and Ai'abic, and with the kindliest good-will towards " Ferdinand and Isabella." Sir Francis Head, on the contrary, — a little short man, with quick, decisive motions, and his reddish hair cut very close to his head, — I foimd somewhat stiff ; but the difficulty, as I soon discovered, was, that he did not feel at his ease, knowing that he is out of all favor with the present administration, two or three of the leading members of which were at table. However, Lord Holland's genial good-nature in time thawed all reserve, and before we followed the ladies into the grand old librar)' the conversation was as free as possible. Sir Francis, however, I observed, made his escape early. The rest of us stayed very late, gossiping and talking over odd books, old Spanish manuscripts, and the awkward state of parties in England. I was sorry to come away, for I shall never be there again ; but it was nearly one o'clock when I reached the Brunswick. June 4. — We breakfasted at Milman's, in his nice, comfortable establishment in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, with only Mr. and Miss Rogers and Rio,* a Frenchman learned in what relates to the Middle Ages, and who, from talking English very well, has had good success in London literary society of late. They were all pleas- ant, Rogers especially so. I was amused, and not sorry, to hear him Bay that Bulwer, though of a good old family and enjoying a certain degree of popularity, had never been able to establish for himself a place in the best London society. He added, that he himself had never seen him so as to know him, though he supposed he must have met him in large parties ; a curious fact, considering Rogers's own uni- versality. He urged us again to dine with him to-morrow, said he would give up dining abroad himself and insure us seats at the opera, to see Taglioni, who appears for the first time ; in short, he was ex- ceedingly kind. But it is out of the question. To-morrow is our last day in London June 5. — . . . . We went to breakfast at Kenvon's, where we met Davies Gilbert, — the former President of the Royal Society, — Guil- lemard, young Southey, and Mr. Andrew Crosse, of Somersetshire, * M. A. F. Rio, author of " La Poesie Chretienne," etc M. 46.] LEAVING EUROPE. 183 who has made so much noise of late with his crystallized minerals, formed by galvanic action, and especially with the insects that ap- peared in some experiments with acids and silica. The object of the breakfast was to show these minerals and insects, and they are really very marvellous and curious. Crosse, too, is worth knowing ; a fine, manly, frank fellow, of about fifty years old, full of genius and zeaL It was an interesting morn- ing, but it was ended by a very sad parting ; for Kenyon is an old and true friend, and when he stood by the carriage door as we stepped in, we could none of us get out the words we wanted to utter. Leaving London on the 6th of June, Mr. Ticknor and his family embarked at Portsmouth on the 10th, on board a sailing packet. The first steamer that crossed the Atlantic, the Sirius, made its first voyage from England to the United States that spring ; but, when Mr. Ticknor was obliged to decide on the mode of his return, she had not been heard from, and he did not think it wise to risk the safety of his family on such a new experi- ment. 184 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. CHAPTER X. Arrival at Home. — Letters to Miss Edgeworth, Mr. Legari, Prince John of Saxony, Count Cir court, Mr. Prescott, Mr. Kenyon, and others. — Death of Mr. Legare. MR. TICKNOR'S second return from Europe resembled the first in the happiness it brought, and in the warmth of affection with which he was greeted by his friends and kindred, but differed from it in the character of his general reception ; for he was not now simply a young man of brilliant promise, but he had, by his talents and character, made a mark in the commu- nity, and his absence had been distinctly felt. A visit to Europe, especially one of so long duration, was still a rare event, and the return of such a man, after such an absence, was a matter of no common interest. Almost as soon as he entered the rooms pro- vided for him at the Tremont House, the parlor was entirely filled by friends and acquaintances — some of whom had met him at the station — eager to welcome him ; and while he re- mained there, many hours of each day were occupied by these cordial greetings. His love of home, his pride in his country, and his preference for a regular, domestic life, always — as has already been said — made him regard his absences as periods taken out of his legitimate life ; and he now resumed, as quickly as possible, his share in the interests of his native sphere. For a year or more after his return, he and his family still lived somewhat like travellers, visiting various relatives and friends during the two summers, and in the winter and spring, while in Boston, passing a few weeks at a hotel, and five months under the hospitable roof of their friend, F. C. Gray. In September, 1839, they were able to return to their house in Park Street, which had been rented for four years, and at the expiration of that time had required some renovation and change. M. 47.] HOME INTERESTS. 185 During the succeeding years, Mr. Ticknor's correspondence with friends, both in America and in Europe, became more in- teresting than before ; but it contains few allusions to his per- sonal occupations, or the daily incidents of his Hfe. It shows the strong feeling he had for the progress of his country, and his desire to have it better understood abroad ; and it is always full of a warm-hearted interest in whatever concerned those to whom he was personally attached. The frequent reference to political subjects in his letters, espe- cially at a later period, will be observed, not only as somewhat unexpected from a man devoted to scholarly and literary pur- suits, but as opposed to the impression entertained by those who knew him only slightly, that he was indifferent to matters of government and politics. That he had strong convictions and , inteUigent opinions on all the poHtical movements of his time in / his own country, that he observed carefully, and watched with interest what may be called comparative politics, historical and contemporaneous, will readily be seen. The formation of his views was the result of influences, some of which were peculiar in his case. One of his marked characteristics was loyalty to truth ; and he always felt that this virtue could be maintained in politics, as in everything else. He thought that in our written Constitution we had a standard- of political truth and integrity to which it was always safe and patriotic to conform, v He therefore belonged to whatever party in the country gave the most trustworthy assur- ance of adhering to the Constitution and preserving the Union, with least variation from the principles of its founders.; He be- longed to a generation which began life while yet the discussions connected with the first creation of the United States government were fresh in men's minds ; when the opinions of Washington, Hamilton, and Adams were famiharly known ; and he lived through a period when the progress of the nation was remarkably rapid, well-balanced in material, moral, and intellectual growth, and guided by men of worth as well as of ability. As his gener- ation began to pass away, an enormous material development, immense immigration, and eager divergence into sectional par- «-«/ 186 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1838. ties, changed the character of the country in several important respects. His intercourse in Europe with men distinguished both as leading statesmen and as political tliinkers ; his pursuit, even at Gottingen, of studies calculated to make him a competent ob- server of the public life, the statesmen, and the governments of different lands, — all trained his judgment and quickened his insight into similar subjects at home. In consequence of this, he took, for more than fifty years, as keen an interest in all the active pSlitical thought of his time, as if he himseK had been concerned in its creation or its control. His ability and his sagacity will be differently estimated by dif- ferent readers ; but his interest, and the breadth, wisdom, and elevation of his desires for his country, will be apparent to all. He loved his native land, and always fulfilled the duties imposed on private citizens with the privileges of a free government. That he was thought sometimes desponding about the success of our institutions grew, probably, out of the eagerness and emphasis which he often put into the expression of that consciousness of our dangers, from which no man, with his antecedents and his point of view, could escape ; but which to younger men, of a generation marked by a spirit of laissez-faire and sanguine confi- dence, seemed exaggerated and depressing. His conversation showed his sense of the responsibility which rests on every man of thought and integrity to transmit to others the great truths and traditions he has received as an inheritance from those before him ; to discountenance opinions which he is satisfied are dangerous to civilization and to healthy progress (a duty, as he once wrote, especially important where the government rests on public opinion) ; and to promote, so far as in him lies, the sovereignty of law and justice. When a young law student, 1813-15, Mr. Ticknor belonged to the Federalist party, and he always adhered to its creed, calling himself, in his latest years, an "old Federalist." In those early days he wrote political articles for the newspapers, and was somewhat a partisan ; but after his first return from Europe he did not renew either this spirit or that habit. M. 47.] CORRESPONDENCE. 187 Mr. George T. Curtis furnishes the following anecdote, which is associated with this subject : " I chanced," he says, " at a puhhc dinner in Boston, on some political occasion, to sit next to a gentleman of some literary celebrity, who, although he re- sided in the neighborhood, was not intimately acquainted with Isli. Ticknor, and who did not know that he was my kinsman. In the course of the evening he spoke with some asperity of Mr. Ticknor, as a man who never voted at elections. I told him he was entirely mistaken ; that Mr. Ticknor had always voted at elections, when he was at home; that I had very often gone with him to the polls, and when I had not done so, I knew that he had voted, and how. This statement occasioned some surprise among those who heard it, and who had been in the habit of regarding Mr. Ticknor as a man who held himself entirely aloof from all sympathy in the poHtical questions that agitated his country or his State." Abundant testimony could be gathered on this point, as his friends and family know that he never failed to vote at municipal, State, and general elections. Premising that, from this time forward, all his winters — ex- cept one — during the remainder of his life were passed in Bos- ton, and that the summers of 1840, 1841, and 1842 were spent in a quiet spot on the sea-shore, — partly described in the letters, — we give a selection from the correspondence, in chronological order. To EaEL FnZWILLIAM. Boston, October 17, 1838. My dear Lord Fitzwilliam, — . . . . Since we saw you, we have seen a good deal of our own country, .... and I cannot ex- press to you how much I have been struck with the progress every- thing has made during the three years of our absence. And yet, during those years, we have passed through the severest commercial embarrassments we have ever experienced, and have sustained losses which almost anywhere else would have left deep, if not dangerous traces. But the truth is, the condition of the lowest classes of the people is so truly comfortable, there is so much thrift and prosperity among them, and, above all, so much education, intelligence, and do- 188 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1839. mestic happiness and purity, that the changes which affect the condi- tion of the rich reach them always very slowly, and generally not at all I witness, therefore, wherever I go, nothing but proofs of improvement, — houses everywhere just built and building ; villages and hamlets starting, as it were, from the earth before me ; three railroads just opened into this city ; steamboats plying in all direc- tions ; and all the signs of activity and success, an activity and suc- cess which belong not to a few, or to a class, but to the whole peo- ple Education is advancing more rapidly, even, than wealth is accumu- lated Indeed, if we can keep the relations of domestic life as true and as pure as they now are, and continue the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and intelligence through the whole people, I know not that we can ask anything more for the country. Our free institutions will then have a fair chance ; and if they fail, they will fail from the inherent faults of such institutions, and not from the unfa- vorable circumstances under which the experiment will be tried To Miss Maria Edgeworth, Edgeworthtown. Boston, U. S. A., March 6, 1839. Dear Miss Edgeworth, — . , . . We have been at home long enough to feel quite settled ; and we are very happy in it. Our fam- ily circle is large, and the circle of kind friends much larger. \ The town, too, is a good town to live in. It is a part of my enjoyments, — and one that I feel deeply, — that in this towTi of 80,000 inhabitants, — or, with the suburban towns, 120,000, — where there is a great deal of intellectual activity and cultivation, there is no visible poverty, little gross ignorance, and little crime. J . , . . The principle, that the property of the country is bound to educate all the children of the country, is as firmly settled in New England as any principle of the British Constitution is settled in your empire ; and as it is alike for the interest of the majority, who have but 'little of the property that is taxed to pay for the education, and for the interest of the rich, who protect their property by this moral police, it is likely to be long sustained, as it is now sustained, by uni- versal consent. But, though I do not foresee the effects, it requires no spirit of pro|:^hecy to show that they must be great ; and can they be anything but good 1 (The present effect, which I feel every day, is, that Boston is a happy place to live in, because all the people are edu- cated, and because some of them, like Dr. Channing, Mr. Norton, and M. 47.] LETTER TO MISS EDGEWORTH. 189 Mr. Prescott, who have grown out of this state of things, and Mr. Webster, and others, who could have been produced in no other than this state of things, are men who would be valued in any state of society in the world, and contribute materially to render its daily intercourse agreeable .... Among the books republished here, and of which more copies have been sold in America than were sold of the original edi- tion in England, is Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter, about which you ask. It is a most interesting hook, and has greatly interested the multitudes here, who feel that Scott belongs to us as he does to you, and who thank God that Milton's language is our mother-tongue, and Shakespeare's name compatriot with our own. But the ocean that rolls between us operates like the grave on all personal and party feelings ; and our thoughts and feelings towards such as Sir Walter and yourself are as impartial, at least, if not as wise and decisive, as the voice of posterity. We were, therefore, pained by some parts of this book To the admirers of Sir Walter in America, who knew him only as they know Shakespeare, part of what is in Lock- hart was an unwelcome surprise, much more so than it was in Eng- land, where the weaknesses of his character were known to many. Sir Walter, therefore, does not stand, in the moral estimation of this coun- try, where he did. Perhaps Lockhart could not avoid this, certainly he could not avoid it entirely, but there is one thing he could have avoided ; I mean printing some of the letters, and some parts of the private journal. No doubt the letters, generally, are the most delightful part of the whole work, and if all had been like those to you, they would have given only pleasure. But in some of them Sir Walter is made to ex- pose himself. There was no need of this, and it has given great pain. Some day I hope we shall see all the letters you were so kind as to show us at Edgeworthtown. Two or three of them do him more honor than any in Lockhart. Nothing, however, can prevent the book from being a painful one. I felt, in reading it, as if I were wit- nessing the vain and cruel struggles of one driven forward by the irresistible fate of the old Greek tragedians To H. E. H. Prince John, Duke of Saxony. Boston, U. S. A., May 17, 1839. My dear Lord, — I received in the summer of year before last a kind letter from you, in reply to mine from Florence about Carlo 190 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1839. Troya, and I intended to liave done myself the honor to thank you for it ; but constant travelling, with the occupations consequent upon my return home, have thus far prevented me. But our recol- lections of Dresden, and of all the kindness we received there, are too deep and sincere to permit us to neglect any opportunity of recalling ourselves to the memories of those to whom we owe so much. I am the more anxious to write to you now, because I wish to offer you a book published last year by one of my most intimate friends ; the " History of Ferdinand and Isabella," by Mr. William H. Pres- cott, of this city, a work which has obtained great success in England as well as in this country, and which is begiiming to be known in France and Germany. Our friend Count Circourt published an elab- orate review of it lately in the " Bibliotheque Universelle," giving it great praise ; and Hallam, Southey, and others of the best judges in England have placed it equally high. I wish to offer it to you, therefore, as a specimen of the progress of letters in this country at the present time, and I think it will give you pleasure to look over it. To Baron Lindenau I send, by the same conveyance, a Commen- tary on the " Mecanique Celeste " of La Place,* which marks the limit of our advancement in the exact sciences. But everything with us makes progress. I am struck with it on all sides, since I came home, after an absence of three or four years. I wish, indeed, that in some respects our progress were less rapid, for I should then feel that it would be more safe, and that its results would be more solid. But there is no remedy for the evil, if it be in fact an evil, which the future only can prove ; for progress — rapid, inevitable progress in wealth, in education, in civilization — is the very law of our condition, and its impulse is irresistible. We all feel and obey it. I am very anxious to hear of the publication, or rather the printing, of your translation of the " Purgatorio." It must, I think, by this time be out of the press And now, my dear Prince, I pray you to keep us in your kind thoughts, for we always think of you and of our pleasant winter in Dresden with gratitude. Offer too, we pray you, our respectful homage to the King and Queen Ever, my dear Prince, very faithfully yours, George Ticknor. * By Dr. Bowditch. M. 48.] HUGH SWINTON LEGAE^. 191 To Hugh S. Legare, Charleston^ S. C* Boston, December 29, 1839. My dear Legare, — After the old Anglo-Saxon fashion, I wish yon a Happy New Year, and doubt not my greeting will find you well in possession of it ; for your letter has a cheerful tone about it. You were just arrived at your own home, — if such a desperate bachelor as you are has anything, or deserves to have anything, that is such a real comfort, — and your heart seemed to feel light. I rejoice at it, and counsel you, while you make the most of what you have, to add the rest, — as it were the shirt to the ruffle, — as soon as you find a good chance. Your present wheels, like those of Pharaoh's chariots in the Eed Sea, will drive more heavily the farther you go in your journey It is true, as you say, that our old friend Hita, or Hyta, speaks doubtfully of the place where the glorious Alonso de Aguilar, of the Ballads, fell. But there is really no doubt about it. It was in the Sierra Vermeja. One of the most picturesque passages in the his- tory of any country is the account by old Mendoza, of an expedition by the Duke of Arcos, in the days of what is quaintly called the Ee- beUion of the Moors, — say 1570, — and of his finding in the Vermeja the bones of those that perished with Alonso ; a passage you will enjoy the more if you will compare it with Tacitus' account of the finding, by Germanicus, of the bones of Varus' lost legion, which the old Spaniard has so exquisitely used, and stolen, as to make his very theft a merit and a grace. Do read it. It is in the fourth book of the proud old courtier, and fully confirms the ballad Gray, Prescott, and the rest of tutta quella schiera, — as you call it, and you might have added benedetta, — are well. We dined together yesterday, and wanted you cinquieme, Sparks being the fourth We are all well in my house, and enjoy a quiet winter and many most agreeable evenings. I am teaching five or six very nice girls, of * The Hon. Hugh Swinton Legare, already mentioned more than once (see Vol. I. pp. 278, 450, and 488), had gradually reached a position of much emi- nence in the United States. He was a statesman, with opinions and views of the broadest character, who, in the nullification troubles in his native State of South Carolina, in the years 1832 - 33, was a firm and influential adherent of the Union, in opposition to the local sentiment of the State. The friendship between him and Mr. Ticknor grew warmer, and their intercourse more frequent. Mr. Legare had been a member of Congress, but was at this time (December, 1839) prac- tising his profession (the law) with almost unrivalled distinction in South Caro- lina. 192 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1839. sixteen to nineteen, who belong to my family, to understand and love Milton, and it is a great pleasure to find how they take to it. Yours always, G. T. To Charles S. Daveis, Portland. Boston, December 31, 1839. My dear Charles, — .... The world goes on here, inside and outside my domicile, much after its old rate. The money market is easier, business men less anxious, and the prospect of getting into new scrapes and emban-assments, from Eastern or Western lands, up-town lots, or other absurdities, very promising. The opinion here is that money will be a drug in April, and the consequence of that, I suppose, is inevitable. Old Mr. Lyman used to say he never knew anybody learn anything by experience ; and the Yankees, nowadays, seem to justify his wisdom, or sarcasm. Whereupon, I hold it judicious to sell out all bank, insurance, and other stocks, whether fancy or not, and live on mortgages and such small deer, till the succession of gales now blowing, and of political parties now fighting, are pretty much gone by, and things are settled down into some sort of peace and or- der ; for, considering how much we are under the fluctuations of foreign affairs as well as domestic follies, and, taking Louis Philippe, the Chartists, the Northeastern Boundary, and the Southwestern bank- ruptcy, all into the computation, a close reef is better than a flowing sheet. " Ye have what I advise," as Beelzebub said, braggingly, after he had counselled " ignoble ease and peaceful sloth," — a parallel to my case, if you like so to call it. .... We are all well ; my wife famously, and the bairns thrivingly. |Whiggery is low. I never thought much of it, and now less than ever^ since the Whigs have chosen a nullifier and a sub-treasury man for Speaker.* .... But we shall get settled some time or other, and so will you in Maine. When will you get your land on the Mada- waska, and when will you get pay for your frolic last winter ? How- ever, laissez-aller. It is a new year. Love to all. Yours always, G. T. To Charles S. Daveis, Portland. Boston, May 12, 1840. Guizot's essay on the character of Washington is admirable, and Hillard has done justice to it in the translation. As soon as it is out * R. M. T. Hunter. M, 48.] METAPHYSICS IN THE UNITED STATES. 193 I prav you to read it, and cause it to be read in your purlieus. It is a salutary document, and as beautiful as it is salutary ; full of states- manlike wisdom, and with an extraordinary insight into the state of our affairs, in their most troublesome and difl&cult times. Moreover, no man, I think, has rendered such ample and graceful justice to Wash- ington's character. Brougham's sketch is an ordinary piece of shallow rhetoric compared to it. I received a few days ago from our old friend, Professor Smyth, the two first volumes of his lectures on history ; a genial work, like him- self, and, if not a regular abstract of dates and events, a work as well fitted as any I have ever seen to rouse up the minds of young men and induce them to inquire and learn for themselves The rather irregular mode in which it is all done adds, perhaps, to its effect, by giving it the same air of frankness and sincerity that marks his own character and talk, and are more persuading than anything formal ever is. "We are all well. For the last week we have had five nieces stay- ing with us, and so have made a merry time of it ; but in a day or two they wi.ll go home and leave us to ourselves. It is perhaps time, on some accounts. We have had our house full a large part of the winter To Miss Maria Edgeworth, Edgeworthtown. July 10, 1840. You ask me, dear Miss Edgeworth, to give you some account of the state of metaphysics in this country, desiring, I think, chiefly to be informed of their practical effect on life and character among us. It is very kind in you thus to give me an opportunity of speaking to you, and so keeping up a little of that intercourse which, during the few days we were at Edgeworthtown, was so truly delightful to us. But I do not know that I should venture to take you at your word, if the story were not a very short one ; for I think you have as little fancy for metaphysics, taken in the common and popular sense of the word, as I have ; and that a history of them, given at any length, would be very wearisome to you. Luckily we are a practical people, perhaps a little too much given to the merely useful, but we are eminently a practical people. If, therefore, we are at any time attacked by the metaphysical disease, we must, like the Scotch, necessarily have it lightly. It cannot become chronic or permanent in the constitution, as with the more spiritualized TOL. II. 9 M 194 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1840. and imaginative Germans. Indeed, I doubt whether we should, at any period of our history, have been metaphysically inclined, if our popular theology had not long been of a character so peculiar The Assembly's Catechism and other similar works, acutely meta- physical, were the books in almost universal use among us, and the only truly great metaphysical work we have produced is the type and complement of such a state of things."* .... No doubt such sort of reading as this, which was the popular read- ing in New England, where everybody read, had a considerable effect on the character of the people for a time. One of the most practically wise statesmen now alive has often told me, that we never should have had our Revolution, if all the people had not been, for a century, in the habit of discussing the Westminster Assembly's Catechism. And there is more truth in the odd jest than at first appears However, as I said before, we are a practical people, — eminently so, — and it was not possible metaphysics should become part of our constitution. Since, therefore, our revolutionary condition has passed away, — revolutionary, I mean, in intellectual movement as well as political, — and has given place to a more settled state of things, we have shown little tendency to metaphysical discussions or controver- sies. Even Calvinism, where it exists, has lost much of its theoretical, philosophical character and severity ; and the other religious sects, seeing to what absurdities the Calvinists were so long carried, by their perverse intellectual philosophy, have been — especially for the last five-and-twenty years — even more afraid than was reasonable of the logical deductions to which their systems may lead them. Still, there is, at this moment, a tendency in a few persons among us to a wild sort of metaphysics, if their publications deserve so dig- nified a name But such discussions come from a source totally different from that of the hard metaphysics of the old school, and are going in quite an opposite direction. They are of German origin, and within the last few years have been modified and rendered grotesque by a free infusion from the school of Carlyle, whose follies of form and style they have adopted, without finding any of his power I do not mean, however, by what I have said, that we are careless of what is valuable in practical metaphysics. On the contrary, in relation to this really important portion of the science, we were never so much in earnest. In proof, I send you the account, given in two successive reports of the Blind Asylum, in this city, partly on the education of a child, who, at the age of two years, wholly lost her eyes * Edwards on " The Freedom of the Will." M. 49.] CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 195 and hearing, who has a very imperfect taste, and no smell at all ; ia short, a child who .... has no idea of the external world, and no means of communicating with it but through the sense of touch. The great question, of course, was how to educate her, how to give her any ideas, and open a communication between her and the outer world. It was a question hard for any ingenuity of intellectual phi- losophy or practical metaphysics to solve After being in the Institution a little more than three years, she has been brought to the incredible point of writing — quite alone — a letter to her mother, of which a facsimile is given in the Report for 1840 She is an intelligent, rapidly improving, happy, gay child. Now, this I call practical metaphysics, and rejoice in it ; and when the book is printed about her, — that will be printed when her education is further advanced, — it will, if I mistake not, awaken the attention of the wiser sort of intellectual philosophers throughout the world ; such philosophers, I mean, as you and I, who care to make people happy, and not to make them crazy or quarrelsome To Chakles S. Daveis, Portland. Boston, December 3, 1840. The great political question which you were in doubt about .... has been triumphantly settled. Yesterday the flag on the top of our State House showed what was going on below, and I could not help thinking what a beautiful and provident arrangement it was, that made it necessary to cast the Electoral vote on the same day, and at nearly the same hour, through all the States. And this brought me to think of the convention that made the Constitution, and the Madi- son papers. Have you looked them over ? I say looked over, for it is not likely many people will read them through. I have done as much, I suppose, as I ever shall with them, and was struck with the moderate amount of talent, knowledge, and practical skill in govern- ment that was shown in the whole body. Nor was I displeased to see that it was so ; for it gave so much the more prominence and value to their honesty. I do not believe that so honest a body of men was ever collected, for a similar purpose, since the world was made ; and it was their honesty, their sincere desire to fulfil the great duty for which they were appointed, which, under God, saved us, — not their talent or their -wdsdom, — and gave us the best form of government that was ever made. 196 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1841. And this I regard as a fact in the history of nations, and in the development of God's providence in political affairs, of almost un- rivalled importance, and full of benefits to the future. It seems from it, as if honesty could do almost anything ; and when we see what has been doing the past years, and a long way back, it seems almost to prove the converse of the proposition, and show that talents alone can do nothing, — can bring nothing to pass that will last. Pray make a speech to that effect when you go to the Senate ; or, if you think it would make friends and enemies, all round, think you are crazy, give my respects to Dr. Nichols, and ask him to preach uiDon it next Fast Day. It is no paradox ; it is a great truth, and the old Convention is as striking and weighty an illustration of it, at the same time, as could be asked for. To Hugh S. Legare. Boston, June 16, 1841. My dear Legare, — Your letter came last Saturday morning, and the same day there dined with me AUston, Prescott, Longfellow, and Hillard, the editor of Spenser. You ought to have been there, for we had a good time, wholly extempore, by accidental coming to- gether, and it is the last gathering under my roof-tree, till the cool weather and longer evenings make such things worth while. Mean- while we are to be found at Woods' Hole, the extreme southerly point of Falmouth, at the bend of Cape Cod, where, as the saying goes, there is nothing but Ticknors and fish. We shall, however, expect you if you come into these parts, .... and when you get there you will find a decent inn, containing, in general, nobody but ourselves and our servants, the thermometer never above 76°, no dust, no noise, no insects, — except flies, — no company ; a plenty of Spanish books, fish, and sea-bathing Perhaps you can arrange to come with Mr. Jeremiah Mason, or some of our friends who will be coming to taste the cool air on our Point, which is exactly opposite the Eliza- beth Islands We go in three days, and stay till the end of September Meantime, I shall receive and read your lihellus on Demosthenes with great interest, and, I dare say, with the same delight with which I read your account of Demus himself.* It will, no doubt, savor of that ingrained love of political life which will never come out of you * Articles on " Demosthenes " and " Athenian Democracy," wi'itten by Mr. Legare for the " New York Review." M. 50.] LETTERS TO HUGH S. LEGAR^. 197 except Tvith all the rest that is in you. As the Spanish girl tells her sister about love, in one of the old Ballads, — *' No saldra del alma Sin salir cou ella." So the next thing I shall hear of you, after aU your Greek and Spanish, will be a seat in the House of Eepresentatives, or a foreign mission. But first you must come here, and swear, like the knight, that it is all naught, and I will believe nothing of what you say, nor even do you the grace to think you perjured. To Hon. Hugh S. Legare, Washington.* January 2, 1842. Many thanks for your kindness to the Lyells.f They deserved it. You give us the last news we get of them, and the last, perhaps, we ever shall get, if your account of the storm in which they left Wash- ington is to be taken without mitigation. But I suspect you politi- cians there are so in the habit of exaggeration, that fiction, half the time, comes as handy as fact. At the latest dates, I notice, the Treas- ury was so empty that the draft of the proper officer, to procure funds to pay members of Congress, was refused. I wdah I could believe it. The rule of the Chinese, in relation to their doctors, would apply ad- mirably to all of you at Washington ; for they of the Celestial Empire pay their physicians a salary, which stops the moment the payor becomes indisposed, and is renewed as soon as he is well again. And I would pay you all for the time you are not in Washington, cutting off your rations the instant you go there, and begin to talk and act. Besides all other benefits, we should get some of you here at the North, " the quarters of the North," — Satan's kingdom, you know, — where we would make merry excellently ; better in a winter's \dsit than even in a summer's. Morpeth J went off a week ago, having given us rather a severe tour of duty here in the way of dining out. You will have him in Washington about the 20th, I suppose, and will entertain him there, no doubt, with bull-fights on the floor of the House, and perhaps a gay afi'air or so at the President's. But go your ways. You are not to be mended. He is a good-natured fellow, cultivated and intelli- * Mr. Legare was now Attorney-General of the United States. t Mr. and Mrs. Charles Lyell, afterwards Sir Charles and Lady Lyell. X Afterwards seventh Earl of Carlisle, died 1861 198 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1842. gent, and generous of everything but his own opinions, of which I think you shall get no great profit. We liked him. We are all well, and have just gone through a Merry Christmas — really and truly merry — and a really happy New Year. All good wishes we send you ; and shall expect to have yours in return, very Boon, to stow away with the rest in our great treasury, upon which you, too, may draw when you like, and find it, perchance, sounder and safer than anything you are likely to make in Washington this year. Addio, caro. G. T. To Hon. Hugh S. Legare, Washington. March 4, 1842. My dear Legare, — " They tell tis 't is our birthday, and we '11 keep it With double pomp of sadness, 'T is what the day deserves," etc.* The four poor guns at sunrise this morning, instead of the hundred that ushered in the day last year at this time,t were an apt commen- tary on Mark Anthony's drivelling, and much in the same key. Whiggery is over. Tylerism there never was any,:}: at least not in this part of Christendom. And if there had been symptoms of either, the legislature that adjourned last night, to the great delight of all sensible people, has done what it could to prevent the disease from breaking out. Besides the foolish and useless extra session, which the Whigs ordered by a strictly party vote, three quarters of them, with the governor at their head, went against a State tax ; while the other quarter, wdth about four fifths of the Locos, went for it, and lost it by a majority of eight, thus putting us iuto the same road of repudiation with, other States, to the annoyance of every man La Bos- ton whose opinion you or I should care a button about. § However, I was glad to see in the paper this morning, that one of the leading Democrats warned them yesterday, in his place, that " next year there will be a party in power who will dare to pay the State debt." In- * Dryden, " AU for Love," Act I. So. 1. t The inauguration of General Harrison, as President of the United States, occurred March 4, 1841. I Vice-President Tyler had succeeded to the office of President, on the death of General Harrison. ^ After the demise of the old Federal party, Mr. Ticknor voted with the Whigs, without being always ready fully to indorse their action. M. 50.] PASSING POLITICS. 199 deed it is not uncommon now, to hear good leading Whigs say, that, " after all, we have made so many mistakes about banking, and cur- rency, and such matters, that perhaps the other party have been as nearly right for the last ten years as we have, and that they may now try their hands at putting things in order." And certainly they are in great luck. You will just have gone through the whole odium of the bankrupt law, and the banki'upt banks ; will have adjusted every- thing with England ; and, in short, done up whatever disagreeable and dirty work Van Buren would have been unwilling to do, and then he will come in, with renewed strength, upon the sober third thought of the people, and sail upon a sea of glory to the end of his course. Huzza for Demus ! * Webster's letter about the Creole, concerning which,t of course, you may like to hear a word, excites some talk here, but not a great deal. Sumner is the only person I have met with who is vehement against it. But it is, of course, against the moral sense of our community, and though the legal sense will sustain it, that is not enough. "AUa van leyes, Adonde qiiieren reyes," says the old Spanish proverb ; and as the people is King here in New England more than on any other spot of earth since the days of the saurians and ichthyosauria, — who unquestionably made a pure de- mocracy, — the people in the long run will settle the law of this matter as of others. We made a bargain with you south of Mason and Dixon's line, and we mean to keep it ; but when it comes to enforcing it, you must expect Venetian law, and nothing more. W"e shall give you the pound of flesh, but not a drop of blood. Xegro slaves are property, by the Constitution of the United States,:}: and we are willing to claim them as such for you, when by the act of God, or by violence, they fall into the British power. But by British law they are not property, and therefore, if England turns round and says she is too moral to recognize them as such, we shall reply, perhaps, that it comes with a very ill grace from her, after having for eight centuries ♦ The Democrats came in with Mr. Polk. t See Curtis's " Life of Webster," Vol. II. pp. 119 - 122. J For those ■who are not familiar with the details of our history and form of government, it may be well to say, that Mr. Ticknor here refers to the right to hold slaves as property, not as directly established by the Constitution of the United States, but as indirectly recognized in it, through the arrangements made for the basis of representation in Congress, and the extradition of fugi- tives. 200 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1842. recognized and profited by serfdom and slavery, and after having planted these very negroes here, two centuries ago, against our will ; we may say this, I have no doubt, and gii-d at her well, in sundry well- written diplomatic notes ; but if it grows more serious, and there is talk of fighting about it, we shall be a great deal too moral at the North to belong to the war-party. Considering how direct taxes have been managed, we feel fully justified in being thus strict construc- tionists about this matter. The most we shall sustain you in doing, will be in making a good bargain for the protection of black property, going through those ugly Bahama shoals Webster talks about, if you are willing to set the matter on the coast of Africa right, so that we shall not favor the slave-trade as we do now, to our disgrace before all Christendom. Indeed, this is likely enough to be the whole amount of the game you are playing. Webster's letter is very able ; so able that, while it convinces many, it strengthens the Abolitionists, by showing how very disagreeable is the true constitutional ground, which hangs a man as a pirate, for having been willing to jeopard his life in order to obtain the freedom in which that same Constitution says he was born. The moral I draw from all this is, that as you have nothing to hope as a Whig party, at Washington, I trust you will make up your minds to do your duty to the country, in such a way as to make it plain that you mean to do it, being beyond fear or favor. Yours faithfully, G. T. To Rev. W. E. Chaxning, Boston. Boston, April 20, 1842. I am rejoiced to hear what you tell me, of Chancellor Kent's opin- ion, and I wish the Supreme Court of the United States might declare it to be the law of the land. On the subject of our relations with the South, and its slavery, we must — as I have always thought — do one of two things ; either keep honestly the bargain of the Constitution, as it shall be interpreted by the authorities to whom we have agreed to confide its interpretation, — of which the Supreme Court of the United States is the chief and safest, — or declare honestly that we can no longer in our consciences consent to keep it, and break it. I therefore rejoice at every legal decision which limits and restrains the curse of slavery ; both because each such restriction is in itself so great a good, and because it makes it more easy to preserve the Union. I fear the recent decision, in the case of Pennsylvania and Maryland, works the M. 50.] LETTER TO PRINCE JOHN. 201 other way, but hope it will not turn out so, when we have it duly reported ; and I fear, however the decisions may stand, that the ques- tion of a dissolution of the Union is soon to come up for angry dis- cussion.* To Prince John, of Saxony. Boston, U. S. A., March 15, 1842. My Lord, — I received duly your very kind letter, and the beauti- ful copy of the translation of Dante's " Purgatorio " that accompanied it. For both, I pray you to accept my best thanks. As in the case of the " Inferno," I find the translation conscientiously accurate ; but the notes are quite different from those you gave before, the " Inferno" requiring historical, and the " Purgatorio " requiring theological eluci- dations. With the last I have been extremely struck. It must have cost you great labor and a very peculiar course of study to enable you to prepare them. But they are worth all the trouble they gave you. From the " Ottimo Comento," through Landino, and so on, down to the last of the annotators, no one has made the metaphysical difficulties of the " Purgatorio " so intelligible. I trust you are employed on the " Paradiso," and that I shaU soon enjoy the results at which you wiU arri"s^e. Dante is a mare magnum for adventure, and every time I read him I make, or think I make, new discoveries. I take the liberty to send you, ^vith this, Stephens's work on the aboriginal antiquities found in the woods of Central America. You will find it, I think, very curious, especially in the comparisons it will suggest with the earliest remains of ancient art in Egypt and Asia In the same parcel you will find two newspapers, of the vast size in which they are often published in this country. The one printed at New York contains Mrs. Jameson's translation of the Princess Amelie's " Oheim " ; the one printed in Boston contains an original translation of the " Verlobung." Of each of these papers eight or ten thousand copies were printed. Please to give those I send you, with my best respects, to the Princess. It will amuse her to see how popu- lar she is in the New World. My family are all well, and we have had great health and happiness * Mr. Ticknor often said, that after his visit to "Washington in 1824, he always felt that a civil war might grow, sooner or later, out of the question of slavery. He dreaded this, and always desired its postponement, if it could not be averted, on the ground that every year the resources of the North were strengthened, and its power to maintain the cause of the Union increased. 9* 202 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1842. and little sorrow since we saw you. We all remember Dresden, and its hospitalities, with much pleasure and gratitude, and hope we have friends there who will not entirely forget us. Mrs. Ticknor desires that her acknowledgments and compliments may be offered to you. I remain, my dear Prince, Very faithfully and affectionately yours, George Ticknor. From Prince John, of Saxony. Dresden, 4 July, 1842. Dear Sir,* — I have received, with great pleasure, your letter and the books and newspapers you had the kindness to send me. Mr. Stephens's work seems to be very interesting. I have, methinks, found some time ago a notice of it, in the " Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung." My sister being in this moment at Florence, the newspapers are to make a journey into the hel paese Id dove 'I si suona. I am sure the author will be much charmed by it, being not insensible to success. The annotations and preface to the " Uncle " are very interesting for an European and German, because they show the difference of views and sentiments in the two peoples. Mrs. Jameson, the translator, was here, and is personally known to my sister. I am glad you were content with the " Purgatorio " and my theo- logical annotations to it. These last are — like all hardly got chil- dren — favorite children with me. The translation of the " Para- diso " is finished, but the studies which I must undertake, for the annotation to it, are yet more difficult than they were for the " Pur- gatorio " ; and yet I would not give out something incomplete, so that the publication of this last part may yet be deferred some time. But I console myself with the nonum prematur in annum of Horace. I am charmed to hear that you have had no sorrow in your family. For myself, I cannot say quite the same thing. My wife has suffered this last spring from a very serious illness, which presented even, one day, an immediate danger for her life, and was followed by a long and painful convalescence Now, by the mercy of God, I hope to be almost relieved of every apprehension for the future. My children, likewise, were almost all more or less sick at the same time, yet none 60 seriously, and they are now all well again. In Europe all is now peaceful, at least for the moment. The mis- * Prince Jolm always wrote to Mr. Ticknor in English, and the correspond- ence continued till the end of Mr. Ticknor's life. PRINCE JOHN, DUKE OF SAXONY M. 50.] MR. AND MRS. LYELL. 203 fortune of Hamburgh has made a great sensation in the whole of Germany. Our affairs in Saxony, particularly, go on well. Trade and industry are flourishing, and agriculture, which was till now a little neglected, begins to make good progress. You will, perhaps, find a notable difference in the character of my writing, and I hope not for the worse. I am indebted for this change to the New World, having taken, this winter, lessons in writing after the American method, as one calls it in Germany. Now, it may be, or not be, an invention of the New World. I, for my part, am very con- tent with it, having till now been much censured for my bad writing. I finish these lines by praj-ing you to commend me to Mrs. Ticknor's recollection, and by the expressions of the highest consideration, with which I am Your affectionate John, Duke of Saxony. To Rev. H. H. Milman, London. Boston, U. S. A,, May 7, 1842. My dear Sir, — A recent and most pleasant visit we have had from our mutual friends, — as I trust I may now call them, — the Lyells, reminds me that I owe an acknowledgment for your very agreeable letter, written to me last winter, and that I have a subject on which to speak to you, that will make you glad to listen to me. For I know you will always be glad to hear about the Lyells ; and I am sure you can hear nothing from this side of the Atlantic about them which would not give you pleasure. Their visit has thus far certainly been successful. Mr. Lyell has found enough in the geology of the country to reward him for his trouble, and enough intelligent geologists to help him on, and show him what he wanted to see. After his long tour at the South, therefore, in the States where the presence of slav- ery infects everything, and renders the travelling — especially to strangers — disagreeable, he has just left us — first stopping a fort- night in my family — for a still longer tour in the West and in Can- ada But to Mrs. Lyell these varieties, as far as they chance to be disagreeable, are not of consequence, so long as geology goes on welL She is one of those who " make a sunshine in a shady place," and I really believe she has enjoyed herself, almost everywhere she has been. Certainly everybody has been delighted with her And this reminds me of what I said in a former letter about educa- tion in Boston, and your reply to it, that Boston is, probably, in ad- 204 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1842. vance of the other cities of the country in this respect. It is so. But Boston is often not in advance of the villages, and townships, in the interior of Massachusetts, and of New England. On the contrary, they are often in advance of us. In illustration of this, I send you what I regard as the most curious and important document, concerning popular education, that has ever been published. I mean one of the annual reports condensed — and agreeably condensed — from the re- turns made to the Legislature of Massachusetts for the 3,103 public free schools of the State The whole of the statistics in this volume are, I think, curious ; but I would call your attention to the subjects and books taught, to the money paid, and to the occasional remarks of the committee, nine out of ten of the members of which must have been originally educated in the schools they now control. .... I add for Mrs. Milman, with my best respects, a little vol- ume recently printed by my friend Mr. Longfellow, asking her not to omit the Preface. Mr. Longfellow is just gone to the Ehine, to try to mend his health in some of its baths, and when he stops in London a few days next October, I wiU take the liberty to tell him he may call on you in my name, if you happen to be in town. He is a most amiable and agreeable person, of whom we are all very fond. Mrs. Ticknor desires her kind regards may be given to Mrs. IMilman and yourself. Very faithfully yours, George Ticknor. To Count Adolphe de Circourt, Paris. Boston, May 80, 1842. My dear Count Circourt, — In your very kind and most agreeable letter, written last February, you ask me to write to you on the polit- ical prospects of the United States. More than once I have deter- mined to do so, but have been compelled to forbear, because every- thing was so unsettled, and it was so uncertain what course would be finally taken. Now, however, we begin, I think, to see some of the results at which we must, before long, necessarily arrive, and having something really to say, I shall have much pleasure in saying it to you. But you must bear in mind that it is in the nature of prophecy, and, therefore, rather consider it as the ground for your own specula- tions, than as anything more sure and solid. "^ * In writing to M. Legare about this time on politics, Mr. Ticknor gives what he says " may be taken for the tone of opinion here at this moment, which I ^. 50.] FINANCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 205 The refusal of President Tyler, last summer, to sign the bill for a National Bank, gave, as you know, an opportunity to Mr. Clay to attempt to prevent Tyler from being again a candidate for the Presi- dency ; indeed, to attempt to compel him to resign. In this last he failed, but he necessarily broke up the party of both of them, — the Whig party, — of which Mr. Clay retains much the larger portion, but of which neither has enough to command a majority in the nation, or in Congress. Of course, effectual measures cannot be taken, except under a great pressure of popular opinion, compelling Congress to act for the good of the nation. This is the present state of affairs, in ref- erence to practical legislation. President Tyler and his Cabinet are in a small minority, both in Congress and with the people. Meantime, large portions of the country are suffering. At the South and Southwest — where individuals and States borrowed rash- ly and un^dsely — there is great distress. To individuals, the Bank- rupt Law is bringing appropriate relief ; but to the States, the pro- cess must be more slow. Some of them, like Illinois and Indiana, never will pay. They have not the means, and cannot get the means. They are honest and hopeless bankrupts, and will do what they can, but it will not be much. Others, like Mississippi, — which repudiated its obligations so shamelessly, — will be compelled to pay by the force of public opinion. Others, like Pennsylvania and Maryland, are troubled by the pressure of the times, but are able to pay, and have no thought of avoiding it or attempting to avoid it. All the rest — eighteen or twenty — are in no trouble, nor are likely to be. The lesson will have been an useful one, but the final loss, except in the atrocious case of the Pennsylvania United States Bank, will be small to any one. But Europe, I trust, will lend us no more money. It is for the benefit of both sides of the Atlantic that she should not. In New England our credit has been untouched, and our industry prosperous. At the South, and in the slave States, they are poor and growing poorer, even where they are not in debt Now at this moment the country is in debt, perhaps to the amount of twenty-five millions of dollars. The sum is trifling, no doubt, but it is wholly odious to the people to be in debt at all. The means, too, for raising a sufficient revenue are abundant ; the country, notwith- standing the indebtedness of the five or six suffering States, and the gather at Dr. Bowditch's old office [the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insiirance Office], where I am an unworthy vice-president, and where I meet most of the men whose affairs and opinions direct the times." 206 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1842. multitudinous bankruptcies of individuals, is ricli, and was never at any moment more productive than it is now. We could, without injury, bear taxation to thrice the amount that would be needful to put the finances of the general government into the best possible con- dition. But this subject can be approached only through a discussion and adjustment of the whole tariff ; and the tariff is a name that, more than any other, rouses up the sectional feelings and interests, and disturbs the passions of the country. It must, however, be discussed and settled, and that, too, in the course of the months of June and July. The country requires it, and it must be done. That a really wise and judicious tariff will be made, I do not venture to hope ; but no doubt, as it seems to me, a tariff equal to the wants of the govern- ment will be passed, and after that there will be no more talk of financial difficulties. It is quite ridiculous that they have ever ex- isted, and has been wholly owing to the state of parties ; but the mass of the people, who have been forgotten in the strife for office and power, are the real masters, and they have plainly determined that their interests shall no longer be sacrificed. Congress will obey, and, with the settled finances of the country, its prosperity will return. On our foreign relations, I have always told you, I have no anxiety. Mr. Webster's wisdom and moderation are a guaranty for peace, and Lord Ashburton has so found it. Everything in our relations with England will be settled, and that speedily, and placed on a more firm and satisfactory foundation than they have been before, since the two countries were separated. The only point of any real difficulty has been found to be the Northeastern Boundary. This Mr. Webster has skilfully composed, by asking Maine and Massachusetts to appoint commissioners, with full powers to consent to such an adjustment as they may deem satisfactory, and honorable, to their respective States The other points — the affairs of the Creole and the Caroline, with the right of search on the coast of Africa, as explained by Lord Aber- deen — are very easy to adjust, and are in fact adjusted. The whole, too, has been done, as between the principal negotiators, in the best possible spirit. Mr. Webster told me the other day, that he did not think a person, more fitted to the place he fills than Lord Ashburton, could have been found in the Queen's dominions ; and I understand Lord Ashburton, on his part, is equally well pleased. The English affairs, then, I consider settled ; though, when the treaty comes before the Senate, there will be some factious opposition to it, and though you will not have the official annunciation for a couple of months. ^.50.] LEBANON SPRINGS. 207 Mr. Webster's letter to the governor of Maine has done more for this result than any other thing. It was a cajpo cVojpera, and left nothing for faction to take advantage of. ... . The little affair of Rhode Island has tended, I think, to strengthen our institutions, by settling the principle that the people of a State have no right to change their Constitutions, except in the forms pro- vided by law. The case was this. The Constitution, or Charter, of Rhode Island was one sufficiently absurd, which had been given by Charles II,, and had long since ceased to be suited to the peo- ple. But the landholders, who had all the power, refused to give it up until lately, when the mass of the people became so exasperated that, without observing the forms prescribed by law, they made a Constitution for themselves, and undertook to carry it into practical operation. Everything hut bloodshed followed ; but the popular party was completely put down, and now a suitable Constitution will be legally formed and peaceably carried into execution. It consti- tutes a strong case, because the people were originally right, and only erred in the forms, and in the passions they indulged. But enough of politics. To Hon. Hugh S. Legare, Washington. LEBA^'0N Springs, June 9, 1842. Dear Legare, — A nice place it is, to be sure, as you say, and I do not wonder that you spent sundry happy days here last summer, except that there were so many people in it. We came a week ago, and had the Prescotts and Gray,''^ till day before yesterday, when they returned, and left us to enjoy this rich and beautiful nature quite alone. It is really delicious. Don't you think we can tempt you to give up at Washington and come here 1 We can offer you the beau- tiful woods and valleys you know of, and as many sheep as your shep- herd's craft can manage. It would be better than being the Poimen Laon ; especially when the people don't follow. Not a soul has dis- turbed our peaceful repose, except that Colonel Colden and the Dick- enses came, one night after we were gone to bed, and cleared out the next day at noon, much grieved that the Shakers were so insensible to his widespread merit, and so little respecters of persons, as to refuse to show him any of their mysteries, or managements touching men or * Judge and Mrs, Prescott, Mr. W. H. Prescott and his daughter, and Mr. F. C. Gray. 208 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1842. beasts. We have, therefore, all the endless piazzas of Mr. Bentley's huge, out-squaiidered house, and all the fine drives in the Berkshire valleys, as much to ourselves as if there were no fashionables in New York ; and, having stipulated beforehand for a separate establishment and table, we may hold out, perhaps, even after the first irruption be- gins. But, as soon as the Philistines ai-e really upon us, we shall be gone ; and that will no doubt be in the course of ten days Don't tell of us, but come and see ; a word I utter just as if it could have any meaning in political ears. Well, I am sorry for you. As old Cooper said, you were really made for better things, and, when you are fairly turned out of office, it is within the limits of a miracu- lous possibility that you should find it out. Perhaps the revelation will come to you at Woods' Hole, which he of the Lamentations* calls my Patmos, or, more euphoniously, " Ticknor's Patmos." .... Write to me, and tell me of some glimpses of sunshine in Congress ; some ground for rejoicing in the country ; something that shall make a man submit more willingly to bear the name of an American. They that were in Hamburg when it was burnt up, or in Cape Francois when it was sunk, were better off than a citizen of the United States will be in London or Paris a year hence, if in the in- terval things go downward as fast as they have a year past. Take that to the next Cabinet meeting, and show it to President Tyler. They say he loves plain truth, and seldom gets it ; but I rather think that, like other men, he gets as much as he wants, probably more. Addio, caro. You see how this gentle nature mollifies mine, and makes me gracious beyond my wont. . Always yours in good faith, Geo. T. Mrs. T. sends kindest regards, and will shortly prepare a pastoral for you. My daughter, too, desires to be remembered. Piccinina talks of you. We all want to see you. My next, I suppose, will be from the Classic " Hole," — Jeremiah's " Patmos," — a more euphu- istical combination of four words than has been made since the days of Lily. I am vain of it. You "will probably gather from the bucolic entusimuzy of my letter that I never was in this part of the world before. It is so. All Berkshire is new to me ; but I think we shall come here often here- after. It is more agreeable, as well as more picturesque, than I ex- pected. * Hon. Jeremiah Masou. M. 51.] " CONQUEST OF MEXICO." 209 To William H. Prescott, Nahant. Woods' Hole, Sunday, August 14, 1842. My dear William, — You will be glad to hear that the rest of your manuscript is safe.* .... We were just ready for it, ha\aiig, a few hours before it came, reached the antepenultimate chapter of the first portion of the manuscript. Last night, when we went to bed, we left poor Montezuma moaning out his life, in the hands of his atro- cious conqueror. I cannot bear to have his sufferings prolonged, and as the next chapter despatches him, we shall go through it at once. I should feel much more satisfaction if it were Cortes himself, who richly deserves all that Montezuma suffers, and more too. Meanwhile, I am going slowly through the whole the second time ; not having, till to-day, finished the second book. The first time going over, especially in the more interesting and exciting passages, I am quite unable to attend to the smaller matters of style and phrase- ology. But what I do note is put on separate paper. Afterwards it is jotted down, in pencil, on your manuscript. The whole is not much ; and even in the little I have seen fit to mark, I do not sup- pose you will often agree -w-ith me, and shall never know whether you do or not, for they are trifles so unimportant that I shall not remem- ber them myself, when I read again the same passages. There can be no doubt of your success. The subject is not so grand and grave, and you do not have such opportunity for wisdom and deep inquiry, as in " Ferdinand and Isabella," but it Is much more brilliant and attractive. It reads like romance, and there is a sort of epic completeness about it, which adds greatly to its power and effect. But these are things we will talk about hereafter We are all well, .... and we have gone on with great quietness and peace since I wrote you last. Mr. Mason and his two daughters spent three days here, last week ; but they were up stairs all the fore- noons, so that I have been lord of all below. In the afternoon Jeremiah came out with his politics, dark enough. But Gallio careth for none of these things We deserve what we get, and shall deserve it if we get worse Tyler will, I think, take a full loco-foco Cabi- net, and sail on a sea of glory to the end of his term, when he will disappear, and never be heard of afterwards. In six months it will be matter of historical doubt whether such a man ever existed Addio, caro. G. T. * Manuscript of the " Conquest of Mexico." N 210 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1842. To Hon. Hugh S. Legare, Washington. Boston, October 2, 1842. My dear Legar:^, — You will be curious to know how Webster's speecli * has taken with the people here ; and as there is no question about it, I Avrite just a line to say that the success is extraordinary. I did not hear it, but all who were there say the effect was prodigious. .... The excitement in the afternoon, about town, was obvious in walking through the streets, where knots of men were everywhere discussing it. Next day, — yesterday, — on 'Change, it was plain the effect was produced. Things had taken a new turn. Mr. Webster will be let alone, to do as he likes. The courage by which this has been accomplished is the most remarkable thing about it, in my esti- mation ; the next, the perfect tact with which it was done, notwith- standing the resentment he felt, which must constantly have prompted him to go too far. The Prophet t was present, and was filled with admiration. So was everybody, down to my tailor, bookseller, and bookbinder. Webster, I think, is looked on as a greater man to-day in Boston than he ever was before. Certainly he is more felt to have been injured We left Patmos on Wednesday morning That villanous hoarseness, and slight cough, which disturbed my lady wife when you were with us, is not wholly gone, and, therefore, it is not unlikely we shall take a turn of a few days on the Worcester Hills, — the sover- eign'st thing on earth for such a cold. I am quite resolved it shall not run into the cold weather, else I might be obliged to bring her as far south as Washington, — a nauseous medicament, not to be thought of except in the failure of all others. However, I have no fear of such a dose, and only mention it by way of mere impertinence. We missed you grievously ; but played a few games of whist through our tears the night after. To Hon. Hugh S. Legare, Washington. Boston, October 21, 1842. Dear Legarie, — Your friends in Washington must be wise men, and sagacious politicians, to complain of the mighty Pan's speech in Faneuil Hall. It is the only thing that has done them any good for months, and no other man in New England would have been listened * This speecli was to explain Mr. Webster's course in remaining in the Cabi- net of President Tyler. See Curtis's " Life of Webster," Vol. 11. p. 142. t Mr. Mason. M. 51.] LETTERS TO H. S. LEG ARE. 211 to if, on that spot, lie had dared to say half so much in favor of the Administration. He was every moment upon the brink of all his audience hated, and it is still a wonder how he got through without being mobbed. That what he said should not please everybody, as much as it did the good people of Boston, is natural enough, and in- deed inevitable. No speech could suit more than a small fraction of a party, falling to pieces as fast as the Whig party is "When he delivered it he was in a pretty savage temper, from all I hear. I only wish he had been a little more provoked, and laid one of his great paws on the Administration. How he would have been glorified ! Every cap in that vast multitude would have been in the air. But, unluckily, he was in the humor of speaking well of the President and all the rest of you in the Cabinet, and told Mason, and his other friends who talked with him, all about your paper on the Creole, and what other people did to help on affairs. How he feels now I don't know, for, since the morning after the explosion, nobody has seen him. He has been chiefly in New Hampshire, and writes to nobody, and seems to care for the opinion of nobody. Look out. To Hon. H. S. Legare. Boston, April 16, 1843. Our spring has been anything but tempting, and if I had succeeded in decoying you here, a fortnight or three weeks ago, you would have found yourself in the midst of a succession of snow-storms ; for which, I suppose, you would have held me responsible, and which certainly would have made me the more cross, if you had been here to suffer jfrom them. The last of the ice, however, I am happy to say, is now disappearing from the dark corners under the fences, and the swelling buds show that spring is to come over the hills with a rush that will bring summer quickly on her traces. Meantime, what are your projects ? . . . . Why not come North and make us a little visit ? We shall keep in town, I think, but am not quite sure, till the end of June ; and I dare say we shall be here in the middle of it, when Webster will make his speech at Bunker's HiU. Why can't you come then ? We will abuse you handsomely, as one of Tyler's men, and I dare say might make some money by showing you in a cage, which is worth thinking about in these hard times We are all well, and just beginning to enjoy drives into the country, where the brooks are in all their beauty, and the birds beginning to 212 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1843. rejoice at the disappearance of the suow But when July suns begin to scorch, we shall escape to our Patnios, and look for a visit from you then, at any rate. It is the pepper-corn rent due from you, annually, by prescription ; and we have no mind to give it up. This is the last letter that remains of a truly delightful cor- respondence ; and in the one to Mr. Kenyon, which stands next in these pages, Mr. Ticknor describes the sudden shock, and the striking scenes, with which the warm and satisfying friendship was ended, that had grown closer between him and Mr. Legare as years went on. Such companionship was, indeed, hard to relinquish, and it was sad to part from the hopes for their coun- try that Mr. Ticknor had rested on his friend's talents and prin- ciples. To Mr. John Kenyon, London. Boston, June 29, 1843. Dear Kenton, — By each of the last steamers I received a letter from you, the first a long one, both most refreshing and delightful, and full of your kind and faithful nature. I wish I coidd answer them both as they ought to be answered, cheerfully, brightly, heart- ily. But I cannot. I am full of troubled thoughts, even I may say I am full of sorrow. An old and much-loved friend has just died in my house, in my arms, — JSIr. Legare of South Carolina, our Attor- ney-General ; and, at the moment of his death, filling, ad interim, the place of Secretary of State, which Webster's resignation six weeks ago had left vacant. He came here, with the President and his whole Cabinet, to the great national celebration of the completion of our monument on Bunker's Hill, when Webster, on the 17th of June, made a grand speech to all the authorities of the country, and 40,000 or 50,000 be- sides. But poor Legare could not be there. He was taken ill the same morning, with what seemed a simple obstruction of the bowels. Medical aid was called at once. I was with him that day and the next, — during which his suff'erings were great, — and removed him to my house, where he survived but thirty-six hours, without having at any moment obtained the slightest relief. On a 'post mortem examination, it was found that no relief was possible from the first The suddenness of the death, — he was ill but seventy-eight hours, and we were really anxious about him only eighteen, — and the great- M, 51. DEATH OF MR. LEGAR:E. 213 ness of the loss, — for he was certainly the most impoitant man in the Administration after Webster left it, — filled our city with, sor- row and consternation, shocking all so much the more, for the jubi- lant excitement of the days immediately preceding it. To me the personal loss is very great. He was a man of genius, full of refine- ment and poetry, and one of the best scholars in the country ; but, more than aU this, he was of a most warm and afi"ectionate spirit. I had known him familiarly from 1819, when we studied together in Edinburgh. When we passed that winter in Dresden, in 1835 - 36, of which you know so well, he, being then our minister at Brussels, came to us and spent a week with us ; and every year but one, since we came home, he has made a pilgrimage to the North, to see us. But the two last years he came to us in our retreat on the sea-shore, and made it brilliant to us by his wit and dear by his affections ; and now, when the President should have left Boston, he intended to have given us four or five days of quiet enjoyment. But God has ordered other- wise, and if we can all submit with as much docility as he did, it is enough. He possessed his powers in perfect composure to the last moment ; made his will, sent all his public papers to the President, who was lodged quite near to us, and did everything suited to the occasion, without once altering the level tone of his voice, except when he spoke of the only remaining member of his immediate family, a much- loved unmarried sister. And yet this man was only forty-seven years old ; just as the country, divided about everything else, was beginning to look with great unanimity to him, from a perfect confidence alike in his talents, his principles, and his honor, — it was, indeed, just when he felt sure he was at once " to burst out into sudden blaze," that " the blind Fury came, and slit the thin-spun life." It is one of the most solemn and striking events that has ever come within my knowledge. The old physicians who attended him, and who have attended their thousands before, were as much astonished at his composure as I was. But he saw nobody, except for a moment one member of the Cabinet, who insisted upon looking at him once more ; so that the quietness of everything gave it a power that makes me shudder when I think of it.* .... * The death of ^Ir. Legare, with its attendant duties and sorrows, caused an entire change in the plans of Mr. Ticknor and his family ; and this summer, of 1843, was passed in various excursions in Massachusetts and New York. They avoided Woods' Hole, where ^Ir. Legare's annual visit had added so much to their enjoyment, and where, in fact, they never went again. 214 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1843. Sydney Smith's petition has done good, and it is something to be able to say this. Nearly every newspaper in the United States has printed it, generally without commentary ; now and then enforcing its doctrines, and sometimes, though very rarely, trying to apologize for the indebted States. In only two cases I have heard of any ex- ception to the above courses. One Boston paper, and one New York paper, disavowing the whole doctrine of repudiation, and declaiing every dollar of the debts must be paid, yet abused Mr. Sydney Smith for the manner in which he urged his claims, and for the motives that led him to invest money in American stocks. I replied to both these, in a short article I enclose, the only article savoring of politics that I remember to have written since I was twenty-one years old. Per- haps you will find some mistakes of fact about Mr. Smith in it, though I rather think not, as I remember my authorities — chiefly himself — for all I have said about him. You will notice, however, that our newspapers, like many of yours, insist on spelling his name Sidney. On the whole subject of repudiation I feel better than I did when I wrote you last about it, eight or nine months ago. The country, I think, is getting to understand the matter, and, what is more, to feel it. What Prince Metternich once said to me, in reproach of our democratic institutions, is entirely true : we must first suffer from an evil before we can apply the remedy ; we have no preventive legisla- tion upon such subjects. But then, on the other hand, when the peo- ple do come to the rescue, they come with a flooding force, which your societies, where power is balanced between the governments and the masses, know nothing about. I have much hope that this rescue is coming ; I think I see signs of it throughout all our " fierce demo- cratie." The people cannot bear to be dishonored, disgraced. They suff'er as Metternich said, but not as he meant ; and I begin to trust to them again, with my former slowly placed confidence. M. 62.] SYDNEY SMITH'S LETTERS. 215 CHAPTEE XI. Letters to Mr. Lyell, Miss Edgeworth, Mr. Kenyan, G. T. Curtis, C. S. Daveis, Prince John of Saxony, G. S. Hillard, and Horatio Greenough. — Summers at Geneseo, N. Y. ; Manchester, on Massachusetts Bay. — Journeys in Pennsylvania, New York, New Hampshire, etc. — Pass- ing Public Events. — Slavery and Repudiation. — Prison Discipline. — Revolutions of 1848. — Astor Place Riots. To Charles Lyell, Esq., London. Boston, November 30, 1843. My dear Mr. Lyell, — I wrote you a word by tbe last steamer, and now, in continuation, take up the several points in yours of Oc- tober 12. The first is repudiation. On the whole of this matter, I refer you to an article which will appear in the " North American " for Janu- ary You may depend, I think, on every word of fact or law that you find iu this paper.* When you come to the prophecy you must judge for yourself. I do not know that anything needs to be added to it for your purpose, except iu reply to your suggestion, that an impression prevails iu London that the States which have not paid the interest on their public debts are well oflf. Nothing can be farther from the truth. There has been great suff'ering in all, and in some, like Indiana and Illinois, a proper currency has disappeared, and men have been reduced to barter, in the common business of every-day life. What you saw iu Philadelphia was nothing to the crushing insolvency of the West and South. The very post-office felt the effects of it, — men with large landed estates being unable to take out their letters, because they could not pay the postage in anything the government officers could properly receive. .... How foolish, then, is Sydney Smith in his last letter, to treat us all as pickpockets ! He does his cause a great mischief by it ; that, perhaps, I could submit to, but I cannot submit to the injury he * Written by the late Beujamin R. Curtis. 216 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1843. has done to my cause, and to the cause of all honest men, by exciting passion and prejudice against it. He should have had more wisdom than to do this, more good feeling, more true sympathy with us ; for it is we who are to fight this battle for him, if it is to be fought suc- cessfully. Burke says, somewhere, that it is never worth while to bring a bill of indictment against a whole people. Certainly, then, it must be a mistake to iusult a whole people, more especially if you wish to persuade that people, at the same time, to do something ; and most especially if that people is really sovereign, and can do as it likes after all. Nobody in this country can be glad of what he has written, un- less it be the few who wish to build up their political fortunes on the doctrines of repudiation. He is on their side, and the best ally they now have, so far as I know. But I think we will beat them all. And let it be remembered that we have no weapons in the world to do this with, but the exact truth, and that we can succeed in no way but by the ballot-box and universal suffrage. So much for Sydney Smith on repudiation. On the general relations of the two countries he is still worse. His remarks on our desire to go to war with England, because we envy and hate her, how true are they 1 And if they were true, then how wise ? Does he not know that this is the spirit that makes nations hate each other, till their frigates go down side by side, with their colors standing, and fills the bubbles that rise on the spot with the curses of their dead ? If I were to talk so to him, very likely he would turn round and say, " This is the very sort of passion I intended to put you into. ' I meant you there in the heart of hell, to work in fire and do my errands.' " Well, let him say so, that is, if his conscience will permit him. But in the mean time, notwithstanding the temptation he lays before us to do wrong in anger, we will stiU say what is true about repudiation ; and he shall have his money, every penny of it, by the blessing of God, though he seems to prefer, as a matter of taste, to get it by the help of Satan. To Mr. Lyell, London. December 14, 1843. My dear Mr. Lyell, — Continuing along with your questions,* the next one to which I come touches the fatal subject of slavery. I hate to come near it, so odious is it to me in all its forms, and so full * Alluded to in the previous letter, November 30. M. 52.] SLAVERY. 217 of difficulties for our future condition. However, there are consoling points about it, and I will go on.* .... The last important discussion on involuntary servitude at the South was in the Virginia Legislature, in 1831 - 32, soon after a for- midable insurrection had occurred near Southampton, in that State. No question was taken ; but, from the whole tone of the debate, all men apprehended the near abolition of slavery in Virginia, Mary- land, and Kentucky, and, so far as I know, all men rejoiced at it. Certainly aU the North did. We hoped something Avould now be done that should counteract whatever of mischief had foUowed the extension of slavery, in 1820, to ^Missouri, sorely against our will. But we were disappointed. Political and sectional abolitionism had appeared already. The South soon became alarmed and excited. They put themselves on the defensive first, and then on the offen- sive. Instead of regarding slavery as a great moral and political evil, as it had always before been admitted to be among the mass of the slaveholders, and as it was openly proclaimed to be in the Virginia debates of 1831-32, it has been, since 1833, maintained by McDuffie, Calhoun, and perhaps a majority of the leading men of the South, to be a great good in itself, and defensible in all its conse- quences Meantime, at the North we grow rigorous with the South. We say, and say truly, that it was not a thought in the minds of men, when the Constitution of the United States was made in 1788, that slavery was to be regarded as anything but a temporary calamity, which w^as to be removed with the assent of all, as soon as fit means could be found for it. Washington, a slaveholder, acted so. JefiFer- 8on, a slaveholder, wrote so. All men felt so. But we at the North do not enough remember that we made, by that same Constitution, a special bargain with the Southern States, by which we left it entirely to them to remove, by their own means, and in their own time, the curse which was their own private mis- chief only, reserving to the whole nation the power of abolishing the slsLve-trade, which was promptly done. We further promised to per- mit them to retake their slaves escaping into our States, and to do other things, which we at first did cheerfully, and in a spirit of honor, but which we now do grudgingly, or not at all So deep, so fatal, indeed, is the vice of the whole system, that nothing but mis- chief can come from it, whichever way you turn. * He here gives a summary of the history of slavery in the UDited States from colonial times. VOL. II. 10 218 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1843. What, then, you will say, — nay, you do say it in your letter, — what is to be done ? I answer, wait. For, first, it is right in itself ta do so. Slave labor can never, in the long run, come into successful competition with free labor, and in time slaves, therefore, will every- where cease to be valuable as property In the next place I would wait, because I cannot help myself. I can do nothing. Legislation, I fear, can do nothing. It is an affair of two millions and a half of human beings, all slaves, and all in a most remarkable state of equality of condition in other respects. It is beyond the reach of legislation ; too big for it. It will be dis- posed of by its own gravity, not by any instruments of human in- vention. Finally, I would wait, as a Northern man, because it is for my in- terest. The South is growing weak, we are growing strong. The Southern States are not only losing their relative consequence in the Union, but, from the inherent and manifold mischiefs of slavery, they are positively grovving poor. They are falling back in refinement, civilization, and power. Every year puts the advantage more on our side, and prepares us better to meet the contest, which will be gentler and more humane the longer it is postponed, but which can never be other than formidable and disastrous. I do not, however, deprecate the struggle as doubting the result, or fearing inconvenience or suffering for the North. There can be but one result. Slavery will be abolished ; if soon, probably with much blood ; if later, I hope with none. But in either event, what is to become of the millions of poor slaves 1 I foresee no milder fate for them than that of the Indians, and I fear one much more cruel. The eager, active, encroaching race, to which we belong, will never endure those gentle, inefficient tribes to cumber the earth about them, after they themselves begin to feel that they want it and can profitably use it. But do not misunderstand me ; indeed, I know you will not. Fore- seeing all these consequences, I am still for keeping on in the straight- forward course, to abolish all slavery throughout the world. Great mischiefs, I know, will come of it. Let them. The thing is right, and will succeed ; and greater good will at last result from it. But let us do it by the wisest, which in such cases are always the gentlest means ; that so humanity may least suffer from what is, after all, too old a disease to be eradicated -wdthout the use of remedies that may sometimes make us, in our short-sightedness, grieve to have it back again. M. 52.] GREAT SOCIAL QUESTIONS. 219 I pray, therefore, we may all remember, at the North, that " they also serve who only stand and wait." And I pray, too, we may all remember that the condition of the master, if rightly considered, is hardly more to be envied than that of the slave, and needs quite as much tenderness, and forecast in its treatment. To Miss lyiARiA Edgeworth, Edgeworthtown. Boston, March 30, 1844. My dear ^Iiss Edgeworth, — .... On looking over your let- ter, which is now lying before me, I am struck anew with the sub- stantial similarity of the interests, great and small, that agitate society on both sides of the Atlantic, and, I dare say, on both sides of the globe. " Man," as a wise friend * once said to me, " is, after all, an animal that has only a few tricks." .... Only think for a moment what a resemblance there is between that Rhode Island ques- tion, about which you did me the honor to read the long story I wrote to Mr. Lyell, and your Irish question ; what counterparts your Daniel O'Connell and our Governor Dorr are, both in the motives that govern them and in the ends they pursue. Why, " half the plat- form just reflects the other," though here I must needs be permitted to say, that I think we have a little the advantage of you, — a thing that comes rarely enough, to be sure, — but I really think we have a little the advantage of you. For the Rhode-Islanders have not only put Governor Dorr in prison, but they keep him there And there, I think, he will have to remain, till he is willing to come out and take the oath of allegiance to the government he has endeavored to overturn But to leave politics, — though these questions are much deeper than mere party politics, which are always odious, — to leave politics and come to another of your exciting topics, — Puseyism, — we have, in proportion to the number of persons in the United States who belong to the Episcopal or Anglican church, just as much Puseyism, and just as bitter quarrels about it, as you have. In New England — thanks to the wisdom, I believe, of the Anglican clergy — we have not been much infected either way ; but New York is full of the matter, and its newspapers too. Then, too, our tariff question, which is annually shaking the nation, is exactly your corn-law question turned upside- * Rev. Dr. Francis Wayland, author of "Elements of Intellectual Philoso- phy," etc., and President of Brown University, Rhode Island. 220 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1844. down ; the manufacturers here being the party complained of, while with you it is the land-owners. So, you see, we are still children of Old England ; and if we were not, we should be still doing substan- tially the same things, for we are all of us children of one family ; connected by original qualities that will never permit us to get very far apart, even if we try. These, however, are great matters, and I might have added to them the Repeal movement ; for, though that has been almost as exclusively an Irish affair, in the United States, as it has been in Ireland, it may still serve to show how intimate are the bonds that connect the two sides of the world together. But perhaps small matters w^ill show this even more plainly, and show at the same time how much we are alike ; for, as they are not themselves the vast stream of public inter- ests, which, like the GuK Stream, strike of their o^vn great impulse from one continent over to the other, but rather the feathers and straws that float on its surface, we can, perhaps, after all, measure the movement itself by them, better than we can by the flood that bears us along, as if we were only a part of it. For mstance, there is mes- merism. You are all astir with that in England, and I dare say in Ireland. "Well, we reprint Miss Martineau's hrochures^ and read them, perhaps, as much as you do. We have, too, our great mesmer- izers, and our great phreno-mesmerizers, some of them like Katter- felto, — if that is the way Cowper spells his name, — ^\dth their hair on end at their own w^onders, wondering for their bread ; and others, mere gross, immoral mountebanks, not at all deluded by the odious tricks they perform There is, no doubt, something true at the bottom of it ; and, as in many other cases, the small portion of truth preserves the large mass of error, into which it is infused, from be- coming obvious and odious to all men. That there is such a thing as a mesmeric sleep can hardly now be questioned ; but my faith can go no further. One of the curious circumstances about the whole mat- ter is, that the believers should consent to be called by the name of a man whom they themselves must regard as an impostor, and who, by common consent, survived his own honor above a quarter of a cen- tury. For Mesmer, I think, did not die till about the time of the battle of Waterloo, .... If you will draw from aU these facts the inference that the United States — notwithstanding we have just chosen Mr. Polk to be Presi- dent, and are in great danger of annexing Texas to our already too large territory — will still go on, and work out the original Anglo- Saxon materials of the national character to some good result, I shall M. 52.] JOURNEY IN PENNSYLVANIA. 221 certainly be contented with it. We have made a great many mis- takes, by most of which we have profited. We shall make a great many more, as other nations have done. But the aggregate of the whole will not be haK so large as was anticipated by the wisest and best among us, when we began the world as an independent people about sixty years ago. The people here — I mean the mass, the whole — is more truly sovereign than it ever was before All great questions, therefore, must be argued out before this sovereign. Repudiation was one of them, and was involved in a good deal of dif- ficulty But the question has been argued out, — or is now arguing out, — and the result is, that the sovereign has decided, and will continue to decide rightly. .... Just so it "wdll be with slavery. It is a more difficult ques- tion than the last, but it must be argued out before the sovereign, and there is but one way in which it can be decided. Only think where you, in England, were, within the memory of a man like Mr. Thomas Gi-enville, when, as somebody says, the pious John Xewton went reg- ularly twice a year to Guinea, with a cargo of hymn-books and hand- cuffs. We are now nearer to emancipation than you then seemed, and are quite as sure to come to it ; if for no other reason, for the plain one, that slavery will impoverish, and degrade morally and in- tellectually, every State in the Union that persists in maintaining it. I take these two great questions, of repudiation and slavery, as in- stances of what I mean, because they are the only questions of a polit- ical nature in which I have ever felt a deep personal interest ; and because, if the popular sovereign is wise and honest enough to decide such questions as these rightly, he may be trusted, in the long run, with all the attributes of government. He will make mistakes, but none that will be fatal The summer of 1844 was devoted by Mr. Ticknor and his family to a journey through the interior of Pennsylvania, at that time beyond the region of railroads and crowded thoroughfares. Taking a carriage, and a light wagon for the luggage, they fol- lowed the windings of the beautiful Susquehanna and Juniata, often missing the comforts to be found on more frequented routes, but finding full compensation in the beauty and seclusion of these river valleys. Passing through the southern parts of the State of !N'ew York, which were full of interest and variety, they went through the lake country to Niagara. 222 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1844. To George Ticknor Curtis, Boston. Duncan's Island, confluence of the Susquehanna and Juniata, June 23, 1844. My dear George, — I suppose by this time you may be glad to hear something of our whereabouts ; or if you are not, we should like to hear something of you, which amounts to the same thing, in Irish. On both accounts, therefore, I write. And, first, we are all well, and have thus far made a good expedition of it One day we passed in New York, and two nights, all given to noise, except a few hours that we were at the opera, which was pretty good, and a great relief. One week we passed in Philadelphia, almost as noisy, and quite hot and dull. Then, a fortnight ago yesterday, we plunged into the interior of Pennsylvania, by the Reading Railroad, making our first stop at Pottsville, ninety-seven miles Here yoirr aunt first began to feel all the beneficial effects of change of air, and exercise, and from this time she has been constantly gaining strength From this time we have been in a beautiful country. About Pottsville it was wild, and broken, and picturesque ; crossing over through Lebanon to Harrisburg, it was the richest and finest rural scenery, German wealth, cultivation, and manners ; and from Harrisburg here, only sixteen miles, we had the beautiful banks of the Susquehanna. We stopped five days in Pottsville ; and here we have been eight days, in a quiet old mansion-house, where the decayed Duncan family, with a spirited old lady at the head of it, takes boarders, and accommodates them most comfortably. To- morrow we go up the Juniata ; sorry to leave such a beautiful spot as this is, even for the more various beauties we are promised in travelling farther. The population of the interior of Pennsylvania I find more different from ours than I expected, and more marked with the German char- acter. But the German language — everywhere that I have been, badly spoken, but still always so as to be intelligible — is evidently dying out, and the German character will follow it Meantime, the population is a pretty rude, opaque mass When we shall be at home is entirely uncertain. I have taken a plenty of work to do, and your aunt thrives so well, and we all have so good a time, and the country is so beautiful, and the travelling so easy, etc., etc., that there is no telling what will be the end of the matter, or when we shall get to Niagara. M. 53.] EMANCIPATION. 223 To John Kenton, Esq., London. March 30, 1845. Witli the February packet came a codicil to your kindness, again most delightful, for which we owe you more thanks. How can we render them? Come and see. Here are the LyeUs coming a second time, nothing daunted by their first experiment. The steam packets will bring you almost to our door ; and when you are once here, you can judge of the soundness of your American investments, a great deal better than you can even through Bates's wide corre- spondence and painstaking judgment, for the whole depends upon the character of the people. This you may think is a bold remark in me just now, when you are thinking so ill of us, for electing Polk Presi- dent, and taking measures to annex Texas. But it is true, neverthe- less. You have nothing else to depend upon, as far as you are a holder of American funds, but the moral sense of the people who are indebted to you The only question is, have they enough of this wisdom and honesty, to do what is wise and right 1 I think they have ; that is, I think, in the long run, the popular sovereign may be depended upon. No doubt he has made great mistakes ; no doubt he will make more. But those mistakes have been neither half so numerous, nor half so grave as the wisest and best men amongst us thought they would be, seventy years ago, when we were beginning the world ; and I verily believe we have gained wisdom from all of them. The matter of slavery, of which Texas is only a subdivision, is one full of embarrassment both for the present and the future. But I think we shall come safely out of it, if we can only persuade ourselves to wait It is inevitable, I conceive, in the nature of things, that slaves should become unprofitable, at some time or other, in the United States, — probably as soon as it is for the interest of the slaves themselves that emancipation should take place, — and by the slow and gentle process which will alone permit the emancipation of two or three millions of human beings to be a benefit to them. The great difficulty is, to make all interested in the matter willing to wait. Ten or a dozen years ago the South became very much alarmed, by the conduct of the unwise abolitionists of the free States, and finding themselves growing weak, have now contrived, or are likely to con- trive, by unjustifiable means, to add Texas to their end of the con- federacy, not perceiving that slavery is their weakness ; and that to 224 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1845. add further to it is only to increase that weakness. The breaking of the Constitution, too, on this vital point, is breaking the old bar- gain and the compromise between the North and the South, which is becoming every day more important to them than it is to us. And the consequence of all this is, that lU-wlII is growing up between the free States and the slave States, that can be a source of nothing but mischief, especially to the poor slaves. For to them there is no source of hope and ultimate benefit, except in the influence, the kindly, peaceful influence, of the North, and its spirit of freedom. The Union, however, ^vill not be broken in my time. It is too im- portant to both extremes ; and whenever it is broken, it will be be- cause, as so often happens, the passions of men triumph over their interests Very different from all this is the " Vestiges of Creation," a book which has been reprinted here, and read, perhaps, quite as much as it has in England. I read it through at once, in 'the beautiful copy you sent me, and enjoyed the transparent style in which it is written, and the boldness of its philosophical generalization, yery much. But I have no faith in the conclusion to which it comes, because almost every step in the argument is set upon some not sure theory, and the whole consists of a series of nicely fitted links, in which " ten, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike." If the author fails in a single instance, — even in the poor matter of the Mac Lac speculations at the end, — the whole system explodes, just as a Prince Eupert's drop does when you break off its tail. Of each of the scientific parts that compose it I am no sufficient judge, but I hear the experts in each branch, on both sides the Atlantic, are least satisfied where they are most skilled ; that Lyell likes all but the geology, Owen all but the comparative anatomy, etc., — so that from the nebulous theory up to the theory of the perfectibility of human nature, this veiled proph- et and philosopher, who draws all his materials from the darkness of the past, and pushes them with his mace, like a great causey, into the darker chaos of the future, will not be likely to find many who wall venture on " his new, wondrous pontifrice." Those that do, will, I think, be seen dropping through it, one after another, like the crowds in Mirza's vision in the Spectator, but none will get over by it to the shadowy land beyond. It is no common man, however, that under- took such a work, and if you ever find out who he is, I pray you to Bend me word M. 53.] NIAGARA FALLS. 225 To G. T. Curtis, Boston. NiAGAEA Falls, Upper Canada, July 23, 1845. My dear George, — "We begin to want to hear again from you and Mary, and so I muster me up to thank you for your letter and ask for another. I have, however, little to say. We passed a very quiet life at Geneseo,* after I last wrote to you, till five days ago, when we came here, or rather to the other side of the river ; Miss Wadsworth and Gray joining our party, and Sam Guild having pre- ceded us by a couple of days, after having spent two days, much to his satisfaction, at Geneseo. There — the other side of the river — we found Ole Bull and Egidius, his shadow, which seems in no likelihood to grow less. Of course we had a concert, and there was much visiting of wonders, and much enjoyment of lunar bows, and walks by moonlight on Goat Island, and adventurous rowing up to the foot of the falls. So passed three days. Then we all came over here, where there is a very good, quiet house ; and right before our windows and along the piazzas, where we chiefly live, is, according to my notion, the finest view of the two falls united. The two tall Norwegians and Sam left us night before last, reducing our party to its original six ; and to-morrow, ha^vdng completed three days on this side of the river, and pretty much used it up, we propose to remove to the other side, where we shall bivouac a longer or shorter time according to our humors, the fates, the sisters three, and such odd branches of learning. The finest thing we have seen yet — and one of the grandest I ever saw — was a thunder-storm among the waters, as it seemed to be, the other night, which lighted up the two cascades, as seen from our piazzas, with most magnificent effect. They had a spectral look, as they came out of the darkness and were again swallowed up in it, that defies all description and all imagination. * Mr. Ticknor and his family passed the months from June to October, 1845, in the village of Geneseo, New York, near to the country houses of their friends, Mr. and Mrs. James S. Wadsworth and Miss Wadsworth. Li a letter, written after his return home, to Prince John of Saxony, he mentions a visit to the prison at Auburn, in which he was interested in consequence of the eager dis- cussion of questions of prison discipline then going on, to which allusions will be found in the letters. 10* 226 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1846. To Charles S. Daveis, Portland. New York (Staten Island), June 21, 1846. My dear Charles, — I received your letter in due time, — that is, about a month ago, — but we w^ere then in New York, much occupied with cares of different sorts, and more with society ; so that I had no leisure to do always what would best have pleased me. There we remained in all two months and more, our main business, to which ever}i:hing else was postponed and made subordinate, being the care of the eyes of no less than four ladies who were under our charge. For we thought that, as we were likely to make a campaign of it, we might as well do all the good the opportunity offered Of those of our acquaintance whom we have found agreeable and pleasant, I can answer pretty readily what you ask Chancellor Kent, a little deaf, but as vivacious as ever, is much the same he always was ; and Mr. Gallatin, whom I saw a good deal, because he lived near me, is very wise, wary and philosophical, full of knowl- edge, and still eager in its pursuit. He is, on the whole, the man in New York w^hom you can get the most out of, if you w^ill take a little pains ; for he is really what Bacon calls " a full man," and is as ready as he is full. .... But enough of all this. We had a very good time in New York, after the w^ay of the world ; but at our age such things weary. It was impossible to refuse kindnesses such as were offered to us ; but I do not know how often I said to Anna, in the words of Christophoro Sly, after he had heard some scenes of the " Taming of the Shrew," " 'T is excellent work, i' faith, lady wife, would it vxre done" So, as soon as the weather permitted us, we finished it and came to Staten Island, W'here, though we are in a large hotel, we lead an un- commonly quiet life. The island is full of beautiful drives and walks. After passing fonr months in New York and on Staten Island, in order that his eldest daughter might be under the care of an oculist, he ^vrites to Mr. Daveis : "We came home about August 12. But it was too hot to remaui in Boston. We — meaning my wife and myself — therefore took the cars to Concord, New Hampshire, as soon as we could, and there hired a buggy, with which — in the true Darby and Joan style — we jogged round the White Hills, stopping wherever we fancied, and enjoying about a hundred miles of the drive very much. We never were there before, either of us." M. 54.] WHITE MOUNTAINS. 227 On this journey he wrote as follows to his daughters, who had remained with their relatives in Camhridge : — To HIS Daughters. Conway, Thursday afternoon, August 28, 1846. I do not think I can add much, dearest children, to your mother's letters, except an account of herself, which, however, I rather think you will he more glad to receive than anything else The mountairis, which rather deserve their ancient name of hills, are hefore our windows, and the pretty meadows of the Saco are all round the thriving, comfortable village ia which our inn stands. It is just what I have wanted, and I assure you I enjoy the tranquillity and absence of all intercourse with strangers, except of the shghtest kind, very much. Whether the hills are high, or low, is a matter of small moment to me We shall both be glad to see you again, and will give you a day or two fair notice of what Dogberry calls our " reproach," — a thing you know little about. But I only meant to fill up the envelope a little, that nothing might go empty of love to you ; and, in good truth, I have nothing else to send. Always your affectionate father, G. T. Franconia, August 30. I am glad your mother has made the amende honorable to the moun- tains, my dear darlings ; for it is always an awkward thing to do, and she has done it much more gracefully than I could. They really de- serve it. It was a beautiful drive up the Saco, with its rich meadows, on Friday, and it was a fine, wild one down the Ammonoosuck — the wild Ammonoosuck, as it is well called — to-day ; but this Franconia Notch, by which we go from the waters of the Connecticut to those of the Merrimack, has been a great surprise to me, so beautiful is the pass. Just here, the rude, perpendicular hills are so close together that there is hardly room for the buildings, and when you stand a few feet from the house on either side of it, you see the rocks from the other side frowning over it. The moon went down two or three hours, I think, before its time, and keeps, still, a beautiful twilight over the mountain in front of us, and the reflection of a pale sort of spectral light on the one behind. The house where we are, like several we have seen, has a look like the hospices in the Alps, — large, long, and standing alone ; they 228 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1846. amuse you, too, with echoes, and long tin horns ; and the children, as you toil up the mountains, come out with berries and flowers for you ; so strikingly do similar local circumstances produce similar re- sults, in habits and manners. "We have, indeed, enjoyed the last three days more than the week that preceded them, and shall stop to-mor- row in this wild, secluded spot.* After that, two days will easily take us to Franklin, LIr. "Webster's fine farm, again ; and therefore Thursday may well bring us home to Boston Meantime, console yourselves for my absence, as well as you can, with my best love, and with the assurance that I want to see you as much as you can desire to have me. Love to all, especially " uncles and aunts." Always your loving father, G. T. To Prince John, of Saxony. Boston, U. S. A., October 30, 1846. My dear Prince, — "When I had the honor of writing to you, about a year since, I told you, I believe, that, in the spring of this year, I should send you a document of some moment on the subject of prison discipline But the report of the small minority adhering to the Philadelphia or solitary, system, has appeared from the press only within a few days, and the report of the majority is not yet published at all. The first — or the report of the minority, attacking the Auburn system and defending the Philadelphia system — I have now the honor to send you. It is the most important document that has been published in this country, on the side it espouses. More weight would be given to it if it dealt more with facts, and had its foundations more deeply laid in statistical results. But the truth is, we have not yet experience enough to furnish the materials for such an examination of the subject. I, therefore, regard it still as an open question ; and in proportion as the discussion advances, and the materials for a wise decision accumulate, I shall be happy to be able to send you whatever is here published, that will be likely to interest you. JMeantime, I console myself with the assurance, that both systems, wherever they are in practical operation, are doing much good, and are rapidly ma- turing results, which will enable good and faithful men to reach con- clusions, upon which the best system of penitentiary discipline may be left to rest. ♦ This epithet could not now be applied to the same spot in August. .E. 56.] PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 229 TVTienever I have an opportunity I inquire about Saxony and its aflfairs, and am always glad when I hear, as I do almost always, of its prosperity and welfare. In particular, I have been gratified to learn that the troubles of the last year have ceased to agitate the country, and that the whole population is in a state of advancing civiliza- tion. There are few parts of the world in which I am so much interested. I wish I could report to you as well of my own country as I hear of yours. Of progress, indeed, we have enough. We advance in power, in prosperity, and in intellectual culture, with gigantic strides ; and I have no doubt our future destiny is to be one of honor, and of ultimate benefit to the great cause of humanity. But, at this moment, we are engaged in a very disgraceful war with Mexico ; and one in which, thus far, we have been very successful. It is, however, one of the good signs of the times, that, though successful, this war grows less and less popular every day. But I occupy myself entirely with letters, and take no part, but such as belongs to every citizen, as a duty, in the affairs of a free coun- try. I hope, too, that you, though bound to the state by the most onerous duties, are still able to rescue leisure for your favorite pur- suits. We look impatiently for the last and crowning volume of your labors on Dante. When shall we have it ? . . . . I remain your Highness's affectionate and faithful friend, George Ticknor, To Charles S. Daveis, Portland. Boston, December 9, 1847. My dear Charles, — .... You had, I dare say, a pleasant Thanksgiving, for you have in your own household, and among your own kin, all the materials for it. Ours, too, was pleasant, and ended at the Guilds', with the most thorough game of romps I have com© across for many a year. Since that time we have gone on with our usual quietness ; seeing a good many people at home, and few anywhere else. Gray's pam- phlet * — of which you acknowledge the receipt — has done its perfect work, and settled the question as between the two systems of prison discipline. I never knew anything of the sort so well received, or produce so considerable an effect. Mr. Norton ended a note to Gray by saying, " One lays down your pamphlet without feeling the least * "Prison Discipline in America," by F. C. Gray. Boston, 1847. 230 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1848. curiosity about what may be said in reply to it," .... and Webster said he " never expected to leam any more on the subject ; it was exhausted and settled." Except where dissent was sure, whatever might be proved, none has been expressed, and even of this sort there has been much less than was expected The last steamer brought me a pleasant letter from Hillard, .... and another from Miss Edgeworth, — aged eighty-one, — written with the freshness of forty. All I hear makes me anxious for England, and almost in despair about Ireland. Indeed, all Europe seems to have a troubled mist hanging over it ; but the people of the world, I trust, have gained some of the wisdom which Cowper wished for them, and do not show themselves willing to play at the game of war to please their princes. I have much hope from progress, little from violent reforms ; God seems to work in the moral world by periods, like the geological periods of the great changes in the natural. Hal- lam says, " Peace societies were attempted in the twelfth century, and are no more likely to succeed now, than they were then." Perhaps so ; but more men are now tired of war. Just so it is with slavery ; it was never so near its final fall as it is now ; but it is decaying as fast as it is for the interest of the slave that it should ; and if we attempt to hurry its overthrow, the cause of humanity wiU suffer, as it always does, from violence. To Mr. Lyell, London. Boston, April 5, 1848. My dear Lyell, — We were truly glad to get sight of your hand- writing again, it was so long since we have seen it But what subjects you have to discuss ! We were thunderstruck here by the convulsion in France, nor were you less so in England. It seems im- possible to come to any reasonable judgment on the whole affair, and quite useless to discuss what, long before our thoughts can reach you, will have been forgotten in the rush of revolutionary changes The Revolution of 1830 gave political power to the middling class ; that of 1848 gives it to the working class. Lire they capable of exer- cising it beneficially to themselves, or to others ? We think they are not. Will they attempt practically to exercise it ? Not, we think, at first But we look for little practical wisdom in the mass of the French, and fear that what there is will not be able to take the lead. A constitution like ours — one of whose chief elements is to be found in the separate powers of the separate States — cannot be made effec- M. 56.] FRENCH AFFAIRS. 231 live in France, where there are no historical foundations on which to build it. We look, therefore, first, for a great commercial trial, and then for an unwise constitution, which will disappoint its makers, and lead to further troubles and changes We are most anxious about Italy, least so about Germany ; but we expect the people will everywhere demand concessions from their princes, and obtain them. Tell me how much of this is true I am greatly obliged to you for the abstract of your lecture before the Royal Institution, but am sorry you do not like to have it reprinted here I intended to have had the pleasure of telHng you myseK about my Spanish Literary History. But Prescott, I find, has done it a little before there is anything to tell. The truth is, I have finished the first draft of the work, and it has just been copied out into a fair hand. But it will still be long before I shall have corrected it and prepared it for the hands of the printer ; a task I cannot find it in my heart to hurry, so agreeable is it to me. Agassiz continues to flourish, and enjoys the same sort of popular favor he has from the first.* His bonhomie seems inexhaustible ; and how much that does for a man under institutions and in a state of society like ours I need not tell Everett is less and less satis- fied with his position, t and I think cannot remain in it beyond next August. I feel confident he has done much good since he has been there. Write soon, and tell me what you, and other wise men think about the Trastorno. Faithfully yours, George Ticknor. To George T. Curtis. Boston, AprU 22, 1848. My dear George, — .... We think and talk of Little here except the French and foreign afi'airs. There are so many steamers nowa- * Professor Louis Agassiz came to Boston in the year 1846, and immediately became a much-loved guest, and friend, at Mr. Ticknor's house. The friendship was uniform and full of warmth on hoth sides ; and while the pursuits of the two men, their national peculiarities, and their modes of vie-sving many subjects, were very different, they took great pleasure in each other's society. Mr. Agassiz took counsel of Mr. Ticknor many times, sajnng that the working of the Anglo-Saxon mind was full of valuable instruction for him ; while the prac- tical wisdom of his friend, indi^adually, assisted him in settling questions, the solution of which did not lie in his department as a man of science. + As President of Harvard College. 232 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1848. days, and magnetic wires are so successful, that we get revolutions by driblets, and have something — at least the overthrow of a single monarchy — every day or two. But never was speculation more at fault The truth is, we have no precedents to go by. History gives us military revolutions and political revolutions enough. But this is neither. It is a social revolution. The hordes that broke down the decaying civilization of the Old World, in the fourth and fifth centuries, did it by violence. The decaying civilization of our times is assailed by social theories, which, it is possible, the masses may introduce, by the mere fear of their numbers, — though this seems highly improbable, — but which, if introduced, would lay waste the world as much as is consistent with its present advancement, and, at any rate, create an incredible amount of human misery, and reduce, materially, the population of Christendom. But it seems to me much more likely that the old order will be maintained ; and if it is, it can only be by reconstructing society through some strict despotism, either military or civil. One more strict or severe than now exists in France can hardly be imagined. But whether it be able to do anything for the formation of a government that will protect property and life, is very doubtful. For the first month, during which we have an account of the prog- ress of things in Paris, — or rather the first forty days, — the work of destruction and the dissolution of society has gone on faster than it ever did before, in any period of the world's history. Power has been wholly in the hands of an irresponsible mob, to whom the world had not been friends, nor the world's law, and who do not feel that they have any interest or business but to overturn everything that is estab- lished. The only question, therefore, is, how far things are to go on in this direction before a reaction takes place. The further they go, the severer must be the power that is to reconstruct society. Etc., etc. It is lucky for you that I was interrupted just now by a visitor, who has taken up all the time I have free before this letter must go off. Otherwise you might have had more of the dissertation on social revo- lutions ; but now, I will only add that, under the best aspect of things, it seems to me that the mischiefs to follow the convulsions of the last few weeks will be more lasting than those that followed the convul- sions of 1789. M. 56.] REVOLUTIONS IN EUROPE. 233 From Prince John, of Saxony. PiLLNiTZ, the 14 May, 1848. Dear Sir, — I have received your last letter, with the books you were so kind as to send me, in the midst of our greatest political con- vulsions ; and this may be an excuse if I answer you so late. But before I begin to speak of all that has happened in the Old World, I must thank you with all my heart for the interesting publications which you have sent me, with whose reading I am occupied at this moment, and which have almost shaken my opinion, that began to be fixed for the separate system. The dispassionate and truly critical mode of proceeding of the author inspires much confidence.* If you should return to old Europe you would find many things, and, above all, the public opinion and the leading persons, so entirely changed, that you would think to be in quite another country. There is almost not one state, great or little, which has not made its revo- lution since the declaration of the republic in France. Germany is perhaps in a more convulsive state than any other country, being occu- pied at the same moment in reconstructing its general constitution and the constitution of its several states. The two greatest mon- archies — Prussia and Austria — are shaken to their foundations ; the last, above all, by the great difference of nations which are united under one crown, and which seem now inclined to separate into so many different kingdoms. With all that, two wars in the neighbor- hood, — the one of Prussia, or rather Germany, with Denmark, the other of Austria with Italy, — and, what is yet worse, the sense for le- gitimate order, even for property, when it suits not the opinions of the day, shaken to its foundation in the lower classes ; the principles of so- cialism and communism diffusing themselves everywhere But yet every one must endeavor to hold his post as long as he can, and per- haps the storm may pass away, and the stream return to regular chan- nels, — not the old, that seems impossible, and must not be attempted. Nevertheless, I have not forgotten my friend Dante. The " Para- diso " is finished, and I am only occupied with the last correction, and filling some blanks which I have left in the past labors. I am, with the highest esteem and sincerest friendship, Your affectionate John, Duke of Saxony. My compliments to Mrs. Ticknor. * Mr. Gray's pamphlet on Prison Discipline, of which mention has already been made. 234 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1848. To Mr Lyell. Boston, June 21, 1848. My dear Lyell, — We are just entering on one of those political campaigns which, whatever be their mischiefs, tend more to give life and energy to our national character than anything else that comes round as a part of our republican institutions. The simple fact that the eyes of the whole population are directed to two men, and their thoughts seriously fastened on the great principles by which their government shall be administered for four years, and even the great measures it shall adopt, give a concentration and authority to public opinion that could be given, so far as I see, in no other way, and quite outweigh the disadvantages of a contest, fierce while it lasts, but never marked with physical violence, and forgotten as soon as it is over. Nothing struck me more in the last election than the abso- lute calm which instantly succeeded the turbulence which had filled the whole land a week before. All the storm that had been so threat- ening was blown ofi", and nothing remained but the steady power to give movement to the machinery of the State. So it will be now. To George S. Hillard. July 17, 1848. My dear Hillard, — I have your note from London, and thank you very sincerely for it. Its views are discouraging enough, but not more so, I fear, than are true, though I do not agree to all its con- clusions. As to the present French and Continental convulsions, which some persons regard with favorable eyes, I can only say, that during a life of seven or eight years in Europe, I never was in any country where I should have thought it wise, or Christian, to join in any such move- ment. The reason is obvious. Whenever the institutions of society are so far destroyed as they were in last February and March in France, I take it to be certain that they can be reconstructed only on a military basis, and — whatever may be the nominal form of govern- ment — that the power for this reconstruction must be wielded by the will of one strong man, to whom the mass of the people will sub- mit gladly, in order to secure their property and lives. But republics, I much fear, caimot grow on the soil of Europe ; at least, not repub- lics in the sense we give to that word. There is no nourishment for them in the present condition or past history of the nations there, and if such struggles as we have witnessed for the last sixty years are M. 56.] GROWTH AND DECAY OF NATIONS. 235 to go on, with the vain hope of obtaining free governments, in which universal siiifrage shall make the whole body of the people a practi- cal soverei<^n, nothing but a decay of civilization will be the result. Christianity, almost powerless with the multitudes of a large part of Europe, and the press abused to mislead them, will not have conser- vative eneroy enough to save the most enlightened parts of the mod- ern world, from the fate which befell the most enlightened parts of the ancient, from struggles not dissimilar. France, in the course of a thousand years, or in some other of the great periods which God ap- points to the history of nations, as he does to the building and decay of the globe, may w^ell become what Asia Minor and Eg^-pt are now. At any rate, I think the steps she is taking at the present moment are in that direction. We, too, are no doubt going on like the buried nations of antiquity, through the changes of youth and age. But you and I have the happiness to live in the period of our greatest vigor and prosperity, and in that part of the country where the moral tone is the highest, and the strength and activity the soundest I am sorry, as you are, for the effect these discussions * produce upon society in Boston ; but the principles of that society are right, and its severity towards disorganizers, and social democracy in all its forms, is just and wise. It keeps our standard of public morals where it should be, and where you and I claim to have it, and is the cir- cumstance which distinguishes us favorably from New York and the other large cities of the Union, where demagogues are permitted to rule, by the weak tolerance of men who know better, and are stronger than they are. In a society where public opinion governs, unsound opinions must be rebuked, and you can no more do that, while you treat their apostles with favor, than you can discourage bad books at the moment you are buying and circulating them To Prince John, of Saxony. Boston, U. S. A., July 30, 1848. My dear Prince, — Your kind and interesting letter of the 14th of May, with one from Count Circourt, written after he had been at Dresden, have kept you almost constantly in our thoughts of late. Indeed, it is difficult to think of anything else but the changes that are now going on, like a solemn drama, in Europe ; not only because the fate and fortunes of so many of our personal friends are put at * On Prison Discipline. 236 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1848. hazard by them, but because they involve so deeply the cause of Christian civilization and the paramount interests of our common humanity. We feel, to be sure, comparatively safe ourselves. Our people are young ; we have room enough and bread enough for all ; free insti- tutions are the only ones that, even in colonial days, took root here ; we have been gradually and thoroughly educated to them, and every year manage them with a more practised skill ; in short, from our vast local advantages, and from the whole course of our history as a nation, a republic is a truth here ; but what is it in France, or what can it be either there or in Germany ? You will not be surprised to hear that wise men in the United States saw, from the first, that no good was to come — except as God brings good out of evil — from the violent changes that began in the South of Europe and in France last winter, because they saw plainly that, if the institutions of society are once destroyed, — as they were in Paris in February, March, and April, — they can be reconstructed only on the basis of a military despotism, and in the presence and by the authority of the bayonet. But you "wdll, perhaps, be somewhat Biirprised to learn that the great mass of our people at the North felt no confidence in the French movement from its outset ; no more confidence, I may say, than did the wiser. They are accustomed every day to the workings of a truly popular government, and they saw little in France that reminded them of their own experience, and nothing to justify the belief that a wise republic would be founded, in which the people, by severe organic laws, would limit its own powers ; in which labor and capital would rest on the same founda- tions ; and in which the rights of the minority would be protected by the same principles that give the majority all its control of the state. They knew that a people who not only are without knowledge enough to be able to read and write, but without the more important political education which enables them to judge the measures of the govern- ment they have created, — they knew that such a people can never make a wise, practical sovereign. All men, therefore, with few exceptions, in this part of America, have judged the changes in France rigorously, but rightly, from the first ; predicting events from time to time as they have occurred, and looking now to no more favorable results than they anticipated four months ago Very faithfully, my dear Prince, Your friend and servant, George Ticknor. M. 57.] PARTIES IN EUROPE. 237 From Prince John, of Saxony. PiLLNiTZ, 3 September, 1848. Dear Sir, — I have received some time ago your long and interest- ing letter of the 30th July. It is very curious to hear the impression which our great political convulsions make on an impartial spectator, placed at a distance, on a secure ground. Yet perhaps it may be likewise interesting to you to hear the description of one who is in the midst of the tempest. In general, I must say that since I wrote you last the public spirit is become better, yet we are not at the end of the crisis ; and I fear the last decision will be that of the sword. One can distinguish, in general, five great divisions of opinion in Europe. 1. The anarchical party, or party of the red republicans, composed of a gi-eat part of the proletaires, of some men of broken for- tunes, who like revolutions for revolution's sake, and of the disciples of communism and socialism. 2. The republicans, who wish a legal introduction of a republic. The number of this party I think com- paratively small, yet it is to be feared that on some occasion it may lend its forces to the first party. 3. The men for monarchy, with the broadest democratical basis, who will have monarchy ^^dthout any power in the monarch, and without the necessary condition of it. This party, which is very numerous, rejects all census of eligi- bility and the first chamber. 4. The conservative liberal party, com- posed of the ancient liberal opposition, not so numerous, yet weightier with respect to intelligence than the last, but partly overwhelmed by the consequences of its own system. 5. The ancient aristocratical party, overawed for the moment. The most intelligent men in it feel that they cannot oppose the torrent, and make common cause with the liberal conservative party. Since the late events in France and at Prague, and the victories of Austria in Italy, the conservative parties have gained in courage and activity, and this is the best symptom of our present situation. But if a union of the third-named party with the two republican fractions should take place, the position would be very dangerous. As for the particular countries, the conservative liberal party, which is there not so much separated from what I called the party of democratical mon- archy, has been for the moment victorious in France. In that coun- try, liberty is not so much what men desire, as equality and order. This is the reason why Cavaignac can take many measures against the press and associations, which no German government could venture 238 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1848. to propose. The parties now at the head of the govemment know not what to do with their republic, which was given to them by the republican and anarchical parties against their wishes ; and I am persuaded that monarchy — perhaps a rather despotic monarchy — will in time be re-established in France. In Italy the movement was more the work of a faction than of the people ; of a faction composed of the nobility, the higher classes of the bourgeoisie, and a part of the clergy, and influenced more by national than by political ideas. Since the victories of Radetsky, — a marvellous old man of eighty-three, — the enthusiasm seems extinguishing ; the people, over all the people of the open country, have received every- where the Austrians as deliverers, and if France does not mingle itself in the contest, things will be re-established in the ancient limits, yet with popular institutions. Yet this is the point where the danger of a general war is the most threatening. As for us in Germany, the situation is more complicated. It is not only the constitutions of the particular states that have been shaken, but the whole confederation is to be re-established on a new basis. The two constitutional monarchical parties are disputing the ground with that acrimony which characterizes our German theoretical dis- putes. But -svith respect to the whole of Germany there is another question di\dding the opinions, — the question of centralization and of particularism. As for my opinion, a constitution like that of the United States would, in this point of view, be the best. Self-govern- ment of the particular States as the rule, and centralization of all that is necessary for preserving unity, as foreign affairs, the army, the fleet, and the general commercial regulations. I think this is likewise the opinion of the majority at Frankfurt ; but, nevertheless, I fear that we take there, in many respects, a false way With us in Saxony, things are relatively better, and have even made a progress since last spring. The loyal and benevolent character of the King is generally estimated, and there is yet a fund of true attach- ment for his person. .... The King was lately at Leipzig, and was received there with the greatest demonstration of loyalty You ask me some news of the King and my family. We are all tolerably well, after these great convulsions, the King much better since last spring. My family is growing up, my second daughter promised to the Duke of Genoa, son of the King of Sardinia, but the political circumstances have retarded the marriage The notices you gave me about the question of prison reform are very interesting. I am sorry that Gray's book is so little known JE. 57.] LIFE AT THE SEA-SHORE. 239 in Europe. I will endeavor to render it more public. The " Paradiso " is finished, and I hope the impression will soon begin. Your sincere friend, John, Duke of Saxony. To Chakles S. Daveis. Manchestee, September 10, 1848. * My dear Charles,* — You have not kept your tryst How- ever, I dare say we shall find a room for you, if you will find a lociis pcenitenticB for us, though, as we have no safety-valve in our territory, like the Tremont House, and as our own hotel is rather popular, not to say populous, just now, I recommend it to you to give us notice a day or two if you have any kind purpose in our favor We have had beautiful weather ever since you were here, and much good, pleasant company staying with us. I only wish you had been with us to share our pleasures, both rural and marine, bucolic and pis- catory. Of the external world I know little. I have been in Boston but once for above two months, and hope not to be obliged to go there again for above a month more. But, now and then, somebody comes to me wandering over the morning dew, — as the shepherds did to Pamell's Hermit, — and I hear in this way of the bustle of the great world of our little city, Tvdthout being incommoded by its stir. From what I hear I suspect the early Taylorites in my neighborhood do not feel so easy as they did when I saw them last Moreover, they begin to be afraid, as Macbeth did, that they have "'filed their minds," after all, for somebody's else benefit and not for their own, or that of their party. They begin to be afraid, in short, that Taylor may not be chosen I am, on the contrary, of the mind of the elder brother in " Comus " : — " I incline to hope, rather than fear. And gladly banish squint suspicion." I shall vote for Taylor, and if you do as well for him in Maine as Vermont has done, you will yet give him your personal vote as an elector I write to you about politics because there is nothing else hereabouts to send you, except a little orthodoxy from the village church, or a * This and the two following summers were passed by Mr. Ticknor on the northern shore of Massachusetts Bay, where he had hired a pleasant house, standing on the edge of a cliff directly by the sea, and having a hundred acres of wood and field around it. 240 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1849. little of the ttoXu^XoiV/Soio BaXao-aijs from the beach before us. We have had Mrs. Norton and some of her children staying with us, and expect them again. Gray, too, has been here, the Everetts, Prescotts, and so on. We have not been alone since the first few days after we came down, and are not likely to be as long as we stay. To Sir Charles Lyell, Bart., London. Boston, May 15, 1849. Dear Lyell, — As we are decidedly imitating your emeutes in Europe, I send you two or three newspapers extra, of all complexions, that you may see how we get on.* .... One or two moral reflections I must make. The people here about twelve years ago first began to feel that a mob impaired the popular sovereignty. The first proper firing of the people on a mob was at Providence, where a mob undertook to pull down some houses of ill-fame. Since then it has been frequently done ; as, for instance, at Philadelphia, in the case of the Catholic riots, the attack, I mean, on the Catholics. But this at New York is the most decisive of all. The work was thoroughly done, both by the police and the militia ; and it has been sustained by an unanimous cry from the whole country, as far as heard from ; but the farther from New York the louder, even from the lowest and most vulgar of the penny papers in New York and Boston. I think it settles the question, that the sovereign people will defend its sovereignty against the mob at all hazards, and I am not sure that this feeling will not make government among us as strong as it is anywhere. The diffi- culty is, that we must work by cure, not by prevention. But then such cures are like certain diseases, that disinfect the constitution. You may set it down as a fact that the whole country goes with the city authorities at New York in relation to the late mobs It would certainly be easier now to put down any form of anarchy in any city in the United States than it was a fortnight ago. There is a confidence which no man had a right to feel then, but which all feel now, since two hundred and ten soldiers, called from the mass of the people, at two hours' notice, faced and overcame a mob twenty thou- sand in number, and of which about one thousand were ill disposed. Nearly every person injured, killed, or arrested was a foreigner ; so * This refers to the " Astor Place " riots in New York, when Mr. Macready was attacked by a mob, in consequence of the course taken by Mr. Edwin Forrest, who attempted to put dovm the English actor. ^.58.] HORATIO GREENOUGH. 241 •were three fourtlis of those present, and nineteen twentieths of the active mob. When we think that the Parliament House in Montreal was burnt down only a month ago in the presence, as it were, of two thousand regular troops, and the governor there insulted and mobbed, we feel as if our government were growing strong, and that it may live to <7row old. Certainly I feel a vastly greater confidence in both its stability and its wisdom than I did five-and-twenty years ago The California fever is spreading fast There is, in fact, in our Anglo-Saxon blood more of a spirit of adventure and romance than belongs to the age, mingled with a gravity and forecast that are natural to it. Companies collect here with rules of the severest kind for their government, invite an eloquent preacher to pray with them and address them on their duties ; bind themselves to the most abso- lute temperance ; and then set forth upon an adventure as wild as ever a cavalier o conquistador dreamt of. Meantime, the most authen- tic accounts are the most extravagant But as long as Congress quarrels about the extension of slavery, so long there can be no government in California, and every man will do what seems good in his own eyes ; a state of things that does not promise an advance in civilization. Indeed, in any event, it will be a curse to most persons who go there ; perhaps to the world Yours always, G. T. To Horatio Greenough, Esq. Boston, December 15, 1849. My dear Mr. Greenough, — I received, a short time since, your kind letter written in October, announcing to me that you had shipped for Boston a bas-relief, which you destine for me.* It has not yet * The history of this bas-relief is interesting, and creditable to both parties. In Mr. Greenough's youth, Mr. Ticknor, and other gentlemen who withheld their names, enabled the young sculptor to go to Italy and pursue his art, doing it partly by direct assistance, and partly by such assurances as inspired him with confidence in times of difficulty and depression. Knowing no one in the matter but Mr. Ticknor, he expressed his gratitude for the collective kindness by making this bas-relief, one of his mosf graceful works, and almost his latest, and sending it as a gift. It represents an artist sitting in an attitude of dejec- tion before his work, — a female figure, — while a hand, unseen by him, pours y/ oil into his expiring lamp. This charming work stands in the entrance-hall of Mr. Ticknor's house, and it was a pleasure to him that Mr. Greenough, before his death, saw it in its place, and was satisfied with its position. VOL, II. 11 P 242 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1849. arrived, but I feel that I ought not to delay thanking you for it on that account. The little assistance you needed when young seems so trifling a matter, when compared with the acknowledgment you make for it, that I hardly know what I should say. But when I receive it I will write again. Meantime, be assured that I feel your kindness and thoughtfulness very sensibly. And I ought to ; for it is rare that such little favors are so long remembered ; and, if it be any pleasure to you to think so, you may have the satisfaction of understanding » that you have acknowledged many obligations of others, besides this inconsiderable one of your own, and that I regard them all as can- celled, both those that have been forgotten and those that have not, by this one return. I wish we were likely to see more of your works here, and do not despair of it. But things have been so unsettled for the last two years, and the great material interests of New England are so much jeoparded, that no appeal to public liberality has been ventured in Boston for a long period But be assured that it would give me very great pleasure to see a bronze statue of Washington by you in State Street, and that whenever a favorable time for it may come, I shall be most happy to co-operate with your other friends in placing it there. The state of things here is, indeed, in many respects very little creditable to us. "We have not, I am aware, the troubles that break up society, and put in danger civilization itself. These are the trials of countries entering into the period of old age. But we have our own peculiar trials, and just at this moment we feel them severely. ^48-58.] "HISTORY OF SPANISH LITERATURE." 243 CHAPTER XII. " History of Spanish Literature." — Long Preparation. — Purpose of interesting the general Reader. — Correspondence with Washington Irving, Don Pascual de Gayangos, and Dr. Julius. — Growth of his Spanish Library. — Manuscript of the Work submitted to Mr. Pres- cott. — Publication, in New York and London, in 1849. — Reviews, etc. — Letters from J. L. Motley, H. Hallam, and Tieck. — Third and Fourth Editions. DUEIXG aU the years since his return from Europe, !Mr. Ticknor had been steadily occupied with the preparation of the chief work of his life ; that on which his reputation as a scholar, and his widest claim to distinction, must rest, — the " History of Spanish Literature." He devoted himself to this labor, as was his wont, with noiseless but unflagging industry, building his edifice, from the foundation, with solidity and pre- cision ; and while, of course, it was founded on the studies of twenty previous years, he threw aside, without hesitation, aU that he had composed, during that period, in the form of lectures. Eor a long time no trace appears in his correspondence, of this his principal occupation, and, until very shortly before the publi- cation of the book, it is mentioned only in those letters through which he sought materials and information. The friends on whom he had no demands to make for this object were not re- quired to share in an interest which did not naturally coincide with their habits of mind, and in his correspondence, as in his daily life, he kept the even tenor of his way, meeting the claims of others on his time and thoughts, without exacting the sympa- thy which did not flow from a common enthusiasm. The subject he had chosen attracted him wonderfully. In- deed, it must be said, as preface to all else on this theme, that rarely has a man of letters fallen upon a subject which more en- 244 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1842. tirely or more increasingly satisfied and interested him. Instead of growing eager to complete this, and take up some other work ; instead of becoming impatient to bring his favorite matter, or himself, before the public, — having the brilliant success of his friend Prescott to stimulate him in that direction, — he lingered over his preparations with afi'ection, acknowledging that he dis- liked to part with the work after ten years' devotion. From time to time, his nephew, Mr. George T. Curtis, asked him how soon he intended to stop collecting, and to begin printing, and he would only answer, "When I have done." In April, 1848, he calls it *' a task I cannot find it in my heart to hurry, so agree- able is it to me."* His love of exactness, of thoroughness, of finding the nearest possible approach to absolute truth, was a very prevailing ele- ment in his character, cultivated into a habit, which affected aU his thoughts and utterances ; and this had its influence in the prolongation of his labors on the book. It also had much to do with the success of the History ; for the thoroughness of his in- vestigations, and the exceeding care shown, in all particulars, to arrive at facts, and to express them accurately, has always been generally acknowledged. Meanwhile, this absorbing occupation did not separate him, or induce him to seclude himself, from the current of social and domestic life. His library door always stood open, — not figu- ratively only, but literally, — and no orders excluded visitors of any degree. He had, also, after his return home, in 1838, re- sumed his hospitable habits, as well as his connection with the more important societies and charities to which he had been attached ; but his powers of concentration and methodical regu- lation of mind made him master of his time. When he left town for the summer he always carried a mass of books with him, selected with reference to some division of his work, to which he intended devoting himself during his absence ; and his * Mr. Sarauel Rogers, the English poet, when Mr. Ticknor's book was pub- lished and a copy of it lay on his table, said to Sir Charles Lyell, in allusion to it, " I am told it has been the work of his life. How these Bostonians do work ! " o :• -/ (^ r^ c 'A -J .i ^ ^ ^3^ ^-^ ■ ^ "^ rv^ -^: (T i/ o O H OS a < rjl o ^. 50.] LETTER TO WASHINGTON IRVING. 245 writing-table was arranged and became as much his natural re- sort at a hotel, where he was to stay a short time, as was his library table at home. An old Spanish book seemed to take him out of the world around him, wherever he might be ; yet if any person, high or low, interrupted his studies, having a rea- sonable cause for doing so, he was habitually prompt and cour- teous in turning to the new subject brought before him. He was rarely absent-minded, and scarcely ever visibly impatient of interruption. The growth of the History is intimately connected with the growth of his Spanish library, for his books were his necessary tools, and the library took its character from the literary pur- pose for which it was collected. His correspondence with Don Pascual de Gayangos,* his constant orders to Mr. Rich,t and to others, for Spanish books, and for all accessory materials, became, as the years went on, more and more marked by indications of the absorbing subject he had in hand. Three years and a half after his return to America he wrote as follows to jMr. Washington Irving, who had just accepted the post of Minister from the United States to Spain, and with whom, it had been hoped, 'Mi. Cogswell would go as Secretary of Legation : — To Washington Irving, Esq., New York. Boston, March 31, 1842. Mt dear Mr. Irving, — Cogswell's decision throws me quite out of my track, and leaves me no resource but to turn to you. I trust, however, that my httle aflfairs will give you almost no trouble, and therefore I will tell you quite frankly how they stand, and how much help I must ask of you. Please to tell me in return, as frankly, if it will be quite convenient for you to fulfil my wishes, and if it will not, let me beg you to say so without the least hesitation. I have been employed for some time on a " History of Spanish Lit- erature," and need for it copies of a few manuscripts to be found in * See ante, pp. 161 and 182. - + Mr. Obadiah Rich, once Consul of the United States at Port Mahon, a faithful and cultivated bibliopole, was, as a London bookseller, Mr. Ticknor's agent for many years. 246 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1842. Madrid and in the Escorial. A young Spaniard named Pascual de Gayangos has helped me already somewhat, and has volunteered to procure the copies ; but he lives in London, and is going with his nice, pretty English wife to Tunis as Spanish Consul, moved to it by Ms vast Arabic learning, which he hopes there to increase. He is an excellent, and, besides, an agreeable person, who was much liked at Holland House, and is well known and in good request in much of the best literary society of London ; the author of the article on Pres- cott's "Ferdinand and Isabella" in the "Edinburgh Review," etc.,' etc. Now, I wish your permission to have him come and see you in London, which I will desire him to do, and let him give you a writ- ten memorandum of what he has ordered for me in Madrid, the person of whom he has ordered it, and the best mode of accomplishing there all I desire, which is really not much Pray do not think me unreasonable, and pray refuse me plainly if you foresee more trouble in it than I do. I am very sorry you are not coming to Boston to embark. We should have given you a hearty welcome, and, if good wishes could help, you should have been well sped on your passage. As it is, we can only hope that you may take us on your return. Meantime, aUow me to ^^Tite to you in Madrid, if I happen to get into any unexpected bother for want of a rare book or an unpublished manu- Bcript. Yours very faithfully, G. TiCKNOR. Almost simultaneously with the foregoing letter he wrote to Mr. de Gayangos, with whom he had already been in corre- spondence for some time, who gave him unremittingly the most valuable and faithful aid, in every possible way, for the further- ance of his work, and to whom he once wrote : " Nothing en- courages and helps me in my study of Spanish literature like your contributions." To Don Pascual de Gayangos, London. Boston, March 30, 1842. My dear Friend, — Since I wrote you, February 17 -March 1, I have received both your kind letters of January 28 and March 2. They have gratified me very much. I am, indeed, sorry that you are unwilling to sell the books you have been so very good as to lend M. 52.] LETTERS TO DON P. DE GAYANGOS. 247 me ; * but, certainly, I have not the least disposition to complain of your decision. On the contrary, if the books were mine, I am per- suaded I should not part with them, and for all that you have done in relation to them, and to me, I can only feel gratitude. For your very generous offer of the works of Gregorio Silvestre, I will consider it. But I must not be unreasonable, and if I do not accept it, you may be sure that I am just as thankful for your kindness as if I did. I am much disappointed that my friend JVIr. Cogswell has refused the appointment of Secretary of Legation at Madrid ; preferring to remain in New York, as librarian of a great library just about to be established there.t Who will be his successor I do not know, and shall hardly interest myself again to procure the place for anybody. Irving^ will do all he can to help Prescott and myself, for his kind- ness may be entirely relied upon ; but he was never very active ; he is now growing old, and his knowledge of books and bibliography is not at all like Cogswell's. I must, therefore, rely much upon your advice, and shall" be very glad to be put in communication with Don Fermin Gonzalo Moron, or any other person in Madrid, bookseller, book-collector, or whatever he may be, that will assist me in obtain- ing what I want. As you are good enough to ask me for a list of the books and manuscripts I wish to obtain, I enclose one ; but what I desire especially to know is, what I can buy, for I very often might purchase books of whose existence I had before no knowledge, as, yesterday, I received from the Canon Eiego's library a copy of "J)a- mian de Vegas," Toledo,, 1590, of which I never heard till I found it in his catalogue. • To Don Pascual de Gatangos, Madrid. Niagara Falls, N. Y., July 24, 1844. My dear Mr. Gayangos, — I have not WTitten to you lately, because I have been absent from home for the last two months, travelling in the interior of Pennsylvania and New York for Mrs. Ticknor's health, which, I am happy to add, is wholly restored by it, so that we are now about to return to Boston. Meantime, I have received your kind letters of April 17 and May 14. I was sorry to * Mr. Gayangos generously lent Mr. Ticknor many volumes from his ovm library, which were of great service. They came in successive parcels across the ocean, and were returned to him in the same way. t Mr. Cogswell remained, at the request of Mr. John Jacob Astor, to organize the library he had promised to found, which was not, however, estabhshed for several years. 248 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1844. learn by the last the death of your eldest child, and pray you to ac- cept my sincere sympathy for it. I know how to feel for you, for I, too, have suffered. I shall be extremely glad to receive the manuscripts and books, both old and recent, that you have been so good as to purchase for me. I shall be interested to see the translation of Sismondi, whether it be good or bad, and I pray you to send it ; and thank you very much for the purchases you have made out of the Marquis of Sta. Cruz' library, which I am sure will all be welcome. Please to let me know when you have taken up the remainder of the money in Mr. Irving's hands, and I will send more. From Southey's sale I obtained about thirty volumes, I understand ; but, though I believe I have received from it all the Spanish books of any real value that I ordered, I did not get the whole of my order, because Rich was afraid he should bid too high, though he spent only half the sum I sent him, with directions to return none of it, except in the shape of Southey's books I will send you, as soon as I can have it made out after my return home, a list of my Spanish books ; and shall always be glad to have you make additions to it. The Calderons are in Boston, as I hear from our friend Prescott, quite w^ell and very happy. We are very glad to have them back agam, and the government here is very glad to have Calderon come as Minister to it once more. His relations were always of the kind that are useful, alike to the country that sends the mission and the country that receives it. I am sorry to hear that the Calderons bring poor accounts of Mr. Irving's health. I trust he is better. Pray give my affectionate re- gards to him, and w^hen you write tell me how he is. I am here for some days with all my family, enjoying anew the magnificent spectacle of these cataracts, — a spectacle quite as remark- able for its picturesqueness and beauty, as it is for its power and grandeur. Some day I hope you will come here and enjoy it. You •will find more friends in this country than you know of, and we will all try to make your time pass pleasantly, if you will make us a visit. Yours very faithfully, G. TiCKNOR. I wrote to you last on the 25th of April, and one of the books I then asked you to procure for me was the " Carcel de Amor, de Diego de San Pedro." I do not now need it, for it is among the books I bought at Southey's sale. ^.53.] PURCHASE OF SPANISH BOOKS. 249 To Don P. de Gayangos. Boston, August 24, 1844. My dear Mr. Gayangos, — I wrote to you on the 24th July, from Kiagara Falls, since which I have returned to Boston with my family, and have caused the catalogue of my Spanish books to be made out, that goes with this. It is, I believe, tolerably complete. At any rate, I shall be very glad to receive from you any books not on it that you think would be useful to me in writing a history of Spanish literature. As, however, Prescott's library, and some public libraries here, contain all the merely historical books I can need, I suppose you vnll confine your purchases to libros de poesia and lihros de entretenimiento. But I pray you in this, also, to exercise your dis- cretion freely. When you need more funds, please to let me know it. Of course, during my residence in Spain, many years ago, and my visits since to the principal libraries of Europe, I have seen and used many curious Spanish books which I have not bought, but from which I have made extracts and abstracts to serve my purposes. The more of these you may pick up for me the better I shall be pleased. His eagerness to possess all the instruments for the work in which he was engaged naturally grew with rapid strides, and although the love for collecting never became simply a biblio- maniac's passion, but was always ruled by the literary element from which it sprang, yet it was a ferv^ent enthusiasm, and the accessions to his Spanish library between 1846 and 1852 were greater than in any other years. He says to Perthes, Besser, and Mauke,* February 24, 1846, when sending them a catalogue marked for purchases : ''I am willing to pay high prices for them, — not des prix fous, as the French say, — but I am willing to pay high prices decidedly, rather than lose them " ; and to Mr. 0. Pdch, in June of the same year : " I wish to give you carte blanche, and feel sure that with my letter of January 27, and this list of my books, you cannot mistake my wants ; which, you know, have always been confined to Spanish belles-lettres, and whatever is necessary to understand the history of Spanish elegant literature. From time to time I pray you to send Mr. Gayangos a note of your purchases, as he has a similar carte hlanche from me, and I will desire him to do the same with you." * Of Hamburg. n* 250 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1846. To Dr. Julius, Hamburg. Boston, January 25, 1816. My dear Dr. Julius, — In the autumn, when I returned to Bos- ton from my summer's rustication, I found your kind letter of July 12. That of July 21 followed soon after, and two days ago came your note of August 17, with the " Dietrichstein Programme." .... Schack's " Geschichte" was particularly welcome ; it is an important book, and I am very anxious to receive the rest of it. Ruber's Pro- gramme is excellent, as is everything of his on Spanish literature that I know about, viz. his " Skizzen," his " Cid's Leben," his " Cronica del Cid," and his " Lesebuch," all of which I have had from the dates of their publication. What else has he printed ? If there be any- thing on Spanish literature, order Perthes and Besser to send it. Particularly I pray you to thank him for the copy of the Programme. Wolf, I hope, will reconsider his determination to print only a part of the "Eosa Espinola," 1573, with the " Cancionero." Everything of Timoneda's is worth reprinting. Thank him, when you write to him, for the Programme, and beg him to let us have the whole of the unicum volume of the Imperial Library. It was too late in the season to send you the Reports, Registrations, and Asylum Journal, that you want.* They will go by the first spring vessel, and that is not far off. The account of the Boston char- ities, in the " North American Review," after whose author you in- quire, was written by my brother-in-law, Mr. S. A. Eliot, formerly Mayor of the city. And now I am about to trouble you with a matter of some conse- quence to me, but one which I hope will not ask much of your thoughts or time. My collection of old Spanish books is doubled since you were here, and is now so large that I am anxious to make it com- plete as I can. What can I do for it in Germany ? The only re- source there, that I can think of, is the small bookcase that used to stand near the window in the venerable and admirable Tieck's par- lor, where I have spent so many happy hours. Does he still pre- serve that little collection, and if he does preserve it, do you think he could be induced to part with it to one who, as you know, would value it from having been his, as much as would anybody in the world 1 Will you do me the favor, in some way or other that would * Dr. Julius (see ante, p. 142, and note) had given special attention to prison discipline. He was one of the German translators of the " History of Spanish Literature." M. 54.] LETTER FBOM MR. PRESCOTT. 251 be most agreeable to him, to approach bim on this subject, and see if anything can be done in my behalf ? I cannot_butj;hink that it would be worthy of him to permit a part of his liVjrary to be planted on this Western continent^ where^ at some time or other, it will bear fruit, an3rwhefe it will never cease tO' be remembered that it was once the property of the first man of his time in Germany. If it comes into my hands it will, I think, be kept together, and never leave the "West- ern world I work away constantly at my "History of Spanish Literature," after which you kindly inquire. It is now approaching 1700, after which there is not much, as you well know Your friends here are all well, except Mr. Pickering, whose strength is much broken do^Ti by complaints in the organs of digestion. Pres- cott gets on well with his " Conquest of Peru," and will then take up Philip II. He desires to be kindly remembered to you, and so does Mr. Pickering, -svhom I saw yesterday, and so would your other friends if they knew me to be writing, for we all remember you with a very sincere and lively interest. Yours always faithfully, Geo. Ticknor. Do you know of old Spanish books anywhere to be obtained in Ger- many or elsewhere ? . . . . Mr. Prescott was, naturally, the confidant of his friend during the whole progress of the work, from its inception to its publi- cation ; and when the manuscript of it was complete, it was sub- mitted to bis examination and correction, as his histories had been placed in Mr. Ticknor's hands for a similar revision. He was at this time hesitating over his plans for writing the "History of Philip II.," doubting whether his infirmities would permit him to undertake it, and he devoted some weeks of this period of comparative idleness to the task of friendship, described by Mr. Ticknor as "an act of kindness for which I shall always feel grateful, and the record of which I preserve with care, as a proof how faithful he was, and how frank."* Eeturning the manu- script with nineteen quarto pages of memoranda, in the hand- writing of his amanuensis, Mr. Prescott also sent a note of eight * Life of Prescott, 4to ed. p. 284. 252 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1848. close-written pages, dated and signed by himself, of which the following is a part : — Beacon Street, May 19, 1848. My dear George, — I return you the manuscript which I have read, or rather heard attentively, text and notes, and I only regret that I could not have gone over them with my eyes, instead of my ears, as I could have done them more justice. I need not say that I have received a constant gratification from the perusal, for the subject is one of great interest to me. But I have no hesitation in saying that the work is done in a manner, both as respects its scientific re- sults and its execution as a work of art, that must secure it an impor- tant and permanent place in European literature. Not only the for- eign, but the Spanish student must turn to its pages for the best, the only complete record of the national mind, as developed in the vari- ous walks of elegant letters. The foreign reader will have ample evidence of the unfounded nature of the satire "that the Spani ards have but one good book, the object of which is to laugh at all.lhfi. rest." Even those superficially acquainted, as I am, with the Castil- ian literature, must be astonished to see how prolific the Spaniards have been in all kinds of composition known in civilized Europe, and in some kinds exclusively their own. The few more learned critics, in the Peninsula and out of it, will find you have boldly entered the darkest corners of their literature, and dragged into light much that has hitherto been unknown, or but very imperfectly apprehended ; while there is not a vexed question in the whole circle of the national literature which you have shrunk from discussing, and, as far as pos- sible, deciding. The plan of the book seems to me very judicious. By distributing the subject into the great periods determined by its prevalent char- acteristics at the time, you make a distinct impression on the mind of the reader, and connect the intellectual movement of the nation with the political and moral changes that have exercised an influence over it. You have clearly developed the dominant national spirit, which is the peculiar and fascinating feature of the Castilian ; and you have shown how completely this hterature vindicates a place for itself apart from all other literatures of Christendom. For it was the product of influences to which they have never been subjected. The most interesting parts of the work to the general reader will, I suppose, be those which relate to topics of widest celebrity, — as the Ballads, for example^ the great dramatic writers. Lope, Calderon, M. 57.] GENERAL PURPOSE. 253 etc., — above all Cervantes, and scarcely less Quevedo The portions least interesting to the vulgar reader will be the details in. relation to the more obscure writers If you are^bent on abridg- ing the work, it is in these portions .... that you might exercise your shears I believe every scholar will concede to you the merits of having had a most extraordinary body of materials at your command, — where such materials are rare, — of having studied them with dili- gence, and, finally, of having analyzed and discussed them in a man- ner perfectly original. You have leaned, in the last resort, on your , own con\'ictions, derived from your own examinations. This will give you high authority, even with those who differ from you in some of your opinions [Then follow some remarks on details of style ending thus : — ] I have thought that you sometimes leave too little to the reader's imagination, by filling up the minute shades, instead of trusting for effect to the more prominent traits. If you don't understand me, I can better explain myself in conversation. These are small peculiarities, which some might think not worth noticing at all. But style is a subtle thing, and as it is the medium by which the reader is to see into the writer's thoughts, it cannot be too carefully studied. .... Always faithfully yours, William H. Prescott. In a part of ^Ir. Prescott's letter there is a reference to one element in Mr. Ticknor's plan which guided him in the composi- tion of his whole work. It is thus expressed in notes to two friends, which accompanied presentation copies of the book when they were distributed. To Sir Charles Lyell he says : — You know our reading public in the United States, how large it is, •. as well as how craving and increasing ; so that you will be less sur- prised than others, that I have prepared my book as much for general readers as for scholars. Perhaps, however, it will surprise you, too. But I have done it, and must abide the consequences. Indeed, for a great many years I have been persuaded that literary history ought not to be confined, as it has been from the way in which it has been written, to persons of tasteful scholarship, but should be made, like civil history, to give a knowledge of the character of the 'people to which it relates. I have endeavored, therefore, so to write my ac- 254 LIFE OF GEOKGE TICKNOR. [1849. count of Spanish literature as to make the literature itself the expo- nent of the peculiar culture and civilization of the Spanish people. Whether I have succeeded or no remains to be seen. But if I have, my book, I think, will be read by my countrymen, whose advance in a taste for reading on grave and thoughtful subjects increases so perceptibly that there is a plain difference since you were here. To Mr. George T. Curtis he says the same thing in other words : — " As you read, please to bear in mind that my book is an attempt to make literary history useful, as general reading, to a people like the American, by connecting it with the history of civilization and manners in the country to which it relates. Whether I have suc- ceeded is another question ; but you will not judge me as I wish to be judged, unless you take this for what the Germans call your " stand-punct." A history of literature necessarily falls far short, in animation and in human interest, of a history of events, and it must con- sist, in great part, of a catalogue — more or less thematique, but essentially a chronological list — of books, accompanied by state- ments of dates and skeletons of contents. Mr. Ticknor, however, in pursuing his object of giving a living interest to his work, seized every opportunity for a sketch of national character and experience, or of individual lives, into which he infused variety and vivacity, as well as philosophic observation ; and he enlivened his pages by translations, and by intelligible and attractive criticism. The result is, that while it is a work of which one of the English writers who noticed it * said, when it appeared, he be- lieved there were not six men in Europe able to review it, and "which, by universal consent, is a thorough and scholarly history, not likely to be superseded for the period it covers, it has actu- ally proved so attractive to general readers, that several^thousand copies have been sold in the United States, and it has been translated into three of the great languages of Europe.f Among the reviews and notices of the book, which appeared on both sides of the Atlantic immediately after its publication, we find, there- * SMrley Brooks, in the " Morning Chronicle." t Spanish, German and French. M. 58.] VARIOUS NOTICES. 255 fore, Mr. Prescott* remarking on the pains his friend has taken " to unfold the pecuharities of the Castilian character, and how. ■with a spirit of sound philosophy, he raises his work above the ordinary province of hterary criticism " ; while Mr. Brunet refers to the " renseignements bibliographiques qu'il offre en grande quantite, et qui fournissent les materiaux de nombreuses et im- portantes additions, aux recherches de Brunet, d'Ebert, et autres savants, verses dans la connaissance des livres."t Mr. Eichard Pord J gives him " infinite credit ",for the great number of rare an^ curious books which he has pointed out, for his careful tracing of their editions, and the exact indications of chapter and verse, on his margin, and, at the same time, adds some words about Mr. Ticknor's " gentlemanlike and elegant remarks, couched in a calm tone, and expressed in a clear and unaffected style," and asserts that he has produced a record which may be read with general satisfaction, and will be lastingly valued for refer- ence. / Mr. Buckle also, in a private letter, says : "In IVIr. Tick- nor's singularly valuable ' History of Spanish Literature ' there is more real information than can be found in any of the Spanish histories which I have had occasion to read."§ The first edition of the work appeared from the press of the Messrs. Harper, ^N'ew York, in the latter part of the year 1849, while" Mr. John Murray, at the same time, published a small edition in London. A Spanish translation was already begun, from advanced sheets, by Don P. de Gayangos and Don Enrique de Yedia, but the last volume of this did not appear until several years later. Meantime, reviews and notices appeared on both sides of the Atlantic, some of which contained inconsiderable * In the " North American Review." This was the last article Mr. Prescott ever wrote for a periodical. See " Life of Prescott." t From the " Bulletin Beige," article signed G. Brunet. " The bibliographi- cal information it contains in great quantities, and which furnishes materials for numerous and important additions to the researches of Brunet, Ebert, and other experts, versed in the history of books." Ij: Author of the " Handbook of Spain." He wrote an article on Mr. Tick- nor's work in the *' London Quarterly," and a notice of it also for the " London Times." § The letter appears in the '' Life of Theodore Parker," to whom it was ad- dressed. \ \ 256 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1849. objections to matters of style, or to special opinions, omissions, and statements ; but all the articles which carried weight with them agreed in praise and respect^^ Private letters also flowed in, of course, and some of these are of a character suitable to be introduced here.t From J. Lothrop Motley to G. Ticknor. Chestnut Street, Boston, December 29, 1849. My dear Sir, — At the risk of appearing somewhat impolite, I have delayed expressing my thanks to you for your kindness in send- ing me a copy of your " History of Spanish Literature," until I had read the whole work. This I have now done very carefully, and parts of it several times, and I am happy to express to you my sincere congratulations at the eminent success which you have attained. Your book is an honor to yourself and to American literature. I felt sure, before reading it, that it would be thorough, accurate, learned, and that the subject would be entirely exhausted by your labors ; but as histories of literature, with a few exceptions, have gen- erally been rather arid and lifeless productions, occupying rather a place upon the library shelf as books of reference than upon the table as sources of entertainment and instruction at the same time, I must confess that I was not prepared for three volumes of so exceedingly interesting and picturesque a character as these which you have given to the world. In this result, I think you may take the most credit to yourself for * The more important notices of Mr. Ticknor's work, at its first appearance, were the following : " London Quarterly " (by Richard Ford) ; " North Ameri- can," January, 1850 (by W. H. Prescott) ; " British Quarterly," February, 1850 ; "London; Athenaeum," March, 1850; "Revue des Deux Mondes," 1850 (by Rossieuw de St. Pilaire) ; " El Heraldo," Madrid, March, 1850 (by Domingo del Monte) ; " London Morning Chronicle," May, 1850 (by Shirley Brooks, who wrote to Mr. Ticknor to inform him of the authorship) ; "Christian Exam- iner," Boston, April, 1850 (by G. S. Hillard) ; " Methodist Quarterly," New York (by C. C. Felton) ; "L'Opinion Publique," Paris, which had five articles in 1851 (by Count Adolphe de Circourt) ; " London Spectator," "Examiner," "Literary Gazette," and " Gentleman's Magazine," 1850 ; "Journal des De- bats," 1852 (by Philarete Chasles, who also paid a tribute to the work in his " Voyages d'un Critique en Espagne," 1868) ; "Blatter fiir Literarische Unter- haltung," 1853 (by Ferdinand Wolf). t A delightful letter from "Washington Irving has already been published in his Memoirs, which deprives us of the pleasure of producing it here. M. 58.] LETTER FROM MR. MOTLEY. 257 the artistic manner with which you have handled your materials. The subject is, to be sure, — as it now appears after your book is finished, — a brilliant and romantic one ; but I have read enough of literary his- tories to know that they are too apt to furnish a kind of Barmecide's feast, ia which the reader has to play the part of Shacabac, and be- lieve m. the excellence of the lamb, stufted with pistachio nuts, the flavor of the "svines, and the perfume of the roses, upon the assertion of the entertainer, and without assistance from his own perceptions. This is not the case with your history. While reading it, one feels I and recognizes the peculiar qualities of Spanish poetry and romance, [ which are so singulaiiy in union with the chivalrous and romantic I nation which produced them. You have given extracts enough from \ each prominent work to allow the reader to feel its character, and to produce upon his mind the agreeable illusion that he himself knows something of the literature to which you introduce him. You ana- lyze enough to instruct, without wearying the reader with too elabo- rate details. This I take to be the great art in composing literary history. The reader should be able to take, and to remember, a general view of the whole, and while looking dowu the long vista of the gallery, he should be allowed to pause at each remarkable picture long enough to study and comprehend its beauties and its individual character I cannot doubt that the work will always be the standard work upon the subject, and that it will turn the attention of many to a lit- erature which has of late years been, I should think, comparatively \ neglected Spanish literature is not only an important subject in itself, but it furnishes a complete and separate episode ia the history of the prog- ress and development of the European mind. Nowhere else have poets exhibited themselves in such picturesque and startling attitude and costume. The warrior, monk, troubadour, and statesman, all in one, combining the priest's bigotry and the poet's fire with the " courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword," exist only in that romantic literature of which you have written the history so well. One can hardly understand the history of Europe without knowing \ not only the history, but the literary history, of Spain ; and after the brilliant illustrations of both, furnished by yourself and Mr. Prescott, i no one will have an excuse for ignorance. Begging you to excuse this slight expression of the merits of your work, I remain Very sincerely yours, J. L. Motley. Q 258 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1850. From Henry Hallam, Esq. Wilton Crescent, London, January 10, 1850. My dear Mr. Ticknor, — The American mail went so soon after my receipt of your very obliging present of your three volumes, that I was not able to thank you at that time. The delay, however, has given me time to read them through, and I can congratulate you on having brought your long labors to a close with so much honor to yourself. The book has e\T.dently taken a position in which it both supersedes, for its chief purpose, all others, and will never be itself superseded, certainly not out of Spain ; and, unless Spain become very different from what it is, not within its confines. Your reach of knowledge is really marvellous in a foreigner ; and I particularly ad- mire the candor and good sense with which you have escaped the ordinary fault of exaggerating the writers whom you have occasion to bring before the public, while you have done ample justice to their real deserts. Your style is clear, firm, and well-sustained. Perhaps you will excuse a very trifling criticism ; a few words seem to recur too often, such as lady-love, which I hold hardly fit for prose, and genial, which is better, and not objectionable, except that I think you have it too often. I rejoice — not only on your account — that your work has every I prospect of a large sale in America. It is greatly to the credit of the country that a subject so merely literary, and not relating to transient j literature, has attracted a number of purchasers — at least according to the calculation of your publisher — very far beyond what any book, except one of a popular character, could reach at once in Eng- land. This shows that America is fast taking a high position as a literary country ; the next half-century will he abundantly produc- tive of good authors in your Union. And it is yet to he observed that there is not, nor probably will be, a distinct American school. The language is absolutely the same, all slight peculiarities being now effaced ; and there seems nothing in the turn of sentiment or taste which a reader can recognize as not English. This is not only re- markable in such works as yours and Mr. Prescott's, but even, as it strikes me, in the lighter literature, as far as I see it, of poetry or belles-lettres You will, I hope, be pleased to learn that Lord Mahon has pro- posed your name as an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Antiqua- ries. You will be united in this with Everett, Prescott, and Bancroft.* * Lord Mahon, as President of the Society, said at its annual meeting, April ^59.] LETTER FROM MR. HALLAM. 259 Lord Mahon did this without the least suggestion of mine, from being pleased with your book, but I was, of course, glad to add my name to the recommendation. You will receive the diploma in time. I was much interested by your letter of September 25, which I took the liberty of showing to Dr. Holland and Lord Lansdowne. .... I hope that peace may continue all over the world, and indeed there seems no great cause for alarm at present. Without the non- sense of a Peace Society, a change is coming over the spirits of men, and it is more and more felt that war is not to be undertaken for frivolous punctilios or unimportant interests Believe me, my dear sir, Very truly yours, Henry Hallam. A few months later Mr. Ticknor writes as follows : — To Don P. de Gatangos. Boston, October 14, 1850. My dear Don Pascual, — I wrote you last on the 19th of Au-- gust, since which I have not heard from you directly ; but I know that the copies of my History which I sent to Mr. Barringer and to Don Adolfo de Castro, through your kindness, have safely reached their destination. Don Adolfo wTites to me very agreeably about my book, but says he shall answer what I have said about the Buscapie. Young Prescott has returned lately, and brought me the fine copies of " Ayllon's Cid," 1579, and of the " Toledana Discreta," 1604, which you intrusted to his care. His father came at the same time, and both of them are quite well, and much gratified by the kindness they everywhere received in Europe I continue to receive much better accounts of my book from Eu- rope than I can think it deserves You will, I suppose, have had Ford's review in the " London Quarterly " for October, and that of Rossieuw de St. Hilaire in the " Revue des Deux Mondes " at 23, 1850 : " It is also -with great pleasure that I find another gentleman from the United States, the author of the excellent " History of Spanish Literature," augmenting the list of our honorary members. Five years ago we had not one from that country. At present we have four, namely, Mr. Everett, Mr, Ban- croft, Mr. Prescott, and Mr. Ticknor, — an accession of talent and high charac- ter of which any society might justly be proud." After reading the book Lord Mahon had opened a correspondence with Mr. Ticknor, whom he had not pre- viously known. 260 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1850. Paris. Julius is going on vigorously with his translation at Ham- burg, assisted, as he writes me, by notes from Wolf of Vienna and Huber of Berlin, and expecting to publish at New Year. Tieck writes with much kindness about it. Villemain has volunteered to" me a message of approbation and thanks ; and I enclose you a letter from Humboldt, found in a newspaper, of which I know nothing else, not even to whom it was addressed ; but which I think you and Don Domingo del Monte will read with pleasure, for the sake of the few words in which he speaks of Prescott and myself, and for the broad view he gives — after his grand, generalizing fashion — of the progress of culture in the United States. There have been a great many notices of my History, I under- stand, in England and this country, which I have not seen ; but I have not heard of any of them that were unfavorable.* From Ludwig Tieck. Potsdam, July 28, 1850. Honored FRiEND,t — "What a happy time it was when we met al- most every day in Dresden. I still look back to that time with much pleasure. Genuine friendship, indeed, consists in this, that men understand each other better every day, and become indispensable to one another in sentiments, expressions, and so forth ; this is what ordinary society neither appreciates nor requires. Notwithstanding the high esteem with which you inspired me, your valued present surprised me ; for, delightful as these welcome volumes were, their many-sided and profound learning astonished me. Much is now do- ing for Spanish literature, but your learned work appears to me the jB.rst of the day. If I did not immediately thank you from a full heart, my malady, which takes hold of me, and exhausts me to an incredible degree, must be my excuse, and, on the same ground, you will kindly accept this dictated letter. Much as I have read of Spanish, and though I counted myself among the connoisseurs in the province of poetry, your beautiful book * In a letter from Mr. Abbott Lawrence, then our Minister to England, to Mr. S. A. Eliot, he says : " I was present a few evenings since, when the Queen asked Mr. Macaulay what new book he could recommend for her read- ing. He replied that he would recommend Her Majesty to send for the * His- tory of Spanish Literature,' by an American, Mr. Ticknor of Boston." t Translated from the German. M. 59.] LETTER FROM LUDWIG TIECK. 261 has yet put me to shame, for I have gained an endless amount of new information from it. The chapters on the Romances seemed to me especially new and instructive, and I rejoice in the prospect of re- peated readings, that I may study and learn more. It was new to me, also, that you had travelled in Spain. I confess that I cannot feel much admiration for the modem poetry, in comparison with the earlier poetry and literature. These modern ideas, this French style, this degraded language, do not suit the grave Spaniard. I could have wished the chapters on the Drama more minute still, and it seems to me that we Protestants, by education, habit, and daily intercourse, lack a power of entering into the mythical religious poe- try. For, while Calderon inclined to allegory, we find in Lope religious mythical views, and poetic representations which have exer- cised an extraordinary magic power over me for many years. Just so Lope's contemporaries, such as Mira de Mesqua and others, are very remarkable in representations of miracles, legends, apparitions. This point seems to me to have been too little regarded by all friends ; for I cannot speak of those caricatures which, for a time, tried to attract attention by much noise ; when even young Jews were indefatigable in painting Madonnas and Christs. Remember me to your lady, and think sometimes of your admir- ing friend, LUDWIG TiECK. Having thus met with a solid and most gratifying success, the "History of Spanish Literature" maintained its place, and in 1863, when he had accumulated additional materials, and had profited by all the suggestions contained in the Spanish and Ger- man translations of his work, as well as in such reviews and pri- vate criticisms as seemed to him of value, Mr. Ticknor brought out a third edition of the book, " corrected and enlarged." The Preface to this gives a full account of the means and methods by which he had acquired the new matter, and of the changes he saw fit to make.* He continued, as long as he lived, to gather from every acces- sible source whatever could add to the accuracy and the merit * In this Preface Mr. Ticknor states that 3,500 copies of his work have been published in America alone. Since that time 1,300 more have been sold in the United States. 262 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [185a of this his chief production. " A copy of his History was always on his table ; and, retaining to the last his literary activity, and his interest in his favorite studies, he constantly had it in hand, for the purpose of making such revisions as were suggested by his own researches, or those of Spanish scholars in Europe Any one who will take the trouble to compare the two editions [the third and fourth] will see how carefully and conscientiously Mr. Ticknor labored, to the day of his death, to secure complete- ness to the work to which the best portion of his life was dedi- cated, with a singleness of devotion rare in these days of desul- tory activity and rapid production."* * Preface to the Fourth Edition, by G. S. Hillard. This edition, prepared for the press by Mr. Hillard, appeared a year after the death of Mr. Ticknor, who left a special request that his friend might peiform this office. M 58.] VISIT TO WASHINGTON. 263 CHAPTEE XIII. Visit to Washington. — Letters to Mr. Milman, Prince John, Sir E. Head, Sir G. Lyell, F. Wolf, D. Webster, E. Everett, G. T. Gurtis, and G. S. Daveis. — New Books. — Passing Events. — Spanish Liter- ary Subjects. — Slavery. — International Gopyright. I'N the spring of the year 1850 ^Ir. Ticknor went to Wash- ington for the first time since 1828, taking his eldest daugh- ter with him, and the fortnight he passed there was very ani- mated, owing to the presence in the society of the capital that season, of a number of persons with whom he could not fail to have interesting and agreeable intercourse. Mr. Webster was in Washington as Senator; so was Mr. Clay, who occu- pied rooms near Mr. Ticknor's in the hotel, and frequently came in as a friendly neighbor ; Mr. Calderon was Spanish Minister ; Mr. E. C. Winthrop was member of the House of Eepresenta- tives from Boston ; and many other friends and acquaintances were there, officially or for pleasure. Sir Henry Bulwer, as English Minister, was a brilliant acquisition to the society of the place; the Chevalier Hiilsemann, Austrian Charge d' Affaires, recollected seeing ^Ir. Ticknor once in the riding-school in Got- tingen, thirty-five years before, and remembered his appearance so well, he said he should have recognized him ; a son of that Marquis de Sta. Cruz who had so often been his host in Madrid was a member of the Spanish Legation ; and, finally, the White House, as presided over by good General Taylor and his attrac- tive daughter, Mrs. Bhss, was, socially, more agreeable than usual. The constant dinner-parties at which this circle met were uncommonly bright with clever conversation, and the mornings passed with 'Mi. Webster, or in the Houses of Congress and the Supreme Court, were interesting. Unfortunately Mr. Ticknor 2C4 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1850. was not well during this visit, and unfortunately, also, his let- ters, though filled with the daily record of what he did, contain almost notliing in a form to be appropriate here. On one occasion he writes : — As Judge Wayne says, " the demonstration in favor of Webster's speech * is triumphant." The number of letters he receives about it is prodigious ; and the flood still comes in, as if none had flowed before. He has sent me a roll of a few hundred, with which I have been amus- ing myself this morning ; and from their look, and from what I hear, he could have, from any part of the country, a list of names as signifi- cant of its public opinion as the list from Boston. The great West goes for him with a rush. In another letter he says : — The dinner at Webster's was very agreeable, quite agreeable ; though havmg risen at three in the morning to prepare his great case in the Supreme Court, then having argued it, and, finally, having had a little discussion in the Senate as late as five o'clock, he grew tired about nine, and showed a great infection of sleep. But at the table he was in excellent condition. Again he writes : — The first half of the evening I spent with Clay, who had with him Foote and Clingman ; and a curious conversation we had about slav- ery, I assure you At last, however, mentioning the arrival of Mr. Prescott with a party of friends, he adds, " They will stay till Friday, so as to dine at the President's on Thursday, for which we have invita- tions, but I would not stop here next week to dine with the Three Holy Kings of Cologne." t This visit to Washington is mentioned in the following letter to Mr. Milman : — * The famous 7tli of March speech. t The description, in the ''Life of Prescott," of the attentions showered upon liis friend, might be applied with equal truth to the welcome Mr. Ticknor him- self received. M. 58.J NORTH AND SOUTH. 265 To THE Eev. H. H. Milman, London. Boston, April 30, 1850. My dear Mr. Milman, — I am indebted to you for a most kind letter concerning my " History of Spanish Literature." Such appro- bation as your kindness has given is the true and highest reward an author receives ; for though the public may read, — and in this country the reading public is very large, — yet it is the few who decide I have lately spent a fortnight in Washington. The times there are very stirring, the passions of men much excited. But no per- manent mischief will come from it. The people of the North have neither been frightened nor made angry, and are not likely to be. .... The result will be, that after much more angry discussion a ground of compromise and adjustment will be found which will settle the controversy once and forever, as we hope. This will be mainly owing to the conciliatory tone taken by Mr. "Webster, which has much quieted the popular feeling at the North ; for if he had assumed the opposite tone, the whole North would have gone \\dth him, and the breach would have been much widened, if not made irreparable Meantime the country advances with gigantic strides, and as the new States get on and take their permanent places in the Confederacy, they feel a new power coming upon them, which is destined to have a preponderating authority to keep the peace in all conflicts that may hereafter arise between the North and the South. I mean the great basin of the Upper Mississippi, with its free States, which, after the census of 1850, and the representation which "will be organized upon its basis, will have upon all national questions a decisive power, and never endure for a moment a state of things that can tend to making New Orleans a foreign port. This power will be eminently conserva- tive, hostile to the spirit of slavery, and every year will become more BO. This makes the present contest in Congress very important, and will explain to you much of its fierceness I have ventured to write to you about our political affairs, be- cause they are of so broad a nature that they become a part of the concerns of the whole human family, and can be alien from no man's heart who feels what belongs to Christendom and its inter- ests. It is, besides, the uppermost subject here now. Mr, Web- ster made a bold and manly speech about it in one of our public squares yesterday afternoon, as he arrived at his hotel from Wash- VOL. II. 12 266 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1850. ington for a few days, and I have just been talking with him about it* .... Hoping that when your leisure permits we may hear from you again, Very sincerely yours, Geo. Ticknor. To Prince John, Duke of Saxony, Dresden. Boston, July 22, 1850. My dear Prince, — I have desired to write to you for some time, and acknowledge the receipt of a very interesting and instructive let- ter which you sent me in the spring, and a note of May 9, in which you speak with your accustomed kindness of my " History of Spanish Literature," of which I had early ventured to send you a copy. But ^' the state of our public affairs, on which I wished to say something, seemed every week to be likely to take a decisive turn I have waited, however, in vain. The debates are still going on, the decision is still somewhat uncertain, and the disturbed and excited state of public opinion and feeling is still unappeased. But in the midst of this angry discussion has come a melancholy event, of which you have already heard, — I mean the very sudden death of the President of the United States ; an event which, perhaps, will not exercise a great influence on the course of public affairs, but is worth particular notice, from the circumstance that what has accom- panied and followed it throws a strong light on the nature and opera- < tion of the free institutions of this country The shock was very great ; and, in a despotism, the loss of the head of the govern- ment, under circumstances of such national embarrassment, would have undoubtedly, I think, brought on a period of confusion. But here, the course of things was not in the least shaken. The next day * During this visit in Boston Mr. "Webster one day sent a note to Mr. Tick- nor asking him to come to his hotel in the afternoon, and having detained him in conversation till a party of gentlemen had assembled who had iinited to give a semi-public dinner in his (Mr. Webster's) honor, Mr. Ticknor was induced to sit down with them. When the after-dinner speaking began, one of the guests suddenly called on Mr. Ticknor, whom, he said, in all his large experience of public dinners he had never before seen on such an occasion ; and, without a moment's chance for preparation, Mr. Ticknor responded with what a person present asserts was one of the happiest and most effective little speeches he had ever heard. This was the only time Mr. Ticknor was ever entrapped into such a performance ; a fact as significant of his tastes, as the testimony to his success is significant of his gifts. M. 58.] DEATH OF PRESIDENT TAYLOR. 267 at noon, July 10, the Vice-President was publicly sworn into office, with the greatest solemnity, and in the presence of both Houses of Congress, but without the least show or bustle, not a soldier being visible on the occasion, nor any form observed or any word spoken but the accustomed simple and awful oath of fidelity to the Con- stitution. Nor was the effect on the country different from what it was in the Capitol. Men were everywhere shocked by it, as a warning of God's power, and felt grieved for the loss of one in whose faithfulness, mod- eration, and wisdom even those originally opposed to his election had come very generally to place great confidence. But there was no convulsion, no alarm. Neither private nor public credit was affected to the amount of a penny, nor did any man in the country feel as if his personal happiness and security, or those of his children, were to be any way involved in this sudden death of the political head of the nation Nor has there been any ground for alarm. The popular will, which gives the main impulse to all governmental action in free institu- tions like ours, will be as efficient in carrying on the state under Mr. Fillmore as it was under General Taylor. The people know this, and therefore feel little affected by the change. And Mr. Fillmore, on his jtart, knows that power will be given to him by this popular will only so far as he consults the real interests of the whole country, or what the whole people — little likely to be deceived on such great matters affecting themselves — believe to be their real inter- ests The affair of Cuba, I suppose, made much noise for a time in Ger- many, and perhaps the American government was blamed. But it did not deserv^e to be. We have, as you know, no secret police, nor anything approaching it ; the numbers concerned in the piratical ex- pedition * were inconsiderable ; and they were embarked cunningly for Chagres, — as if they were going to California, — in a regular packet from New Orleans, and then, v^hen at sea, were transferred to the steam- vessel that carried them to Cuba. The government officers and the agents of the Spanish Minister at "Washington, who suspected what was going on, had been watching for some time at New Orleans, New York, and Philadelphia, and made several seizures of vessels not concerned in the attempt ; but the true one escaped them. Those who have returned to the United States, and others suspected of being concerned "svith them, have been arrested, and will be tried. It was a ♦ Walker's. 268 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1850. piratical affair altogether. The persons engaged in it were chiefly foreigners, and the money to carry it on came from Cuba. The death of Sir Robert Peel will be felt in the affairs of Europe ; in England his great administrative talents vn\l be excessively missed I have finished your " Paradiso," and have been more and more struck, as I went on, with the extraordinary mediaeval learning with which it abounds. No man hereafter, I think, can be accounted a thorough scholar in Dante who has not studied it. I give you anew my thanks for it. I hope you will soon permit me to hear again from you on the subject of European affairs. At this distance things look more quiet only ; hardly more hopeful. But I trust we are mis- taken. I remain always very faithfully, my dear Prince, Your friend and servant, George Ticknor. To THE Hon. Edward Everett. Manchester [Massachusetts], July 31, 1850. My dear Everett, — I have just read your oration of the 17th of June. I made an attempt in the " Advertiser," but broke down from the obvious misplacing of some paragraphs, and I am glad I failed, for I have enjoyed it much more here in this quietness, reading the whole without getting up out of my chair, and then looking over cer- tain parts of it again and again, till I had full possession of them. It was a great pleasure, and I thank you for it. Perhaps some of your earlier efforts were more brilliant, but for real power, as it seems to me, you have never done anything equal to it. Its philosophical views will strike many persons in Europe, and will be hereafter re- ferred to as authority at home. So much I have thought I might say to you, but to anybody else I should gladly talk on much longer. We are having a deliciously cool and pleasant summer here, with a plenty of agreeable occupations for the forenoon, and l^eautiful drives in the afternoon. I wish vou would come dowTi and see us. The beach is as smooth as it was when you bathed on it last year ; but I would rather you should come and pass a night, for " the evening and the morning " make the day here, as much as they did in the Crea- tion Yours very sincerely, Geo. Ticklnor. M. 59.] LETTER TO SIR EDMUND HEAD. 269 To Sir Edmund Head, Bart., Fredericton, N. B.* Boston, November 19, 1850. My dear Sir Edmund, — I thank you, we all thank you, for your letter of October 30, with the criticisms on Allston For my- self, I thank you for your offer of rare and precious Spanish books, which I receive exactly in the spirit in which it is made ; that is, I accept the last of the six volumes, and leave the rest to somebody that has better claims on them. The book I refer to is, " Historia de San Juan de la Pena, por su Abad Juan Briz Martinez," Zaragoza, 1620. Of the five others, I possess the " Diana " in sundry editions, includ- ing the first I accept thankfully the old Abbot Martinez, because in such books I almost always find something to my pur- pose Sir Henry Bulwer has been here lately, and is just gone. He is a good deal de'lahre, or, as we say in Yankeedom, " used up," but is shrewd, vigilant, sometimes exhibiting a little subacid, but on the whole very agreeable. He took kindly to the town, and we met him constantly in the houses of our friends at dinner, to say nothing of quantities of gossip that went on in our own library. Lady Bulwer did not come with him. His relations with the present Administra- tion are no doubt very satisfactory to him, but with his shattered nerves, I should think a residence in Washington would be anything but agreeable. Webster, too, has been here, and hurried off yesterday to his post, better in health than he was a month ago, but almost sixty-nine years old, and showing decidedly the approach of age. Still, he is capable of great things, because he works so easily, and in the forty years and more that I have known him well, he never seemed to me so wise and great as he does now. If his strength is continued, he alone wall carry us through our present troubles. * Sir Edmund Head was, at this time, Governor of New Brunswick. He and Lady Head had paid a visit to Boston in October, and he wrote thus to Mr. Ticknor afterwards : "Sir Cliarles Lyell says of Mr. Prescott, ' Prescott's visit has been a source of great pleasure to us, and, though I can by no means sym- pathize with Macaulay's astonishment that, being what he is, he should ever go back to Boston, I cannot help regretting that the Atlantic should separate him and you from us.' Nor can /," continues Sir Edmund, "sjTnpathize with Macaulay's astonishment, since I have had the great pleasure of receiving your kindness and enjoying your conversation at Boston. Those few days are days on which Lady Head and myself shall always look back with sincere satis- faction. We only regret that they were so few." 270 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1851. .... I am curious to know what you think about the restoration of the Papal titles, etc., in England. It strikes me that all compro- mises like that of Puseyism must now be given up ; and, however indiscreet it may have been in the good Pio Nono — as foolish people called him — to throw down the gauntlet, nothing remains for your National Church but to fight it out with him on the most absolute grounds of Protestantism, or to fall before dissent in its many forms. However, I am only a looker-on from a great distance. Dominus providehit. Protestantism, in some shape or other, must prevail. Mrs, Ticknor is writing to Lady Head, .... but there is no harm in adding her kindest regards to mine and the daughters' for both of you. Duplicates in such cases are like surplusage in law, non nocent. Yours faithfully, Geo. Ticknor. To Sir Edmund Head. Boston, January 7, 1851. My dear Sir Edmund, — Mrs. Ticknor some days ago told Lady Head that the fine copy of good old " Abbot Martinez " had come safely to hand, and I now add my sincere thanks for it, as a curious book, out of which I have already dug one fact of some consequence to me, which I was never able elsewhere to settle as exactly as I wanted to. I like these old chronicling histories, full of monkish traditions, and often waste a deal of time over them. Lately I have been looking again over another sort of book, on sim- ilar matters, and — so far as I can judge — one of very accurate and rare learning ; I mean Dozy, " Recherches sur I'Histoire politique et litter? ire de I'Espagne, pendant le moyen age," Tom. I. The author, I believe, is a Dutchman, and certainly writes in most detestable French ; but his knowledge of the Arabic history of Spain, and his access to original materials for it, are quite remarkable. The way in which he shows up the Cid as a savage marauder, who burnt people alive by the dozen and committed all sorts of atrocities, sometimes against Christians and sometimes against Moors, with a considerable air of impartiality, is truly edifying. Once he hits upon a man who had seen the Cid, and so gives a coup-de-grace to Masdeu, if indeed that person of clumsy learning has survived the blows given him by others. For all he says. Master Dozy gives the original Arabic, with translations, and generally relies M. 59.] FIRST INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION. 271 only on contemporary documents, so rare at the period of Spanish history which he has chiefly examined thus far I shall be very curious to see the continuation of his work, for this first volume — 1849 — comes down only through the Chronicle and old poems on the Cid, concerning which his discussions are very acute, if not al- ways satisfactory. You keep the run of our politics from the "Advertiser," .... and in that case you have not missed reading Webster's letter to Hiilsemann, the Austrian Charge, on the subject of the agent we sent towards Hungary, during their troubles. I refer to it, therefore, only to say that it is satisfactory to the lohole of this country, without dis- tinction of party. .... I had a letter from Stirling last steamer. He has been in Eussia, and talks of coming here at some indefinite time. Lord Carlisle's lecture about America is \q.tj flattering to some of us, and for one I feel grateful to him for his notice of me, but I think its tone is not statesmanlike However, it seems to have given general satis- faction in England, and I suppose the rest is no concern of ours. Let me hear from you at your leisure, of which you must have some in the long evenings. Yours faithfully, George Ticknor. To Sir Charles Lyell, Bart. Boston, June 24, 1851. My dear Lyell, — There is no use in trying to stir up our peo- ple to make a decent show of themselves at the Crystal Palace ; they won't do it. As soon as I received your letter of May 20, I wrote an article for the " Courier," which was copied into other papers, and our friend Hillard went to the Secretary of our Commis- sion about it. But the answer was prompt all round : " The French, the Russians, and the Germans send their goods to England as a means of advertising them all over the world ; we look for no sale out of our owTi country. Why should we take the trouble and expense to advertise abroad ? " One very ingenious person, who has invented a most extraordi- nary machine for weaving Brussels and other carpets, said he was very desirous to send a working model to the Exhibition, but found it would cost him ^5,000 to put it up there and run it for four months ; too much, he thought, for the price of such a whistle. 272 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1851. Others came to the same conchision, and the upshot of the matter is, that from the moment the proposition was fairly examined and understood, there has been no stir at all about it I ought to add, however, — what is strictly true, — that everybody enjoys the splendor and success of the Exhibition just as much as if we were a substantial part of it ; every newspaper in the country, I believe, glorifying it, with the arrival of fresh news of it by every steamer As I am sending a parcel, I put into it a copy of Webster's late speeches in the State of New York. Your people neither comprehend that we had a moral right to make the stipulation in the Constitu- tion of 1788, to deliver up fugitive slaves, — as we always had done before, — nor that we have a right to fulfil that stipulation now ; nor that, if we were to separate from the slave States rather than fulfil it, we should be obliged to renew it in the form of a treaty, or enter into an endless war with them, which would be no better than a civil con- flict. The object of the law of 1850 is rather to prevent slaves from running away than to restore them ; this it effects But as I have told you before, the great difficulty which underlies all these political questions is the difference of race; more formidable than any other, and all others Your friends here are, I believe, all well. Prescott, with a gay party, is gone to Niagara, and sends pleasant accounts back, coming himself in a few days. We go off before long Yours faithfully, George Ticknor. To Mr. Webster, Washington, D. C. Bellows Falls, Vermont, July 9, 1851. My dear Sir, — I thank you for a copy of your speeches at Al- bany, which followed me here last night from Boston, and which I am glad to have in a permanent form, and to read again, with few typo- graphical errors. However, I should hardly trouble you with my thanks if the same post that brought your parcel had not brought me a letter which you must in part answer. It was from Sir Edmund Head, Lieutenant- Governor* of New Brunswick ; a person who is very much of a man, and a most accomplished and agreeable one, with a wife to match. He says to me, — Fredericton, July 2, — " What I am now going to * The official title. M. 60.] FIFTY YEARS OF PROGRESS. 273 say is quite 'private. A report has reached me that LIr. Webster may- visit the British Provinces in his vacation. I have also heard that he is fond of fishing. Now, if you have an opportunity, pray say that I shall be delighted to see him, either officially or incognito, whichever he may prefer. If the latter, I will go into the woods with him myself, and show him what sport can be got. Salmon fish- ing is uncertain in August, but good trout fishing, with the chance of salmon, I could insure. Observe, I may be mistaken altogether, but nothiQg would give me greater pleasure than to see him, if he have any notion of seeking relaxation among the ' Blue Noses.' " I suppose Sir Edmund is WTong, for I think you will hardly have vacation enough to go so far, though it is barely possible you may feel yourself to be driven over the line to get any vacation at all. At any rate, nobody but yourself can give me the means of answering the question I cannot tell you what strange thoughts my present position gives me ; mingled up, as they are, with recollections of journeyings through the woods, and the " Indian Charity School," and President Wheel- ock's cocked hat at the end of them. Just half a century ago this month, stage-coaches being yet unknown hereabouts, it took a pair of horses six mortal days to carry my father and mother from Boston to Hanover, saddle-horses being put in requisition to help us along part of the time. Now, I am li\dng with my family in a grand hotel, capable of containing comfortably a hundred persons, with a nice private parlor, a luxurious table, silver forks, champagne, and good carriages and horses, as in Boston, for drives It is, on a small scale, one of the thousand exemplifications of what you so magnifi- cently set forth about the whole country, on the 4th, at Washington. But it is to me, as it would be to you, if you were here, a very strik- ing one Yours faithfully, George Ticknor. To Sir Charles Lyell. Boston, November 25, 1851. i My dear Lyell, — I have been attending a good many lectures of a course now going on at the Lowell Institute, by Dr. Dewey, and they have made me think often of you and of your projects for next year. Dewey's lectures — which might make another Bridgewater Treatise — are very brilliant and able, and keep together an intelli- gent audience that fills the hall. But he has one advantage, which 12* B 274 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1852. has served him well thus far, and which I wish you — if it be con- sistent with your other arrangements in the United States — to se- cure for yourself ; I mean the period for lecturing. He has the first course of the season ; it is usually the time when we have the finest weather, — October and November, — and the audiences are fresh and eaofer. Please think of this. It is a matter of somewhat more con- sequence than it was when you were here before, because lectures of all kinds are less run after. Three full, large audiences, however, still listen to three different courses weekly, and several minor ones are going on at the same time Please offer to Mr. J. L. Mallett my best thanks for the copy of the life of his father he has sent me. His father's name has been familiar to me from my boyhood, when I read his " Considerations on the French Revolution," — published here, — and received a direction to my opinions on that subject which I think has not been materially altered since. I am, therefore, much interested in a full account of their author, .... who was undoubtedly one of the best, as well as most far-seeing men who entered into the French Revolution. One of the most important points connected with that momentous movement was the change it made in the laws for the tenure and descent of property, and the constantly widening results that follow from it. I have at different times, and now again lately, considered this subject, and on talking it over one day at dinner with Mr. Tre- menheere * he told me Lord Lovelace had published a most impor- tant pamphlet about it "Will you do me the favor to make some inquiry about it, and if there be such a pamphlet send me a copy of it. Affectionate regards to dear Lady Lyell from all of us, as well as to yourself. Yours faithfully, Geo. Ticknor. To F. "Wolf, Vienna. Boston, April 6, 1852. My dear Sir, — I thank you for the curious and interesting tracts you have been so good as to send me on Castillejo, and on Don Francis de Zuniga, but especially for your admirable paper on the remarkable collection of Spanish Ballads, that you found at Prague. * Hugh Seymour Tremenlieere, one of the many cultivated Englishmen who in these years were familiar guests at Mr. Ticknor's house. He was author of "Political Experience of the Ancients in its Bearing upon Modern Times," and "Constitution of the United States compared with our own." iE.60.] SPANISH MATTERS. 275 The settlement of the date of Castillejo's death is important, and gets over a difl&culty which everybody who has looked into his life must have felt ; and the discussion about the old Romances sueltos has the thoroughness, finish, and conscientious exactness which marks ever}i;hing of yours that I have seen. I have studied all four of them with care, and have no doubt you are right in the result of your investigations in each case. For the kindness with which you speak of me, I beg leave to make you my best acknowledgments. I should have thanked you long before this time for these proofs of your remembrance and good-\vill, and for the very interestincr letter that came with them, if I had not been constantly hoping to receive from Germany a copy of my " History of Spanish Literature," translated by Dr. Julius, and enriched by dissertations from you on the Eomanceros and Cancioneros. Five months ago haK of it was printed, but since that time I have heard not a word about it. I have resolved, therefore, to wait no longer, but to send you now my very hearty acknowledgments ; indeed, to thank you beforehand for what I know you have done to render my History more valuable in my own eyes, as well as those of all who are interested in its subject. Prescott is well, and is busy with his " Philip II.," but the state of his eyes compels him to work slowly. I hope I may soon hear from you, and soon see the German vol- umes, in which my name will have the honor of being associated ■^^ith yours. Very faithfully your friend and servant, Geo. Ticknor. To Sir Edmund Head. Boston, June 14, 1852. My dear Sir EdmuisT), — I begin with business, for I observe that you are very accurate in such matters, and I mean to be, though I fail sometimes Thank you for the reference to the passage copied by Southey, from Zabaleta, about las amhas sillas.* It seems, there, to be used in its primitive and literal sense, though I do not quite make out what are the two particular sillas referred to. As a proverbial expression, * Sir E. Head to Mr. Ticknor, June 5, 1852 : " Have you got the first volume of Southey's ' Commonplace Book ' ? If so, you will see, at page 62, a passage illustrating the use of the phrase las dos sillas. It appears there to mean the seat of war and the seat of peace ; of the manege and the road." 276 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1852. sometimes amhas sillas, referring to the silla a la quieta and the albarda, and sometimes de todas sillas, referring to all modes of mounting and riding, I suppose it means what we mean when we say a man " is up to anything," just as the converse, no ser para silla ni para albarda, means a blockhead Thank you, too, very much for the note about the New Testament of Juan Perez. I never saw the book, and do not understand whether you have a copy, or only saw one at Thorpe's. But, if you have one at hand, I should be much obliged if you will give me a little biblio- graphical account of it. I am much struck by what you say about Francis Ne^\Tnan and his " Phases of Faith " ; the more so, because only the Sunday before your letter came, I read a book, by William Rathbone Greg, called " The Creed of Christendom," to which your account of Newman's could be applied verbatim. It came to me from the author It is a formidable book, not too long to be popular, — a small 8vo, — nor too learned, but logical, fair-minded, and well written He takes ground similar to that of Strauss and Theodore Parker, but still is original to a certain degree. He draws heavily on the Germans, with whom he is evidently at home, and to whom he owes much Kindest regards to Lady Head from all of us. Yours faithfully, G. TiCKNOR. To Sir Charles Lyell. Boston, June 26, 1852. My dear Lyell, — The postponement of your visit to America till the first of September hardly interferes with our satisfaction at the prospect of it, because we cannot, 'v\dthout sacrificing much of the benefit of a summer residence in the country, return before the mid- dle or the 20th of that month But you must not cut off from the other end ; or rather you must in fairness add to the end of your visit what you take off from the beginning The Presidential nominations are made, as you know, and the Democratic candidate. General Pierce, will be chosen by a large majority of the electoral votes Kossuth is in New York, about to embark for England. His mission here has not turned out better than I predicted to you, in any respect ; in some respects not so well. He has injured his dignity by making speeches for money, and he has injured his re- ^. 60.] NIAGARA FALLS. 277 spectability by issuing " Hungarian bonds," as they were called, down, to a dollar, to serve as tickets of admission. The whole number of his addresses has been about six hundred ; the whole sum he has collected in all ways, about ninety thousand dollars But he is a brilliant orator and rhetorician ; showing marvellous power in different languages not his own, almost as if he had the gift of tongues ; and acting sometimes on the masses as if. he were magnet- izing them I did not see him in private ; indeed, he was hardly seen by anybody, his time being wholly given to his great public objects Whenever you arrive, you must come directly to our house, whether we are at home or not ; for in any event, I think, you would be better off than you would be at the Tremont. Most of our servants will be there Yours, always faithfully, Geo. Ticknor. To G. T. Curtis, Esq. Clifton House [Canada], Niagara Falls, July 29, 1852. My dear George, — I received, some days ago, your note written at Newport. We were then on the other side of the river, where we stayed ten days, our rooms — or at least the balcony before them — overhanging the Rapids, right opposite Goat Island, .... making the island our great resort, seeing the sunset there daily, and passing two evenings of superb moonlight there. Five days ago we came over here, and e.stablished ourselves in a neat, cheerful little cottage, with a large garden before it ; the only thing there is between us and the excellent hotel where we get our meals. We have it all to ourselves, and Uve in great quiet, vdih the awful grandeur of the Falls before us whenever we lift our eves, and their solemn roar forever in our ears Last night Frankenstein, a painter from Ohio, — whom we had knowTi before, — took us in a boat, and rowed us about for near an hour. Xobody has done such things before ; not because they are dangerous, but because no eye for picturesque effect had ever de- tected its power. The moon was nearly full, and I cannot describe the awful solemnity, magnificence, and in one instance preternatural gorgeous glories, of the scene. We went quite near the American Falls, and when we emerged from the shade of the grim shores, and the moon began to illumine the edge of the waters above us, as they plunged down, there was a quivering mass of molten silver, that ran 278 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1852. along the whole mighty flood of the waters as they rushed over, that was a thing of inconceivable brilliancy I enclose you a few notions about international copyright You can send them to Mr. Webster ; adding that I am always at his service In the matter of international copyright three things, I suppose, are to be considered, — the rights of the author, the interests of the manufacturer of books as marketable commodities, and the interests of the public as consumers. On the rights of the author you will find a discussion worth looking at, by Dr. Johnson, in " Boswell," — somewhere, I think, in the first half of the book, — and a more ample, but a more prejudiced exami- nation of it, in a little volume by Talfourd This, however, re- lates only to the rights of the author in his book, within the limits of his own country, or, in other words, the common question of copy- right ; but this, it should be observed, is the foundation of the whole matter so far as the author is concerned. It is his right of property in the book he has written, the thing he has created. Now, it does not seem to me clear, why this author is not, in the nature of things, entitled to a protection of his property in his book, as far as a mer- chant may rightfully claim it in his bale of goods ; for, after all, a book is peculiarly its author's work, since without him it would not exist, and nothing, therefore, as it seems to me, should control or limit his right of property in it, except that high public expediency which, like the right of eminent domain, overrides other rights and takes the property of one for the benefit of all ; not, however, in. any case without compensation, which compensation, in the case of author- ship, is to be found in the copyright law, whose peculiar provisions are regarded as a remuneration to the author for the right of property, which he loses when that law no longer protects him. The author, therefore, it seems to me, is entitled to the privilege of following his book — his property — into a country not his own, and claiming a part of his compensation wherever this property is used ; one reason in favor of it being that nowhere, either at home or abroad, can he receive compensation except exactly in proportion as he confers bene- fit, for where his book is not sold he can receive nothing from it. This I take to be the moral \aew of the case, and I think it is a strong one for the author, especially when you consider that nine authors out of ten fail utterly, and sacrifice their lives to the public and the world for nothing ; so that the few prizes open to their class M. 60.] INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 279 ought to be made as good as possible, to induce them to adventure in a lottery so beneficial to society, but so dangerous to themselves. As to the interests of the bookseller, the case is not so clear ; though it is quite clear that if the author have an absolute right of property in his book, it ought to control the interest of the bookseller, who, in that case, should acquire no right but such as he may obtain from the author. Still, I think the booksellers and publishers would be quite as well off with an international copyright as they are now. What they should publish would be their own protected property, just as much if the book were the work of a foreign author as if it were the work of a citizen. No man could publish it in competition with them. Now it is well known that the profits of the American publisher are greater on a book protected to him by copyright, than they are on the books he reprints without such protection. His great enemies are rival publishers, who compel him, by the fear of competition, or by the actual competition itself, to print his books in most cases poorly, and to sell them at very small profit. I think, therefore, the American publisher would lose nothing by an international copyright, certainly nothing to which he has so good a right as the foreign author upon whom he feeds or starves. But how is it in the third place, vrith the interests of the public, which often seem to rise to the dignity of rights by their mere weight and importance, with little or no regard to their moral qualities ? Two circumstances, I think, will tend to show that the interests of the pub- lic — the book consumers — will be served by a becoming interna- tional copyright treaty. First, such a treaty would prevent, to a great degree, the republica- tion here of trashy English books, now so common. Few of them would bear to have even a small amount of copyright money added to the price of manufacturing the books here, and a right to reprint with- out it would rarely be asked of the English owner by the American publisher, and still more rarely granted. I cannot doubt, therefore, that the circulation of worthless or mischievous English books would be materially diminished by an international copyright. And, second, I think it would greatly increase the number of Amer- ican authors. TVe can now make as good books upon all subjects as the English, — upon some, such as school-books and children's books generally, we make better, — and, with proper encouragement, we should do nearly the whole of our own work of writing books for the mass of the people. In this respect, I conceive, the question stands on the same ground with that of a proper tariff. We already exclude 280 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1852. English school-books from our market, just as we do the coarser cot- tons, and for the same reason, and by the same process. With the encouragement of an international copyright, we should soon supply our market entirely, and supply it with books more wisely adapted to our wants generally, but never by any possibility excluding the better sort of English books, because we can reprint them so much cheaper than the English publishers can furnish them to us One thing more. France has made an international copyright treaty with England, and the cases of France and the United States in this jjarticular are so nearly parallel, that, if it is for her interest to have such a treaty, it can hardly fail to be for ours. For France prints great numbers of English books ; England prints hardly any French books ; nothing so many as she prints of American. If reciprocity be desirable, therefore, it is much more nearly to be attained between England and the United States, than between England and France. Moreover, this principle of reciprocity between us and England tends every year more towards an even balance, for the English print ten of our books now, to where they printed one a dozen years ago. True, our books are now protected in copyright, by a recent decision of their courts of law ; but true it is also that if we do not give equal protec- tion to their books, we shall lose it for our o^\^l, by act of Parliament, very speedily ; and this protection is constantly growing more im- portant to us. It may in time be more important to us than it is to them. Half a century ago I was fitted for college in none but grammars, etc., printed in England, for no others were to be had. It is vastly more probable now that, haK a century hence, English boys wdll be using manuals printed in the United States for this purpose, — indeed, some are using them now, — than it was, in 1800, that we should, in fifty years, be printing what we now print. The argument of future benefit is, therefore, I conceive, much stronger on our side than it is on the English. But so, I think, is the argument of present benefit. Through the means of a wise in- ternational copyright treaty, I think we could, by the exclusion of worthless and injurious English books, and by the encouragement of American authors and publishers, fill the coimtry "with useful, inter- esting, healthy readiag, to a degree never known before, and with beneficial consequences, all of which cannot now be foreseen. We could, in fact, adapt our reading to our real wants and best interests much more than we do now, and so do much more by it for the gen- eral improvement and elevation of the national character. M 61.] SUMMER TRAVEL. 281 To C. S. Daveis, Portland. Caldwell, Lake George, August 22, 1852. My dear Charles, — By this time you may, perhaps, he curious touching our whereabouts ; and if you are not, I have some mind to give you an account of what we have done since I saw you last, and what we propose to do, perad venture, in the course of the next two or three weeks. Our first hit was Niagara, and a very happy one, as it turned out. We spent ten days on the American side, .... but the Lundy^s Lane gathering approached,* and we moved over to the other side, where we passed twelve days most agreeably, in a nice comfortable cot- tage It satisfied all my expectations of Niagara, — the views, the walks, the drives, and above all certain excursions by the full moon on the river, where we rowed about in front of the American Falls, keeping partly in their shade, till the water seemed to rush over like sparkling molten silver, or like a line of living fire, jumping and dancing for a moment on the perilous edge, and then plunging into the roaring, boiling abyss, on whose verge our little boat was all the while tossing. It was grand, brilliant, awful beyond anything I ever saw ; quite beyond Mont Blanc or the Jungfrau There is no real danger in it, and at the full moon everybody will go on the river, I think, to see it. We went repeatedly. From Niagara w^e w^ent to Geneseo, and passed three or four sad days with our friend Mrs. William W. Wadsworth, whose husband died after six years' illness, w^hile we were at Niagara. The beauty of everything without, and the luxury, finish, exactness, of everything within, contrasted strongly with the noiseless stillness of a house of death Here, again, — Lake George, t — is another contrast to the rushing glories of Niagara, for the beautiful, quiet lake is always before us, and nearly every one of our pleasures is connected with it. Agreea- ble people, however, we have in the house, several fixtures, the same we had last year, — Dr. Beck, the author of the book on legal medi- cine ; Dr. Campbell, the popular preacher in Albany ; and two or three others, .... wdth whom we have agreeable, easy intercourse. The ruins of the old Forts, from the time of Dieskau and Montcalm, with * A political meeting connected with the Presidential election and the can- didacy of General Scott. t In the years from 1851 to 1855, inclusive, Mr. Ticknor and his family passed a part of each summer on the shores of this lovely lake. 282 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1852. the graves of the soldiers who perished in them and around them, are full of teachings ; while at the other end of the lake is Ticonderoga, with its old ruins and traditions This week, we start for the North River, the younger portion of the party having never seen Catskill, and all of us being pleased to pass a little time at West Point, after which it is likely enough we may fetch a circuit by Newport, to see Mrs. Norton, and reach home about September 15. ^.61.] FUNERAL OF MR. WEBSTER. 283 CHAPTER XIV. Letters, — Death of Mr. Webster. — Crimean War. — Letters to 0. S. Daveis, E. Everett, Sir E. Head, King John of Saxony, Sir G. Lyell. To C. S. Daveis, Portland. Boston, October 30, 1852. My dear Charles, — I received your letter, in your old familiar hand, — always welcome to my eyes, — wlien I returned last evening from the funeral.* It was refreshing to me, and I needed some re- freshment. The scene had been inexpressibly solemn and sad. The family had declined from the President and the Governor everything like the ceremonial observances customary on such occasions, and he was buried simply as a Marshfield man, with Marshfield pall-bearers ; his kin — and servants, chiefly black — following next, and then all who had come uninvited to see him laid in his grave. How many of them were there I know not. The procession — wholly on foot — was above half a mile long, and we walked about a mile to the tomb, through a line of saddened forms and faces on each side of us, the eminence to which we advanced being all the while black with the crowds on it, and the crowd on the lawn before the house seeming, as we looked back, not to be diminished in numbers. I do not doubt more than ten thousand persons were there. And yet it was, in all other respects, a mere New England funeral ; no change in the house, no change in the ceremonies. He was buried, as his will prescribed, merely " in a manner respectful to his neighbors " ; and if any came to share in their sorrow, it was because they had sorrow of their own to bring them. No military display on earth was ever equal to this moral display of the feeling of a whole people ; no ceremonies ordained by imperial power could ever so strike on the hearts of men We are all well, but I have been very much cut up the last fort- * The funeral of Mr. "Webster, who had died on the 24th. Late in Septem- ber Mr. Ticknor had visited him at Marshfield. 284 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1852. night, less perhaps by my own sorrow than by occupation with all the arrangements, and constant excitement from the sorrows of oth- ers. In my time, Boston has never been so saddened before ; and, if I am not mistaken, the same number of people were never so sad- dened before in this country. Such a meeting as was held [here] last Wednesday, of three thousand persons, is, I am fully persuaded, unlike any other that was ever held of so many persons, anywhere ; not a sound being heard except the voices of the speakers, and the sobs of the audience of grown meUy and the response of Aye to the resolutions coming up, at last, like a moan. But we will talk of it all ; I cannot wTite. Yours alw^ays, Geo. Ticknor. To Hon. Edward Everett, Washington. Boston, November 20, 1852. My dear Everett, — I have received two notes from you, and sundry packets of letters, etc., relating to Mr. Webster ; but I have thought it better not to trouble you with answers. Everything, how- ever, has no doubt come safely that you have sent.* .... I am surprised anew every day at the sincerity and extent of the Borrow for Mr. Webster's death. There is a touch of repentance in it for the injustice that has been done him, and a feeling of anxiety about the future in our political position, which tend to deepen its channel, as it flows on in a stream that constantly grows broader. The number of sermons that have been published about it in New England is getting to be very great, and the number of those delivered is quite enormous The Library is getting on, but will hardly be opened till after your retum.t I wrote a strong letter to Mr. T. W. Ward — in New York — a fortnight or more ago, about funding Mr. Bates's donation, and reserving the income to purchase books of permanent value ; which he sent to Mr. Bates, " confirming it strongly." I added that your * Mr. Everett, Mr. C. C. Felton, Mr. G. T. Curtis, and Mr. Ticknor were, by- Mr. Webster's will, made his literary executors. With his usual promptness Mr. Ticknor began at once to collect, from all quarters, whatever letters, remi- niscences, and documents might serve as materials for future publications. He made excursions to Marshfield and its neighborhood, and to Fryeburg in Maine, expressly for the purpose of seeing and taking down the oral narratives of those who had been Mr. Webster's neighbors, or employed by him. t The Boston Public Library, of which an account will be given in the next chapter. M. 61.] ENGLISH INTERFERENCE. 285 opinion coincided with mine. So I hope that will be rightly set- tled Yours sincerely, Geo. Ticknor. To Sir Edmund Head, Fredericton. Boston, December 20, 1852. My dear Sir Edmund, — I am much struck with what you say about the ignorance that prevails in England concerning this country and its institutions, and the mischief likely to spring from it. In- deed, it is a subject which has for some time lain hea\y on my thoughts : not that I am troubled about any ill-will felt in England towards the United States, for I believe there never was so little of it; but that, from Punch up to some of your leading statesmen, things are constantly said and done out of sheer misapprehension or igno- rance, that have been for some time breeding ill-will here, and are likely to breed more. I will give an instance of what I mean ; the strongest, but by no means the only one. The slavery question — as we do not fail to let all the world know — is our great crux ; the rock on which not only our Union may split, but our well-being and civilization may be endangered. All our ablest, wisest, and best men occupy themselves with it, and have long done so ; and if we cannot work out a remedy for it among ourselves, we are well satisfied that nobody else can do it for us. Now in this state of the case, when the sensibilities of our whole people are ex- cited on the subject as they never were before, popular meetings have for some years been holding in England about it; American clergy- men have been deemed fit or otherwise to preach in English pulpits, according to their opinions on this text ; and, finally, the first ladies in the kingdom — to be followed, of course, by a multitude of the rest — are about to interfere, and give us their advice, all well meant, cer- tainly, but all as certainly a great mistake. At least, so it seems to us at the cool North, where no single person, so far as I know, defends the institution of slavery, or would fail to do anything practicable, mthin his power, to mitigate its evils. The ladies of England, it seems to us, have as little to do with slavery in the Carolinas as they have with polygamy in Algeria, and know less about it ; the men of England have, as we think, no more to do with it than they have with our injustice to our Indians, or wdth the serfdom of Russia, and its evils and abominations. We feel this all over the country, and you will not be surprised if 286 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1852. we soon show that we feel it. The Irish population among us is very large, and has already two or three times made movements to help their kinsfolk at home to break up their union with your island. But thus far they have found little or no sympathy among the rest of our population; the Anglo-Saxon part, I mean. Now, however, the tide is turning. Meagher has been lecturing in New York to im- mense audiences, and, since I began this letter, I see by the newspa- per that Choate, the leading Whig lawyer in New England, Seaver, our Boston Whig Mayor, and many others, who six months ago would have dreamed of no such thing, have sent him a complimentary invi- tation to come and lecture here. He will of course come, and he will produce not a little effect, even in this conservative town. But the real danger is not yet ; that will come when the troubles in Europe come I dare say you will smile at the results to which I come, and I am willing to believe that little of what I picture within the range of possibilities is likely to come to pass. But that the tendency of things at the present moment is toward troubles with England, .... nobody hereabouts, for whose opinion you or I should care a button, doubts I began, intending to write a letter about " Uncle Tom's Cabin," and I have talked about everything else. However, I must still say a word. I have read it with great interest. It is a book of much tal- ent, especially dramatic talent, .... but it is quite without the epic attributes that alone can make a romance classical, and settle it as a part of the literature of any country. As an exhibition of manners it is much more exaggerated than it should have been, for neither its good slaveholders nor its bad slaveholders can be taken as examples of even a moderate number of either class. As a political book it greatly exasperates the slaveholders, and perhaps most seriously of- fends those among them who most feel the evils of slaverj^, and who most conscientiously endeavor to fulfil the hard duties it imposes on them, the very class whom Mrs. Stowe should, both as a Christian woman and a politician, have sustained and conciliated. Elsewhere — I mean everywhere but in our slaveholding States — it -will pro- duce an effect exactly in proportion to the distance of its readers from the scenes it describes, and their previous ignorance of the state and condition of the questions it discusses. Thus, in New England, where we have learned to distinguish between our political relations to the South and our moral relations to slavery, it deepens the horror of servitude, but it does not affect a single vote But of one thing M. 61.] HISTORY OF THE CONSTITUTION. 287 you may be sure. It will neither benefit the slaves nor advance the slave question one iota towards its solution You ask me about Bunsen's " Hippolytus." I can hardly say I have read it. I looked over my copy, and then sent it to my kinsman, Mr. Norton, who, from having written learnedly on the " Genuineness of the Gospels," would be much more interested in it than I can be. I incline, however, to Bunsen's opinion, that the tract he prints is a work of Hippolytus, though I am bv no means clear about it, not half so clear as I am that the tract itself is of little importance to anybody. The rest, which is foreign to the subject, seemed to me curious, — the maxims high German, and often very little intelligible ; the apology inter- esting to your Episcopacy, but not to my Puritanism ; and the Latin excursus on the old liturgies, or their fragments, most learned and irrelevant to everv'thing else in the book We wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Yours sincerely, — shorter next time, — Geo. Tickxor. To Sir C. Lyell. Boston, May 23, 1854. My dear Lyell, — There goes in the diplomatic bag of this steam- er a portion of the printed sheets of a work on the " History of the Formation and Adoption of the Constitution of the United States." It is addressed to ^Mr. Murray. The book — 2 vols. 8vo, when completed — is by my kinsman, ^Mr. George T. Curtis, and involves the civil history of the country, in all the relations which constitute the foundations of its present prosperity and character, from 1776 to 1789. It is written with ability, clearness, and power, and it is aston- ishing how much of what it sets forth from the forgotten journals of the old Congress, and from manuscript sources, is not only new to many persons better informed in the history of the country than I am, but curious and important. It will produce, I think, considerable effect here, and tend to good, both as to our condition at home and our relations with Europe, and especially England. You know how con- servative Curtis is, and how frank and fearless he is in expressing his opinions ; but the main characteristic of the book is a wise and states- manlike philosophy, profitable to all The Nebraska Bill has passed, as we have heard this morning, not in all its forms, but ia effect, by a majority of thirteen, — 100 to 113. It is a shameful vio- lation of an old compromise, and will tend to a dissolution of the Union more than any measure ever did. But it will not tend to in- crease the slave power 288 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1854. Everett is quite ill, and has resigned his place in the Senate It is a misfortune for himself to be obliged at this crisis to leave public affairs, and a misfortune to this Commonwealth and to the conservative cause throughout the country He will come up again, I trust, in such quiet as his home will give him To Sir Edmund Head. Boston, May 26, 1854. My dear Sir Edmund, — I have your two letters, and thank you for them very heartily High matters they contain ; — wars and laws. The first troubles me a good deal. Every man, however obscure, is an item in the great and beneficent account of Christian civilization, and anything that puts this paramount interest at the least hazard is a personal danger to him and his children. I cannot endure the idea that anything should occur to impair the influence of England in the world's affairs. I almost as much depre- cate — and, as its corollary, quite as much deprecate — any increase of Russian influence in Western Europe. I detest the Turks, who have never set their standard up over a foot of earth that they have not blighted, and I never, as I think, sympathized with Bonaparte, except when he threatened to drive them over the Bosphorus. But, above all, I deprecate and detest a general war in Europe, which can be a benefit to no one of the parties to it in whom I feel the least in- terest, and which may be a permanent mischief to the great cause of Christian civilization. I suppose, however, that it nmst come I bought some rare old Spanish books lately at Eichmond, Vir- ginia, — " Belianis of Greece," 1587, the original editions of nearly all Antonio de Guevara's works, etc., .... making in all about fifty volumes, well worth having A few days ago Puibusque, who wrote the " Histoire comparee des Litteratures Espagnole et Frangaise," .... sent me a thick octavo filled with a translation of the " Conde Lucanor," a long political and military life of its author, Don John Manuel, and copious notes, adding, both in the original and in the French, one more tale, from a manuscript in Madrid, than w^as before knowni, making the whole number fifty. The book is a creditable one to the author, but not im- portant, except for the new tale. One odd thing in relation to it is, that he found some of his best manuscript materials in my library when he was here in 1849 ; a circumstance of which he makes more honorable mention and full acknowledgment than Frenchmen commonly think to be needed. ^.63.] LAKE GEORGE. 289 So, you see, I go on, almost contrary to my principles, piling up old Spanish books on old Spanish books. Cui bono ? Time will show. I add a few notes for an edition of my History, to be printed in a year or two, the stereotype plates now used to keep up A\dth the de- mand being still satisfactory ; as nobody knows enough about the subject to care for siTch little items as my present researches can aflford. They are printing now 1,200 copies. But when I make a new edition I shall sacrifice the plates to my vanity of making the book as good as I can. Meantime, the old Spanish books do no harm ; they amuse me, and they will be valuable in some public library hereafter To C. S. Daveis. Caldwell, Lake George, August 2, 1854. My dear Charles, — .... Since I wTote the preceding pages Cogswell has come in upon us for a few days ; he looks a little thin and pale, as a man well may who has been in New York all summer, but he seems in good health and spirits. He has already gone with the ladies and Hillard in a boat to the other side of the lake, where they spend the forenoon in those cool woods, with " book, and work, and healthful play." I seldom join in these excursions. Four or five hours of good work in the forepart of the day, in our o^vn quiet par- lor, is as healthful for me as anything, and fits me to lounge with a few agreeable, intelligent habitues of the house, all the rest of the time. We have sufi"ered from the heat, as all men in the United States have this summer, I suppose, but less than most of them. The thermometer has averaged about seven or eight degrees below the temperature from Boston to Baltimore To Sir E. Head, Bart. Caldwell, Lake George, August 3, 1854. My dear Sir Edmund, — I am delighted with the news * in your letter of the 23d ult., which has followed us here, after some delay. You now w^U remain on this continent yet some years longer, but it will be under circumstances so honorable to you that you will be con- tent with what might otherwise grow burthensome. It is, too, a great * Sir Edmund Head was appointed Governor-General of Canada. In the autumn of this year, when he transferred his residence from Fredericton to Quebec, he passed through Boston with his family, and Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor accompanied them to New York. vol. II. 13 S 290 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1854. opportunity to do good. The relations between the two countries, as they will be adjusted by the Reciprocity Treaty, give you a very fair field ; as fair as man can desire. I remember that Metternich, talking about some old Austrian affairs, once said to me, " I did not make the Treaty of 1809 ; I was to come into the Ministry, and I chose to have a terrain net prepared for me by somebody else." This terrain net has been prepared for you by Lord Elgin's treaty, and I do not see why you should not earn a higher satisfaction and honor than his, by the results which it will give you an opportunity to bring about. I do not mean annexation. We are too large now. But the moral in- fluence of the North, whether British or American, will be greatly increased by such an union of interests as may be made wisely to grow out of the present adjustment. Indeed, I do not see how any^ thing but good can come out of it, so far as the interests of humanity are concerned ; and as for the interests of the two countries, it seems to remove the last perceptible materials for trouble. Thank God for that We left Boston at the end of June, and have been ever since on the borders of this beautiful lake Except one or two visits to friends, we shall remain here till the beginning of September, and then establish ourselves for the winter at home, where we shall be sure to be in season to receive you, and delighted with the opportu- nity, of which, till the intimation came from the Lyells, we had almost despaired. We all send our kindest regards and thanks to Lady Head and yourself for your most agreeable recollection of a promise which I had wholly forgotten, but which I feel not the slightest disposition to deny or evade, or, in American parlance, to repudiate. Nothing could be more agreeable to us all than to visit you in Canada. The only time we were ever there was in the reign of the late Lord Dalhousie. I do not know whether your residence is to be in the old chateau at Quebec, which we found a most comfortable and agreeable place when we dined there, and visited a sick friend in his room, in a way that gave us some notion of its size and resources ; but if you do, I think you will be satisfied with it, though you will of course find it as cold as Fredericton, or colder. However, we will talk of these things in Boston next month. Meantime, give our hearty congratulations to Lady Head. She will certainly find it more agreeable in Canada, summer and winter, than in New Brunswick. Yours faithfully, Geo. Ticknor. JE. 63.] LETTER TO KEN YON. 291 My girls are out under the trees, reading tlie " Paradiso," the eldest iising the copy you gave her, and helping her sister, who uses the Florence edition, as she is not yet so familiar with the grand old Tuscan as to read him without notes that are very ample. To John Kenyon, London. Boston, January 8, 1855. Dear Kenyon, — I do not choose to have another year get fairly on its course, without carrying to you assurances of our continued good wishes and affection. The last we heard from you was through Mrs. Ticknoi-'s correspondent, ever-faithful Lady Lyell, who said she had seen you in the Zoological Gardens, well, comfortable, and full of that happiness that goodness bosoms ever. But this second-hand news is not enough. We are growing old apace. My girls laugh at me, and say that they will not allow me the privileges of age, while I continue to run up two steps of the house stairs at a time, without knowing that I do it, I am wiser, however, in such matters than they are, and, although I am thankful for my excellent health and for an abundant reserve of good spirits, I know that, nevertheless, I passed my grand climacteric some months ago. But enough of myself. We are all well, wife and daughters, and all send you our love, and ask for yours in return, despatched under your ovni hand. If anybody like Hillard were going to London, I should charge him with an especial commission to see you, and bring it back to us. But such ambassadors are rare, and I do not send less than the best to old friends like you ; for I do not choose to lower the standard by which you measure my countrymen. I would rather raise it ; and as I have no ready means to do this, you must write me a letter as soon as you can, telling us all about your brother and his wife, both most lovable people ; Mr. Crabbe Eobinson, not precisely in the same category, but excellent in his way ; that promising, bright son of Henry N. Coleridge, etc., etc. You know who are the persons I need to hear about. It is those you like ; but chiefly yourself. Your friends here are generally as you would have them. Hillard is crowded with law business, but only the happier for work. His book on Italy is more successful than anything of the sort ever printed among us. Above five thousand copies have been sold. I trust you have read it Prescott is well, and has in press the first two volumes of his " Philip II." We see him almost daily, and he is as fresh as ever, with tAventy good years of work in him, at fifty-nine. 292 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOPw [Iboo. Savage, blessed old man, is busy with bis unending antiquarian re- searches, and makes his last days happy — though an excellent wife and two daughters have been taken from him — by bringing to his home a daughter, made to carry sunshine anywhere, and a son-in-law of much intellectual cultivation and very agreeable qualities. We are worried about your war, and are probably more anxious to see an end of it than if we were Englishmen. At least, such is the case with those of us who are most interested in the land of our fore- fathers My dear Kenyon, remember us, as we do you, with true regard, and write to us as soon as you can. Yours faithfully always, Geo. Ticknor. To Sir Edmund Head. Boston, March 2, 1855. My dear Head, — Thanks for your letter, wdth the references to Calderon and Romilly, and for the note vnth its enclosed pamphlet about the Bodleian. The reference to Romilly came particularly apropos ; * for I have had two letters — the second a sort of postscript to the first — from Lord Mahon about the Andre matter Lord Mahon cited to me an opinion of Guizot's, given him lately in conver- sation at Paris, that Washington should not have permitted Andre to be hanged ; to which I gave him your reference to Romilly, as a Ro- land for his Oliver. He is in trouble, too, about a passage in his last volume concern- ing the Buff and Blue — "Mrs. Crewe, true blue" — as the Fox colors, which he intimates, you know, to have been taken in compliment to Washington. But, besides that, — as I think, — the Whigs would have been reproached for this assumjDtion of traitor colors in a way that would not now be forgotten ; these colors were fashionable earlier. You will find a curious proof of this in Goethe's autobiography, — "Dichtung und Wahrheit," Book XIL, — where, speaking of the young Jerusalem as the chief prototype of his Werther, he says that he wore a blue coat, and buff vest and underclothes, with top-boots ; a dress, he adds, which had been already introduced into Lower Germany, in " Nachahmung der Englander." This w^as at Wetzlar, in Upper Ger- many, in 1772, where the fashion evidently attracted notice as a known English one. Washington's cocked hat, and that of our army at the time, I have supposed, might have been taken from the hat of Fred- * Life and Letters of Romilly, p. 142. M. 63.] FRENCH EMPIRE. 293 erick II. and his officers. At any rate, they are the same, and the Prussian army was then the model army of Europe. But I have no authority for my conjecture. The pamphlet about the Bodleian"* is much to the purpose about all public libraries, and remarkable for being written so early, before the sound doctrine it maintains was endured either in England or in this countr}^ I shall bind it, and keep it among my curiosa, adding to it the anecdote about old Gaisford and the " Bibliotheque Xationale." I have just been reading the first volume of Prescott's " Philip II." down to the middle of the War of the Netherlands. The early chap- ters about the abdication of Charles, etc., he is disposed to think are a little too sketchy, a little too much in the style of memoirs. I differ from him entirely. The manner is suited to the subject, and is at- tractive and conciliating to a remarkable degree. He will grow grave enough before he gets thi'ough, -^-ithout making any effort for it. Moreover, the last half of the first volume is already such. The battle of St. Quentin, and all about that time, is excellent, and the whole is, I think, in quite as good a style as anything he has done, in some respects better My letters from Paris are full of matter. In one of them I have words spoken by Guizot at a meeting of all the Academies of the In- stitute, which I hear have been printed, but which, as I have not seen them in print, perhaps you have not. " We fail even to use the little freedom which is left to us. We are drunk with the love of ser\'itude, more than we ever were WT.th the passion for liberty." The Emperor, I hear, means to gain personal military fame as a commander, probably on the Ehine ; and the adoption of De Momy is openly spoken of as a settled thing. It seems as if the worst days of the Roman Empire were come back. It reminds me of a conversa- tion at Chateaubriand's, in 1817, — of which I have a note made at the time, — in which he said, " Je ne crois pas a la societe Europeenne," going on to show that we were aboitt in the fourth century of the Ro- man Empire. This adoption looks like it To Sir Edmund Head. Boston, December 23, 1855. My dear Head, — Our Christmas greetings are with you. By New Year, if your reckonings are right, you will have your books all arranged, and dear Lady Head will have her drawing-rooms in order, * A Few Words about the Bodleian. [By Sir Edmund Head.] 1833. 294 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1855. so that both departments will be going on right, and you will be better off for the winter than if you had remained at Quebec I have heard Thackeray's four lectures on the four Georges, trucu- lent enough in their general satire, — though not much beyond the last half-volume of " Harry Esmond " about Queen Anne, — but full of generous passages about individuals. The sketches of the German princes of the seventeenth century, and down to the middle of the eighteenth, with which he opened, amused me more than anything else. They were capital. The passage most applauded was a beauti- ful tribute of loyalty to Queen Victoria, and the tone and manners of her Court. It was given, on his part, with much feeling, and brought down the house — always crowded — very fervently His audience was the best the city could give, and above twelve hun- dred strong, besides which, he repeated the lecture about George III. to an audience of two thousand, two or three evenings ago.* .... We are all well, and send you kindest regards Pleasant let- ters came from the Lyells, last steamer, and all accounts announce the entire success of Prescott's book. Yours faithfully, Geo. Ticknok. To King John, op Saxony, t Boston, November 20, 1855. Sire, — I received duly your Majesty's last letter, full of wise phi- losophy and sound sense both on European and American affairs ; but I have not earlier answered it, because there is so little to send from this side of the Atlantic that can be interesting on the other. "We think and talk about your great war between the eastern and western divisions of Europe, almost as much as you do, and look with the same sort — if not the same degree — of eagerness for telegraphic despatches. For we feel that all Christendom rests on one basis of civilization, and that whatever shakes its foundations in one part does * Mr. Thackeray was, during both his visits to America, a familiar and wel- come guest in Mr. Ticknor's house, and showed his responsive feeling in most kindly ways. Being in Boston at the close of the year once, he invited him- self to eat his Christmas dinner with the Ticknors, and on New Year's Eve came to watch the new year in by their fireside, and drink the health of his daugh- ters. On the stroke of twelve o'clock he rose, and with tears filling his eyes exclaimed, " God bless my girls, and all who are kind to them." t This Prince had come to the throne, on the death of his brother, in August, 1854. M. 64.] POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 295 mischief to the whole. No doubt, a revolution in Europe would not be felt here, at once, as a calamity. It might even, for a time, add to our prosperity, already as great as we can bear. But it would come to us at last, as surely as the great Gulf Stream goes from our shores to yours, and then turns back to begin its course anew from the point whence it started. And steam is every day bringing us nearer together, and making us more dependent on each other. Notwithstandmg all you may hear in Europe, there is no prospect that the United States will involve themselves in the present troubles of your part of the world. The apprehension of it that was felt in London, in the latter part of October, was very absurd ; and I am happy to be able to add that the indiscreet bullying of the " Times " nevrspaper produced no effect at all on our population, which has often been so very sensitive to such things The Nicaragua matter — the claim of the British government to certain rights in the Bay of Honduras — is a matter which may be much complicated by diplomacy, and draw long consequences after it. But the obvious trouble, and the one that can be most easily turned to account, is the attempt made by the British government last summer, in our princi- pal cities, to enlist persons for their military service against Russia ; breaking or evading our very stringent laws upon the duties of neu- trals This is a very disagreeable affair. The people can easily be made angry by it, because it was done in a secret, underhand manner The "Know Nothings" have come in contact with the slavery question, and have been much injured by it in their resources and organization, for it is very difficult now to organize a new party, all whose principles shall be acceptable in the free States and in the slaveholding States ; and it was always foreseen by intelligent men that this Know Nothing party contained, in its secrecy and in its in- tolerance, the elements of its own destruction. But it is still strong. The principle, that none but persons born in America, bred in its peculiar institutions, and attached to them by habit as well as choice, shall govern America, is — with reasonable limitations — so just and wise, that the party founded on it will surely leave its impress on a government as popular as ours is. They may not elect the next Presi- dent, — although even this is possible, — but they will succeed in making a better naturalization law than we have now, and see that it is executed with justice, and even Avdth rigor Your short crops in Europe are filling the great valley of the !Mis- sissippi with population and wealth. The wheat, which it costs the 296 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1856. great farmers in Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan, — whose population in 1850 was above three millions and is now above four, — the wheat which it costs forty dollars to these great farmers to raise, they can sell at their own doors for above an hundred, and it is sold in London and Paris for nearly three hundred. Indeed, your European wars are not only making the States in the valley of the Mississippi the pre- ponderating power in the American Union, but you are making them the granary of the world, more than ever Egypt or Sicily was to Rome. So interchangeably are the different parts of Christendom connected, and so certainly are the fates and fortunes of each, in one way or another, dependent on the condition of the whole. The war in the Crimea raises the price of land in Ohio. A salutary movement to protect our own institutions checks emigration from Ireland and Germany. The influence of the Know Nothings is felt in Wurtem- berg ; the Proletaires of Paris enrich the farmers in Illinois, of whose existence they never heard. The law or the legislation to restrain the use of all intoxicating drinks, by prohibiting the sale of them under severe penalties and by declaring them to be no longer property when so offered for sale, is found ineff'ectual. It will be abandoned in the course of the coming winter in all, or nearly all the States where it has been attempted to introduce it. I hope I shall soon hear again from your Majesty, and that you will give me, not only good accounts of yourself and your family, but of Saxony and Dresden, to which we are all much attached, and of the prospects of an European peace I remain very faithfully, your Majesty's friend and servant, George Ticknor. To Sir Charles Ltell. Boston, June 9, 1856. My dear Ltell, — .... I want to speak to you of our affairs. It is a long time since I have done it, and I have never had occasion to do it so sadly. The country is now almost entirely divided into two sectional, fierce parties, the North and the South, the antislavery fast becoming — what wise men have long foreseen — mere aboli- tionism, and now excited to madness by the brutal assault on Sum- ner, by the contest in Kansas, and by the impending Presidential canvass. I have not witnessed so bad a state of things for forty years, not M. 64.] DISSENSIONS. 297 Bince the last war witli you in 1812-15. At the present moment everj^thing in the Atlantic States is in the hands of the Disunionists, at the two ends of the Union ; Butler, Toombs, and the other fire- eaters at the South, seeking by their violence to create as much abo- litionism at the North as they can, so that it may react in favor of their long-cherished project for a separation of the States ; and Garri- son, Wendell Phillips, and their coadjutors here striving to excite hatred towards the South, for the same end. It is therefore action and reaction of the worst kind. But the majority of the people, even at the two ends of the Union, are still sound on the great question, and will, I think, make their power felt at last. One favorable sign is, that wise men are become anxious everywhere, and are ready to act, and take responsibility. .... Still, I do not deny that there is much look of revolution in the excitement I see everyrvhere around me. The South is very des- perate. Its people feel every year, more and more, how they are wasting away under the blighting curse of slavery, and struggle like drowning men to recover some foothold on solid ground. The North, justly outraged by the assault on Simmer, and by much that has hap- pened in Kansas, loses — for a time — both patience and wisdom, so that I hear " fighting the South " constantly talked of as a thing not to be deprecated. But the great "West, the valley of the Mississippi, .... is compar- atively little excited on the great question that makes so fierce a quar- rel between the northern and southern Atlantic States. The Missis- sippi forbids Iowa and Illinois from belonging to a different country from New Orleans ; and the laws of the States on its upper waters, excluding all the colored race from their soil, prevent a contest about slavery between them and the States at its mouth. I look, therefore, with confidence to the "West, to save the Atlantic States from the madness of civil war Sumner's wounds were severe, and became worse for two days by unskilful treatment. I have seen a letter from his brother, which says that, as soon as the treatment was changed, his condition was improved, and he has been getting well His political position is now a commanding one, but not well managed by his friends. How he will manage it himself remains to be seen, but I think he will make fewer mistakes than they have made for him. The Heads are well ; so is Prescott ; and so, I think, are all your friends here. We are eminently strong and stout, and the young couple as happy as a honeymoon and bright prospects can make 13* ^^-^. 298 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1856. them.* God bless them ! I was, much to my surprise, after the wedding, overtaken with a strange feeling that I had somehow or other met with a loss. The same feeling haunts me still. But I mean to be rid of it when I get to England. We have no well- defined plans after that, but I think we may cross the Channel with you, after which we are most likely to strike for Brussels, Berlin, etc., and take Paris in September, on our way to Italy. Love to dear Lady Lyell. I begin to long to see you both. G. T. * He here alludes to the marriage of his younger daughter, and in the close of the paragraph refers to a projected trip to Europe, of which more will be said in the coming chapters. ^. 64.] BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY. 299 CHAPTEE XY. Boston Pvhlic Library. — Its History and Mr. Ticknor's Cowaection with it. — His great Purpose to make it a Free Library. — His Per- severance on this Point. — His Labors. — Popular Division first pro- vided. — Mr. Ticknor's Visit to Europe for the Interests of the Library, — Subsequent Attention and personal Liberality to the higher Depart- rrLcnts of the Collection. FOE some time after the publication of his " History of Span- ish Literature," Mr. Ticknor did not take up any new or absorbing occupation, but, at the end of a little more than two years, he was asked — unexpectedly to him — to take part in a work which connected itself with plans and desires that had long been among his favorite speculations, and he soon became profoundly interested, and zealously active in promoting the organization of the Boston Public Library. In the early period of his life, when he returned from Europe in 1819, after enjoying great advantages from the public libraries of the large cities and universities which he visited, the idea of a grand, free Hbrary, to supply similar resources in this country, was talked of by him with a few of his friends, and was for a time uppermost in his thoughts. Some movement was made to increase the Library of Harvard College, and that of the Athe- naeum, in which he co-operated ; but the improvements then gained seemed to satisfy the immediate wants of the commu- nity, and the desire for anything larger and freer, though it still survived in the minds of a few, did not spread widely or fast. During Mr. Ticknor's second visit to Europe, in 1835-38, he felt more than ever the inestimable resources furnished by the great libraries to men of intellectual pursuits like himself, espe- cially in Dresden, where he had often twenty or thirty volumes from the Eoyal Library at his hotel. He therefore watched with 300 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1851. interest every symptom of the awakening of public attention in America to this subject, and every promise of opportunity for creating similar institutions. The endowment of a great library in New York, given by Mr. John Jacob Astor, at his death, in 1848, was much talked about ; and men of forecast began to say openly that, unless something of a like character were done in Boston, the scientific and literary culture of this part of the coun- try would follow trade and capital to the metropolis, which was thus taking the lead. Still, nothing effectual w^as done. Among the persons with whom Mr. Ticknor had, of late years, most fre- quently talked of the matter. Dr. Channing was dead, Mr. Abbott Lawrence had become Minister to England, and Mr. Jonathan Phillips was growing too infirm to take part in public affairs. The subject, however, kept its hold on Mr. Ticknor's mind. His idea was that which he felt lay at the foundation of all our public institutions, namely, that in order to form and main- tain our character as a great nation, the mass of the people must be intelligent enough to manage their own government with wis- dom ; and he came, though not at once, to the conclusion that a very free use of books, furnished by an institution supported at the expense of the community, would be one of the effective means for obtaining this result of general culture. He had reached this conclusion before he saw any probability of its being practically carried out, as is proved by the following letter, which he wrote to Mr. Everett, in the summer of 1851. A few months before this date Mr. Everett had presented to the city — after offering it in vain more than once — a collection of about a thousand volumes of Public Documents, and books of similar character, accompanied by a letter, urging the establish- ment of a public library. To Hon. Edward Everett. Bellows Falls, Vermont, July 14, 1851. My dear Everett, — I have seen with much gratification from time to time, within the last year, and particularly in your last letter on the subject, that you interest yourseK in the establishment of a M. 59.] IDEA OF A POPULAR LIBRARY. 301 public library in Boston ; — I mean a library open to all tbe citi- zens, and from which all, under proper restrictions, can take out books. Such, at least, I understand to be your plan ; and I have thought, more than once, that I would talk with you about it, but accident has prevented it. However, perhaps a letter is as good on all accounts, and better as a distinct memorandum of what I mean. It has seemed to me, for many years, that such a free public li- brary, if adapted to the wants of our people, would be the crowning glory of our public schools. But I think it important that it should be adapted to our peculiar character ; that is, that it should come in at the end of our system of free instruction, and be fitted to continue and increase the effects of that system by the self-culture that results from reading. The great obstacle to this with us is not — as it is in Prussia and elsewhere — a low condition of the mass of the people, condemn- ing them, as soon as they escape from school, and often before it, to such severe labor, in order to procure the coarsest means of physical subsistence, that they have no leisure for intellectual culture, and soon lose all taste for it. Our difficulty is, to furnish means specially fitted to encourage a love for reading, to create an appetite for it, which the schools often fail to do, and then to adapt these means to its gratification. That an appetite for reading can be very widely excited is plain, from what the cheap publications of the last twenty years have accomplished, gradually raising the taste from such poor trash as the novels with which they began, up to the excellent and valuable works of all sorts which now flood the country, and are read by the middling classes everywhere, and in New England, I think, even by a majority of the people.* Now what seems to me to be wanted in Boston is, an apparatus that shall carry this taste for reading as deep as possible into society, as- suming, what I believe to be true, that it can be carried deeper in our society than in any other in the world, because we are better fitted for it. To do this I would establish a library which, in its main de- partment and purpose, should differ from all free libraries yet at- tempted ; I mean one in which any popular books, tending to moral * Mr. Ticknor was much struck by the publication of a cheap edition of Johns' Translation of Froissart, by the Harpers, of which he found a copy in a small inn of a retired village of southern New York, in 1844; and he always watched the signs of popular taste, both in publishers' lists and in the book- shelves of the houses which he entered, in his summer journeys, or in his errands of business and charity in the -winter. 302 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1851. and intellectual improvement, should be furnished in such numbers of copies that many persons, if they desired it, could be reading the same work at the same time ; in short, that not only the best books of all sorts, but the pleasant literature of the day, should be made ac- cessible to the whole people at the only time when they care for it, i. e. when it is fresh and new. I would, therefore, continue to buy additional copies of any book of this class, almost as long as they should continue to be asked for, and thus, by following the popular taste, — unless it should demand something injurious, — create a real appetite for healthy general reading. This appetite, once formed, will take care of itself. It will, in the great majority of cases, demand better and better books ; and can, I believe, by a little judicious help, rather than by any direct control or restraint, be carried much higher than is generally thought possible. After some details, of no present consequence, developing this idea, the letter goes on : — Nor would I, on this plan, neglect the establishment of a depart- ment for consultation, and for all the common purposes of public libraries, some of whose books, like encyclopoedias and dictionaries, should never be lent out, while others could be permitted to circulate ; all on the shelves being accessible for reference as many hours in the day as possible, and always in the evening. This part of the library, I should hope, would be much increased by donations from public- spirited individuals, and individuals interested in the progress of knowledge, while, I think, the public treasury should provide for the more popular department Intimations of the want of such public facilities for reading are, I think, beginning to be given. In London I notice advertisements of some of the larger circulating libraries, that they purchase one and two hundred copies of all new and popular works ; and in Boston, I am told, some of our own circulating libraries will purchase almost any new book, if the person asking for it will agree to pay double the usual fee for reading it ; while in all, I think, several, and some- times many copies of new and popular works are kept on hand for a time, and then sold, as the demand for them dies away. • Omitting other details, now of no importance, the letter ends as follows : — Several years ago I proposed to Mr. Abbott Lawrence to move favor of such a library in Boston ; and, since that time, I have occ M. 59.] CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. EVERETT. 303 sionally suggested it to other persons. In every case the idea has been well received ; and the more I have thought of it and talked about it, the more I have been persuaded, that it is a plan easy to be reduced to practice, and one that would be followed by valuable results. I wish, therefore, that you would consider it, and see what^objec- tions there are to it. I have no purpose to do anything more about it myself than to write you this letter, and continue to speak of it, as I have done heretofore, to persons who, like yourself, are interested in such matters. But I should be well pleased to know how it strikes you. To this letter ^Ir. Everett replied as follows : — Cambridge, July 26, 1851. My dear Ticknor, — I duly received your letter of the 14th from Bellows Falls, and read it with great interest. The extensive circulation of new and popular works is a feature of a public library which I have not hitherto much contemplated. It deserves to be well weighed, and I shall be happy hereafter to confer with you on the subject. I cannot deny that my views have, since my younger days, undergone some change as to the practicability of freely loaning books at home from large public libraries. Those who have been connected with the administration of such libraries are apt to get discouraged, by the loss and damage resulting from the loan of books. My present impressions are in favor of making the amplest provision in the library for the use of books there. Your plan, however, is intended to apply only to a particular class of books, and does not contemplate the unrestrained circulation of those of which the loss could not be easily replaced. That Boston must have a great public library, or yield to New York in letters as well as in commerce, will, I think, be made quite apparent in a few years. But on this and other similar subjects I hope to have many opportimities of conferring ^vith you next winter. The difference of opinion, here made evident, as to the possi- bility or safety of allowing books to circulate freely, was not removed by many subsequent conversations, nor were the hopes of either of the gentlemen, Avith regard to the establishment of a great library, raised even when, in the early part of 1852, the mayor, Mr. Seaver, recommended that steps be taken for such 304 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1852. an object, and the Common Council, presided over by Mr. James Lawrence, proposed that a board of trustees for such an institu- tion should be appointed. When, therefore, both Mr. Everett and Mr. Ticknor — the latter greatly to his surprise — were invited to become members of this board, they conferred together anew on the project ; and, although the mayor, on hearing Mr. Tick- nor's views, was much pleased with them, and urged him to take the place, yet he at one time determined to decline the oJ3ice, certainly unless the library were to be open for the free circulation of most of its books, and unless it were to be dedi- cated, in the first instance, rather to satisfying the wants of the less favored classes of the community, than — like all public libraries then in existence — to satisfying the wants of scholars, men of science, and cultivated men generally.* Mr. Everett's opinion was not changed ; but seeing Mr. Tick- nor's determination to co-operate in no other plan, and perhaps feeling himself the difficulties of beginning with any other, he agreed at last — though not convinced — that the experiment of a popular institution of the freest sort should be tried, and the two friends accepted their appointments as trustees of a prospective library. Erom that moment their co-operation in its affairs was cordial and complete ; and although Mr. Everett never fully believed in the practical benefits of Mr. Ticknor's plan, he was perfectly faithful to his promise, that it should have a fair chance.f But the library did not yet exist. In an attic of the City Hall — in the old building, of which no part was spacious, or * See letterlto Trustees, April 16, 1860, printed in the Eighth Annual Report, pp. 34, 35. t In a note of May 15, 1867, from Mr. Jewett, the first Superintendent of the Public Library, to Mr. Ticknor, he says : '' Few persons alive know as well as you and I do, that with regard to the great features of the plan, — the free cir- culation of the books, and the paramount importance attached to the popular department, — Mr. Everett had, from the beginning, serious misgivings, and that he yielded his own doubts only to your urgency. He repeated to me within, I think, a week previous to his death, the doubts which he said he had always entertained on these points, and said that he did not think that he should have yielded his assent, but for your determination not to put your hand to the work \mless these features of the plan were adopted in all their prominence. M. 61.] FIRST REPORT OF TRUSTEES. 305 well appointed — four or five thousand volumes were stored, consisting of documents given by the city of Paris, by Mr. Win- throp, Mr. Everett, and others, — books entirely unsuited to stimulate either the popular taste for reading, or the disposition of the Common Council to make appropriations. In the city treasury was the sum of one thousand dollars, given about two years before by the then mayor, Mr. J. P. Bigelow, " in aid of the establishment of a Free Pubhc Library," from the income of which some of the books had been bought. Clearly the library was yet to be founded. The newly formed Board of Trustees appointed a committee of four to consider their work, and Mr. Everett and Mr. Ticknor were made a sub-committee to draw up a report. Mr. Ticknor prepared for this purpose a paper, expounding the principles and plan on which the institution was to be founded, — these being his own, — and ]\Ir. Everett left this entirely untouched, adding some pages, at the beginning and end, on the general import of the project.* From this moment Mr. Ticknor felt that he had assumed a great responsibility, and, while he never met with obstacles raised by Mr. Everett, who was loyal through- out, yet he was led, thenceforward, to make many exertions, and to do much laborious, disinterested work, both here and in Europe, which would not otherwise have been incumbent on him.t When iVIr. Bates's munificence came, like a great hght shining in upon their faint hopes, it came in consequence of the effect produced on his mind by this report, — drawn up by Mr. Tick- nor and Mr. Everett, — because he saw the importance to his native town of such a library as is there recommended.^ Here, then, was the founding of a library, a gift of $ 50,000, with the condition annexed, that the city should erect a suitable building * City document, No. 37, 1852. Mr. Ticknor's part, p. 9 to p. 21. t He spent more than a year abroad, in 1856 - 57, at his own expense, for the express purpose of conferring with Mr. Bates, establishing agencies, and pur- chasing books for the Library. X In his letter to Mr. Seaver, October 1, 1852, Mr. Bates says, he is " im- pressed with the importance to rising and future generations of such a library as is recommended." T 306 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1854. for the use of the institution.* And now began the practical labors of organizing the scheme, collecting the books, and per- fecting the details of a system as yet entirely new and untried. To follow Mr. Ticknor minutely and closely through all the steps of the development of this work would require more space than belongs to the subject here, but at certain points his influ- ence and his exertions may be described. The whole was in harmony with his life-long purpose, to make his own intellectual i> attainments useful by promoting culture in others. That much labor fell upon him it is needless to say to any one who, with any knowledge of what had to be accomplished, regards certain facts, — his fitness for the work ; his responsi- bility for the plan; the general ignorance about such institu- tions, which could not fail to be represented in the Board of Trustees ; and the absence of Mr. Everett during a very impor- tant part of the time, he being in Washington, as Secretary of State of the United States, from November, 1852, till May, 1854. Before !Mr. Bates's offer of his first great donation was re- ceived, the City Government had granted the use of two small rooms in a school-house in Mason Street for the purposes of the library, and although the scale on which even the preliminaries were to be designed was, of course, altered by this gift, it was in those small rooms, and with about twelve thousand volumes, — only seven thousand of which could be called attractive or popular, — that the institution opened, in 1854. Mr. Ticknor's first step was to induce Mr. Bates to have his gift funded, and to have this done in such a way that the in- come only should be expended by the Trustees, and also to pre- vail on the Trustees to agree that this should be done.t This he brought to pass, and during the year and a half that elapsed between the first news of Mr. Bates's intentions and the opening of the little library, an immense amount of detail work was done * See vote of Trustees, October 18, 1864, in " Memorial of Joshua Bates," pp. 14, 15. t His reason for this was that it would promote other donations, from citizens who would feel secure of the permanence of their gifts. 2Su 63.] PRACTICAL DETAILS. 307 by several persons, and a catalogue, corrected by Mr. Ticknor as it went through the press, was ready to be sold cheaply, so that what books were there might be easily accessible to all.* On the day when books were first given out Mr. Ticknor passed many hours in watching the process, and recorded the fact that the first taken out was the first volume of Southey's " Common- place Book." In developing his predominant vd&h. and idea, one of the first points he put forward — and he did it in the first report, July, 1852 — was that of connecting the Library ^vith the public schools, by granting the privileges of it to those boys and girls who had won the Franklin medal prizes. On his suggestion, the Trustees in their " Eules " made this to bear a still wider construction, and to admit in addition an equal number of the pupils selected for good conduct by the teachers. Thus the use of the Library was made an object of ambition in the schools. Another and a favorite proposal of his was much discussed and somewhat opposed among the Trustees, — that of allowing frequenters of the Library to ask for books to be purchased, and for that purpose to supply cards or blanks for such applications. He gained this point, also, and persevered in having it not only offered but urged, although for ten years this great and useful privilege was not appreciated. Until 1865 the public could not be induced to understand or avail itself of this opportunity, and, before that time, the Trustees had come fully to apprehend the value to them of such requests, in pointing out what was de- sirable to purchase, and would be immediately useful. In the matter of furnishing duplicates of books most asked for, it was not easy, under the system first adopted, to discover what were the most sought, and a good deal of extra work had to be done, in the course of which Mr. Ticknor had a report, of the facts ascertained during the daj'', brought to him every even- ing, sometimes as late as eleven o'clock. A new and unexpected * An tmottrusive form of occupation which — having already been habitual with Mr. Ticknor on account of his own private purchases — now became inces- sant, was the reading of trade catalogues of books, for sale at auctions and by booksellers or publishers, piles of which catalogues always lay on his table. 308 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1855. reason for confidence appeared now, in the evidence that most people resorting to the Library desired very much to obtain some book, but were not so anxious to get one particular book that they would complain of missing it, if they got something to read. This was unlooked for and reassuring. Although after 1855 Mr. C. C. Jewett, an accomplished bib- liographer and librarian, was much employed in the practical labors of the new Library, yet, until the office of superintendent was created and Mr. Jewett established in it, in 1858, Mr. Tick- nor continued very constantly and often absorbingly occupied with its duties. Mr. Everett was unable to give much time to the interests of the Library, and repeatedly wished to resign, calling himself only " a parade officer " ; but at Mr. Ticknor's constant urgency he remained, and, faithfully giving his name and influence to the institution, he enabled Mr. Ticknor to go on with the work, which he often told his friend he should be obliged to abandon if he resigned, for the annoyances and difficulties he encountered were certainly not less than are usual in such cases. AVhen the city set about fulfilling the condition Mr. Bates had annexed to his gift, by erecting a suitable building, Mr. Ticknor was placed on the Commission of seven, appointed for that pur- pose, but it was expressly against his wish that this was done. He found himself always in a minority, more and more dissatis- fied with all that was doing, and at last withdrew from the board entirely, feeling that the building was costing too much, and was much less well adapted to its purpose than it should be.* It was, perhaps, fortunate that he could withdraw from those unpleasant duties, leaving his vacant seat to be filled by Mr. Everett ; and yet, instead of doing less, be actually employed in doing more and better work for the institution, which had by this time become a cherished favorite with him. When once the work of preparing a proper building had been taken in hand, Mr. Bates began to give cautious intimations of * He always approved of the site for the building in Boylston Street, which was the subject of much discussion, another piece of land having once been ac- tually purchased by the city. M. 64.] DONATIONS OF MR. BATES. 309 further generous purposes in relation to the Library. He kept up a frequent correspondence with Mr. Everett and IMr. Ticknor, and in July, 1855, he finally expressed, to both of them, a dis- tinct intention of giving a large quantity of books to fill the shelves of the new edifice as soon as it should be ready. Mr. Ticknor was passing the summer at Lake George, and there received two letters to this efi'ect from Mr. Bates, and one from Mr. Everett enclosing what he had received. Immediately each of these gentlemen expressed the conviction, that some one should go soon to England to confer with this liberal benefactor, and each proposed that the other should go. Mr. Ticknor urged Mr. Everett, as far as he thought he properly might, to undertake this mission, and Mr. Everett answered him in the following terms, both feeling that this was a turning-point in the history of the Library : — July 25, 1855. Mr. Bates's letter to you shows, still more clearly than his let- ter to me, the necessity, not of sending an agent, but an Envoy Extraordinary to Europe. His purposes are liberal, — munificent, — but he does not know, on the present occasion, what he ought to do to carry his own views into effect. No doubt, when he gave his first fifty thousand dollars he thought that would do all that was necessary. Now, nothing but full and free conversation \ni\i some person who does fully understand the matter, and who possesses his confidence, will raise his views to the proper elevation. I must say, candidly, that I know nobody but you or myself com- petent to this ; I mean, of course, who could be thought of for the errand. I would go if I could. I thought over that point before I wrote my other letter. But I really cannot. You have stated some of the obstacles, — my wife's health, my own, and AVill's education (now my chief thought and duty) ; but there are others But if I could go, it is no affected diffidence which makes me say that you would accomplish the object much better. I have no particular apti- tude for the kind of executive operations which this errand requires, — I mean purchasing books with discrimination in large masses. Perhaps I am rather deficient in it. You possess it in an uncommon degree. I think you would buy as many books for thirty thousand dollars as I should for fifty thousand dollars, — certainly, for forty thousand dollars 310 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1856. I hope I am not selfish in urging you to do what I decline doing myself. I will only add, that if you will go, I will do more for the Library at home than I have hitherto done, in order that your absence may be less severely felt. While this question remained unsettled, no time was lost with regard to Mr. Bates's new donations. Mr. Ticknor immediately began personally to collect, from men distinguished in special departments, lists of works on their several subjects, which ought to be on the shelves of a great library, thus getting contributions of much consequence from such men as Professors Agassiz, Bond, Cooke, Felton, Hayward, Holmes, Lovering, Pierce, and Dr. John Ware ; from Professor W. B. Eogers and Judge Curtis ; from Colonel Thayer of the Army and Captain Goldsborough of the Navy ; from engineers and architects, clergymen and men of letters. With these, and with ail the bibliographical resources they could command, Mr. Ticknor and Mr. Jewett worked, in Mr. Ticknor's library, for more than two months, Mr. Jewett remaining there eight hours a day, preparing the lists that were to be sent to Mr. Bates. These lists, embracing above forty thousand volumes, were successively forwarded, and were ap- proved by Mr. Bates, who had in these matters the invaluable advice of his distinguished son-in-law, M. Silvain Van De Weyer, Belgian Minister in England, a scholar eminent for his practical knowledge of bibliography and letters. All this, however, did not silence the conviction that some one should go abroad, for the interests of the Library ; and al- though at one time Mr. Ticknor decided — in February, 1856 — that he could not make the exertion, he afterwards reversed this decision, and prepared to leave home that summer. His dislike and reluctance to going were very positive. He had already passed seven years in Europe, and anticipated no great pleasure from going again, and at his age it was disagreeable to him to brea,k up his habits and pursuits ; but he was much urged, and in consequence of an illness of Mr. Bates, and circumstances connected with a book agency in London, he saw sufficient grounds for acquiescing. He still felt responsible for the sue- M. 65.] THIRD VISIT TO EUROPE. 311 cess of the Library, for which his fundamental plan had been adopted, and at this moment he had some fears of failure. The account of this trip to Europe, in its other aspects, will appear in the next chapter, but, so far as concerns its main ob- ject, and the essential work done in the course of it, this is the place for its story. He took his family with him, and was ab- sent fifteen months, travelling entirely at his own expense. Going first to London, he remained there three weeks, seeing l^Ir. Bates constantly, and conferring with him and M. Van De Weyer on the interests of the Library. He saw and investi- gated the merits of the bookseller who had become the agent of the Library, and he, personally, purchased some hundreds of volumes for its shelves. But, after having come to a full under- standing with Ml. Bates, he hastened to the Continent, and stopped first at Brussels, once an important book-mart, but not at this time of consequence enough, in this respect, for establishing an agency. In a letter to Mi. Everett he gives an account of some of these earlier experiences. To Hon. E. Everett. Brussels, July 30, 1856, and Bonn, Angust 4. My dear Everett, — I was able to write you only once from London, and then a very short and unsatisfactory note With Mr. Bates everything was done ia the promptest and easiest manner ; — quiet, after his fashion, and as decisive as quiet.* He agrees to take charge of all purchases under our past orders in London and Paris, and thinks it would be well to make out other lists, — though * In a letter written after Mr. Bates's death, Mr. Ticknor says of him : " To me he was a peculiar man. I knew him familiarly several years when we were both young ; and if, after he established himself in Europe, I saw him rarely, still, whenever we met, as we did at seven or eight different periods on one or the other side of the Atlantic, I always found him, in what goes to make up the elements of personal character, substantially the same. Indeed, during almost sixty years that I thus knew him, he was less changed than almost anybody I have ever been acquainted with The reason, I suppose, is, that he was a true man, faithful always to his own convictions, and therefore little liable to fluctuations in his ways and character." (From a rough draft corrected and kept by Mr. Ticknor. ) 312 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1856. I suppose others can hardly be sent until the results of my purchases are known ; because, as you will see, I am buying right and left, outside of all the lists we have yet prepared, and must, therefore, be buying books which you would indicate on new lists. Still, these fresh lists cannot be put too soon in preparation For everj'thing relating to Germany, including the North of Europe, and for all that relates to Italy, ^Ir. Bates looks to me and to the arrangements I shall make. For this purpose, I took a credit from him of £ 2,000, a sum larger than I shall probably use, and certainly enough to purchase such books, not on any of our Usts, as I may find cheap and tempting, and to establish agencies in Leipzig, Florence, and perhaps elsewhere ; beginning the purchases, and putting the agents in conmiunication with Mr. Bates for subsequent directions and resources I began in London, buying, perhaps, four hundred volumes, which you ^vill easily recognize To thLs city — Brussels — I took a letter from M. Van De Weyer for Mons. Alvin, Conservateur of the Royal Library, who at once placed entirely at my disposition Mons. Charles Ruelens, a scholar full of bibliographical and literary knowl- edge, who is on the staff of the Library to purchase its books all over Europe. Under his guidance I have bought about seven hundred and fifty volumes I have not bought a book here or in London, and shall not, I suppose, buy one anywhere, that I would sell in Boston for twice its cost. The books I have bought of the booksellers here are all sent to the Bibliotheque Royale, where M. Ruelens has charge of them. He will have them collated ; will cause such of them as may need it to be bound, under the roof of the Library, at the prices the Library pays for its own binding, and will then despatch them But I have obtained from the Bibliotheque Royale about one hundred and fifty volumes more, which they can let us have, under the rules imposed on them by their government, only in the way of exchange for other books After lea'ving here, unless I find Bunsen at Heidelberg, which I hardly expect, we shall go to Leipzig without much stopping. There I have already begun to make arrangements for the purchase of books, and for an agency Yours always, George Ticknor. Six weeks later he gives a further account of his work. M. 65.] PURCHASES FOR THE LIBRARY. 313 To Hon. E. Everett. Beelin, September 20, 1856. My dear Everett, — .... I have been in Leipzig three times, and established an agency there. Dr. Felix Fliigel, Vice-Consul of the United States, is our agent and Mr. Bates's, and he has associated with himself Dr. POtz, editor of the last edition of the " Conversations- Lexicon," and Mr. Paul Fromel, who is coimected with Brockhaus's great establishment. The two first are known to Mr. Jewett, but I was not aware of this fact till after we were nearly through with our arrangements, for I took Dr. Fliigel, who alone is responsible to us, on the advice of Dr. Pertz, the admirable head of the great library here in Berlin On Mr. Bates's account I have myseK bought, in Brussels and Berlin, a little short of two thousand volumes, and I enclose you a list of them, which I have roughly copied from the bills I have, however, bought none but by the advice and in the presence of Mr. Ruelens in Brussels, of whom I wrote you amply, and in the presence of Dr. Karl Brandes, Gustos of the library here, who, like ;Mr. Ruelens, buys books for his library all over Europe I am now in Berlin for the second time, on the aflFairs of the Library, and the purchases I have made here are, I think, quite as good as those I made at Brussels Dr. Pertz was a student in Gottingen when we were studying there, and knew all about us through Rufstein, who wrote to you lately, and who is now one of the first men in the Kingdom of Hanover, being the head of its ecclesiastical establish- ment, and eveiy way a most respectable person. Dr. Pertz was made librarian of the King's library, Hanover, (which is his native place.) after the death of our old friend Feder English is as much the language of his family as German, and being, besides, a true, sympa- thizing, faithful German of the old sort, there is nothing he has not been ^vdlling to do for me, out of regard for America* and the Lyells, and nothing in reason that he will not do for our Library hereafter, or cause to be done by his assistants, two or three of whom have been at my disposition for the last week I beg you to commend me to the Trustees, when you meet, and tell them that I hope their zeal for the interests of the Library will not abate. I do not intend that mine shall. Yours always sincerely, Geo. Ticknor. * Dr. Pertz's first wife was from Virginia, his second wife a sister of Lady Lyell. VOL. II. 14 314 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1856. The feeling which inspired this message to the Trustees ap- pears frequently in his letters. At one time, when Mr. Everett had been under a mistaken impression that Mr. Ticknor had felt annoyed about some want of information, he answers : " In any event, you will understand that I make no complaint of anybody that has done as much for the Library as you and Mr. Jewett have. Let me add that I am much gratified with the account you give me of Mr. Greenough's important services, and of the * very assiduous and disinterested manner ' in which he has rendered them. I expected no less from him, and thank him as heartily for what he has done as if I were to be per- sonally benefited by it. I feel, too, under similar obligations to you and to Mr. Jewett, and to all who work for the Library in earnest and disinterestedly." During these visits in Berlin Mr. Ticknor worked with Dr. Karl Brandes indefatigably, staying sometimes so late in the evening in the booksellers' shops that they were obliged to ob- tain special permission from the police to remain and to go home without molestation. Prague and Vienna proved unproductive, though in the latter place he had efficient aid from old friends. He writes : " The trade is low in Austria ; and the collections of the booksellers are either of the commonest books, or of those that are old, but of little value. I went round with Dr. Seno- ner, librarian of the principal scientific library in the city, and I had help from Count Thun,* Minister of State, who has charge of the public libraries throughout the Empire, and Baron Bellinghausen and Dr. F. Wolf, the principal persons in the Im- perial Library : all these are old friends and correspondents ; but they all told me that I should do little, and it so turned out." " At Yenice," he says in the same letter, " I found a first-rate bookseller, H. r._ IMiinster, a German. He was anxious to pur- chase for us, and Dr. ISTamias, Secretary of the Institute there, urged me to employ him. But Yenice is so out of the way of trade that I did not like to venture. We shall, however, I hope, profit by the good-wiU of both these persons, if we should have any occasion hereafter to appeal to it." * Count Leo von Thun-Hohenstein. See Vol. I. p. 505. / M. 65.] ESTABLISHING AGENCIES. 315 In the IN'orth of Italy, therefore, he accomplished little beyond obtaining the transactions of learned societies. Meantime, his correspondence became laborious, for he was obliged to keep up active communication with many points in Europe, as well as with many persons at home, merely on the business of the Library. Consequently, he did not, as before, keep a journal of his daily experiences, and his more private correspondence also suffered in consequence of his constant occupation. In Florence he established an agency in the autumn, and at- tended again to its affairs in the spring. He determined, after some preliminary correspondence with an old acquaintance in Florence, Mr. Sloane, '' to go to the_Baron von Eeumont, Prus- sian ^linister in Tuscany, whom Humboldt at Berlin had de- scribed to me as a historical writer, whose works he valued very highly, and whom he advised me strongly to visit as a person who would receive me kindly, and give me the best of literary help about Italian affairs and books, as he has lived in Italy above twenty years." Mr. Ticknor had known Baron von Eeu- mont in Eome twenty years before, when he was attache to the legation of Baron Bunsen, and he says of him, " in all sorts of \ ways he has turned out an invaluable friend." On his recom- mendation, he selected Professor Eugenio Alberi as the argent of the Library, "after hearing inucli good oi him from many per- sons, and among the rest from the Grand Duke and the Marquis Gino Capponi." Thus Mr. Ticknor's former associations with literary and distinguished persons gave him valuable aid in his present undertakings. In Eome, where he passed the winter, he had no need, of course, to search for agents ; but he busied himself in buying books, keeping a young man constantly employed in seeking out whatever was curious and cheap, receiving daily reports from him, and paying him day by day ; also going himself much to libraries and bookshops, superintendiug the packing of books at Eis own lodgings, and really working hard as a collector for the Library at home. He says : " The best places I have yet found for buying books are Florence and Eome. The books that have been thus far bought by me in Brussels, Berlin, and Eome, or 316 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. under my directions in Leipzig and Florence, have been bought at above forty per cent under the fair, regular prices." To this should be added the fact, that on Mr. Ticknor's purchases the Library was saved all commissions. On the 2d of February he closed his " third box of books bought in Rome ; making in the three boxes seven hundred and eighty-nine volumes, chiefly Italian, but a good many French, and some English, etc., which have cost, binding inclusive (but not embaUage), five hundred and five dollars." In one of his letters to Mr. Everett, from Rome, he refers to the fact that five sixths of the books then in the Library were in the English language, and to intimations he had received of a feeling among some persons in favor of making the Library exclu- sively English. After alluding to his original anxiety to have a popular circulating library, with many copies of many popular books, he goes on : — I do not, indeed, want for my personal convenience any library at all, except my o\vn, but I should be ashamed of myself, if, in working for such an institution as our Public Library, I could overlook the claims of the poor young men, and others who are not able to buy val- uable, costly, and even rare books, in foreign languages, which they need in studies important to them and the public. I never did neg- lect their claims in relation to ray own inconsiderable librarj^, and why should I do it in relation to a large public library ? Nor do I see how anybody who may have a collection of rare and valuable books in a foreign language, — Sanscrit, if you please, like the late Mr. Wales's, or little collections in Spanish or Portuguese, like mine, — can find a proper place for them in any such almost wholly English library, with whose general plan such collections would be quite out of keeping, as well as with the common course of its purchase and administration. I have never apprehended that we were making such a library, nor do I suppose so now ; but I see from your letter that there are persons who would prefer it, — I mean persons who would prefer to keep our Public Library almost wholly an English one. In Paris he devoted a considerable part of every day to the afiairs of the Library, and in London he passed a month in the summer of 1857, during which he completed the adjustment of iE. 66.] OPENING OF THE "LOWER HALL." 317 everything with Mr. Bates to his satisfaction. Finally, he con- cluded, by correspondence, the settlements Trith agents on the Continent, and finished the last of this work on the day before embarking for home, having remained two months after his wife and daughter had returned, in order that he might leave nothing incomplete, or unsatisfactorily adjusted. For all his exertions abroad he received very gratifpng tes- timonials from the Trustees, on his arrival at home, the votes and reports on the subject being contained in the Fifth Annual Eeport. After his return Mr. Ticknor wished if possible to avoid en- tering again into the active operations of the Library, hoping that his friends Mr. Everett and Mr. Greenough, with the assistance of Mr. Jewett, could secure the well-being of the institution with- out more than his presence and support in the Board ; but he could not be released, and therefore accepted the position of chairman of the committee for the removal of the books to the new Library building. This might, at first sight, seem to imply only a supervision of mechanical work, but it involved much more. It involved, at one point, the assertion of the principle which, in Mr. Ticknor's mind, lay at the bottom of the whole special character of the institution. A separate and accessible hall and library-room had been prepared, on the lower floor of the new building, for the popular part of the collection of books, by Mr. Ticknor's sugges- tion when he was on the Commission for the building. He now nrged the preparation of a separate index to the books of this department, to be furnished before a complete catalogue of the whole mass of books could be got ready. This interfered with the more striking idea of a large and imposing volume, exhibit- ing to the pubhc the whole wealth of the Library in one cata- /> logue. Mr. Ticknor, however, prevailed, and the popular collec- tion, with its separate rooms and its separate index, being ready and open to the public more than a year before the rest could be opened,* was very welcome, and so eagerly used that the * December 20, 1858. The reading-room, with periodicals, had been opened September 17. 318 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1858. question of the success of the Free Lending Library, for the less favored classes, was settled in a way never to be shaken again. Mr. Ticknor felt that a great deal of good had been done in the humble rooms in Mason Street ; for the principles on which a public library might be made to co-operate in the education ^ of a city had been substantially settled. He now induced the Trustees to make the Lower-Hall collection as attractive as pos- sible, by adding to the books brought from Mason Street such English and American books as were still desirable, so as to open with about fourteen thousand agreeable and useful volumes in the English language, and a thousand more in the other modern languages ; and then, with some little anxiety, he watched the operations on the day of opening. The practical results justified the theory of the institution in the most gratifying manner, and Mr. Ticknor said that, after witnessing the giving out of the books till eight in the evening, without seeing a moment's trouble or confusion, he went home feeling as if he had nothing more to do so far as this, in his view the most important, part of the insti- tution was concerned. Troubles there were still, but of other kinds ; and, although he was a trifle disappointed by the result of an experiment he tried in 1860, to test the popular disposition for reading useful books,* he did not lose faith in his theory that, the taste for reading once formed, the standard of that taste would rise. He would have rejoiced in the absolute proof produced, since 1873, of the steady gain in the proportion of useful books taken from the Library, after increased facilities had been afforded for their selection, by the admirable annotated Catalogue of works of the higher class prepared by Mr. Winsor.t * He gave the Library fifty copies of Miss Nightingale's " Notes on Nursing " ; twenty copies of Smiles's " Self Help " ; twenty copies of Everett's " Life of Washington" ; ten copies of the " Life of Araos Lawrence," a merchant of Bos- ton; twelve copies of the " Teacher's Assistant," and some others. For a time many of these kept well in circulation, especially Miss Nightingale's excellent little hook ; but at the end of six months the demand for them had substantially ceased. t The percentage of increased demand for works of travel, biography, etc., over the increase of general circulation, has continued to be quite remarkable for more than two years, since the publication of this valuable Catalogue. ^ ir. M. 67.] GIFTS TO THE LIBRARY. 319 Being now at ease about that which he considered as not only the first, but, in our social condition, the most valuable part of the Library, Mr. Ticknor began to give proof that his instincts as a scholar were only held in abeyance by his judgment as a citizen. In April, 1860, he gave to the Library 2,400 volumes of works of such a high character that he made it a condition that two thousand of them should not circulate, and in October of the same year he presented to it one hundred and forty-three vol- umes, forming a special collection on Moliere, with similar restric- tions; while in October, 1864, he gave one hundred and sixty volumes of Provengal literature, under still more stringent con- ditions. In 1861, also, being consulted as to the conditions to be attached to a bequest of money to the Library, he reverted to an idea, entertained by him long before, which was adopted, and the income was required to be expended for books, none of which should have been published less than five years. Finally, by his last will he gave to this institution, which he had cherished and had done all in his power to perfect, the in- valuable collection of Spanish books, to the formation of which he had devoted so much of his time and his fortune. Of these, by his own direction, not a volume is to be allowed to leave the Library building. His desire to put culture within the reach of those who are least apt to seek it and least able to acquire it, and his belief that they could be trusted to use carefully what was bestowed generously, this desire and this belief inspired his action for the Library for the first six or eight years of its development ; but when the principles he thus contended for were vindicated by experience, and put beyond danger, he turned to work for the more scholarly and studious class, of which he himself was a member. He hoped that the principle of funding donations of money, and the example of giving collections of works on special sub- jects, would lead to further gifts of both kinds ; and he trusted that the disinterested and broad views for the administration of the Library, which had been estabhshed and continued during j:^ X 320 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. the fourteen years of his connection with it, would prevail in future, so that public confidence might in every way be secured. That this institution should be administered for the good of the whole community, earnestly inviting the less favored, yet remem- bering that the researches in learning and science made by the less numerous may spread widest, and do most good in the end ; that its officers and employes might always be selected for their efficiency and fidelity ; and that its Trustees might always be men who know what such a library should be and do, unin- fluenced by politics or sectarian views, — these were his earnest wishes in all his latter years. He felt that if the affairs of the Library were ever administered in any other spirit, or for any other purpose, than to promote the best culture of the whole mass of our people, it would decay and fail, ceasing to accom- plish its true object. On the death of Mr. Everett he was elected by the Trustees President of their Board ; but a year afterwards he resigned that place, leaving it to be filled by his friend, Mr. Greenough, who for ten years had co-operated with him and Mr. Everett in every effort for the wise advancement of the Library.* Mr. Tick- nor also declined to be re-elected Trustee, and thus retired, after fourteen years of zealous labor, having carefully, during the last months, brought to completion those portions of the work to which he had been more especially pledged. * Mr. William W. Greenough is still President of the Trustees of the Library. VOYAGE TO EUROPE. 321 CHAPTEE XVI. Visit to Europe for the Affairs of the Boston Public Library. — Londorif Brussels, Dresden, Berlin, and Vienna. — Verona. — Milan. — Let- ters to Mr. Prescott, Mr. Everett, Mr. and Mrs. TV. S. Dexter, and Mrs. Ticknor. THE motives and causes wliicli led Mr. Ticknor to decide on a third visit to Europe have been set forth, as well as the nature of the work he did during the thirteen months it covered. The marriage of his younger daughter to Mr. "William Sohier Dexter, which took place in May, 1856, preceded his departure hy a few weeks, and he sailed on the 18th of June, accompanied by Mrs. Ticknor, with their eldest daughter and a niece. The facilities for every mode of travelling had been improving with extraordinary rapidity in the twenty years since his last visit, and these introduced novelty and comfort, beyond his expecta- tions, into this journey. The steamer voyage shortened the miseries of the sea, which, for the first time, Mr. Ticknor escaped in great measure ; and at Liverpool, before they left the deck of the steamer, letters of welcome and invitations were placed in his hands, casting a most delightful atmosphere of genial feehng over the arrival. This warm greeting was multiplied and continued wherever they went ; the hands of old friends and new were extended to receive them at every point. In London a charming house in Knightsbridge was placed at their disposal — with servants and all appliances — in the absence of its owners, !Mr. and Mrs. Edward Twisleton,* and from thence Mr. Ticknor wrote as fol- lows : — * Hon. Edward Tw4sleton, a man of remarkable cultivation, much beloved and respected in the best society of England, had recently married a favorite niece of Mrs. Ticknor, Miss Ellen Dwight. Mr. Ticknor, too, was very fond 14* U 322 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1856. To W. H. Prescott. London, July 17, 1856. My dear "William, — You have heard, I dare say, of oiir safe ar- rival, and perhaps something more ; for though I have had time to write only one letter, — it was to William Dexter, — enough has been written by the party to tell all that anybody can desire to know about us. When the cars stopped, the first thing I saw was Lady Lyell's charming face on the platform, to welcome us, and during the eighteen days that have followed since, we have had nothing but kindness and hospitality. Our old friends, adding to them those with whom I have had intercourse without personally knowing them, have fiUed up our whole time. Five invitations were waiting for us when we arrived.* Lord Stanhope came the next morning, immediately after breakfast, and I gave him your letter.t Stirling came in the afternoon, and so it has gone on ever since. After to-morrow I have declined all invitations, and begin to make my arrangements for Brussels, for which we shall set out as soon as we can get ready. Your friends here are generally well, and remember you with sin- cere and affectionate interest, asking constantly whether you will not come again soon, to which I always answer in such a way as to put the burthen upon Susan, who, I suppose, will bear it contentedly rather than lose you. I delivered all your letters ; most of them, however, I could not find time to deliver until after I had filled up my days with engagements, which we did in about four or five days after our arrival The Ellesmeres, the Laboucheres,J and Ford have been very kind, and invited us to dine, but we could not accept. I dined at the Duke of Argyll's, with a very brilliant party, and we talked much of you ; but Anna was in Kent, on a visit to the ^Mild- of Mrs. Twisleton, and, before there had been any question of this marriage, Mr. Twisleton had been much liked by him and all his family. These interest- ing and highly valued persons are now dead, and their loss has been deeply felt on either side of the ocean, for both had made themselves loved in the new circles they had entered by their marriage. * In the letter to W. S. Dexter of July 4, mentioned above, he says, after being four days in London : " Thus far I am in for eight dinners and four breakfasts, all of which promise to be very agreeable, but will make heavy drafts on my resources of all sorts, and will probably do me up. But vogv^ la galere; for I have always thought a regular London life little better than that of a galley-slave." t Mentioned before as Lord Mahon. See ante, p. 259. X See Vol. I. p. 408. M. 65.] MR. MACAULAY. 323 mays and Stanhopes, where I was very glad to have her go for refresh- ment for a few days, and so missed this pleasure Macaulay is the lion. He has been asked to meet us seven times, so that it has got to be a sort of joke. But he is very agreeable, not in perfectly good health, and not, I imagine, talking so much for effect as he used to, or claiming so large a portion of the table's attention ; but well enough to be out a great deal in the evenings, and with fresh spirits. I dined with him and Lord John, at Richmond at Lord Lans- downe's, and at the Duke of Argyll's. The rest were breakfasts, at Lord Stanhope's, Milman's, Van De "Weyer's, etc., and at his own house. He lives in a beautiful villa, with a rich, large, and brilliant lawn behind it, keeps a carriage, and — as he told us — keeps four men-servants, including his coachman, and lives altogether in elegant style for a man of letters We live, you know, in Twisleton's house. It is a very nice one, with four or five thousand volumes of first-rate books, in rich, full binding, scattered through its three principal rooms. It looks on Hyde Park in front, and has a series of gardens behind, so that few houses are more pleasantly situated. It is, too, filled with an abun- dance of rich furniture a VAnglaisp,. The Lewises — Sir George and Lady Theresa * — are near neighbors, and have been most abundant in kindness. We have breakfasted, lunched, and dined with them, the last being last evening, when we had Lord and Lady Clarendon, Lord Harrowby, Lord John Russell, Frederick Peel ; and a most charming, cheerful, free time we made of it till near midnight. I talked a good deal with Lord Clarendon and Lord Harrowby, as well as with Cardwell and Sir George, about America, — three of them being of the Ministry, — and found^ as I have uniformly found, a great desire to keep at peace with us Thackeray has been to see us a good deal, but he is very poorly, and has troubles that may wear him out Kenyon, too, is very ill with asthma, at the Isle of Wight, where he has taken a beautiful place, and on finding himself a little better asked us to come and see him for as long as we could stay. But it is not possible, or we should certainly go. Colonel Harcourt asked us, also, to the Isle of Wight, and at one moment I thought we might combine the two ; but I must not be too late on the Continent, or my plans will be all spoiled. Stirling invites us to Keir, when we come back, and I shall try to go if I can. A dinner at his house in town was as recherche as anything that has happened to me of the sort ; and his house, filled Avith curious * See Vol. I. p. 407, note, and ante, p. 180. 324 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1856. books, old silver, and ohjets d'art, is quite marvellous, — nearly all collected, he says, since you were here. The breakfasts are very formidable. They have become dinners in disguise But they are agreeable. Old Lord Lansdo\vne says he enjoys them more than any other form of society, and I have met him at them t^^dce. Indeed, he goes out a great deal, and entertains as much as ever ; large parties in Berkeley Square, and small ones at Richmond. He seems to me more amiable and agreeable than ever, and enjoys a green old age, surrounded with the respect of all, even of those most opposed to him in politics. I have met him as often as anybody, except Macaulay, and am to meet him again to-day. To-morrow is our last day for society. We breakfast with the Mil- mans', lunch at Evelyn Denison's,* — who has become a man of much political consequence, and lives in a grand house on Carleton Terrace, — and we dine at Mr. T. Baring's. I am glad it is the last day. I never stood the exigencies of London society well, and I am so old that I am quite done up with the work now. And yet this is nothing to what they do themselves. Lord Clarendon, yesterday, gave me the account of his mode of life for the last three years, including the war with Russia and the Con- ferences at Paris " But," I said, " do you never give yourself a holiday ? " " Yes," he replied, " I gave myself one holiday at Paris, and went to a great discussion and showy occasion at the Institute, but the next time I do it I will take chloroform." .... He has great spirits, and laughed and frolicked in the gayest manner, but looks much worn and very thin. On my telling him that I thought he would do better if he were to take his hardest work in the morning, when he is refreshed by sleep, he admitted it, but added, " I can get more out of myself, under this nervous, unnatural excitement, than I can in a more regular life ; and if it does wear me out sooner, that is no matter, the work must be done." .... But it is one o'clock at night, and I am imitating the great man in my small way without thinking of it. I will therefore stop, only adding my love to Susan and Elizabeth and all about you Yours always, G. T. To Hon. E. Everett. London, July 18, 1856. My dear Everett, — Thank you for your agreeable note of the 2d inst. I am very glad to hear such good news of the Library, and * See Vol. I. p. 408, note. M. 65.] LETTERS TO MR. EVERETT. 325 that Mr. Greenough. is in your Board. I think you will find him a very efficient person. Things go on equally well here. Many books, as you are aware, have been despatched from Paris, and a consider- able number will be sent by the steamer that takes this. Others will follow Thus far my time has been much consumed by society, a good deal more than I intended it should be. But it has been inevitable, and after to-day we have refused all invitations, and I go seriously to work to finish the arrangements for the Library, and begin my prepa- rations for the Continent, for which I hope to be oS" in a week. I delivered your letter to Mr. Macaulay, and he has been extremely kind. I breakfasted with him at once, in his beautiful villa, meeting Panizzi, Senior, Van De Weyer, Lord Lansdo^\^le, and three or four more ; and I have met him five or six times since So you see he is still the lion he was when you were here. But he is not, from what I hear, so exigeant in conversation. At any rate he is very agreeable, and people had rather listen to him than talk themselves. Like everybody else, I have been astonished at the resources of his memory. They are all but fabulous. He wants to know when you are coming again ; and spoke to me of you, as have Lord Lansdowne, Lord Palmerston, Lord Clarendon, and all your old friends, with great interest, some with great afi'ection. I have seen most of the members of the government, and talked with them about our American affairs. They certainly show no de- sire to get into a quarrel with us. But John Bull is no doubt dis- satisfied, and doubtful of the future. He thinks we are ill disposed towards him, that there is no use in making more concessions, and that, as we are gro"v\'ing stronger and more formidable, it is as well to meet the trial soon, as later. Those in power, however, seem to me to wish to put it off as long as they can.* .... To Hon. Edward Everett. Brussels, July 30, 1856. .... I began this letter at its date, at Brussels, but I was much crowded with work then, and now I finish it at Bonn.f .... Welcker is here still fresh and active, and remembering you with great kind- ness. I find Brandes too, but nobody else surviving of the old time ; * There were complaints about enlistments in the United States during the Crimean War. See ante, p. 295. + Parts of this letter "vvere given in the preceding chapter. 326 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1856. Niebuhr, Schlegel, and the rest are all gone. " Old, Master Shallow, old," I feel it. I felt it, too, in London, though the survivors there were numerous, and fresh acquaintance were added, in no small pro- portion, to the old I saw your friend. Sir Henry Holland, and breakfasted with him. I need not tell you that he is coming to make you a visit, but you may be glad to know that he is unchanged, and as active as ever. He says he intends to go and see Mr. Buchanan. I hope he will. It may do good to have the relations they stood in maintained, if Bu- chanan becomes President, as I suppose he will "We have, as you will infer from what I have said, rather than from any details I have given, been very busy since I saw you last. In- deed, it seems incredible, that we have been absent from home only seven weeks, and yet have come so far, and done so much. London life seems to me to have become more oppressive than it ever was. The breakfasts, that used to be modest reunions of half a dozen, with a dish or two of cold meat, are now dinners in disguise, for fourteen to sixteen persons, with three or four courses of hot meats. Once we had wine. The lunches are much the same, with puddings, etc., added, and several sorts of wine ; and the dinners begin at a quarter to half past eight, and last till near eleven. Twice, spiced wines were handed round with the meats, which I never saw before, and did not find nearly so savory as my neighbors did. Everything, in short, announced — even in the same houses — an advance of luxury, which can bode no good to any people. But the tide cannot be resisted. I am not sure whether I told you, in my note from London, that I found Hallam much broken in strength, and with dangerous troubles. He was, however, very bright, and talked as fast as "ever. He went to the country two or three days after we reached London, to stay Tvdth his daughter, who, as I heard, makes his declining years very happy. He inquired most kindly after you, and desired to be remem- bered to you. I think he felt it to be very doubtful whether he shall see me next spring, if I then go to England again. Certainly I did as I parted from him, and he said, " I am very old," and his eye spoke more than his words. I am -writing now just as we set off. .... Addio. Write me how the Presidential canvass goes on, and what is the prospect of things generally. In a letter to Mr. George T. Curtis, written two weeks later, Mr. Ticknor tells the following anecdote : — M 65.] MR. CRAMPTON. 327 The day but one before we left London, we accepted an invitation given in an uncommonly kind manner two days earlier, to dine at Lord Clarendon's Just before dinner was announced, Lord Clarendon came up to me and said, with rather a peculiar manner, that attracted my attention at once, " Here is a gentleman who wishes to be introduced to you. He has been a good deal in the United States, and knows all about you, but has never seen you ; and yet he is a pretty notorious man, — it is Mr. Crampton," — and then he burst into a very hearty laugh, for which he is somewhat famous, and was joined by Sir Charles Wood, and one or two people near us, who en- joyed the joke to the full."^ I found Mr. Crampton very agreeable, and immediately noticed his great resemblance to his father, as I knew Sir Philip in 1835. " Yes," said a person to whom I mentioned it, " they still look so much alike that we call them the hcins" .... The Ministry were, no doubt, partly responsible for the mistakes about the enlistment last summer, — more, perhaps, than they can well admit. They were too much engrossed by the Eussian war, and the worrjang arrangements for the peace before the negotiations be- gan, to be able to give the American difficulty the degree of attention it needed. So I think Crampton will get a place and be contented with it To Mrs. William S. Dexter. Heidelberg, August 8, 1856. Dearest Lizzie, — I hardly know what I can write to you, your mother and Anna have "vvTitten so much, except to renew to you expressions of my affection, which you feel as sure of without their repetition as T\T.th it. But I must write something ; it is a want I feel to have intercourse with you. Only last night I looked over to the other side of the table, thinking to see you there ; so entirely have you kept your place in my thoughts. And thus I miss you con- stantly. Give my love to your husband, and tell him I count upon his making up a great deal of my loss to me, since I give him so much of what is important and dear to my affections. As I travel about in places more or less familiar to me, — because * Mr. Crampton had been recently recalled from Washington, where he was British Minister, on complaints of our government. Mr. Ticknor says else- where : " Thackeray, who has a strong personal regard for him, was outrageous on the matter, and cursed the Ministry by all his gods for making him, as he said, their scape-goat," As Mr. Ticknor expected, he was soon sent Minister to Hanover, and afterwards to St. Petersburg and Madrid. 328 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1856. I have been in them at least twice before, and in some cases three times, — I feel a good deal as a professor emeritus does, who keeps the title, but does none of the work of his place. I call myself a traveller, but fulfil little of a travellers duty I enjoy, however, seeing my old friends very much. Count Arriva- bene, in his fine old castle at Gaesbeck,* with its beautiful walks and environs, gave me great pleasure, but I did not go into the church of Ste. Gudule at Brussels, though I was near it many times. At Co- logne I never knew anybody, or at least I never knew more than one person, and I forget his name ; so I went only to the cathedral. But that was enough. I was astonished to find how much has been done towards finishing it, and begin to believe, what never seemed credible to me before, that it may yet be completed But enough, of the old city ; it is in the main a nasty old place. Bonn, on the contrary, is as neat as a new pin. But there, too, except one afternoon's delicious excursion up the river to the Godes- berg and the Drachenfels, and a visit to the monument of Beethoven, I hardly once went out of the house. Your aunt Catherine,! and the girls, and Charles were enough ; but besides these, I had my old kind friend, Professor "Welcker, every day, Pauli, — a very active, spirited young man who was secretary to Bunsen, — and Professor Gerhard, the last day, who was among those Lady Lyell wrote Anna she had seen at Berlin, and hoped we should see there, little thinking that he was an old acquaintance, and was coming right to us at Bonn. Here it is much the same sort of thing. Dr. Pauli told me of an enthusiastic, scholar-like German, whom I had known at Rome, and who, after having been for some years private secretary to Prince Albert, is now living up in the old castle.J He came this morning and left his card, inviting me to breakfast. It was too late, for we were just finishing that important meal. However, when we went up to the castle, we found him there showing about Captain H., a young man fresh from the Crimea, where he went through all the battles and sieges in a battalion which brought home less than half its numbers Now he has a very agreeable, fine-looking wife, * Count Arrivabene, formerly the guest of the Arconatis at Gaesbeck, now lived there alone, and the enchantment of a summer's day, in the interesting old chateau and among the labyrinthine beech alleys of its beautiful woods, was all enhanced by his really aflfectionate mode of making his friends feel at home, and feel that he valued and wished to prolong their visit. t Mrs. Norton returning from Italy. t Herr Carl Meyer von Rinteln. > M. 65.] DRESDEN. 329 to whom he has been married only a few weeks, the day but one, I believe, after he marched through London in that great show of the reception of the Guards by the Queen, which we were smuggled through the lines to see by Lord and Lady Ellesmere Then I drove to see Mad. Bunsen, from whom I had a letter at Frankfort, telling me that her husband was in Switzerland. I found her very hearty in her welcome, and her two daughters very nice; all living in a pleasant house just outside of the town I liked so well that I think I shall go again this evening Anna has just come down from the castle, and says your mother and H. mean to dine there under the trees She, herself, goes to see her old friend Mad. B,, and very likely I shall drive there with her and go and see Professor Mohl, brother of the one in Paris, and perhaps — if I am not too tired — call on Professor Mit- termaier, the jurist. But I become easily fatigued. I did too much in London, and am but just getting over it. However, I am very well. So are we all, and stand our work remarkably Your affectionate father, G. T. The detailed accounts of pleasant experiences, at different points of these travels, will be found scattered irregularly through the letters, and do not, perhaps, lose their flavor by being delayed in chronology. On reaching Dresden, August 13, a halt was called, and the home-like place was made headquarters for six weeks. Those dear friends. Sir Charles and Lady Lyell, hap- pened to be in Dresden at the time of the arrival of the party ; and later a meeting was arranged there, with Mr. and Mrs. Twisleton and her sister, that was delightful; besides which Dean and Mrs. Milman passed through about the same time. One pleasant afternoon, especially, this tripartite party of Amer- ican and English friends spent with the charming family of the artist, Julius Hiibner, looking over his drawings and enjoying his collections. This artist's home was genially opened to ^Ir. Ticknor and his family, in consequence of an introduction from Gerhard. Mr. Forbes was still English Minister to the Saxon Court, and, on his return from an excursion, he resumed his old kind and familiar intimacy with Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor. But, above all, 330 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1856. the friendsliip, which their correspondence had cherished and increased, between the King and Mr. Ticknor, was further strengthened by the warm and simple welcome which King John gave his American friend, desiring him to come to Pill- nitz to see him without other form than at a private house, and summoning him repeatedly to dinner, on all which occasions he treated him with affectionate confidence. On the 27th of August Mr. Ticknor took his family for a short visit to Berlin, where they remained together for six days, and where he outstayed his party. Eejoining the ladies in Dresden on the 7th of September, he again left them there on the 14th, and went to Berlin for another week. In Leipzig, where he stopped three times in his journeys to and fro, he was busy for the Library, and in Berlin he did a great deal of laborious work. But in Berlin, as in Dresden, he found old and new friends, and in subsequent letters he describes his enjoyment of daily intercourse with Humboldt,* and the entertainment of a great Court dinner at Potsdam, on occasion of the arrival of the Grand Duke of Baden for his marriage with a princess of Prus- sia. This was Mr. Ticknor's only opportunity for conversation with the then reigning sovereign, Frederic William TV., whose varied accomphshments and versatile talent made a strong im- pression on him. Yon Eaumer and Count Eaczynski, among old acquaintances, and the younger Schadow, among new ones, added to the pleasures of Berlin. On finally leaving Dresden, September 25, Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor had further proof of the constancy of those who had formerly been kind to them, in the warm and earnest welcome given to the whole party at Tetschen, where they stopped a few hours to see Count Thun and his daughters.t Old memories were recalled, — some sadly and tenderly, for the Countess had * Mr. Ticknor writes to Mr. Prescott, after this visit : " Humboldt was much changed, as might be anticipated ; for the difference between sixty-seven and eighty-seven is always much greater than between forty-seven and sixty-seven : these being, respectively, the intervals of my acquaintance with him. But his faculties seem as active, and his p\irsuit of knowledge as eager as ever ; while, at the same time, his benevolence seems to grow with his years." t See Vol. I. p. 505 et sec[. ^. 65.] BERLIN. 331 died, and their kindness was, if possible, greater than ever. Additional instances of it occurred in Vienna, where Count Thun followed them, and where his sons. Count Franz and Count Leo, the latter then a Cabinet Minister, — renewed all their former faithful and attractive courtesy; and in Italy, where Count Frederic, whom ^Ir. Ticknor had not before kno^vn, re- ceived him at Yerona as an old friend of the family. During his second short visit in Berlin Mr. Ticknor wrote as follows to Mrs. Ticknor : — Berlin, Friday, September 19. I cannot get back before Sunday evening, 6 o'clock. It is impos- sible. I have worked till twelve o'clock every night, and, though I am sixty-five years old, I have accomplished as much in the last five days, including Leipzig, as I ever did in any five days of my life. Wednesday I passed all day at the Library, and in the booksellers' shops with Dr. Brandes, and WTote all the evening, except that I called twenty mmutes at Varnhagen's. But the booksellers are very clumsy and slow ; and kind Dr. Brandes scolds them in vain, and gets more out of patience with them than I do. Yesterday I first arranged with Professor Dehn, of the Library, — where there are 95,000 works in music and on music, — to buy £ 100 worth to begin our Library with. Then I came home, and had a visit from Yarnhagen and his niece, desperately agreeable, and I promised to take coffee with them this p. M. at five. Then I worked on books ; then at two o'clock was off to Potsdam, to dine with the Kmg, who sent his verbal commands by his Hofmarschal, about eleven o'clock, to that effect. Went out in the cars, and slept nearly the whole way, from sheer fatigue. Dinner was very brilliant ; the whole Court Had a jolly good time at table with forty odd people, but chiefly wuth an old general, who went to England when the affiancing took place there,* and is now just back from the Eussian coronation ; the Prince of Prus- sia ; t and one of the dames dJhonneur, of which I will give you an ac- count. After dinner we were in the salon about an hour, and the King talked with me more than half the time ; was truly agreeable, and sometimes scholar-like, urged me very much to stay to the files of the marriage next week, and took leave of me with a hearty shake * Of the Princess Royal, t The present Emperor. 332 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1856. of the hand, and a heartier, " God bless you ; come again to Sans SoucL" I said I hoped I might. " Mais malheureusement, nous n'aurons pas de manage." I came in with the Minister at War, old General Nostitz, — Bliicher's aide-de-camp, — and my general from the coronation, — name forgot- ten, — he amusing us with accounts of the ceremonies and ladies there. But I have neither room nor time to tell you details ; but I will add, that Humboldt's kindness was consistent to the last mo- ment, and in every possible way. When I came to town, being en grande tenue, I made a call on our Minister, — but did not tell him where I came from, — and then went to the Pertzes' I stayed till after eleven, and had a first-rate time ; came home and wrote till half past twelve. This morning I feel rested ; but I have a good deal of work to do to-day ; go at ten to see some rare Spanish books ; at one to Hum- boldt ; at five to Yarnhagen ; and fill the rest of the time with writ- ing about books. To-morrow I settle accounts, pay up, and send off everything to Leipzig ; and on Sunday, at six, expect to meet Ales- sandro [his courier] at the station. The Duke of Saxe-Cobourg, who has taken half the hotel for the fHes of the marriage, arrived last night, while I was at the Pertzes', and the consequence is that the entries are full of livery-servants, and the porte-cochere is garnished with a guard of honor. To Hon. E. Everett.* Berlin, September 20, 1856. .... Two evenings ago I was at Dr. Pertz's house, in a very brill- iant and intellectual party, where were the Milmans and Homers from London, Ranke, Meineke, — the Grecian, — Ehrenberg, Encke, Lepsius, and others of the same sort, when a nice white-headed, charm- ing old lady, with a very taking little Scotch accent, and who seemed much valued by all about her, spoke to me, and told me she was Miss Gibson, that pleasant, pretty little Scotch girl whom we knew at Dresden and Potsdam just forty years ago, and who tells me she has the handwriting of both of us in her album. I assure you I had a most pleasant talk with her. She is still Miss Gibson, living here much regarded, with a good fortune She is connected with the Sutherland family, by the beautiful Marchioness of Stafford, ♦ Parts of this letter have appeared in the preceding chapter. M. 65.] IMPROVEMENTS. 333 whom I could hardly keep my eyes off of, as she sat opposite to me one day at dinner, in London But if I begin to gossip about people, I shall be in for two or three sheets more. I will only, therefore, say a word about changes. They are enormous. Berlin is a city of 450,000 souls, eminently prosper- ous, and full of monuments and collections in the arts. Dresden has improved in equal proportions, and has now a magnificent gallery for its magnificent collection of pictures, a finer and grander building, and one better fitted to its purposes, than any similar one in Italy or elsewhere. You must come here again, indeed you must. Before I tried the experiment I would not have said so. In truth, I came most reluctantly. But I find the improvements in travelling so great, that what used to cause me constant weariness and vexation now causes me neither ; and, to my great surprise, I enjoy myself more — mainly in consequence of the ease and comfort with which I move about, and live — than I did in either of my other visits to Eu- rope I am very glad that Congress has adjourned, and I shall be still more glad when the Ides of November are past. Nobody has said an unkind or unpleasant word to me about our country since I have been in Europe ; but I feel, on all sides, that we stand in little favor or respect. Humboldt — whom I have seen every day, or had a note from him — is, I understand, very strong in his remarks sometimes, even to Americans. I cannot say that I am surj)rised. But I hope for the best, and always talk cheerfully. Mr. Fillmore left a most agreeable impression here. The King was delighted with him, and told me he would vote for him for President. I replied, that Bu- chanan would get the election, notwithstanding his Majesty's vote. " Well," he answered, " never mind, I am glad we are of the same party, and you may always count upon my vote, at any rate." We had been talking some time on American politics, and I had told him that I was of Fillmore's faction. En passant, let me say, that the King is one of the most agreeable men in conversation that I have ever talked w^th, and has that reputation here. But that is a very different thing from being a great or wise statesman. Dresden, September 21. — I returned to Dresden last night, and this morning, when turning over my papers, I fell upon a memoran- dum about a new ordinance for the Library, concerning which we talked last March, and I gave you a sketch or outline, trusting that it would be done this autumn. Now is the time. Please give your thought to it u 334 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1856. To William S. Dexter. Dresden, September 24, 1856. My dear Dexter, — Thank you for your letter from. Woods' Hole, dated August 24, just a montli to-day. It is a great comfort to those who are so far off, and leave interests behind greater than they ever left before, to have such cheerful accounts, and to have them so often and so regularly I need not tell you that we are all well. Nor need I tell you what we have been doing. You know more about it, from the time of our casting off from the wharf in East Boston, than I can now remember. But in general terms, I can say that we have had a much better time than I expected, and enjoyed much more than I thought we should. The travelling servants are much more accomplished, and better fitted to their business than they used to be When I was first in Europe, forty years ago, the species was hardly knowTi, and the few that served were almost entirely real couriers, who rode ahead to order horses, and were fit for little else. Twenty years ago they were better, but their number was not fairly equal to the demand, and they presumed a good deal upon their consequence. Now they offer themselves to you in crowds, and competition makes them active, efficient, and even honest. How much such a state of things alleviates the troubles of travelling I need not tell you ; but even this improvement is little, compared with the improvement in the hotels, and the hotel service, and the facilities and comforts offered by the railroads. The result in my own case is that, wholly contrary to my expectation, I enjoy travelling. Changes I find on all sides ; enormous, and sometimes startling. Many friends are gone, who used to be very important to us. Tieck, Tiedge, and Mad. de Liittichau among the first ; but more remain, I think, than could have been reasonably expected, after the lapse of so many years, and we find them very kind. Like true Germans, they take us up just where they left us. This I say, thinking of Dresden ; but at Berlin it was the same, and so it will be, I am sure, wherever we go in Germany, for the Germans are an eminently faithful people. We all feel a little sorry and troubled at leaving Dresden But the autumn is coming on, and we shall find milder skies and brighter days at the South. We set off, therefore, to-morrow for Vienna, hoping to be in Venice by the middle of October, and before Rome by December 1 JE:. 65.] MILAN. 335 Give my best love to dear Lizzie. I am deligiited to hear that she is so well. Let her keep gaining till I see her. Yours very affectionately, Geo. Ticknor. To Mrs. W. S. Dexter. MiLxs, October 26, 1856. Dearest Lizzie, — I thank your husband, through you, for a very kind and interesting letter that I received from him a few days ago, dated October 7. He writes to me always on important matters, which are rarely touched upon by my other friends, and never in a manner so satisfactory. I trust, therefore, that he will continue to tell me what he may be sure I should be glad to hear from anybody, and what I am particularly glad to learn from him "We have done emmently well in our journeyings from Vienna to this place, and seen a great deal that interested us. Most of it was new to me, and much of it very remarkable. The passage of the Semmering — the first day after leaving Vienna — is one of the grandest things that can be seen anywhere. It almost — perhaps quite — proves that a railroad can be built over the Alps ; and that people will go in four or five days to Rome from London, — a great matter for the Cockneys, who only care to be able to say they have been there, having little comprehension of what they see, and none at all of what they hear. The journey by Gratz on the south side of the mountains — which was the countei-part to the one we made by Ischl and the Lakes, on the north side twenty years ago — was very fine. From Adelsberg to Venice, by Lend, through Friuli, was all new, likewise ; and more than that, most of the way we travelled quite out of the reach of guide-books, and had a sense of discovery as we went along. It is a beautiful and very picturesque country, and we avoided, by passing through it, the passage in a steamboat from Trieste to Venice Since I wTote the two last pages I have been to high mass in the cathedral. The music was not much ; but there must have been five thousand people at least present, and the scene was very grand and solemn, more so, I think, than the similar one is at St. Peter's. We had a very plain, good sermon on forgiveness of enemies, which, per- haps, half the audience could hear. But one thing I would desire to note on this occasion, viz. that, as I witnessed to-day, and have often witnessed before, the habit of spitting — with which we are so much r 336 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1856. reproached in Yankeedom — is by no means an exclusively American habit. I find it common in Italy thus far. Well-dressed people all around me this forenoon, who paid for the chairs they occupied, spat on the marble floor of the church without ceremony. So did a man of science. Secretary of the Institute at Venice, who lived in a fine, • beautiful, neat palazzo, that was once Cardinal Bembo's In Germany they seemed a little more careful, but there was plenty of it there too But let us talk of more agreeable things. Anna has not, I think, kept you in ignorance of Count Frederic Thun, the present civil gov- ernor of the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom, or of his charming wife, or of the most agreeable dinner we had in his palazzo at Verona. When we left him, he told us he should soon be in Milan on business, and that very likely he should see us again. Last evening he came in at eight o'clock — just like an old friend in Park Street — and sat with us till bedtime. His English is excellent, and he talked with great frankness and power ; about European politics generally, the troubles in Germany in 1848 - 49, and the present state of Italy. I have seldom been more interested Eadetzky, at ninety, is full of fire, rising at four in the morning, and working, with faculties unbroken by age, until evening, when he goes early to bed. This year, for the first time, his physicians told hiin that he could not any longer mount on horseback. For a moment it distressed him very much, and he wept. Even afterwards it con- tinued to worry him, and he sent in his resignation, saying that he was no longer fit to command troops, at whose head he could no longer march. But the Emperor refused to accept his resignation, with words so kindly and gracious, that he consented to keep his place, and has had a little carriage constructed in which he can re- view the troops quite to his mind ; so that the Count says he is in better spirits, and oftener in the field, than for some years. That he is a most wonderful man for his age, there can be no doubt Count Thun is as energetic as he. And the power and resources of both are wanted here, for no position in the Empire is more important or more beset with difficulties than theirs. While your mother was at the Lake of Como I spent my days in the libraries here, and with three or four men of science and letters. But one evening I went to the theatre, attracted by the annunciation of a comedy of Goldoni, " La Sposa Sagace," — The Discreet Bride. .... The price of the best seat in the house was about twenty-seven cents, but the stage and all the accessories were very good, the acting M. 65.] AN ITALIAN THEATEE. 337 admirable, and the audience decent and well behaved. Few paid so dear as I did for a place, none more, and the great body of the audience — which about half filled the theatre — went in their work-day clothes, and seemed to consider it a very domestic way of spending the evening I noticed a man and his wife, who looked like modest shopkeepers, or, perhaps, respectable mechanics, who had a little son between them, so young, that, not being able to enjoy the play, he had been permitted to bring his cat to amuse him It was capital ; genuine, popular Venetian characters, set forth in the purest and simplest Italian verse, and, as I said before, all admirably performed. Get the play ; it will amuse you I should not wonder if you read a good many of the plays, and if you do, you may always remember that they are perfectly true to Vene- tian life and manners, and relished for that reason by all classes of society in the North of Italy Addio, carissinia. Off at eight to-morrow, for Firenze la bella. VOL. ir. 15 338 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1856. CHAPTEE XVII. Italy. — Winter in Rome. — Florence, Turin, Paris. — Letters to Mr. Prescottf Count Circourt, and Mr. Greenough. To William H. Prescott. Rome, November 24, 1856. Dear William, — .... We have had delicious journey ings, fine weather without interruption The consequence is that we have enjoyed ourselves very much. Indeed, I doubt whether a gayer party has crossed the Alps this year ; and now we have been four days settled at Rome, at the Hotel des lies Britannique We have had a little touch of cold weather, but the roses are still in full blow, and so are the cactuses, and other southern plants, in great numbers on the Pincio. We had a week of full moon at Venice, — including the eclipse, — and enjoyed our open gondola on the Grand Canal, which was filled with Bacarole choruses till after midnight nearly every night we were there, a thing to be had nowhere else in the world. At Verona I stopped a day, chiefly in order to see Count Frederic Thun, the civil "Viceroy" of Lombardy and Venice, as Padetzky is the mili- tary ; neither having the title, but all the power. .... In Milan I found friends old and new, and occupation enough for the five days we stopped there. And then such a journey as we had for seven days to Florence ; not a cloud in the sky, so to speak ; no wind, no heat, no cold, no dust ; the carriage always open, and breathing and living a pleasure in such an atmosphere. We paused at Piacenza, Pavia, Modena, and Bologna, so that the ladies could see everything they wanted to see, and drove clown into Florence on the 2d of November through hedge-rows of myrtle and roses. There we stopped thirteen days. I had a good deal to do for the Library, in establishing a permanent agency, and ordering the pur- chase of books. But I went to see the old things that most inter- ested me, in my three previous visits, and look forward to my fifth next spring, with added pleasure and interest. M. 65.] MARQUIS GINO CAPPONI. 339 Society is abundant there, and good. I called, soon after my arri- val, on Gino Capponi, and as he was not at home, left my card. The same evening he came to see ns ; totally blind, and led in by a friend and a servant ; and afterwards came in the same way and spent three more evenings. His infirmity seems to have taken away none of his courage or spirits. He talks with the same richness and power, philosophy and faith, that he did twenty years ago, and with the same vast knowledge of facts and details, which yet never over- lay or embarrass his wisdom. There are certainly few men like him. But the old, rich, powerful family, recorded by Dante, — and great before Dante's time, as well as ever since, — disappears with him, and all his vast fortune passes to another name And yet he bates no jot of heart or hope, and talks about the great interests of the world, and the state and prospects of Italy, as if they were his personal affairs, and as if his happiness, and that of his great race, were connected with them as they used to be. Of course he has no political influence, and desires none. In the troubles of 1848-49, when, not quite blind, he was for some months at the head of affairs, he did good service to the state by counsels of mod- eration ; and now, when everjiihing is changed, he preserves not only the respect of Tuscany, but of enlightened Italians everywhere ; and even the personal kindness of the Grand Duke, who spoke to me of him with great respect, while on his part he did full justice to the Grand Duke, and his motives. But his main attributes are those of a wise, learned philosopher. He ought to have lived in the days of the Stoa, or in the best days of the Roman Republic, and would have left his mark on either. The Baron von Reumout, Prussian Minister in Tuscany, who has been in Italy twenty years, — and whom Humboldt told me he considered eminently qualified to write a history of any part of the Peninsula, — said to me, " Once a week I spend an afternoon with the Marquis Capponi to take a lesson in Italian history. Nobody knows it as he does." I speak to you at large about Capponi, because you are more in- terested in him, I suppose, than you are in anybody else in Florence. He told me that the first hundred pages of your "Ferdinand and Isabella " were translated by Mariotti,* who used to live in Boston, and that they were better done than the rest I passed an evening yd\h. the Grand Duke, who, soon after we * Signer Antonio Gallenga, author of "Country Life in Piedmont," and works on the history and present state of Italy. Mariotti was a pseiidonjTne. 340 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1856. readied Florence, went off to the marriage of his eldest son with a very charming Saxon Princess. He is more changed than almost anybody I have yet seen. He stoops, and is very gray. But this can be easily accounted for. Before 1848 he thought himself a pop- ular prince, and believed he belonged to the true party of progress. The rude awakening that he had from that delusion has much changed and disheartened him. Otherwise he is the same, not quick in perception, but intelligent, painstaking, honest, and absolutely beyond the suspicion of reproach, in what regards his private life and personal character. I do not envy him his high position. It is a very false one. He was very eager in. his inquiries about the United States, and often acute in the questions he put to me On looking over your letter to see if there is anything to answer, I notice with pleasure what you say of Humboldt. He is, indeed, a man worth knowing, and even more so now, than he was when I was first acquainted with him in 1817-19. His kindliness increases with his years. Every day of the fortnight I was in Berlin he did something for me, and every day I either saw him or had a note from him. The minuteness of his care would have been remarkable in a young man. One day, when, at our own lodgings, we expressed a doubt about going to Potsdam, he urged us so strongly to go, and said so much about the changes since we were last there, that we told him we would take the next day for it. The same evening there came a long note entitled " Plan strategique pour Potsdam," containing the minutest directions about going and returning, with a list of every- thing we ought to see there.* On arriving, we found the librarian of the library of Frederic II. waiting to receive us, with a similar note of detailed directions in his hand, and pleased, from reverence for Humboldt, to show the whole, exactly in the order he had ap- pointed, and then see us to the cars to go back. Once, as we were going along a walk where a cord had been stretched, to signify that the passage was forbidden, he removed it and told us to go through. I hesitated, and objected on account of the prohibition. " I should like," he replied, " to see anybody, in Potsdam or Berlin, who will stop me when I have these crooked lines that everybody knows" — taking out Humboldt's note — "telling me to go on." Just so it was when I dined with the King, in consequence of a letter to him from the King of Saxony. It was a large dinner in honor of the arrival of the Duke of Baden, who was married three * He took the same pains to enable Mr. Ticknor to see to advantage his brother, William von Humboldt's, place at Tegel. M. 65.] ROME. 341 days afterwards to the beautiful and only niece of the King. Hum- boldt, as you know, dines with the King every day, and sits in the stranger's place of honor, opposite to hun at a narrow table. He had me introduced by the proper person to all the family, and introduced me, himself, to everybody else that I could possibly desire to know, and more than I can now remember ; intimated — I have no doubt — to the King that he would like to have him talk to me, — for he did it, a long time after dinner, — and placed me at table opposite to the bride, as he said, that I might see how handsome she was, and near himself, who, like many men of extreme age, eats very largely, yet still talked all the time, as if he were doing nothing else. He had the great collections in the arts opened to us in the most thorough manner ; met us at Ranch's studio, at the time when he knew Ranch had invited us to be there,"* and so on, and so on, seeming to care for us constantly. I do not believe there is another man in Eui'ope who would have taken such trouble for a person of so httle consequence, and from whom he could expect only gratitude. November 27. — We have been here a week, and I have seen a good many of the old places and monuments. They all seem natural ; some fresh, as if I had seen them yesterday, particularly St. Peter's and the Pantheon. Yesterday afternoon, the weather being very fine, we went to the top of the Capitol and looked at the grand panorama, the septem dominos monies^ the old Alban Hills, the Sabine, the re- mote snow-capped Apennines, and then the whole modem city, crowded at our feet. It was such a sight as can never be seen too often, and I was glad to find that I knew nearly everything by heart. I think I shall enjoy Rome very much, because I shall go to see only the things I Avant to. Having seen everything twice before with care, I regard myself as emeritus If at any time you want to know what we are doing, you have only to stop and see Lizzie a moment. She always has the last news, and will be only too happy to tell them, or read them, in exchange for the great pleasure a little visit from you will give her I am very glad to hear that your Robertson, expurgatus et emenda- tus, is so near the confines of day. I only wish it were all your work instead of a part ; for respectable as the old, philosophical Edinburgh clergyman was, he can never be made fit to fill the gap between "Ferdinand and Isabella" and "Philip II." .... Ma basta. Yours always, Geo. Ticknor. * Taking with him the lately arrived folio of the "United States Expedition to Japan," which he had just learned that Mr. Ticknor had not yet seen. I 342 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. To William H. Prescott. Rome, January 25, 1857. Dear William, — I have received your characteristic and agreeable letter of December 8, and received it in Eome, as you thought I should. It is a nice old place to get pleasant news in, and to live in, and to go about ; a little out of repair, to be sure, as the Cockney said, but not the worse for that. At least, such as it is, I observe that those who have been here once are more glad to come again than if they had never been, and that those who have lived here long are apt to hanker after it, and come at last to end their days among its ruins and recollections Nor am I much astonished at it. The society is not exactly like what society is in any other capital in the world ; but it is very attractive, and has gradually settled into forms well fitted to its condition and character. Mad. de Stael — "who was a good judge, and a dainty one, too, in such matters — is known to have liked it very much, and to have spoken of it in a way that some- times surprised her friends in Paris. In Corinne, — I think it is, at any rate it is somewhere, — speaking of Eome she says, "C'est le salon de I'Europe," and the phrase has its force. More or less distin- guished and intellectual persons come here every winter from the different countries of Europe, and as there is really but one society, they must either live isolated, or among their own countrymen, or meet in the common places of exchange for all, and carry on, in the conversational language of aU, an intercourse which never wants topics for agreeable conversation Society has grown more luxurious, more elaborate, and less gay. The ladies' dresses, by their size, really embarrass it somewhat, and Queen Christina,* vnth the ceremonies attending such a personage everywhere, embaiTasses it stiU more this year. Above all, it costs too much. Three balls, therefore, are as much as anybody gave last -wdnter, or will give this year. The rest is made up of tea and talk, ices and sideboard refreshments, which at Count Lutzow's and the Marquis Spinola's are very agreeable once a week, and pretty dull at the Koman Princesses of the race of Fabius Maximus. At all the other palazzos — and in sundry other places — a half-hour or an hour may be spent pleasantly, whenever the inmates are not out visiting, a fact politely intimated by shutting half of the porte-cochere. I go pretty often in this way, especially to the Borgheses',t where there is * Dowager-Queen of Spain. t One evening in conversation with the Dowager-Princess Borghese, the fact M. 65.] SOCIETY IN ROME. 343 of course much of a French tone, and where, amidst all the luxury of Paris, and in grand old tapestried halls, such as Paris caimot show, you find the most simple and unpretending ways ; the children and their playthings, in the third and fourth generation, mixed up with a stray cardinal or two, or a couple of foreign ambassadors and their wives, as I witnessed the last time I was there Of the French, except the personnel of the Embassy, .... I know hardly anybody that I care to see often But we are promised Ampere, who comes to Rome as often as he can, and generally writes something good about it afterwards. Indeed, in consequence of his visit last year, he has lately published some remarks about the period of decay in the Roman Empire, which, by an intended ricochet, hits the present Emperor so hard that, as his Ambassador said to me the other night, speaking of Ampere, " on I'a terriblement gronde," mean- ing that the imperial newspapers had come down very hard upon him. But he will be well received at the Embassy here notwithstanding, he is so agreeable.* You must recollect him in Boston, full of esprit, and with vast stores of knowledge, partly inherited as it were from his remarkable father, but chiefly acquired by hard work and very extensive travels. He is a member of two classes of the Institute, and one of the few very popular men of letters now in Paris. The Germans are better ofi", as they always are in Rome, where they have loved to come ever since their first irruption, fourteen centuries and more ago. The ablest man I meet is, I suppose. Count Colloredo, the Austrian Ambassador, Living in great state and luxury in the vast old Palazzo di Venezia. He is a spare man, looking much like a Yankee, quick and eager in all his motions, yet unmistakably a grand- seigneur, both by the dignity and by the attentive politeness of his manners. We knew him very well twenty years ago, just beginning his career as Austrian Minister at Dresden with auguries of great suc- was noticed that in his three visits to Europe, Mr. Ticknor had met members of five generations of the family of the Princess, who was n^e la Ptochefoucauld. An appointment was immediately made for his seeing her infant great-grandson, who represented the sixth generation, and Prince Borghese laughingly bade him come back in another twenty years and see the next. The frequency of this kind of incident became amusing to Mr. Ticknor's party, so that once, on seeing him introduced to an Italian lady and presently use a gesture as of measuring a small height from the ground, one exclaimed, " Of course, he is telling her he saw her when she was a little child," which proved to be the fact. * In the margin of this letter Mr. Ticknor wrote ; " Feb. 15. Ampere has been here a fortnight, and is extremely agreeable. The first place in which I met him, the day of his arrival, was that Embassy. But he goes everywhere." 344 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. cess, which have been fully justified ; for he satisfied his government during five years of trouble and anxiety in England, including the Russian war, and has been sent here now, — much to his own satis- faction, — on account of the preponderating influence of France. His wife — whom we also knew in Dresden, though he was not then mar- ried to her — is a Polish lady, very rich, and by her talent fit to do half the work of his Embassy, any day. Both are very agreeable, courtly people, who have the fame of giving the best dinners that are given in Italy. I have been at one which was given to Count Goyon, the French Commander, on his first arrival here. It was quite beyond any scale I have for measuring such things, but it struck me as more simple in its arrangements and compounds than I expected On our arrival we foimd, in the hotel where we live, Baron Schack, who wrote the remarkable book you know of on the Spanish Drama, and who has an extraordinary knowledge of Spanish literature, and of everything Spanish, having lived in Spain two or three years, and worked there like a dog.* I have had great comfort in him, the more, because, being in very bad health and hardly able to go out at all, he has been glad to have me sit with him, whenever I could find half an hour for it. He is a man of good fortune, but as simple- hearted and unsophisticated a mere German scholar as I have ever known, reading nearly all languages worth it, and talking several, especially English, very well Gregorovius, too, is here, whose remarkable book on Corsica was not only translated into English, but had the honor of a separate translation in the United States. He has been employed the last four years on a history of Rome for the eleven centuries and more that elapsed between its first occupation by the barbarians and its capture by the Constable Bourbon ; a well-limited period, taking in what may most fairly be called the Middle Ages. He assigns six years more to his most difficult task, living here meanwhile in straightened circum- stances, but with a very bright, cheerful nature, that seems to gild his dark hours as they move on I said at the beginning of my let- ter that Rome is a good place to live in permanently Three or four hours every day are spent in going about, often to drive in deli- cious weather — the roses are in blow, and the camellias just coming out — over the Campagna in an open carriage, with grand ranges of aqueducts on each side, and before us the Alban and Sabine hills. .... More often we go to see what von saw in vour time and I in mine, but to which I am surprised to find additions of interest much beyond what I expected. * See ante, p. 250. M. 65.] CHANGES IN ROME. 345 Some of us lately saw the remains of tlie "Wall of Servius Tullius, recently dug out, just where Dionysius Halicamassus said it would he found, if they would remove the houses standing over it in his time. A few days ago we took a learned young German, who has been two years here looking up antiquities in the pay of the Prussian govern- ment, and went with him over the Forum and the adjacent localities. A great deal has been excavated, and much is now certain and settled that was in fierce contest when I went over the same ground with Bunsen twenty years ago Going outside of the city there are two marvellous things to see that were not to be seen in our time. One is the Appian Way, — regina viarum, — which has been opened quite out to Albano, and its tombs uncovered farther than we have yet driven The other is the Catacombs, where a great deal of work has lately been done, and very extraordinary remains of the early Christians and their art discov- ered. We passed two hours in one the other day under the leading and lecturing of de Eossi, a learned and enthusiastic man, who has made many of the excavations and will publish a book about them. Whewell was of the party, and we were all greatly surprised at what we saw As I am in the category of changes in Rome, I will give you an- other class of them, — I mean those that relate to ecclesiastical affairs and manners. The manners of the higher clergy, and probably of all classes of the clergy, are become more staid ; perhaps their characters are improved, for I hear fewer stories to their discredit. The first time I was invited to the Borgheses' in 1838, was on a Sunday even- ing, and the first thing I saw when I entered was seven Cardinals, four at one table, three at another, with their red skull-caps and ipiecls de perdrix, playing at cards. Similar exhibitions I witnessed all the season through, there and elsewhere. But this year I have not seen a single Cardinal at a card-table. The Pope is known to disapprove it, and that is enough Indeed, though ecclesiastics of all the higher ranks go into fashionable society still, and even to balls, their numbers are smaller, and they go early and leave soon. The Pope's favor can hardly be had else ; for however much the people generally may dislike him, — or rather his ministers, — those near his person are sincerely attached to him, and all admit him to be a man of irre- proachable character, and to be stri\dng above everything else, by his own strict observances and by corresponding requirements of others, to advance the Catholic religion. We have every way an agreeable time here ; generally a merry one. 15* 346 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. Pleasant occupations are abundant, and pleasant people to be found everywhere in the salons and at the dinner-tables. Anna the elder, having once gone thoroughly through all the phases and fashions of Roman society, has declined it this time Anna the younger, passing every forenoon in an atelier at landscape-painting, and the rest of the day in sight-seeing, began the season with the same pur- pose of abstinence ; but, since the Carnival came in, she has thawed out a little, and been to sundry balls and parties, which have amused her a good deal. I have worked a good deal, more than I expected to, and have found more than I anticipated in the Libraries, which seem to expand as I advance February 17. — . . . . We are in the midst of the Carnival, with mild, delicious, clear weather, that makes everything gay, carries everybody into the Corso in open caleches, and fills the Villa Bor- ghese with blue violets, and the Villa Pamphili with roses and camel- lias. We have a balcony in the Corso, and grow as crazy as the crowd below us. Ristori is acting, and we have a box at the theatre. The upper society is as active as the lower, mingling with it on even terms all the afternoons, and setting up for itself with dinners and balls in the evenings It is all very strange, often a mad scene. I think I never saw so much of it before, or was so much with the people that carry it on. Certainly I never watched it so carefully, or knew so much about it, as I do now.* .... I will fill up my little space with an account of a dinner yesterday, unlike any I have seen here.t It was at the Due de Rignano's, a statesman who was in poor Rossi's excellent cabinet, and one of the . ablest and most respectable men in Rome. He lives with great luxury in his palace on the declivity of the Capitol, and had at his table yes- terday the President of the French Academy here, a professor from the Sapienza, de la Rive, Ampere, Visconti, Pentland, — who wrote the Murray on Rome, and is more than half an Italian, — the Due de Sermoneta, :t^ — who is accounted the pleasantest man in society here, * In 1837 the amusements of the Carnival were prohibited from fear of cholera. In 1818 they were free from the noisy and boisterous manners of for- eigners, and Mr. Ticknor remarked on the difference, saying that then, instead of the present indiscriminate pelting with cruel plaster confetti, nothing but bouquets and bonbons were thrown, and those only as signs of recognition de- spite the mask and disguise. t Mr. Ticknor dined also during the winter at the French and Sardinian Em- bassies', and at Prince Borghese's, as well as at other tables, both Roman and foreign. t Marchese Gaetano of the earlier visit. See ante, p. 70. ^.65.] LETTER TO COUNT CIRCOURT. 347 and who has a great deal of literary cultivation, — with two or three members of the familj^, including the Duchess, who was the only lady at table. The service was silver, as in most great Roman houses, and the dinner recherche, after the Paris fashion. But it was really a dinner for talk, and in this particular was very brilliant. The curious circumstance about it, however, was, that at the end of the regular two hours, we went into the salon for coffee, and there continued the conversation on French politics, Italian literature, etc., near two hours more, with cigars, to the full content of the Duchess, — a Piombino, — who enjoyed it very much, talk, cigars, and all. Ampere, de la Rive, and Sermoneta — especially the first and the last — were admirable. I have not been present at so agreeable and brilliant a dinner in Europe. Don't you think the Italians are im- proving ? On looking over your letter, as is my fashion when I am closing an answer, I find two things that surprise me. Who told you that I " outwatch the bear," and that I " keep a diary " ? Both are mis- takes. I have led a more regular life as to bedtimes for the last eight months than I do at home ; and as for journal, I do not even write many letters, though when I do, as you see, they are apt to be long ones. However, there is an end to everything human. "When we leave Rome, we shall have so much travelling to do, that I think letters on my part will be rarer than ever But my paper is full. Are you not glad 1 Love to Susan, and a great deal of it, and to Elizabeth.* We think and talk a great deal of you, and long to see you. Always yours, G. T. To Count Adolphe de Circourt. Naples, March 27, 1857. My dear Count Circourt, — I received in Rome your very kind letter, enclosing one for Count Goyon, and your little note introdu- cing Mrs. GaskeU and her two daughters We enjoyed very much our acquaintance with the de la Rives, — excellent people, full of intelligence, and the most kindly natures. We were a good deal together, and parted from them wdth no little regret With Visconti, who is in all societies, as he always has been, we went to the excavations he is superintending at Ostia, and to the Lateran Museum, which he is arranging, and found him full of knowledge, inherited and acquired * Mrs. James Lawrence, daughter of Mr. Prescott. / 348 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. Let me add that I visited tlie Duchess de Blacas, and was much touched with her situation and appearance, — a charming person, the resources of whose character seem to be brought out by the great calamity of her husband's ilbiess. Pray offer my homage to the Duchess de Rauzan, and tell her how much I was gratified by my little visit to her daughter, and how sincerely I sympathized with the misfortune that brought her to Rome The most spirituel of the persons I knew was the Due de Sermo- neta, who would be distinguished anywhere for his taste, knowledge, acuteness, and wit. But others were not wanting. Cardinal Antonelli, whom I visited at the Vatican, and who was to be foimd in all societies, struck me as an accomplished person, with winning manners, but with much more the air of the world than that of the church. He w^as always agreeable to me, and I think agreeable to nearly everybody in common intercourse He is the whole government. The Pope occupies himself very sincerely and earnestly with the spiritual condition of the church. Cardinal Antonelli does all the rest It is difficult, however, to see how the Roman government can get on at all, without a man of vigor and ability, like Cardinal Antonelli, at its head. Its finances are much embarrassed, and yet no jot of its outlay can be spared, for its employes are often unpaid, and its inevi- table expenses are increasing, though the fact is, as much as possible, covered up and concealed. The French troops are a grievous burden and dishonor, but no reasonable person would ask to have them taken away, so important are they to the maintenance of order. The whole government, therefore, is carried on in the boldest, firmest manner, as if everything were safe, sure, and easy, and nothing else, it seems to me, could permit it to be carried on at all. The question is, how long such a state of things can last. Under ordinary circumstances, it could hardly have lasted as long as it has already. But so much, of Europe is in a similar condition, — if not in one so bad, — there is such a general moral decay, demanding everywhere military repression and great vigor, that the common fate seems to be a common bond, holding all together, lest the whole should break up in one and the same convulsion. For what is the condition of Spain, or even Aus- tria, — both really bankrupt and dishonored, — and how stands your own France, with its vast resources and yet unspent energies, leaning on the most extravagant financial projects that have been imagined since the days of Law ] Indeed, it seems to me that the financial question is the great question next to be solved, and that its solution M. 65.] PROSPECTS IN THE UNITED STATES. 349 ^vill shake Europe more than is now anticipated. There is no gov- ernment that is not running in debt every year, merely to maintain social order, and to this inevitable course there can be but one inevi- table termination. Credit must still be pushed, but must at last fail, and then revolution of some sort seems inevitable ; but I cannot im- agine that anything beneficent should come in its train. But you would rather I should talk to you about the Uuited States than about Europe, which you understand so much better than I do. Indeed, I should hardly have spoken even about Rome, if you had not desired it, and when I turn to America I cannot speak with the details and confidence I should if I were at home. But I am, per- haps, more cool than I should be if I were in the midst of the domes- tic discussion, though certainly I have less connaissance de causes. I do not, indeed, see far ahead. Mr. Buchanan has made his Cabinet, and it is as good and conser- vative a cabinet as could have been expected from his position The country, too, is quiet, and the new government will begin with- out a fierce or indiscriminate opposition to its measures. But there are bad elements at work under the surface. At the South a large body of the slaveholders are desperate, and openly avow a determina- tion to break up the Union At the North everything is as tranquil at this moment as it is at the South, or even more so. But not a few persons in New England, besides the open Abolitionists, are in favor of breaking up the Union, .... but none except the Abo- litionists honestly avowing their purposes. That the South will be indiscreet enough, pushed on by its fanat- ics, to give ground, either sufficient or insufficient, to these ambitious men of the North to make a permanent Northern party, is a question that will soon be settled. I think it likely they will, and that we shall have a sectional excitement "within two years fiercer than the one that preceded the late Presidential election That any de- gree of wisdom and integrity can make Mr. Buchanan's administra- tion of the country other than dangerous to our peace, both domestic and foreign, I do not believe. To W. H. Prescott. Florence, May 8, 1857. My dear "William, — I have to thank you for two most agreeable mementos of kindness ; one a letter without date, written, I think, in March, the other a note dated April 4, touching my new honors as 350 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. a grandpapa. They were both, most welcome. The only thing I do not like in what I hear about you, or what you tell me of yourseK, is your recent persecution by headaches. Pray be careful. They were diminishing, I am glad to know, at the last dates. But the brain is an important part of many people, — by no means of all, though all may be under the delusion that it is, — and to nobody is it of more importance than to such as you Besides, I cannot afford to have anything untoward happen to you ; it interferes too much with my selfishness and my private well-being. I have attended to your little commissions with great pleasure, and shall have equal pleasure in attending to any others you may give me. I am not only in such cases working for a friend, but for my- self and for a multitude of outside barbarians We left Eome about the middle of March, after having passed a pleasanter winter there than any I have ever passed in Europe A fortnight in Naples was much less satisfactory. The city itself is anything but agreeable ; but the excursions are charming, and the Museo Borbonico, containing in numberless rooms the spoils of Her- culaneum and Pompeii, could be agreeably visited daily for almost any length of time, going occasionally to see the spots from which its treasures came. Another fortnight divided between Sorrento and drives to AmaLfi, Salerno, Paestum, etc., was delicious ; especially eight quiet days spent in the full burst of spring at Sorrento, with the most beautiful bay in the world before our windows, Vesuvius in front, and the Mediterranean washing the foundations of the terrace on which our parlor opened. The mornings that we passed in the orange groves there, where the trees were in luxuriant fruit, and the afternoons we gave to going on donkeys over the precipitous hills, and once to boat- ing on the still waters, we shall never forget. Those gardens, Hes- perian fables true, — if true, there only, — where the ladies sketched, and ate the delicious fruit as it fell from the trees, — left nothing to desire. Next after Kome, we have undoubtedly regretted Sorrento. But enough of this. Thank Susan for all her kindness to Lizzie, of which Lizzie has written often, and thank her for the kind thoughts she sends us about one so dear to us, and which we value from her as we should from few. You see I write in haste, by my manuscript. I have no more such leisure as I had in Rome, dear old Rome ; but such as I have, leisure and everything else, I give unto you. G. T. M. 65.] NAPLES TO TURIN. 351 To William W. Greenough, Boston. TuEiN, May 22, 1857. My dear Greenough, — I am indebted to you for two most agree- able letters, and I do not suppose I shall ever pay you. But bonesty requires me to confess what I owe, and give you such a poor dividend as I can out of my insolvency. Let me add to this unhappy confes- sion, that I hope you will let me hear from you again, and that you will tell me more about the Library ; concerning which I know a good deal less than I want to, nobody having intimated to me what sort of a building our structure in Boylston Street turns out to be, ugly or good looking, suited to its purpose or inconvenient ; or whether the books that have arrived are well bound, and, from their contents and character, of the classes that it is desirable should early be put on our shelves, so as to satisfy the public wants and make a satisfactory impression and appearance I need not tell you that we passed a pleasant winter in Eome. It was the pleasantest of the eight I have spent in Europe. I took things very easy, went where I liked, and stayed at home when I had a mind to, and never overworked myself with sight-seeing. The cli- mate, indeed, I found debilitating, — as do nearly all strangers, — and I felt a good deal fatigued when I left the city ; but I enjoyed, perhaps in consequence of this, eight days of delicious rest at Sor- rento soon afterwards, more than I ever enjoyed any days of mere repose in my life. But then I was never in such a delicious place before, with such luxurious quarters, to add to its peculiar agreTnents. Our drives about all that part of the kingdom, too, not merely those in the immediate neighborhood of Naples, but those to Salerno and Amalfi, and once a little boating, left nothing to desire, taken as they were in the rich and beautiful spring season ; the orange groves, where we lounged away sundry forenoons, in full fruit, and the hills, that we climbed on donkeys, covered with vines bursting forth in all their early luxuriance. Since that time — we arrived in Naples March 20, and left it April 18 — we have spent a few days in Kome, — from which we turned our faces with great regret, — and a fortnight in Florence, where I did a good deal of work for the Library, and then came on to Genoa by Pisa, Spezia, and the picturesque Comiche road ; and from Genoa by the magnificent government railroad, passing through a tunnel almost exactly two miles long, lined and arched with brick from one end to the other. We arrived here day before yesterday, ^^ 352 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. and already I notice how mucli the city is altered, enlarged, and im- proved since I last saw it. Everything, indeed, that I have seen of the kingdom from Spezia hither is full of a vitality and busy energy which were not to be seen twenty years ago, and which are not to be found elsewhere in Italy now. I have been here less than two days, and of course have seen very few people ; but everything I have seen in society has been as strongly marked with the changes and revolutions of the period since I was last here, as the city and its streets. The first evening — having ar- rived at noon — I went to see the Marquis Arconati and his very remarkable wife. When I knew them in 1835-38 at their castle near Brussels, in Heidelberg, and in Paris, they were living on the income of their great estates in Belgium Now all his estates have been restored to him, and he has, since 1849, left the domin- ions of Austria and established himself here, where he enjoys, amidst great splendor, the consideration and influence which his personal character and his high position naturally give him. Several deputies were in his salon, .... and one or two men of letters, attracted there chiefly, I think, by Mad. Arconati, who is everywhere regarded as one of the most intellectual women of her time, but one whose re- markable powers are rendered graceful and charming by a gentleness and modesty rarely found even in those who have only a tithe of her resources Yesterday I had another phasis of the changes of the times. I dined with Count Cavour, the most distinguished of all Italian states- men at this moment, and the man who, since 1852, has been doing so much to infuse new life into Sardinia. I was surprised to find him so young, only forty-seven, and not looking above forty ; a round, pleasant-faced gentleman, who, to judge from his countenance and manner, has not a care in the world. His conversation is such as you might expect from his appearance, lively and agreeable ; his views of everything on which he talked strikingly broad, but not, I think, always very exactly defined ; and his general air natural but not im- pressive. His eye is very quick ; it reminded me of Lord Mel- bourne's, which was the most vigilant I ever saw. Nothing seemed to escape the Italian Premier, and I think he not only saw but heard more than anybody else in the room. Indeed, though there was a good wide table between us, I am satisfied that he heard what my next neighbor, the Minister of the Interior, said to me, notwithstand- ing his tones were so low that I was obliged to be attentive to catch his words. I was introduced to a good many persons, whose names I M. 65.] CAVOUR AND BALBO. 353 do not remember, and some that I do, all, however, announced as re- markable for something. One that I noticed particularly was Cibra- rio, formerly Minister of Foreign Affairs ; another was the principal secretary, on whom Cavour depends for work he cannot do himself. .... But as I was told, it was a dinner of intellectual men, such as Count Cavour likes to give, and therefore such as marks a great change in the tastes and character of those who govern the affairs of the kingdom. - In the evening I went to a palazzo from which power has de- parted, — that, I mean, of the Balbos, — in order to pay my due re- spects to the Tvddow of Count Cesare, who was among my friends in both my other visits to Europe, and at one time filled the place now filled by Cavour. But the rich old halls, in which I once had a most gay and luxurious dinner, looked very grave and sad. Everything was respectable, but the change was very great. All five of his sons were in one of the national battles, where their father stood by the side of the King, and afterwards often said it was the proudest hour of his life. One son was afterwards killed in the battle of Novara. They were all e\adently pleased to have a friend of their father, of whom they knew something, come to see them for his sake, and I was glad of it I have been this morning to see a good statue of him, erected in the public promenade ; but his works, historical and politi- cal, often reprinted, are his best monument. We shall stay here two or three days more, and then go to Paris, where I hope to arrive about June 1st, and where, or in London, I shall hope to hear from you Yours always, Geo. Ticknor. Mr. Ticknor passed the month of June in Paris, and, although it was the season when French society was scattered, he saw many of his old friends. He also did a great deal of work for the Library in those thixty days. There are, however, no letters from him describing the pleas- ures which really marked this visit, because at the end of the first fortnight a great alarm was brought in the letters from home, which contained news of the sudden and dangerous illness of Mrs. Dexter. For a day or two the anxiety was distressing, and nothing could be thought of but rapid preparations for returning to America. Better accounts soon followed, but the pleasant w 354 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. days were almost put out of mind, and no history of them was written out. One short letter to Mr. Prescott is dated after the ill news came. Paris, Thursday Morning, June 18, 1857. Dear William, — I thank you, I thank you, I thank you a thou- sand times for your thoughtful kindness in sending me your letter ahout my darling child, and getting Dr. Storer's note for me. The news was dreadfully unexpected, and it needed all the affection of our friends to soften it to us Your tender words were most welcome to us, and your kindness to dear Lizzie what we shall never forget. You and Susan have heen friends indeed, as you always are ; God hless you for it. The two Annas and H. G. embark from Havre in the Arago on the 30th. It is the earliest chance I must go to England in- stantly after I have seen them off, to finish my business there, — of which there is more than I now like to undertake, and more than I have courage to do. But it is the finale, and a good deal depends upon it, and I shall do it. I refer to the Library But I have no time to write more, nor could I write upon any other subject than the one that fills this poor note, for I have nothing else in my thoughts, though I am busy with things and people all day long. Your letter came evening before last (Tuesday). I have read it a dozen times, and thanked you for it many more times than I have read it. Farewell Yours always, Geo. Ticknor. When the party first reached Paris the Due de Broglie was still in town, and also Madame de Stael, whom Mr. Ticknor had never seen, but who received him warmly, and in whom he took a great interest, as the widow of Auguste de Stael,t with whom he had been so intimate during his first youthful visit in France. These friends, with their delightful coterie, — Doudan, Villemain, Madame de Ste. Aulaire, M. and Mad. d'Haussonville, and others of the Due de Broglie's family, — renewed the old associations, and there were pleasant dinners in the Faubourg St. Germain, * Of Madame de Stael, nee Vemet, Baron Bunsen says in a letter, printed in his Memoirs : " The combined impression made "by her manner, countenance, and conversation, prepares one to believe, and even to guess, at all the great and good qualities attributed to her." ^. 65.] PARIS. 355 and a breakfast at Mr. Ticknor's hotel. Puibusque, Ternaux- Compans, Migiiet, came to find their former friend, and de Tocqueville came repeatedly, during a few days he was in town, and dined once with Mr. Ticknor. Ten days after his arrival in Paris the Count and Countess de Circourt returned, from a jour- ney, to their pretty country-place at La Celle St. Cloud, and there Madame de Circourt, who was then a suffering invalid, received the Ticknors at a charming breakfast alfresco, on a lovely sum- mer day. Count Circourt was constantly a delightful compan- ion in town, breakfasting and dining in the Place Yendome, dropping in for interesting talk, and showing hearty sympathy when the bad news came from America. M. Guizot invited Mr. Ticknor to Yal Eicher, where he went and had two most agreeable days ; and he afterwards went for a day or two to Gurcy, the country-place of M. d'Haussonville, where he once more saw the Due de Broglie. In a letter to Count Circourt, written a few years later, after the death of Mad. de Circourt, and immediately on receiving news of the death of the Duchesse de Eauzan, Mr. Ticknor sketches his experience in his four visits to Paris : — As you say truly, the traditions, even, of that old society which once made Paris so charming are abeady among the things of the past. Its last rehcs lie buried with Madame de Circourt and Madame de Eauzan. What I saw of it was in 1817, in the salon of the dying Madame de Stael, in that of Madame de Chateaubriand and Madame Constant ; then, in 1818 and 1819, in the more brilhant salons of the Duchesse de Duras and the Duchesse de Broglie, and of the Comtesse de Ste. Aulaire, not forgetting the Saturday evenings at the palace, where the Duchesse de Duras received, with inimitable graciousness and dignity, on behalf of the King, as wife of the first Gentleman of the Bedchamber; and finally in the winter of 1837-38, which we had the pleasure of passing in Paris, when the Duchesse de Broglie and Madame de Eauzan shared with Madame de Circourt the inheri- tance they had received from their mothers, and Guizot and Thiers and Mole had salons with very little of the old feminine grace and gentleness in them. But this was the last that I saw of what remained from the old French salons. "When we were in Paris in 1857, the Duchesse de 356 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. Rauzan was there with her charming daughter, the Duchesse de Blacas ; but it was the summer season, Madame de Circourt was ill, and, though at the Due de Broglie's and at Thiers' and at Mad. d'Haus- sonville's — both in town and at Gurcy — I met most agreeable people, yet it was plain that all was changed. It was another atmos- phere. Old times were forgotten ; the old manners gone. And what is to come in their place ? Paris is externally the most mag- nificent capital in Europe, and is becommg daily more brilliant and attractive. But where are the old salons, — their grace, their charm- ing and peculiar wit, their conversation that impressed its character upon the language itself, and made it, in many respects, what it is ? Four weeks passed away in this, Mr. Ticknor's last visit to Paris, and on the 29th of June the whole party travelled to Havre, and all went on board the American steamer Arago, which was to touch at Southampton on its way to l!^ew York. The last letters from home had brought good accounts of Mrs. Dexter's recovery, and a package received at Southampton con- firmed these good reports. Mr. Ticknor parted there from his wife and daughter, and when they sailed for America he went to London to complete the work he had undertaken. He was there the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Twisleton, who were at home in their pretty house at Eutland Gate, and his time was filled, as in the previous year, with a perpetual contrast of really arduous and earnest work with the excitement of a most stimu- lating intellectual society in every form. All this is described in his daily lettej^s to Mrs. Ticknor. M. 65.] LONDON. 357 CHAPTEE XYIII. London. — Letters to Mrs. Ticknor. — Harrow. — British Museum Read- ing-Room. — Anecdote of Scott. — W. R. Greg. — Tocqueville. — Ma- caulay. — Wilson. — Spanish Studies. — Letter to Mr. Prescott. — Due d'Aumale. To Mrs. Ticknor. London, July 3, 1857. Dearest Wife, — I am here safe in gentle EUen's* kind care. I wish I could add that I am easy in my thoughts I want to know every hour how you are. I want to seem to do something for you I wish heartily, half the time, that I had never left the Arago, and sometimes think that the storm in which I escaped over the side of that vessel was a sort of warning to me not to leave it. But there is no use in all this ; rather harm Wet did not reach Southampton till the five-o'clock train had been gone ten min- utes. So we made ourselves comfortable, with a mutton-chop and a cup of tea, at an excellent inn there, and at fifteen minutes past seven took the next train, reached London at ten, and Rutland Gate at half past. Ellen and the Lyells had waited for me till half past nine, and then giving up all hope of me, they went to their respective parties. .... At midnight, giving them up in my turn, I went to bed. The first thing yesterday morning I had a note from Ellen, saying that if I intended to accept an invitation — which with others was on the table waiting for me — to go to " the Speeches," or annual exhibition at Harrow, I must be at breakfast before ten. So I was down in sea- son, and she came immediately after, and received me most sweetly and aff"ectionately ; Twisleton followed, with hearty kindness. We breakfasted, and set off for Harrow at once After the exercises came lunch, of course, partly in the house of the Principal, Dr. Vaughan, — soon to be a bishop, they say, — and partly under a tent, * Mrs. Twisleton. t Miss Cushman and Miss Stebbins were Ms companions on this journey to London, 358 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. in beautiful open grounds, the ladies often sitting on the grass, and looking as gay as the flower-beds around them. A good many ac- quaintances were there, — the Milmans, who asked most kindly for you and Lizzie, the Godleys, etc., etc., besides lots of new acquaintances, the best of whom were Dean Trench and the Adderleys. With these last we drove into town, and I got out as nearly as I could to Harley Street, took a cab, and hurried to the Lyells'. Dear Lady Lyell was dressing to go out. but came down at once, and was as kind and good as ever. So was Sir Charles. But I did not stop long. It was din- ner-time for both We had nobody at dinner except Professor Brodie, from Oxford, son of Sir Benjamin Brodie, and a good pleasant talker. But after ten I was very sleepy, and Ellen having disappeared, I went to bed. .... This morning, however, I find I made a mistake in hurrying off so. Ellen had only gone up stairs to dress in Spanish costume for a fancy ball, and intended to show herself to me before she went. It was a pity I missed it I dine to-day with the Lyells, — who still have the Pertz family with them, — and in the evening go to the Homers' I am just setting out for Bates's and the British Museum, so as to begin work first of all. How much there wtII be of it, or what else I shall do, I cannot yet foresee. But you wiU know just as fast as I can learn it myself. .... I am sorry to write in so bad a hand this morning, but I should not have had time to say half I have done, if I had written carefully and plain. And even now I have not said what I most want to say, and that is, to send my best love and many kisses to darling Lizzie, of whom it seems to me I think more and more, now I think of you both more together. Love to Dexter, of course. London, July 4, 1857. When I am alone there seems no way of preventing myself from being assailed by anxious thoughts about you and our home, except by writing to you of all I see and do here ; a proceeding which neces- sarily turns my mind upon what is nearest to me. And so I wrote to you all my leisure yesterday, and so I suppose I shall write to you all my leisure to-day. I left off my hurried despatch just as I was going out .... I drove first to Mr. Bates's. " He is not in town," was the answer of the bowing porter. I was a little disappointed not to begin my business at once ; but it is of no great consequence Failing in this I made half a dozen visits. First I went to Lord Fitzwilliam's. He was at home, so were Lady Charlotte and George. M. 65.] BRITISH MUSEUM. 359 .... They were all as kind as possible, and made all sorts of in- quiries about you ; Lady Charlotte really takes it to heart that she misses you again, and sent most affectionate messages to you I found nobody else at home, but Lord and Lady Stanhope They were very agreeable, and I stayed and gossiped a good while. .... Panizzi, at the British Museum, said that Lord Holland * had told him I was come, and therefore he felt sure he should see me soon. He carried me at once to the new reading-room, which you know has a magnificent dome, a few feet larger in diameter than that of St. Peter's. The effect of the whole is very fine ; the arrangements and details are admirable Ellen says it is the finest room she has ever been in. I am not sure but I must say the same ; even with the Pantheon fresh in my mind. Certainly I have never seen any room so completely adapted to its grand purpose of intellectual labor for a large number of persons. Indeed, I am much disposed — as I hear others are — to think that Panizzi has succeeded in making it what he boasted to me last year he would make it, namely, a more de- sirable place for literary work than any man in London can find in his own library, however ample and luxurious that library may be. For only think of having a dozen walking bibliographical indexes, — like Watts, Nichols, and the rest of them, — ready, each in his department, to tell you just what books you should ask for out of the million at your command, and then to turn and find an intelligent attendant — or even two or three — always ready to bring you whatever you may need Pamell's tale of Edwin and the Fairv Feast is nothing to it. I intend to have great comfort there, and do a good deal of work. "When I came home, between four and five, I went in to see Lady Theresa, and found her in the midst of a fashionable mating musi- cale She is as winning in her manners as ever, and as attrac- tive. She told me to give her love to you and tell you how much she felt for your anxiety She would have had me stay and talk with her when the music should be over, but I excused myself, and told her I would come another time soon. I dined with the Lyells ; nobody at table but solid, good Dr. Pertz and Mrs. Pertz, for they were all to go off — and I too — at a little after nine, the Lyells to the Queen's concert, and the rest of us to Mrs. Homer's. The dinner was pleasant, a little learned, a little gay, and altogether sensible The party at Mrs. Homer's was just like the one you and I went * The fonrth and last Lord Holland, son of his former host. 360 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. to there last year. We had Gibson and Lady Bell, Edward Bunbury, Colonel Lyell, and perhaps a dozen more Lady Bell and Mrs. Horner sent you abundance of affectionate messages. I talked a good deal with Richardson, Scott's old friend, who ap- pears so largely and pleasantly in the Life by Lockhart Tell- ing him how fine I thought Scott's colloquial powers, he answered, " Yes, but they were never so fine as when he was having a jolly good time with two or three friends." He then described to me what he considered the finest specimen he had ever had of them. It was when nobody was present but Tom Campbell. They dined together at Tom's, in Sydenham, near London, — a very modest little cottage, where I dined in 1815, — and where the scene of this talk was chiefly laid at just about the same period. They dined early, but by ten o'clock, brilliant as the conversation was, Tom was past enjoying it, and nothing remained for them but to carry him up stairs and put him to bed. Scott, however, was neither disturbed nor exhausted, and they two repaired to the village tavern, and ordering beefsteaks and hot brandy-and-water, Scott poured out floods of anecdote and poetry, and talked on till three, when, with undiminished resources and as bright as ever, he reluctantly went to bed. Next morning they were up in good season. Tom came over to them, a little the worse for wear, but not much. Scott talked on, more brilliantly, if possible, than ever. At eleven they had mutton-chops and beer for breakfast, and then all three went off to London, Scott amusing them all the way, as — according to Richardson's account — men were never amused before or since. The whole story is, no doubt, characteristic of the period, as well as of the men I was up in good season this morning, — the glorious Fourth, — and gave as many hours as I could hold out to -work. I went to the Bar- ings' about business, .... did several errands, and then went for four hours to the British Museum. Nothing could be better than the arrangements, and the good-nature with which my rather peculiar case was understood and met. I say peculiar, because, whereas other people want particular books and ask for them, I do not know what I want, except that I want books I have never heard of in old Spanish literature. So kind Mr. Watts took me to the place where they stand, far in one of the recesses of that vast pile of building, and gave me the services of one of his assistants. This person took down and showed me about three hundred and fifty curious volumes, and re- placed them all. I was familiar with all but twenty of them. Of these twenty I took the numbers and titles, and shall go on Monday M. ^o.'\ ENGLISH BEAUTY. 361 to the grand reading-room, establish myself there, and send for them to examine their contents and make such memoranda about them as I may find expedient. And so I shall go on till I have gone through all the old Spanish books, a collection inferior to my own, but, of course, containing odd and curious things that I do not possess. Thus far, however, I have found nothing of any considerable value, nor in- deed anything of extreme rarity. .... At home, .... I had a long visit from "William Greg, and an ex- cellent talk with him July 5. — I breakfasted with Greg, having desired him to ask no- body else, as I wanted to have a thorough talk with him. I had it, and enjoyed it very much for two hours. Tell Hillard that he agrees with us exactly about the present position of affairs in America, and understands them better than anybody I have seen since I came from home. After I came home, we had a visit from Tocqueville, as agreeable as ever. Then I drove out to Macaulay's, who seemed uncommonly glad to see me, and talked after his fashion for half an hour, with great richness and knowledge, chiefly on female beauty, which, by the most curious citations from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Let- ters, from Sir Charles Grandison, Congreve's Plays, and such out- of-the-way places, he proved had greatly increased in England since the disappearance of small-pox. It was very amusing, but the first rush, as he comes down upon you, is like a shower-bath, or rather like a waterspout. But you will remember. Only, I think, his manner grows a little more declamatory. On my way back I stopped at Holland House, and again met Tocqueville, and two or three agreeable people. But I could not stop long. The old house is much altered, and made very luxurious, but I missed things I should have been glad to see in the library, the dining-room, and the drawing-room. Some of it, too, was a little fine, though on the whole it is much improved and better kept. From Holland House I drove to Hallam's. He is little altered since last year, dines out sometimes, he told me, with old friends, and talks as fast as ever He asked me to dine for Tuesday, but I am en- gaged, and as he goes out of town in a few days, I may not see him again. He said that he is just upon eighty years old I dined with Mr. "Wilson, a member of Parliament, Financial Sec- retary of the Treasury, owner, and formerly editor, of the " Econo- mist," and the person on whom the government depends in questions of banking and finance. He never reads a book ; he gets all his VOL. II. 16 362 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. knowledge from documents and conversation, as Greg tells me, that is, at first hand. But he talks uncommonly well on all subjects ; strongly, and with a kind of original force, that you rarely witness. He has a young wife, and three nice, grown-up daughters, who, with Greg, a barrister, — whose name I did not get, — one other person, and myself, filled up a very luxurious table, as far as eating and drinking are concerned. And who do you think that other person was ? No- body less than Madame Mohl ; * who talked as fast and as amusingly as ever, full of good-natured kindness, with a little subacid as usual, to give it a good flavor. The young ladies Greg accounts among the most intelligent of his acquaintance, and they certainly talk French as few English girls can ; for Tocqueville came in after dinner, and we all changed language at once,t except the Master, who evidently has but one tongue in his head, and needs but one, considering the strong use he makes of it Mad. Mohl was very kind about you, and assured me that I might consider Lizzie quite well by this time. My heart aches to think that I can't. But patience. To-morrow, letters will come. If they could only come from the middle of the Atlan- tic too ! July 6. — No letters ! no steamer ! I waited till the last moment this morning, hoping Ellen's would come before I went to breakfast with Macaulay. The postman brought sundry notes of no regard, but no letters The breakfast at Macaulay's was very agreeable. I suppose I ought to say very brilliant. We had just nine persons Senior, Tocqueville, Lord Stanley, Lord Glenelg, Lord Roden, Lord Gran- ville, and Lord Stanhope, with the Master and myself, made up Horace Walpole's number. We all walked for half an hour on the beautiful lawn behind the house, talking in squads, English where Macaulay was, French for Tocqueville's humor. .... The whole breakfast was very agreeable. We talked about everything, and wearied with nothing, ending with another half -hour on the lawn, in rich sunshine, where I talked all the time with Lord Granville At half past twelve I drove to the British Museum, and worked there four hours most satisfactorily After this I made a few visits. .... I had just time, on returning home, to dress for dinner at Lord Fitzwilliam's. The family portion of the party was large, as * Fonnerly Miss Clarke. See ante, pp. 106 and 124, etc. t At a still later period of his life, when Mr. Ticknor's French might have been supposed to have lost some of its freshness, a French lady of ctdtivation said to Mr. Hillard, "Monsieur Ticknor parle Fran9ai3 delicieusement." M. 65.] BREAKFASTS. 363 you miglit expect. But beside tliis we had Wilde, a Queen's Coun- sel of eminence ; Lord Monteagle, an excellent talker ; Lord Bur- lington, a man of known ability, but shy ; and Bouverie and his wife The conversation was good and strong, chiefly in the hands of Lord Monteagle, — Spring Kice, — who continued it after- wards in the saloon, where we became so animated that I did not get home till half past eleven. July 7. — .... Ellen had a breakfast-party this morning ; Senior, Merivale, Godley, — our old friend,* — Adderley, Trench, — Dean of Westminster in place of poor Buckland, one of the men I am most glad to meet, — and Sparks The talk was excellent. Ellen was charming at the head of her own table July 8. — The letters came this morning by the early post. Thank Heaven, everything was right on the 22d of June. I hope I feel grate- ful in some degree as I should, but it seems impossible. And now I must wait till I can hear from you, and that will be a long time ; two passages across the unsociable ocean. But you have made two thirds of one of them Sir Edmund Head came in immediately after breakfast.f .... He is looking very well, and says he is better than he has been for many years He is to come again to-morrow morning, and I shall go with him to Lady Head, and he with me afterwards to the British Museum I went to the Duchess of Argyll's party There were a good many people there whom I knew, more than I expected, and I had a very good time. The Lyells, Lord Burlington, — who is to be Duke of Devonshire, and is fit to be, — Stirling, Lord and Lady Wensley- dale, Mrs. Norton, and I suppose a dozen more. July 9. — We had a most delightful breakfast at Twisleton's this morning : Tocqueville, Sir Edmund Head, Senior, Stirling, Lord Glenelg, Lord ^Monteagle, Merivale, — again, and I was glad of it, — Sir George Le^ds, and Lord Lansdowne, — a little older than he was last year. The talk was admirable, and I was struck anew with the abun- dance of Lewis's knowledge ; but I have not time to tell you, and only see how many pages I have written. I went home with Head, and was most kindly, even affectionately, received by Lady Head, who could not say too much of her regret at not seeing you We then went to Stirling's, and looked over his pictures and things, very * Mr. Godley, a man of most agreeable qualities and cnltare, had been in Boston a few years before this time. t Lately arrived in England for a visit. 364 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. curious, rich, and rare, and I worked a little among his Spanish books, and mean to work more, for there are good things among them From Stirling's, Head and I went to the British Museum, where, as he truly said, it was amusing enough that I should lionize him. But he had not been there, of course, for five years, since which every- thing is changed. He agreed with all whom I have heard speak of it, that the reading-room is the finest room in Europe, taking out churches. I am more and more impressed with it. I then made some calls, finding no one at home but Lord Ashburton, with whom I had a very interesting talk ; then, after a walk for exercise with Twisleton, in Kensington Gardens, — the first I have been able to take since I came to London, — we passed a quiet and happy evening together, having refused to go to Milnes', * lest we should all be quite worn out with dinners. I cannot tell you how kind, gentle, and loving Ellen is to me, mak- ing me all but happy, and relieving my anxious thoughts more than they could be relieved anywhere else, separated as I am from you all. Nor can I tell you how much she is liked in society here, the very best of it I hear of her on aU sides. She is certainly a charm- ing creature, and if I were to fail to love her, I should be very un- grateful. A good many people come to see me, and I of course return their calls, but I have not time to tell you of them, still less to repeat, as I intended to do when I began this volume, some of their good things July 10. — I am invited thrice to breakfast this morning, and al- though I am sorry to miss Dean Trench, and should have liked the company at Senior's, including Lesseps, — whose father I knew at Lis- bon in 1818, — yet I rather think I am in luck in being first engaged to Lord Stanhope The breakfast was first-rate in all points, company and talk. Lady Evelyn Stanhope was the first person I saw, — young, pretty, unmarried The next was Tocqueville ; .... then came the Lyells, Lord Aberdeen, and Lord Caernarvon, a young nobleman of great fortune and promise, who, a few years ago, carried off the first honors at Oxford. All talked French This gave Tocqueville, of course, the advantage, and nobody was sorry for it. He did his best, both with discussion and anecdote, and nobody can do better. The consequence was, that we sat late, two hours and a half ; some of us, perhaps, lingering because we remembered that it is Tocqueville's last day. Before we separated, he came up to me * Monckton Milnes, now Lord Houghton. M 65.] HOUSE OF LORDS. 365 and gave me a long message of regrets for you and Anna, .... add- ing, that if either of us want anything in Paris that he can do for us, he shall always be charmed to do it I sat next to Lord Aber- deen, and had some very interesting talk with that wise old states- man. Lady Stanhope was charming, as I think she always is, and so was Lady Lyell. The next three or four hours I spent in hard work at the British Museum, and then went by appointment to the Athenaeum, and was taken by Lord Stanhope to the House of Lords, and placed on the " steps of the throne," — as the place is called, and really is, — to hear a great debate on the " Oaths Bill," or the bill that should permit Jews to sit in Parliament I was in a good neighborhood. Milrnan stood next to me, and introduced me to Elwin, editor of the " Quarterly," and I talked with both a good deal Sundry of the lords came to the rail, which separated me from their consecrated body, and spoke to me, — Lord Stanhope, Lord Glenelg, Lord Gran- ville, and others The debate was very exciting, if not very able, and produced all its effect in that grand hall, so imposing, so suited to its grave purpose. Earl Granville opened the discussion. He is a graceful, fluent speaker, not very powerful, but a man who produces upon you the impression that he is in earnest, and means to be fair. Lord Stanley followed, vehement and subtle, but not per- suasive. Then came Lord Lyndhurst, compact, logical, and very exact in his choice of language. These were the three principal speakers. Of the three. Lord Lyndhurst was decidedly the ablest as a debater, and what he said lost none of its force from the circum- stance that he is eighty-five years old, and more The bill was lost by thirty-four, as was foreseen. But I did not wait for the di- vision ; I was too tired. I had given up a pleasant dinner, and at twelve o'clock, — having had not so much as a drop of water since the brilliant breakfast of the morning, — I went to the Athenaeum, ordered mutton-chops and sherry, and enjoyed my dinner, I assure you July 11. — I breakfasted Ute-d-tete with Mr. Bates, and had a long and very satisfactory conversation with him about the Library. Then I went to Stirling's, and worked in his library two or three hours, till I was obliged to go and make some calls, after which .... I came home and rested till it was time to go to dinner at the Lyells', where I had an uncommonly good time with the Heads, and a small party consisting of the Pertzes and two or three others. Ellen and Twisle- ton were engaged elsewhere, for which I was sorry, for Sir Edmund was in great feather, and very amusing 366 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. To W. H. Prescott. London, Jiily 13, 1857. Dear William, — I must write to you in this hurry-skurry of a London season, if it be only to thank you and dear Susan for your great kindness to our darling Lizzie. It is mentioned in all our letters from home, and sinks into all our hearts I am very busy. I have nearly got through with everything I wish to discuss with Mr. Bates, who continues to entertain most generous purposes towards the Library ; and I have done a good deal of work in the British Museum and elsewhere. But I have plenty more to do, and I want to make considerable purchases of books, or at least make arrangements for them. Still, everything will depend on what I may hear. I am living with the Twisletons, in a most agreeable manner, petted enough to spoil me outright. They live almost next door to Sir George Lewis and Lord Morley, — not forgetting Lady Theresa, — close by Eeeve of the " Edinburgh Eeview," and within easy distance of Senior, Macaulay, Lord Holland But their social position is better than all their surroundings on Hyde Park It almost amuses me sometimes to hear such people as old Lord Glenelg, old Lord Monteagle, Lord Ashburton, and your friends Lord and Lady Wensleydale, talk of our own little Ellen, who is really as attractive a lady, and as agreeable, as any I meet in society. As for Lord Lansdowne, — now seventy-seven, — who breakfasted here the other morning, his manners to her showed a mixture of affection and gallantry that it was delightful to witness. Indeed, the sort of ad- miration I everywhere hear expressed for her is truly remarkable, when you remember that five years ago she was a stranger here, and that this society which now claims her as an ornament is the most exclusive society of London, and the one most reluctant to receive anybody into its intimacy or association. And speaking of people who are admired, reminds me of Tocque- ville, who has been here some time, and, as Senior and Lord Stanhope said the other day, — looking from quite different positions, — he has been decidedly the lion of the season. I have met him quite often, and though he has an English wife, and talks English well enough, he has generally been humored by keeping the conversation in French. Indeed, it was well worth while ; for nobody talks as well as he does, not even Villemain or Mignet, who have the more brill- iant epigrammatic style of recent fashion^ while he talks with the WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT JS. 65.] LETTER TO MR. PRESCOTT. 367 "beautiful grace and finish of the ancien regime. Once or twice when Macaulay was present this produced a curious contrast. He — Macaulay, I mean — talked French, indeed, and not bad as to idiom, but it was most amusingly hard and unwieldy, and poured forth, if not as triumphantly as he pours forth his English, yet with the same tone and accent July 14. — Your letter of June 27, addressed to Anna, came this morning. Thank you for it as much as if it were addressed to me, for I have had the full benefit of it. So have sundry of your friends, — as far as good news about you are concerned, — for I read it on my way down to Milman's, where I met the Heads, the Lyells, Macaulay, and Elwin, the editor of the " Quarterly," all of whom were glad to hear about you. We had a most agreeable breakfast ; Macaulay doing, of course, pretty much all the talk, but doing it in a gayer, and even a more droll spirit, than I have known him to do it before. We laughed immoderately sometimes. Yesterday evening I met a lot more of your friends at Lord Wensleydale's, — the Argylls, Milnes, etc. They all want to know about " Philip II.," but I can tell them very little. You must come and explain the matter yourself. If you will, you will find as glad a welcome as anybody can have, from as good people as are to be found anywhere. To-day, at dinner, I am to meet Grote. I forget whether you knew him. I mean to find out what he thinks about Philip, for though I do not doubt what his opinion on the whole will be, I am curious to know how he will give it, and it is well worth having in detail. The condensation of social activity seems to be more absolute than ever this season. Besides invitations to breakfast, lunch, dinner, and all the forms of evening parties, .... they have now a sort of tea and talk meetings, with fruit and ices, from four to seven, which they call matinees, .... and which I am told are very agreeable, especially when they are given with music, in gardens, .... I have been asked to several, but have not yet been able to go. Lady Holland, however, is to give three in the next three weeks, which I hear are likely to be the best of the season, and which, no doubt, will be fine, under those grand old trees in the park round Holland House ; where, though I miss some things that I wish had been preserved as records of the past, I find everywhere great im- provements, and in excellent taste. To one of these matinees I mean to go Your laurels are very green, and grow fast ; perhaps faster on the 368 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. Continent than they do here. Mignet spoke to me of you nearly every time I saw him, and he knows the value of your labors, for he has himself been employed several years on a history of the six- teenth century, which he evidently intends should be his opus mag- num. And a great work it wall be if he finishes it in a manner I becoming so great a subject ; but he gives no sign as to the time when it will be ready for the press, and his health is not strong, especially since the death of his mother last winter, which I hear had a very painful effect upon him. But I am at the end of my paper Yours always, G. T. To Mrs. Ticknor. London, July 13, 1857. I worked at the British Museum till four o'clock, and had some talk there with Stirling, who comes there almost every day to work for his history of Don John of Austria. But the chief event of the morning for me was a long visit I made, by his invitation, to old Lord Aberdeen ; and a very interesting talk I had with him about the politics of Europe and, to some extent, of the United States. I have talked with no man in England who seems to be, on such great matters, so able and vnse as he is, or so calm and moderate In the afternoon Henry Taylor came and made me a long visit. He is only in town for the day, passing from Worcestershire to St. Leonard's, where he is to spend the next two months. He is grown quite gray, but otherwise is little changed. He was surprised to find Ellen a kinswoman of ours ; and when I told him she was a niece of whom I have always been very fond, he answered instantly, " How could you help it 1 everybody is fond of her." This, indeed, is cer- tainly the feeling of a very large, high, and intellectual society, which claims her as one of its ornaments. Godley, who knows a great many people of the best sort in the upper classes, told me the other day that he had never heard a word of anything but praise and love of her, since she had been here. One person, however, he added, ob- jected to her, that she was " an admitted paragon, and that paragons were not to his taste." At haK past ten in the evening — nobody goes to a party earlier — we went to Lady "Wensleydale's, she and Lord Wensleydale being among Ellen's great admirers. A good many people were there, but not a crowd. I talked chiefly with Milnes, Lord Belhaven, — a Scotch Lord, — and the Lord Chancellor and his wife, Lady Cranworth ; the M. 65.] DEANERY OF ST. PAUL'S. 369 latter curious about the rich, large houses in New York. There were more people there that I knew than I expected to find in any London party of the sort. Tuesday, July 14, — Lizzie's letter of the 28th - 30th was my morn- ing benediction. Thank you for it, darling child If I could now only get news of your safe and comfortable arrival at home, dear- est wife, it seems as if I should be patient. But I do not suppose I shall be till I see you all. As soon as I had read your letter, dearest Lizzie, I took the rest, .... and set off on my travels into the city to breakfast with the Milmans. The rooms were not quite so dark as they were when we breakfasted there a year ago, for the weather is very bright and warm. But even if it had been dull and smoky outside, the company at table would have made everything cheerful, namely, the Lyells, the Heads, Elwin (editor of the " Quarterly "), and Macaulay, so that, with the family, we had just ten, which seems to be the general num- ber. Macaulay, of course, did the talking, and certainly he did it well. He was more positively amusing than I have ever heard him, more nearly droll By the time I reached home — four miles, I think — .... it was two o'clock, and very hot and close. Reeve, the editor of the " Edin- burgh Review," came in soon afterwards, and I talked with him for nearly an hour We all dined together, with Mrs. Stanley, a very agreeable, sensible old lady, mother of the Stanley who wrote Arnold's Life We had Mad. Mohl, Senior, and Grote, the his- torian, so that there were abundant materials for good talk, and we had it ; Grote doing his part rather solemnly, but very well. Li the evening Tocqueville came in, passing through London towards home, and so I took leave of him .... for the third time, and always sorry to do it July 15. — I worked a good while at Stirling's this morning ; but as he gives me leave, very liberally, to bring home with me such books as I want to examine, I did not stop so long as I otherwise should have done, but came home to rest a little. It was lucky I did, for I was but just stretched on the sofa when I was called to the Due de Broglie and Albert. They have been, as you know, to visit the family of Louis Philippe The Due is one of their counsellors, or, as the Due d'Aumale called him, this afternoon at Lady Holland's, the patriarch in their politics. They are only in town for a part of the day, so that I was really touched with their kindness in coming to see me at all. But on Friday they will be here again for a few 16 ♦ X 370 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. hours, and I shall hope to find them just a moment, to thank them. Afterwards I went to see the Lyells, for they go off to-morrow, and I do not want to take leave of them in the midst of a great party, where I am to meet them to-night. I need not tell you I was sorry to bid them good by. They have been as kind and true as they al- ways are I then went first to General Fox's,* where I found the same sort of hearty kindness I always have, and where I took one of the party I found loimging there and went to a grand matinee at Holland House Nothing of the sort could well be finer. The wind had come round to the north, so that it was cool enough ; and, passing through the house, .... the company came out into the park, where all the fashionable society of London seemed collected in picturesque groups under the magnificent old oaks, and in the open glades and fine gar- dens, which are scattered over that superb domain, — a true country scene, such as is found in the rich, quiet parks of the inland counties, brought to the very borders of crowded, bustling, noisy London. Tables were spread with all kinds of refreshments in the open air, and in one of the buildings appropriate to such a spot .... a Nea- politan confectioner, with his attendants, making ices and screaming out their qualities and excellences in rhyme and in his native dialect. .... Elsewhere there was music, and a little dancing, but not much, though enough to enliven a scene that was the most riant that can be imagined The cynosure indubitably was Mad. de Castiglione, a Sardinian lady, with all the attributes of Italian beauty added to an English complexion of purest red and white, — generally seeming as unmoved as if she were of marble, but warming to a very beautiful smile when I told her I had lately been at Turin She was dressed with good taste, no doubt, but in the extravagance of the French fashion, and looked as if she had just walked out of Watteau's pictures of a garden scene in the time of Louis XV Everybody stared at her, and yet, they say, she does not think she is admired here so much as at home, and rather complains of it. Lady Theresa asked for my arm, and I walked round with her and saw everybody and everything in the most agreeable manner, and gossiped and heard gossip of all kinds, such as belongs to London fashionable society when the season is the fullest, and the movement of everything, like the weird dance in Tarn O'Shanter, grows fast and furious. .... At half past eleven Twisleton, Ellen, and I reached Lord * Son of the third Lord Holland. ^. 65.] ORLEANS HOUSE. 371 Lansdowne's to a great concert I could not stop in the concert- room, it was like a steam-bath ; but the Queen of Holland was there, sundry other high-mightinesses, and abundance of ladies and old gen- tlemen, like Lord Glenelg, Lord Monteagle, Lord Lyndhurst, and not a few more, who seemed to thrive in it like hot-house plants. Many others — of whom I was one — stayed in the outer rooms, where were the charming Lady Shelbume, Sir Edmund Head, Sir Henry Hol- land, and a plenty more people whom it was agreeable to talk to July 17. — When I despatched my letters to you this morning, giv- ing an account of my travel's history do\vTi to that moment, I was be- ginning a regular London day, which I have now just finished at one A. M., without so much fatigue as to prevent me from writing you at least a page. I always do before I go to bed, as I do not think I could go quietly to sleep else, or have a good night. I began at the British Museum three or four hours' work, and very interesting work, too, from which I came home with a good many notes, and very dirty hands, from turning over curious old Spanish books. When I had washed and put myself in order I went to Lady Chatterton's, a lady who has written a book about the South of France, and collects a cer- tain portion of fashionable and literary society at her house to hear music and eat ices, diink tea, and talk, from four to six or seven. .... Harness was there, Harriet Hosmer, Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, " Faust " Hayward, Barlow, Lady Becher, etc. But I went late and came away early My dinner was at Lord Wensleydale's, where we had Murchison, Lord Caernarvon, the Bishop of London, — very agreeable, — the Laboucheres, Edward Ellice, Lord Brougham, Lady Ebrington, etc. I talked before dinner with Lord Brougham, who seems to grow old as fast as anybody I meet, and who is said to have shown symptoms of age in a speech to-day It was so pleasant that I forgot myself and stayed too late, so that I did not arrive at Senior's, to a musical party, till considerably after eleven o'clock. There I talked a long time with Lord Hatherton, who has just had a day or two from Tocqueville, and who — as well as Lady Hatherton — seemed to share the general admiration he has inspired during his visit here July 18. — Milnes called for me in his open carriage at ten, and we drove through the beautiful country — which is found on almost all sides of London — to Twickenham, for a breakfast at the Due d'Aumale's. His place is called Orleans House, and is one of those rich old places that abound in England. It was once occupied by his 372 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. father, Louis Philippe, and the Due — who, you know, has the im- mense Conde fortune — has filled it up with rare and curious books, inherited pictures, manuscripts, etc., etc., all arranged w^ith admirable taste, so that it is like a beautiful museum. This is inside ; outside, an English lawn of many acres, with flower-beds and groups of trees scattered all over it, slopes down to the Thames, and leaves nothing to desire ; while belts of wood, that look like a forest, exclude what- ever would be disagreeable in the neighborhood. We had for company Sir John Simeon, Van De Weyer, Milman, Hawtrey, Lord Dufferin, etc., etc. The breakfast — at twelve and a half — was, in fact, a dinner of great luxury and many courses But it did not occupy much above an hour, and then we went out upon the lawn, walked about, talked gayly, smoked, went into the orangery, greenhouses, and one or two other buildings, which are made repositories for works of art and curiosities. The Due is very agreeable, and in rare books one of the most know- ing men in England, collecting them with care and at great cost, and cataloguing them with curious notes himself. .... By four o'clock we were in town again, and I went to a matinee at Lady Theresa Lewis's. It was music. The large saloon was full, .... the Milmans, Lady Head, Lord and Lady Morley, Mrs. Ed- ward Villiers and her three pretty daughters, Hayward, etc I w^as now — as you may suppose — well tired, and took a good rest At half past eight or nine o'clock — for it comes to that nowadays — I dined with Mr. Bates, and met Sparks and his wife, Gary, — a sensible M. P., — Sir Gore Ouseley and Lady Ouseley, and a Count and Countess Somebody from Brussels I finished the evening at Lady Palmerston's ; that is, I was there from eleven to one, and saw great numbers of distinguished people, — Lord Aberdeen, Mad. de Castiglione, — with her hair creped, and built up as high as it used to be in the time of Louis XV., and powdered and full of ribbons, — the Argylls, the Laboucheres, Lord Clarendon, and most of the ministers, .... and ever so many more. Mr. Dallas was there, and introduced me diligently to foreign ambassadors, both Christian and heathen, and to General Williams, the hero of Kars, for which last I was much obliged to him, as the General is a most agreeable person. Lord Palmerston was uncommonly civil But I was glad when it was over, I was so tired, though Milnes and Lord Wensleydale thought it was very American to go home so early. I was, however, richly paid for it, ... . for on the table in the entry lay, most unexpectedly, dear Lizzie's charming letter of July 6 M. 65.] LORD GRANVILLE. 373 and 7, which I read through twice without stopping, and then carried to bed with me July 19. — Twisleton and I breakfasted with Milnes, and we had Mad. Mohl, Sir John Simeon, — a book-collector whom I met at the Due d'Aumale's and find very pleasant, — General Kmety, — a Hungarian, who flourished much in the last war at home and now flourishes much in society here, — young Harcoui-t, Lord Stanley, and enough more to make up a dozen. The talk was much about the defection of the Sepoys in Bombay, which begins to trouble them very much. I noticed last night that Lord Clarendon, Lord Palmer- ston, and two or three of their set, seemed so anxious to put a good face on the matter and keep up a cheerful courage, that I could not help feeling that they must have serious misgivings. Indeed, it can- not be otherwise ; and the impression seems to be that there will be angry discussions in Parliament. But this last I take to be uncertain. British pluck wiU, I think, stand the ministers in good stead on this occasion, as it did in the war with Russia. I came home before two, and wrote to you and Circourt till four, when I made a very agreeable visit at Holland House, where I went into the old library and turned over a good many curious books, the very positions of which I remembered, so that when Lord Holland mustered up a knowing person and sent him to me, — for I went to the library alone, — I found him useless. Lord and Lady Holland were receiving a good many friends, and I loimged with them some time, after which I made a visit to Macaulay, who lives near, and with whom I had a long and interesting talk about Burke, as we sat on his beautiful lawn, where I found him reading. He said that Burke would have made a good historian, judging from his East India speeches and papers, which were drawn up with great labor, and perfectly accurate in their facts. I doubted, and doubt still. Burke was really made for a statesman and orator, and for nothing else. In the evening I went to Lord Granville's, having been obliged to refuse an invitation to dine there two days ago. Sir John Acton, who has been to see me twice, but whom I have not before met, was there, having arrived four days ago from the Continent.* Both he and his mother. Lady Granville, received me with the greatest kind- ness. Lord Granville came in soon afterwards, wearing the Star and Garter, because he had been dining with the Queen of Holland. He was followed by Count Berustorff and his wife, the Prussian Ambas- * Sir John, now Lord Acton, had been in Boston in 1852. 374 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. eador and Ambassadress, Lord and Lady Clanricarde, — the daughter of Canning, — and a good many more Lady Clanricarde — of whom, when Lord Granville presented me to her, he said she was among the most brilliant persons in English society — I found a very pleasant talker, but not quite, I thought, up to the chai-acter he gave her. I took the most pleasure in Sir John Acton and his mother. Sir John seemed to begin just where he left oS in Boston, and to have the liveliest recollection of every- thing there. He sent many messages to you and Anna and Lizzie, full of regret that he should not see any of you, and told his mother how much kindness he had received from you. She is a person of excellent manners, elegant but not elaborate, talks a great deal, with a slightly foreign accent, and is vigilantly attentive to everybody. .... She invited me to come as often as I can, saying she is always at home I shall go if I can, but I have no time at my disposition. At least, it seems so to me ; for I cannot do as the English do, go to two or three places after a dinner that does not end till half past ten, be- cause, being a stranger, I must talk some time with each person to whom I am introduced, or else seem uncivil. Besides, I want to talk to them generally. July 20. — I worked at home till twelve o'clock, and then went about Library affairs, to the booksellers', and then to the British Museum. But on my way I stopped at the famous Bow Street office, where the police of all London is chiefly managed, and where one of the principal officers is Jardine, an old fellow-student at Gottingen forty years ago. He had complained heretofore that I had not been to see him when I had been in London, and two days ago I left my card, which he returned yesterday with a note, begging me to come and see him this morning at the Bow Street office, as he leaves Lon- don to-morrow for six weeks. I was glad I went, though I stopped only a few minutes ; for he is a good, warm-hearted man, and was evi- dently pleased that I had remembered him. From three to six I spent in the library of a Mr. Turner, who has a very beautiful collection of rare old Spanish books, which he did not at all weary of showing me I dined with John Chorley, the Spanish scholar, meeting only his brother, — who writes about music, — and Arthur Helps, and we talked on till after midnight with as much interest and in as high a tone as any conversation I have had in Europe. The subjects were of the noblest, the differences of opin- ion enough to give zest to the discussion, and the men — especially M. 65.] JOHN CHORLEY. 375 John Chorley — first-rate in knowledge, and the power to illustrate and fortify their positions July 21. — . . . . I worked some time in the British Museum, where the way seems lengthening as I go, under the leading of Panizzi and that living index, Watts But I am determined not to wear myself out there much more I dined at Senior's Several interesting people were at table : the Bishop of Hereford, better known as Dr. Hampden ; Doyle, the editor of Punch ; Colo- nel Rawlinson. 376 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. CHAPTER XIX. Visits in the Country. — Isle of Wight. — Shoreham. — Chevening. — Stoke Park. — Walton-on-Thames. — Bolton Percy. — Wentworth House. — Wallington. — Aldersham Park. — Malvern. — Ellerbeck. — Manchester Exhibition. — Liverpool. — Departure for America. — Letters to Mrs. Ticknor. To Mrs. Ticknor. St. Clabe, Isle of Wight, July 22, 1857. I am in the country till Friday evening, refusing four or five invi- tations, two of whicli I would gladly have accepted, one to Sir Some- body Eardley^s, to see the beginning of the shipment of the electric cable between England and America, and eat the needful dinner on the occasion ; and the other a matinee from four to eight, at the beautiful establishment of the Duchesse dAumale at Twickenham, where I should have met the Comte de Paris and most of the Orleans family I left EUen and Twisleton with a pretty sad feeling, as well as with a wearied body and jaded spirits, and came down to Colonel Harcourt and Lady Catherine, in the Isle of Wight. You and Anna were invited, and much regret expressed, both in writing and by word of mouth, that you could not be here, a regret that I share with very great aggravations. It is a beautiful place a couple of miles from Ryde. It is a stone house, very picturesque, but not over large, with fine grounds full of old trees and gardens, pleasant walks, and glades sloping down to the sea and looking over to the English coast Nobody is here but General Breton, who com- mands at Portsmouth, and a nice pretty daughter, on account of whose delicate health he has just accepted the command at Mauritius. Everything is most agreeable, — the tonic sea-air ; the charming walks through woods and by the sounding shore ; above all, the delicious quiet and repose. The Colonel is as handsome and as gentlemanlike as ever, and a most attentive host. Lady Catherine is gentle, intelligent, cultivated, M. 65.] ISLE OF WIGHT. 377 and very accomplished, of which not only her piano gives proof, as yon know, but, as I find, the walls of her house, where are many really beautiful paintings both in oils and water-colors July 23. — The principal place of the Harcourts is in Surrey, where they stay about four or five months of each year, here only six weeks. .... They call this their small place ; but there is nothing half so luxurious, or in half such good taste, in the United States, nor, I think, any country-house so large, certainly none to be compared to it in any other respect. July 24, — The two days here, dearest wife, have been most refresh- ing, and I do not feel at all gratified at the idea of going back to noisy, exciting London. The Harcourts are so kind, too, and want me not only to stay longer, but to come to them in Surrey, neither of which can be done. I must be in London this evening, and in Eton to-morrow, or be accounted uncivil, and, what is worse, not regardful of Ellen's unwearied kindness to me, and her husband's thoughtful, careful hospitality. So I go at noon. We had a very pleasant drive yesterday over to Ventnor and Bon- church and the southern part of the island, not forgetting the harmo- nious Shanklin Chine, all of which I am sure you will remember, for I found I had not forgotten it. The only place we really stopped at was Steep Hill Castle, which the Harcourts tell me is the best estab- lishment in the island. It is a fine modern castle, built on a hillside, which is full of varieties of surface and charming glens, and commands grand views of the sea at every opening. The possessor, Mr. Ham- borough, is a middle-aged man with a family of beautiful English chil- dren, and much devoted to botany and wood-craft. His place bears proofs abundant of his good taste, as well as of his great resources. Just after we arrived all the school-children of the neighborhood — about one hundred and eighty — came in with their teachers and cler- gymen, and after having had tea and cake on the grass, were brought up, two at a time, to Mrs. Hamborough, and according to their conduct during the year received reprimands, — very gentle, — or rewards very appropriate and attractive to their young eyes. They then distrib- uted themselves about the lawn and frolicked and danced "We were so much amused that we stayed too late, and did not reach home so as to get dinner till near nine o'clock, though some of the neighbors were invited, and of course had to wait. I went all over the house, of&ces, stables, and gardens this morning. .... It is, as you may suppose, all very complete. Lady Catherine's sitting-room is singularly tasteful, and has a dozen panels after the 378 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. fashion of Louis XV. painted by her husband in oils, and on her mantel-piece two little childish drawings by the Queen when they were taught together. After this series of expeditions we went down to the seaside and sat under the fine old oaks on the lawn until twelve o'clock, when, with not a little reluctance, I bade them good by, charged with messages of remembrance and kindness from each of them for you My return to London was through a rich and beautiful country, but at the end rose the huge, black, shapeless city Ellen re- ceived me most affectionately, .... and Twisleton with his usual heartiness broke out, "You must go and hear the great debate to- night, in the Commons." It was on the Divorce Bill, and had been put off from Monday last, when he knew I had made arrangements to go, and been disappointed. So, after some hesitation on my part, and a little urging on his, I determined to go. The Twisletons were to dine with Lord Say and Sele,* but I had declined the invitation ; so I hurried to the Athenaeum for a bachelor's dinner, and there found Kinglake and Eawlinson, to whom were soon added Hayward and Stirling. We pushed our tables together and had a jolly dinner, at which I left them and went to the House of Commons. I gave my card to the doorkeeper, and desired him to send it in to the Speaker, — our old friend Denison, — who had told me I should have the seat of "a distinguished foreigner" last Monday night ; and I was not a little surprised and pleased to find he had just sent out an order to the same effect for to-night. So that I walked right in. The debate had been opened, and Gladstone soon rose, the person I had mainly come to hear. He spoke about three quarters of an hour, and was much cheered. His manner is perfectly natural, almost con- versational, and he never hesitates for the right word, or fails to have the most lucid and becoming arrangement of his argument. If any- thing, he lacked force. But his manner was so gentlemanlike, and so thoroughly appropriate to a great deliberative body, that I could not help sighing to think we have so little like it in our legislatures. When he had finished, Stirling, who had been sitting with me some time, took me out, to avoid the tediousness of the next speaker, and carried me to see the magnificent library-rooms, and the fine terrace over the Thames, some hundred feet long, where I found plenty of lazy members, lounging and smoking. After my return I heard Na- pier, of Dublin, the Attorney-General, Stanley, and Lord Palmerston ; all worth hearing, and two or three others who were not. Before the * Brother of Mr. Twisleton. M. 65.] ETON. 379 end of the debate, however, — though not much before, — I came home, well tired, as you may suppose, and found Ellen waiting for me, no less tired. But the least agreeable part of it was, that I was to go to Eton early in the morning, and she was to go to Malvern. .... I was to bid her and her excellent husband good by for the present, intending to see them in their retreat when I am on my way to embark. Even with this prospect, however, I was very sincerely sorry to part from them. July 25. — I was off this morning at a quarter before eight, — and that was before anybody was up, — to Eton, for a ceremony like the one I witnessed at Harrow the day after I arrived. Dr. Hawtrey in- vited me last year, but I could not go, and so felt bound to go to-day. It is a fine old place, as you know, and his rooms at the Lodge, be- sides being covered with good pictures and portraits, and crowded with rare books, are tapestried with agreeable and classical recollec- tions. The breakfast in one of them was large, with sundry " My Lords and Ladies " at table, of small note, I suppose, and a few pleas- ant people, like Dr. Hawtrey's niece, the Bishop of Salisbury, — Ham- ilton, — the Provost of King's College, Dr. Oakes, etc. The speaking of the young men — like that at Harrow — was not so good as it is with us, generally, but the German and French, which I was sur- prised to find intruding on such classic ground, were excellent. One of the young dogs, who took the part of Scapin in Moliere's dia- logue, " Que diable allait il faire dans cette galere," doing it almost well enough for the French stage. After this was over I went over the building and grounds with the good Provost, visited the chapel, and saw what was to be seen, and then came home, too tired to wait for the dinner and regatta, which last, however, I should have been glad to witness. On reaching Rutland Gate I fairly lay down and slept When I waked I felt fresh and strong, and went to Lady Holland's, as the day was very beautiful, and a party in that fine old park is so striking. And I was paid for my trouble. All the royalties that I missed at the Due d'Aumale's, last Wednesday, were there, besides everybody else, as it seemed to me, that I know in this wilderness of a city. There was fine music, a learned dog that played cards and dom- inoes for the children, all sorts of refreshments and entertainments, but above everything else, the beautiful lawns, all covered or dotted with gay groups, and with grand and venerable trees, under whose shade people sat and talked, surrounded with flowers that were dis- tributed over the brilliant greensward in fanciful beds. 380 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. In the evening I met a great many of the same people at Lady Palmerston's, but the scene was as different as possible. Among those whom I talked with was a Mr. Lowe, in one of the considera- ble offices of the government, who spent some months last year in the United States. I assure you he saw things with an eye both very acute and very vigilant July 26. — I took Senior in my little brougham, and drove to Rich- mond to make two or three visits. First we went to the Marquis of Lansdowne's, who, I am sorry to notice, grows feeble fast, though he preserves his good spirits, and has the same gentle courtesy he alwaj^s had The Flahaults were there, and seemed to take pleasure in remembering our acquaintance in 1818-19, at Edinburgh The charming, unworldly Lady Shelburne, who seems more agreeable than ever, is, you know, their daughter I found her too, and her father and mother, at Lord John Russell's, where I was invited to an afternoon dejeuner, and where I met a good deal of distingu^ com- pany ; Lord Monteagle, et que sais-je ? Lord John has a beautiful place in Richmond Park, which the Queen has given him for his life, and where he seems to live very happily with his children. He showed me his seat, as he calls it, under some trees, commanding a beautiful view of the river and all the surrounding country, where, in the shade, he told me, he had read my book. But I did not stay long there, for I was more anxious to make an- other visit than either of the last. And who do you think it was I wanted so much to see ? No less people than old Count Thun, Countess Josephine, and Count Frederic and his wife, who are stopping at the Star and Garter for a few days. They came to England for the Manchester Exhibition, and for sea-bathing for the young Countess. ..... I was lucky to hear of them yesterday at Lady Holland's. They were really glad to see me, and no mistake. The bright beau- tiful young Countess broke out at once, " And why did you not stay that other day at Verona ? I went to see Mrs. Ticknor ; but you were all flo^vn." .... They were all looking well, and sent any quantity of kind messages to you and Anna. But it was late, and I was obliged to leave them, parting from them as heartily as I met them, with a promise that they will come and see me in London. We drove to town as fast as we could, and, finding it impossible to change my dress, I went straight to Senior's, .... it having been understood that I was to dine with him, sans ceremonie. We had, however, something of a party : his brother, a military man ; . . . . Miss Hampden, daughter of the Bishop, and very sensible; and M. 65.] * SUEZ CANAL. 381 Lesseps, who is here now about the g^eat project of the Suez Canal, and making war on all occasions — including this one — upon Lord Palmerston in the most furious manner, though making a merry- affair of it all the time, with true French gayety. II a beaucoiip d'esprit, and amused me very much I walked home, the distance being very small, .... dressed and went to Lady Gran\T.lle's, where, having been informally invited, I was much surprised to find a small, but very distinguished party : the Queen of Holland, the old Duchess of Cambridge, Prince George, the present Duke, the Princess Mary, his sister, — ni maigre, ni mince^ — the young Duke of Manchester and his very pretty wife, .... and I suppose a dozen more Lady Granville introduced me to the Queen, the Duchess of Cambridge, and the Duke of Manchester. .... The Queen, with whom I had only a few words of ceremony, talks English very well, and is quite free and natural in her manners. The Duchess of Cambridge, who is very stout and plain, seemed to be full of German bonhomie, and I talked with her a long while about Hesse Cassel, where she was bom, Hanover, which she knows well, etc. For half an hour I talked with the Duke and Duchess of Man- chester, who in^dted me to visit them at Kimbolton. But the most agreeable person there, I suppose, was Lady Clanricarde, who amused me very much I told Lord Palmerston that I had been dining where I met Les- seps, and that he was full of his canal. " He may be full of his canal," said the Premier, " but his canal will never be full of water, as the world will see." And then, ha^dng laughed heartily at his own poor joke, he went on, and abused Lesseps quite as much as, two hours before, Lesseps had abused him, though in a somewhat graver tone, explaining all the while his objections to the grand project, which it still seems to me can do England no harm, though it may much harm the stockholders, which is quite another thing. July 27. — Thank Heaven, I know you are at home, " safely ar- rived, all well," though that is all I know. I have only Lizzie's dear, good letter of July 14, containing the telegraphic words. It is a great relief ; I cannot tell you how great, but still I am unreasonable enough to want more. And I know there is more somewhere When I had breakfasted .... I went out for work, and came home for work, and in the course of three hours did a great deal of it. I have not told you how I have been bothered about the Library affairs, for I did not want to have you troubled as well as myself, especially as you could not give me counsel. The difficulty has been 382 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. about getting an agent I shall see Mr. Bates, and I trust settle everything by the end of the week. If I do, it will be a considerable weight off my mind Lord Palmerston and Lord Clarendon both thought there would be a good debate to-night in the Commons So I went to the Athenaeum the moment I could get through my troublesome work, .... and having dined pleasantly with Merivale, Kinglake, and Hay- ward, I hurried off to the House. Lord Harry Vane procured me the seat I had last time. But I was too late, or at least too late for what I wanted. D'Israeli had spoken, but not very well The sub- ject was India, but there was no excitement ; little interest, less in- deed than I find everywhere else, for in society people now talk incessantly about the mutiny, or revolt, which some call a revolution, and which may turn out one, though I think not in its final results. July 29. — . . . . The morning is bright and warm, as the weather has been to a remarkable degree ever since I came to London I write this just as I am setting off for Twickenham, to breakfast with the Due d'Aumale again. Evening. — Breakfast was at twelve, and I was punctual. The Due received me in his library, and carried me through a beautiful conservatory to the salouy where the ladies were with the Prince and Princess de Joinville. We sat down, just twelve, at a round table. The dame dJhonneur said to me in a low tone, " Madame la Duchesse vous demande a sa gauche." The Prince de Joinville sat of course on her right. The whole breakfast was as agreeable and easy as pleasant talk could make one anywhere. Two of the children were present, the mother of the Duchesse, — the Princess of Salerno, — etc. The service was not as recherche as it was when I was there with literary celebrities and no ladies, but it was much like a dinner, .... nice as anything can be, with a savoriness to which, somehow or other, no English table reaches. After breakfast I went to the library again with the Due, who took down nearly two hundred curious books to show me, concerning some of which — Spanish — I made notes. Then we came back to the ladies, who were now settled at their needlework in the salon, which opened on the beautiful lawn, while the Due, the Prince, and I sat before the door, and enjoyed an uncommonly nice cigar and much agreeable gossip. But there is an end to everything human, and T brought this to an end a little sooner than I otherwise should have done, but Hampton Court is not far oflF, and I wanted very much to see it My only M. 65.] KAFFAELLE'S CARTOONS. 383 object — so to speak — was the cartoons ; I walked, therefore, hardly looking to the right or left, through twenty-four rooms lined with pictures of all sorts, good and bad, many blank spaces indicating that some of the better had been sent to Manchester, and at last, through crowds of people, — amounting, I should think, to nearly a thousand, — reached the somewhat ill-lighted room, built expressly for the car- toons by Sir Christopher Wren. They are certainly very grand. I remember the School of Athens and the Sibyls, in the Sistine Chapel, but, after all, I think the Preaching of Paul, and Peter and John at the Beautiful Gate, stand before anything in Rome. Indeed, as I have occasionally — when I was tired of work at the British JMuseum — gone into the sculpture-gallery, and stood before the works of Phidias there, I have come to the conclusion that these cartoons and the bas-reliefs from the Parthenon are, of all that I have seen, the highest efforts of the highest art. But nothing ever seemed so lost on those that came to enjoy them, as did these cartoons, to-day, on the people that lounged through the room, during the hour and an half that I was in it. Their number must have been nearly two hundred. Not OTie stopped. Many turned away from the cartoons, and looked out of the windows to see a poor fountain in the court-yard and the gold-fish in the basin. Yet they were well dressed and looked intelli- gent. Certainly they had stopped to enjoy the good pictures of the Italian and Dutch schools, and the Sir Peter Lelys, in the multi- tudinous rooms before they reached the cartoons, for I saw them doing it. On my way home I stopped half an hour at Holland House, where Lady Holland was giving her third and last fete champetre It was like the others, and, as far as I could see, the same people every time. Nothing of the kind, I hear, has been given in England so beautiful I was very tired, and little inclined to go out again; but everybody at Lady Holland's, to whom I spoke about it, said I must go to the evening exhibition of the Academy of Arts. So I went, and found they were right. The pictures and sculpture — both moderate — .... I had seen before. But the illumination this evening made everything brilliant, and the company .... comprised, it seemed to me, nearly everybody I know in London ; and, what was more, every- body seemed animated, talkative, and unconstrained ; things not uni- form or universal in English society. The Hosmer had stayed in order to be present to-night, and she had the benefit of it. She came rather late, and I had talked about her Cenci with Eastlake, Waagen, 384 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. and other people, whose word in such a matter is law here She was very neatly and simply dressed in pink, and looked uncom- monly pretty. I found she knew a good many people, — old Lady Morley, the Cardwells, etc. But I took her and presented her to the Heads, the Bishop of London and Mrs. Tait, Lord and Lady Palmer- ston. Sir H. Holland, and sundry others. She pleased. Her statue was much praised. She was very happy, and I enjoyed it a good deal. When Lord and Lady Palmerston were looking at the Cenci, and expressing great admiration, Eastlake touched my arm, and whis- pered, so that they could hear it, " Everybody says the same sort of things. It is really a beautiful work of art, and, for one of her age, quite wonderful." July 30. — I took Chorley * this morning at ten, and — with Lord Holland's leave — carried him to Holland House, where he wanted to see some of the curious Spanish books. Lord Holland, in his dress- ing-gown, was ready to receive us, and laid out what we wanted to see, both printed and manuscript, in the kindest and most painstaking manner. We worked there three hours, and I found a good deal that I was glad to get, and so did he I dined at the Athenseum, where I found Merivale and Whewell, and so had a very good time. Whewell grows squarer and more Bishop-like than ever July 31. — A busy day, and a long one. At half past eight I was at Mr. Bates's, and at half past nine had settled everything with him. .... I breakfasted with the Heads, and had a most agreeable time. There are no pleasanter people in London, and I stayed late talking in consequence I drove to the Thuns'. Count Frederic was at home, his sister soon followed, and then his charming, bright wife. Mrs. Austin, too, came in, and immediately announced to me that she had just left a card for me, having called to invite me to Weybridge, an honor and pleasure I was obliged to decline. She talked very well about India, the great subject now, and I should be glad to talk more with her about anything, for she has great resources. An hour with them all passed very quickly and pleasantly. When I came away the Countess Josephine sent her affectionate regards to you and Anna, and the Countess Frederic sent her love to Anna, and her regrets that she had not seen you. She is really one of the most attractive per- sons I have ever met. Count Fritz desired his respects to you, and seemed to have a very lively recollection of his visit to us in Milan. I was very sorry to part from them. • J. R. Chorley. iE. 66.] LEAVING LONDON. 385 I dined tete-d-tete with Chorley, as I promised .... I would the first day I coidd rescue, and I had a very interesting talk with him till nearly midnight. He is a shy, reserved man, living quite retired with an invalid sister, to whom he seems to devote himself ; but he is one of the persons in whose acquaintance I have had most pleasure in London. He is a first-rate Spanish scholar ; evidently better than Ford, or anybody else hereabout. Saturday, August 1. — Sixty-six years old, and not half what I ought to be at that age, in goodness, or anything else. I do not like to pass the day away from all of you After packing, and ar- ranging for my final departure, I went out this morning to leave my P. P. C's At two or three doors I inquired and went in. Sir Francis Beaufort's was one. Of course I did not see Lady Beaufort.* She keeps her room entirely ; but she sent me a kind message I saw also Lady Mary Labouchere, and completed an arrangement to go to Stoke Park on Monday. Her husband, you know, is Minister for the Colonies, and she said he came home last night at half past two, made nearly ill by reading the details of the horrors in. Lidia, that were brought by the mail of yesterday I dined at Sir George Lewis's, — a dinner given to the Heads, and which the Heads did as much as anybody to make agreeable. Dr. Waagen was there, .... fourteen in all. I sat next to Lady Theresa, who talked as brilliantly as ever. She seems never to tire Her admiration for Tocqueville seems to know no bounds, and when she found how much we all liked him, she fairly shook hands with me upon it, at table. After we went up stairs. Sir George came and sat down — evidently with a purpose — next to me He wanted to talk about the slavery question, and I went over it with him for nearly two hours, Sir Edmund joining us for the last half-hour, during which we went somewhat upon Lidia, and the difl&culty there, as in the United States, of dealing with difi'erent races of men. It was strong talk that we had, I assure you, and nourishing Sunday, August 2. — I breakfasted with Senior, and afterwards went to Lord Minto's to see La Caieta, a distinguished Neapolitan exile, who lives there, and whom I knew somewhat last year. He told me grievous things about his poor country and the friends he has there, both in prison and out of it, but he has no remedies to propose. .... He is too sensible to be in favor of a violent revolution, and yet it is hard to wait. • Miss Honora Edgeworth. See. Vol. L p. 427. VOL. II. 17 T 386 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. At half past two I drove down to the Deanery of St. Paul's, where the Heads came soon afterwards, and we all went at three, with the Dean and Mrs. Milman, and attended afternoon service in the choir. .... After we came out of the choir, we walked about the church a little, then went to the Deanery, then walked on the adjacent bridge, j which gives a fine view of the river, — all alive with steamboats, filled for Sunday excursions, — and a still finer \dew of St. Paul's, which certainly — even after St. Peter's seen — is a grand and imposing fabric ; and then, finally, we had a good Sunday family dinner of roast beef, and a good talk, which lasted until nearly eleven. It was all very simple, easy, and comfortable But it was very hot in the city ; indeed, the weather has excited much remark in this par- ticular, few persons remembering so long-coutinued a spell The next day, the 3d of August, Mr. Ticknor went to Stoke Park, the seat of Mr. Labouchere, since Lord Taunton : — I found the Park much larger than I expected ; it is, indeed, one of the grandest I have seen, full of groves of old oaks, and a plenty of deer, and all so near London, — only seventeen miles. Windsor is in full view from it, and makes a grand show The house is large, but not very good-looking outside. Liside, however, it is fine, and filled with fine works of art, ancient and recent ; among the last, four bas-reliefs by Thorwaldsen, and one of his statues, which gave me great pleasure. Lady Mary took me over the whole, including her own parlor and bedroom, which are very luxurious and tasteful ; but the rooms that I preferred were the dining-room, and one adjacent to it, in which was a most graceful fountain, that in the heat to-day was particularly attractive. I went, however, chiefly to see a few Spanish books, particularly a copy of Lope de Yega's plays, the most complete and the best preserved in the world. AVith these I occupied myseK an hour or two, the three charming little girls helping me to bring the books, and put them up again in the most frolicsome and agree- able manner. Of course I was taken to see the old Manor House, the scene of Gray's " Long Story," that begins, " In Briton's Isle, and Arthur's days." It is well cared for, and is an excellent specimen of the Eliza- bethan style, as it ought to be, since Hatton lived there. The church, too, and, above all, the churchyard, which gave the world the undy- ing Elegy, and where rest the remains of Gray's mother and aunt, who lived at Stoke Pogis after the death of his father. They are most ^.66.] VISITS IN KENT. 387 poetical places, the architecture, the position, and the plantations be- ing just what you would like to have them, and treated with the respect they deserve When we reached town, — just before seven, — I drove directly to the Athenaeum, where, by previous appointment, I met Twisleton, who has come to town for two nights to attend a meeting of the Oxford Commission We had a jolly time, I assure you, and, after going home, a good talk till eleven o'clock. August 4. — .... I drove to the Barings', in the depths of the city, .... saw the gentlemen there, — except Mr. Bates, who is at Dover, — adjusted my money affairs, and, hastening to the London Bridge Station, came down to Mildmay's at Shoreham, in a thor- oughly hot, disagreeable, stifling carriage of the three-o'clock train.* But I was refreshed by the drive of nine miles in a nice little open carriage, which Mildmay had sent to fetch me, and I was C|uite up to my usual condition when I reached the house, — so cool, so quiet, so consoling after five weeks in London, and the four preceding in Paris. As I crossed the hall the servant gave me a note from Lady Stan- hope about a visit to Chevening, and when I entered the room I found Lord Stanhope there, who had come over to see if I was arrived, bringing the Milmans with him, .... as they are now stopping a couple of nights at his house. It was all very agreeable. When they were gone, and I had made myself a little comfortable, we went and sat on the lawn under the fine old trees till it was time to dress for dinner. It was delicious. So was the evening. I had asked Mildmay to invite nobody to meet me, and so we had a cjuiet and most agreeable time in the library August 5. — We had a little rain this forenoon, which was much wanted in the country, and very welcome to me, as it prevented all suggestion of moving. I remained in my chamber, chiefly occupied with writing. In the afternoon it was fine again, and we drove to Knowle, a grand old castellated mansion, belonging to the widow of the late Lord Amherst, of Chinese memory. Parts of it date from the time of King John, and none is more recent than the time of Henry VIII. It is very extensive, few old castles being so large, and it has an awful, hard, grim, feudal look, so slight have been the changes made in it The drive was fine. Its own park is very large, and we took another in our way back. August 6. — .... The day has been cool and beautiful. I lounged in the library an hour or so after breakfast, and then wrote and read in * Mr. Humphrey Mildmay had been in Boston some years before. 388 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. great quiet and peace till it was time to drive. I enjoy this life very much. I did not know how tired I was till I began to rest Our drive to-day was to Sir Somebody Dyke's, whose family have held the property on which they now live above five hundred years. They were not at home, nor was Lady Amherst yesterday, and I was glad of both. The Dyke house is nothing, modern and ugly ; but there is a fine old gate, all covered with ivy, and a little church stiU older, just big enough for a good-sized family to assemble in, and full of " old brasses," as they are called It is a curious old place. After we came home we walked about Mildmay^s domain, where I found a good deal that is tasteful and agreeable, which you will re- member, both in the brilliant flower-garden behind the house and the park-like scenery in front of it. Mildmay has about three thousand acres in all, and seems to be adding a good deal to its value by build- ing nice cottages in his village, and a pleasant extension of the house towards the east Chevening, August 7, 1857. — .... We lingered at the breakfast- table yesterday, and the girls, instead of going to their governess, stopped to see me off, — a symptom that they liked my visit as well as they said they did, .... which was not unpleasant to me. At any rate, on my part I was sorry to leave them all, for they have been very kind to me, and Mrs. Mildmay is a person whose character and accomplishments are equally rare and attractive. Mildmay drove me over here. The road was pleasant, and lay through the valley in which both his estate and Lord Stanhope's are situated. You remem- ber it, of course, as you must also remember Chevening, and so I will not lay out any of my words in describing it. Lady Stanhope came down to receive me, and took me at once to her own parlor, where Lord Stanhope joined us immediately. Monckton Milnes and his wife are stopping here, as well as Lady Granville Somerset, .... and Lady Strafford, or some such name, which I did not well hear. We all walked out into the park, and went over the finer parts of it, where, among other things, I saw some Roman remains and monu- ments, brought by the first great Stanhope from Tarragona, in Spain, one of which gives much offence to all ladies, because it makes the crowning virtue of the wife to whose memory it is inscribed, that she was uxori ohsequentissimcB. Lord Stanhope said that he had seen ladies flush with indignation at it, and break forth into unseemly expressions of anger. In the little church, which is very becoming the famil/s posi- tion, — not large, but picturesque and antique, — there is a beautiful ^. 66. J CHEVENING. 389 group of a mother axid child, — the mother only twenty-three, — by Chan trey, which he claimed — and I dare say rightly — to be the best of his works. It is certainly worthy to be such, by its purity and grace. Afterwards I went over the house, as you did last year. It was built by Inigo Jones, and may have been good as he left it, but it has been so altered and enlarged, that, except the fine staircase, and the entrance-hall all covered with arms brought home as tro- phies from the war of the Spanish Succession, there is nothing — or very little — to admire in it, except two or three good rooms. The library is large, and I occupied myself there for an hour or more among the old Spanish books, some of w^hich are curious. After lunch .... I took a long drive about the country with Lady Stanhope and Lady Granville Somerset. It is a beautiful re- gion, — indeed, the whole of the county of Kent has a good reputation, — and as the w-eather was bright and cool, I much enjoyed it. In the course of the drive we stopped at a most neat and even elegant little cottage, standing in the midst of a rich lawTi, full of shrubbery and flower-beds, where there still lives Lliss Thrale, one of the daughters of Johnson's Thrale, w^hose brewery — as Lady Stanhope told me — is now that of Barclay Perkins & Co. Miss Thrale is of course no longer young. She is, in fact, eighty-seven years old, but she is a stout, easy, comfortable old lady, full of good w^orks and alms, and one who, as she has no love for books, — or very little, — does not care to talk about Dr. Johnson, and still less about her mother. But her cottage and grounds are in excellent taste, and well become the character and position of their possessor, who is much liked through all the country side. We returned bv " Chatham's drive," as it is called, a road through the highest part of the park, two or three miles long, which Lord Chatham advised to be cut, when he occupied Chevening in 1769. It proves him to have been a man of excellent taste, for the view from it is one of the finest I know of the sort Lord Chatham said he thought it the finest view in the kingdom. I suppose it may be the finest view of an approach to such a mansion. .... One or two neighbors w^ere invited to dinner and were pleas- ant, especially a very rich I^I^. Eogers, learned in the natural sciences. .... Milnes said smart, epigrammatic things in abundance after his fashion ; . . . . but as I took in Lady Stanhope to dinner, I devoted myself to her, and had the best of the talk, I suspect. She is very bright, and extremely quick of apprehension. I went, a part of the evening, to Lord Stanhope's private working-room, and looked over 390 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. some curious old family papers. The rest of it we spent in the saloon very agreeably, some of it very gayly. Saturday, August 8. — Off with Milnes — after an early breakfast — for London, where, having two or three hours to spare, I went to see the Great Eastern, which Twisleton, Lord Stanhope, and sundry other persons have urged me very much to see, as one of the wonders of the time At four o'clock I met Mr. Sturgis by appointment at the railroad station, near Waterloo Bridge, and came with him seventeen miles, to pass Sunday at his place near Walton Finding Wey- bridge to be only two and a half miles from here, I drove over there and returned Mrs. Austin's call, but was sorry to find her away from home for a couple of days. I should have liked one more talk with her August 10. — . . . . I came to London in an early train this morn- ing. The weather was brilliant when I left Walton, all fog when I arrived forty minutes later. Not caring to go myself all the way to Rutland Gate, I drove to the Athenaeum for my breakfast, and de- spatched my servant thence for my letters. At eleven I was at the station of King's Cross, and took my place for Bolton Percy, where I arrived — one hundred and eighty-three miles — just at five o'clock. The journey was rendered more than commonly agreeable by the fact that I came in the same carriage with a Mr. Norman, his wife and daughter, and a son fresh from Eton, who are neighbors of Mildmay, and whom Mildmay had invited to dine to meet me. Mr. Norman is much of a scholar, a man of large fortune, and Mildmay had told me that he had been very sorry he could not come to dinner, as he liked my book ; a fact he did not at all conceal from me. We had a good time, and parted great friends I was most heartily received by Mr. and Mrs. Harcourt,* both look- ing just as they did last year. It is a most comfortable place ; a fine old rambling house, with a rich lawn, — which they are just now shaving, though it looks, in Milton's phrase, close shaven already, — and on one side of it an ancient picturesque church, such as you often see standing just in the right place to ornament an English landscape. .... In the evening we had most cheerful talk on all sorts of mat- ters, for few persons have more richly stored minds than Mr. Har- court Tuesday, August 11. — After a cheerful breakfast Mr. Harcourt and I, at eleven o'clock, got into the train for York, and arrived there in twenty minutes. The old city looked natural, but its streets and * See Vol. I. p. 435. M. 66.] BOLTON PERCY. 391 shops are gayer than they were On arriving we went first to the Museum, as they call it, vdth its beautiful grounds, and the remains of a Roman wall, and the graceful ruins of a rich abbey of the four- teenth century. It did not seem two-and-twenty years since I saw them last. Nor did it seem so long since we all went over the grand old minster with Mr. Harcourt, just as I did to-day. It is in admira- ble preservation and repair, for since the two fires, . . . . £ 120,000 have been spent with excellent judgment and taste, under Mr. Har- court's direction. We saw !Mrs. Harcourt and Lady Susan* in the street, — in a carriage fit for any noble lady, — to make purchases. Indeed, their whole establishment .... is of the most liberal sort, ■^vithout being in the least luxurious, showy, or dainty. It is becom- ing their station and character, and indicates what is certainly true, that, while Mr. Harcourt is rich, .... he prefers to live as a country clergyman and do his duty thoroughly as such. I am very glad to have seen such an establishment, as I have never seen one before. In the winter, for three months, he lives in that more elegant and luxu- rious establishment in York, which is by turns the oflB.cial residence of the canons of the minster August 13. — . . . . The weather was very brilliant yesterday, and in the afternoon I took a drive of sixteen or eighteen miles with !Mr. and Mrs. Harcourt and Lady Susan Harcourt We visited, in the course of it, two of those beautiful places with which England abounds. One was the estate of the Wenlocks, where I saw the Dowager, who is a Nevil, which is tantamount to saying one of the oldest families in England. The Lawley family, into which she mar- ried, however, is recent and rich, the Hall and its gardens showing their resources, and a new church and rectory, near, showing their good taste and judgment. The other was a place belonging to a Mr. Preston, who married a grand-daughter of that Pamela who figures so much in Mad. de Genlis' Memoirs, and who was, no doubt, a daughter of Mad. de Genlis and Philippe Egalite. She is a very bright, brilliant little Irish woman, and so is her mother, Lady Campbell, who is staying with her ; both being Avorthy of their descent from Mad. de Genlis and Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Mrs. Harcourt seems to like them both, and I was glad to see them, as she much desired I should. Their park and garden, too, are fine. The drive and visits occupied till dinner-time, — indeed, till after * Danghter-in-law of Mr. Harcourt. t Pamela having married Lord Edward Fitzgerald. 392 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. the usual hour, which is seven, so that the evening was rather short The Harcourts have, many times since I have been here, expressed their regret that you could not have come with me, and just now, when I was down stairs, Mrs. Harcourt charged me afresh to express it to you. You remember what a charming woman she is, but I assure you she is nowhere so charming as in her own house. The interest she has taken in Lizzie's sickness .... is most gratifying. I am very sorry to leave them Wentworth House, ^w^Ms^ 13. — . . . . At half past three I bade the good, kind, intellectual Harcourts good by, and between seven and eight drove through the grand old park, and came up to that famous Italian front which is a good deal longer than Park Street. .... A magnificent porter and six or seven livery-servants appeared at once, and then the groom of the chambers, who said in his most elegant black-silk-stocking maimer, " My lord will receive you, sir" ; and then, perhaps noticing that I looked amused, he added very blandly, " My lord hoped you would come to-night." I was carried at once to the long gallery There was no mistake about the matter. They were glad to see me, and in ten minutes it was as if I had been there a month. Lord Fitzwilliam is somewhat infirm, but is stronger than he was two or three years ago, when his health was impaired by an accident. He was, as Lady Charlotte told me, stopping on the sea-coast with the ladies of the family, — at Folkestone, I think, — and one day, as he stood on the shore, observed a young servant who was bathing and playing in the water. He turned to see something else, and on look- ing back in an instant the youth had disappeared. Old as he was — sixty-eight — he plunged in, swam to him, and, seizing him and seized by him, turned for the shore. But he was soon exhausted, and both were at last saved by his coachman. It was above a year before he recovered from the effects of his exertions. August 14. — . . . . After breakfast Lord Fitzwilliam asked me to go, with him and Lady Charlotte, to an examination of his schools by the Inspector of the District. It was in the village of Wentworth ; .... that is, the girls were there to the number of one hundred and eighty, from four years to fourteen. The boys are elsewhere, to be examined next week. The school-house, divided into several rooms, is excellent and in good taste, built by the present lord The examination was excellent, done with kindness and skill The doctrines of the church and the history of the Jews were well M. 66.] WENTWORTH HOUSE. 393 insisted upon, and the children were less quick and eager than ours. Otherwise, the examination might have occurred in Massachusetts. But I do not suppose that many schools are like those cared for by- Lord Fitzwilliam. "We drove afterwards about the immense park On our re- turn from this excursion, — as it may well be called from its length, — we walked on that beautiful terrace built up so grandly, and as soft to the foot as velvet, for half a mile. It is finer than it was formerly, some of the trees having been cut away, and a greater breadth given to it I spent a part of the evening in looking over several volumes of the correspondence of the great Earl of Strafford and his friends, of which Lord Fitzwilliam has eight or ten, all autographs ; and in talking with him about that stirring period of English history, with which he seems to be as familiar as we are with what has passed in our own times. Some of the private letters of Strafford to his agent, the man- ager of his Yorkshire estates, and some about his wife's health, are very curious. Those on political matters are grand, strong, decisive, as he was himself. I do not know but Evelyn was right, when he called him " the wisest head in Europe." August 15. — . . . . After breakfast, I went with Lady Charlotte over some parts of the house that I cared to see again, looked at some of the fine pictures of the Italian school, — the Salvators, the so-called Raffaelle, the Titians, — and then the portraits of Strafford and his friends by Vandyck, which are certainly among the best Vandycks to be seen anywhere But when I had taken this long walk through the interminable series of rooms, — that you cannot have for- gotten, — it was time for me to go. They all sent, anew, kindest mes- sages to you. Lord Fitzwilliam did not get up from his chair. He took my hand in both of his, and was very much moved. At last he said, " I hope we may meet again in a better place," and as I went away added, calling aloud after me, " Good by, dear JVIr. Ticknor. God bless you." .... At Rotherham I took the railroad and dashed on for Northumber- land, .... arriving at our old friend Sir Walter Trevelyan's just as twilight was closing in. He lives about twelve miles from Morpeth, where I left the railroad, and in driving to his place — which is called Wallington — I passed through a broken country that looked very beautiful in the declining light. On arriving, I was ushered into a grand saloon, where there was a bright coal-fire, — for the weather is chilly, — and found half a dozen or more people sitting 17* 394 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. round it, and in different parts of the room. I was most warmly received, .... and introduced to the party stopping with them, among whom are the youngest son of Percival, the Minister who was shot ; Professor Donkin, Mathematical Professor at Oxford, — great in music, — with his wife ; and a daughter of the late Dr. Buckland : all, as I find, accomplished and intellectual people, but — as you will readily guess — not more so than my host and hostess. We made a pleasant evening of it Sunday, August 16. — I find myself in the midst of a very rich and fine establishment. Sir Walter has twenty-three thousand acres of land here, some of it moors, but the greater part very valuable as a grazing country and fully stocked with cattle ; while in Somerset- shire he has another estate of twelve thousand acres, which comes to him from the elder branch of the Raleighs Everything is in perfect order His village, the school-house, the house of his agent, and the parsonage, are all as neat and as comfortable as any- thing in the kingdom ; the two last having, besides, a little air of refinement and elegance. Everything, indeed, betokens knowledge and kindness. His own house is of stone, a hundred feet square, built in the Italian fashion round a court. But this court — as you will remember at Althorp — he has covered over, and made it into a superb music-room, running up through two stories, and about forty- five feet by thirty-five square, the walls of which he is now ha\dng painted with subjects from the local history of Northumberland, be- ginning with the building of the Eoman wall. Lady Trevelyan is painting the spaces between the pictures with native plants, and doing it in oils and from nature. It is already a beautiful room. One side of the house, looking out upon the lawn and flower-beds, has the dining-room, the saloon, and the library, all opening into each other ; each above thirty feet long, with a good many pictures by Sir Joshua, and some by Italian artists, and the library filled with about six thousand volumes of books, after Sir Walter's own heart ; many very curious, but all bought because he wanted them. His chief studies, as you may remember, were in botany, mineralogy, and geology, but he has done a good deal in Oriental literature, and is very rich in old English — having been one of the Bannatyne Club — and in the local literature and history of Northumberland. In- deed, it is a very precious library, and although I care nothing about one half of it, the other half interests me more than any similar col- lection of books that I have seen for a long time. Besides this, he has up stairs a very extraordinary museum, con- M 66.] WALLINGTON. 395 taining forty or fifty thousand curious articles in natural history and in art, collected by some of his ancestors, .... and greatly increased by himself and his wife in their manifold travellings, and brought into order by his own care. It has, I understand, a considerable repu- tation with naturalists I went to church in the morning, a mile off, and the weather being as fine as possible, most of us walked The rest of the day I lounged about in the bright, beautiful sunshine with IVIr. Percival, Professor Donkin, and Sir Walter In the evening we were in the saloon, where Sir Walter brought us a great many books to look at, which were new and interesting to me, and which, with his talk about them and Lady Trevelyan's, made the time seem very short. .... She is as active-minded, natural, and cordial as she ever was, with ways a little freer, and on that account more agreeable. She said to-day that she was forty-one years old, but she is little changed from what she was when we knew her, and is as charming as any one I have seen for a long time Monday, August 17. — After spending a couple of hours in the li- brary, I went with Trevelyan to see his gardens and greenhouses, half a mile off, and, as he truly says, much too large for his establishment. .... We have abundant proof daily how fine they are, in the grapes, peaches, figs, etc., that come to the table. Declining a drive, .... I walked \\T.th Trevelyan to one of his villages, and went into some of the houses, which I found as neat as possible, and talked with three or four of the people, who seemed intelligent, and quicker of comprehension, and more vigilant in observation, than is common to their class here. Except their accent, I might have thought them to be good New-Englanders August 18. — Lady Trevelyan was at work this morning on the plants with which she is ornamenting her music-room. She paints very successfully, and very faithfully. Meantime, with her husband, I turned over above an hundred water-color sketches which she made in Greece, not so remarkable as works of art, — though very good, — but evidently full of truth, and not touched or finished up in the least afterwards. But this was the last of my pleasures in this re- markable establishment, where I have enjoyed so much, for it was time to go. The whole party came wdth me to the door, .... bidding me good by, with many kind wishes that we might meet again, with all sorts of kind messages from the Trevelyans to you at home. Indeed, I very much wished you had been with me there, you would have so enjoyed it. 396 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. August 19. — . . . . I left Derby .... late this morning; I was soon in tlie smother of the manufacturing district, and passing through Dudley came to Wolverhampton, where I took a cab, which in two hours brought me nineteen miles to Sir John Acton's, at Alden- ham Park. I arrived about four o'clock, was most heartily received, and came to my room, .... and went do^Ti to dinner at half past seven Sir John's establishment, of which I have yet seen very little, is perfectly appointed, and in admirable order. The house is as large as Trevelyan's, and not unlike it ; and he, a young bachelor, can occupy only a small part of it. Nobody was at table except his chaplain, Mr. Morris, one of the Oxford convertites, and known for one of the first English scholars in Oriental and Sanscrit literature. We were in the midst of the first course when your letters came ; and I instantly read enough of them to give a new zest to the other courses. Sir John was full of talk, and knowledge of books and things, and by the help of a cigar, — which the chaplain and I took, but not Sir John, — we went on till near midnight. He is certainly a most remarkable young man, and much advanced and ripened since we saw him. August 20. — Sir John's estate here in Shropshire — he has lands elsewhere — consists of eight thousand acres, a part of which has been in his family above five centuries. His house, built about a hundred and fifty years ago, is in the Italian style of that period, and the court, in the centre of its quadrangle, has been covered in, and he is now making it into a grand library, books just at this time being his passion August 21. — Sir John lives here, somewhere between prince and hermit, in a most agreeable style. Yesterday, before dinner, we took a long walk in the park, which I enjoyed very much, some of the prospects being admirable He fills up all his time with read- ing, and is one of the most eager students I have ever known. Hp' will certainly make his mark on the world if he lives long enough. .... We lounged among his books, old and new, till dinner-time, which proved to-day to be near eight o'clock ; dined quite alone at a luxurious and dainty table, and then had a solid and agreeable talk, one so solid and agreeable that it kept me up till nearly midnight again, which was not according to my purpose My windows are open, and I look out both east and south into the park, where, besides the superb avenue, which is full before me, there are some of the grandest old trees I have seen in England, and on one side a very tasteful garden and the chapel, where mass is performed daily, M. 66.] ELLERBECK. 397 and where the chaplain lives. It is a very beautiful establishment, and I have enjoyed very much the peculiar life I have led here the past two days, not overlooking its absolute quiet and peace as one of its attractive ingredients. I^Ialvern, August 23. — .... I was up in good season yesterday morning, and when breakfast was over I bade Acton farewell, think- ing that it will be a long time before I see a man of his age so re- markable as he is. The drive was a beautiful one, first doAvn his superb avenue, and then through his estates, and along by the banks of the Severn, — Milton's Severn, — or at least in its valley, to Kid- derminster. There I took the railway, which brought me to Worces- ter, and in an hour and a half more, in a sort of omnibus, I crept up the hills, .... and was tipped up, or let out, only a very short dis- tance from the Twisletons', and climbing a little farther found them in the most comfortable quarters, .... that command the whole view that makes Malvern a resort so famous, for both invalids and lovers of the picturesque in nature I walked about with Ellen and her husband, dined with them, and talked on till near ten, when I came to a nice room they had taken for me, .... commanding the whole prospect You see I keep on writing, although I suppose the portfolio on which my paper now lies will bring you the letter. But it is a trick I have fallen into So I sit with my windows open on the magnifi- cent prospect, now brilliant with more than an English sunshine, and, as the Duke of Cumberland said to Gibbon, I "do nothing but scribble, scribble." Two delightful days Mr. Ticknor thoroughly enjoyed in the midst of that grand and brilliant scenery, and in constant in- tercourse with most afifectionate and intellectual friends. On the 25th of August he parted from Mr. and Mrs. Twisleton for the last time, with deep regret, and passing through Liverpool went on to Ellerbeck, Mr. Cardwell's seat, near Manchester. Nobody was at home to receive me except Mrs. Card well, a striking old lady of seventy-seven, who shook hands with me most kindly, and told me her son expected me, — but evidently did not know who I was, — adding, that the party would be in from Manchester very soon, where they were at the exhibition. .... In about a quarter of an hour I^Ir. and Mrs. Card well came in, with Sir Edmund and Lady Head, .... and Lady Cranworth, — wife of 398 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. the Lord Chancellor We had a most hearty meeting, and I felt at home at once "We dined at eight, and had a most agree- able evening. Sir Edmund is in great force ; Lady Head is charming, as she always is ; and Lady Cranworth is quite equal to her. Wednesday, August 26. — The estate of EUerbeck is a large one ; .... there is a good park, fine gardens and hot-houses, and a man- sion which they are at this moment furnishing and fitting anew. But everything is comfortable, and the cuisine, with some other parts of the establishment, luxurious. Cardwell carried off all the honors at Oxford in his time ; is still an excellent scholar ; was five years a barrister, and then entered Parliament, became soon Secretary of the Treasury and President of the Board of Trade, which brought him into the cabinet of Sir Robert Peel, who left him one of his literary executors. He has an abun- dance of capital anecdotes, which he tells in a most agreeable manner, and makes his house as pleasant as possible to his guests. Immediately after breakfast all seven of the party set off for the exhibition in Manchester. In the vestibule of the immense and well-proportioned building, — while the ladies were giving up their parasols and taking numbers for them, — a stout man, with the air of a police officer, leaned over the barrier to me, and said, " I want to speak to Sir Edmund Head." I touched Sir Edmund, and the man gave him a letter. When he had read about half of it, he tossed it to me, saying a little impatient- ly, " That is too bad ; it is the second time Labouchere has summoned me back to London, since I have been on this excursion." I read it through, and found he was sent for to be sworn in as a Privy Coun- cillor ; a great honor, which can be conferred on him only on Friday, as that is the last meeting of the Council for some weeks or months. .... After five minutes' consultation, and making an appointment with Lady Head to meet her on Saturday at Tewksbury, he jumped into a cab, and was off for EUerbeck and London. As soon as he was gone the rest of us went into the exhibition. At first I was much bewildered. The building is so vast, and the number of pictures, statues, bronzes, engravings, drawings, and, in short, everything that can be called a work of art, is so immense, that, with five or six thousand people walking up and down, it was a very confusing scene. But the arrangement is good, and gradually the whole became intelligible. We first took a walk all round, and it was not a short one The result on my mind was, that the Italian schools were not so strong as I expected to find them ; the M 66.] MANCHESTER EXHIBITION. 399 Spanish stronger ; and the drawings of the old masters very numer- ous and very remarkable. We began then with the English school, which is, of course, the most amply represented, and gave a good deal of time to Hogarth, whose portraits are marvellous, and to Sir Joshua, whose works are of most unequal merit The recent school was often excellent ; Turner various and contradictory, but occasionally very fine ; the Pre-Raffaellites ridiculous, almost without exception. On the whole, the English school was never before, anywhere, seen in such force or to such advantage. As we strolled round we picked up Gibson, the sculptor, who has come to stay at Cardwell's, and who is in all respects a very agreeable addition to our party We dined late, — after eight o'clock, — but made nearly a three-hours' evening of it afterwards, so agreeable is the party, especially Lady Cranworth, than whom I have seen no lady in England more attractive and charming. She has lately been on a visit to old Mrs. Wordsworth, to whom she constantly writes, and for whom she has a loving sort of veneration that is quite beau- tiful August 27. — I was up this morning in good season, .... writing letters, chiefly about the Librar}^, and doing other Library work, which is now nearly fijiished. As soon as breakfast was done Cardwell said, " Ladies, you have just fifteen minutes," and in less time we were all packed into the carriage, and on our way to the railroad. The halls were not so full to-day, as the admission is two and sixpence instead of a shilling We looked chiefly at pictures of note, and found our account in not permitting ourselves to be distracted. The num- ber of such pictures is lai^er than I thought at first. There are a good many of the Dutch and Flemish schools that are first-rate But the Murillos and Lord Hertford's collection are the glory of the whole exhibition. Again we had a pleasant drive home and a most agreeable evening, which ended late with a reluctant parting from Lady Head. August 28. — . . . . We fretted, at breakfast, at the diminution of our party, and Lady Cranworth threatens that when the Lord Chan- cellor comes, by and by, she will ask him to lay an injunction that I shall not go out of the kingdom. Indeed, Cardwell has made a sharp calculation that I can reach Liverpool to-morrow, an hour and a half before the steamer sails, even if I stop to-night, and I have agreed to do it, although my arrangements had all been made to sleep at the Adelphi before embarking. We breakfasted, as usual, somewhat late, but were off punctually. 400 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. For the last time I went through all the halls, looking a little more carefully than I had done before at the majolicas and other curious ohjets (Tart, hut coming back at last to the great masters, few and far between, to take my parting look at them, for I shall never again behold any of them in this world. I Lord Cranworth arrived hot from the Woolsack, and overflowing with talk ; a kindly old man, such exactly as I thought him in Lon- don, and very frank in expressing his opinions. We listened, of course, with much interest to his accounts of the last days of the ses- sion, the quarrels about the Divorce Bill, and the London gossip gen- erally, that he brought with him, sitting up till quite one o'clock to enjoy it. August 29. — Breakfast was a little earlier, to make sure of my arri- val in Liverpool, or rather at the railway station, in season, for, as I told them yesterday, there must be no slip between Ellerbeck and the side of the Europa. All were punctual, and said many kind things about my going away But at ten I was off, the party follow- ing me to the door, and at half past eleven I was in Liverpool, having found Hawthorne in the cars, to enliven my last moments. I drove straight to the Barings', and got a plenty of letters, but opened only Anna's thoughtful, charming little note of the 14th, which had not been in Liverpool two hours, and which will make my voyage cheer- ful and bright as nothing else can. Then I went to the Adelphi, and found a note from Ellen Twisle- ton, and then to a bookseller's for something to read. My time was now all gone. Just before one o'clock I was on board the steamer. Bright came to take leave of me, full of life and cordiality, as he al- ways is, and sent kind words to all of you, which I shall bring. M. ee.] MR. JUSTICE CURTIS. 401 CHAPTER XX. Letters, 1857-59, to Judge Curtis, Sir Edmund Head, Sir G. Lyell, Mr. R. H. Gardiner. — Letter from Baron Humboldt. — Letters to Mr. Everett, Hon. E. Twisleton, Sir W. G. Trevelyan. THE following letter — which, being chiefly concerned with onr national affairs, belongs rather in the present chapter than where its date would have placed it — is addressed to a person whose slight connection with this book is no indication of his position in Mr. Ticknor's esteem. Judge Curtis was re- garded by his uncle with an affectionate and faithfid interest from his boyhood, and in his maturer years he became the object of a respect, and admiration, which seemed to neutrahze the natu- ral effect of their relative ages. The appointment of Mr. Curtis to a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, in 1851, gratified Mr. Ticknor in an extreme degree, while he felt that it was the place for which his nephew was by all the qualities of his mind and character expressly fitted ; and his high judicial reputation, and the estimation in which he came to be held throughout the country, seemed to confirm, by gen- eral testimony, the justice of INIr. Ticknor's privately cherished opinion. Judge Curtis, however, was never a diligent corre- spondent, and when the constant intercourse between him and his uncle, in Boston, was interrupted by the absence of either, the absorbing nature of his professional engagements interfered very seriously with any attempt at epistolary communication. Their mutual confidence was too faithful to suffer by such temporary silence. This letter is characteristic of both men, inasmuch as their conversation was always on matters of grave and weighty import. 402 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. To Mr. Justice Curtis. Floeence, May 12, 1857. My dear Judge,* — I thank you for your letter of February 27, which I received, I think, in Naples, but which I have been too busy earlier to answer. However, this is of no moment ; I do not profess to be a regular correspondent any more than you do. It is enough for both of us that your letter was most welcome, and that I am glad of a chance to say so. Your view of the present condition and future prospects of the affairs of the United States — written, I suspect, not without thought of the coming shadow of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in Dred Scott's case — is certainly not cheering. My own opinion is of little value, to be sure ; but it is at least formed coolly at a distance, and I am sorry to say that it is not brighter than yours This condition of things is at last coming to be perceived in Eu- rope ; but the opinions formed on it by intelligent men, as I have gradually leamt them, are seldom wise, and often tinctured with the national interests, or personal character of the individuals who ex- press them. We are no doubt felt to be a power in Christendom as we were never felt to be before ; for we are, so to speak, visibly and tangibly grown great and rich, and are fast growing greater and richer. The two parties — liberal and conservative — into which Europe has long been separated, look upon us in this respect alike, and intelligently enough ; but when they go a little further and come * Mr. George T. Curtis places among his reminiscences, sent to Mr. Hillard, the following anecdote : — " When my brother [the late Benjamin R. Curtis] received the appointment to the Bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, an appointment which, as you know, came to him unsought, hut with the approbation of all New England, Mr. Ticknor was deeply gratified and not a little excited by the event, as well he might he ; for no person had ever Uved who had con- tributed, more than he, to the formation of the character of the man who had thus been elevated at an early age to one of the highest judicial positions in the country. Speaking to me on the subject, as he felt, he ended by saying, 'Well, I believe we must now leave off calling him Ben,' as my brother had always been called in the family circle and among his familiar friends. Some- what amused by my uncle's earnestness, I said, 'What shall we call him?' ' He must be called the Judge' was his decisive answer. We agreed, and con- formed to this, as an authoritative family decree." After Mr. Ticknor's death, in a conversation between the brothers, Judge Curtis said of his tmcle, " What I owe to that man is not to be measured." M. 66.] LETTER TO JUDGE CURTIS. 403 to our present position and contests, they divide, and "both, fall into grave errors according to their respective parties. The liberals de- mand the abolition of slavery, much in the same sense in which Garrison demands it, and if this cannot be effected, would gladly see the North separated from the South, not at all comprehending the con- sequences of disunion to the whole country, or its fatal effects on the slave. Their philanthropy, from the days of the French Eepublic, has been an important part of their political judgments and systems at home, though not always a wise or consistent part of them, and they carry it now vehemently into their opinions of us, whom they have been accustomed to look up to with more admiration, perhaps, than we have deserved, as regards our form of government and our institu- tions as desirable and practicable to introduce throughout Europe. But our slavery is a great trouble to them. They have always felt it to be such ; but since the immense success of " Uncle Tom," — which is still acted, I am told, in the popular theatres in many parts of Eu- rope, and was certainly acted in Eome last winter when I was there, — and since the bearing of slavery on our union and destinies has been discussed in Congress, and by our Presidents in their messages, the liberal party, throughout Europe, have everywhere taken it up in earnest The opinion of the aristocracies and governments of Europe — ex- cepting always Eussia, who, for obvious reasons, is our natural ally against all — at least is simple and inevitable. They acknowledge our power, but they do not like it and never have, and they wish to see it diminished, which they know it would be, inevitably, by disunion. They can, as they see plainly, manage their affairs better with America divided, and weak by division, than with America united, already strong and growing stronger. They can, too, better oppose liberal and disorganizing opinions at home, when they can appeal to such a failure as disunion would be of our grand experiment of a free government in the United States, which has always been a main sup- port of those opinions in Europe. You will find abundant traces of this feeling, even in England. The English like our gro^^dng rich so far as it leads us to buy their fabrics, but they do not like to have lis growing very strong, lest we should claim a high place among the nations, and make trouble in the world. Multitudes among them cry out very honestly against our slavery, and take part with the North, to help put it down by force of the world's opinion. But, when once we are separated, they will make the best treaties they can for their own interests with both parties. In doing this, philan- 404 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. thropy will have as little to do with their diplomacy as it has had in China. Their manulactures will be admitted free at the South, and they will receive free the great staples they need in return ; — but we at the North cannot make such treaties with them ; and though we may possibly, but not probably, get Canada and Nova Scotia, about which they will care little, we can, if separated, never have profitable or really satisfactory relations with these provinces, or with the mother country. The same is the case, though in an inferior degree, with France and the other governments of the Continent, ex- cept, as I before said, with Russia, who would be glad to have us for a mighty counterpoise against all the other powers of Europe, with no one of whom can they have any really common interests or, at bot- tom, friendly relations. All the rest of the great aristocracies have been long predicting that we should prove to be like fruit imperfectly formed and nourished, which rots without ripening. They show us up now as cheats, filibusters who go for lawless conquests of foreign territory, who repudiate our honest debts, and as hypocrites who boast of universal suffrage and boundless liberty, while we hold three million of our fellow creatures in slavery ; insinuating always that these are the natural results of democracy, and of intrusting power to ignorant hands to use. And their opinions are beginning to be accepted by the intelligent classes, who have heretofore been little inclined to them, but who, after seventy years of sufferings that have followed the Revolution, begin to fear that society must be preserved, and that the liberty they have hoped, and often struggled for, is to be given up, at least for a time, to do it. I do not know whether, in writing so learnedly, I have made plain my purpose, and so I will explain it. I have desired to tell you that, in my judgment, w^henever the fatal hour that strikes the dissolution of our Union comes, those who stand by it longest will have least sympathy in Europe. The question will be understood by few, and of these few many will be glad to have our country divided, for the sake of the benefits that, as they believe, will accrue to their own institutions, while the great majority will regard it as merely a com- mercial or political question, to be determined by the interests of their respective countries, which will generally be found opposed to our greatness and to the success of our principles of freedom and con- federacy. Having reached home in September, Mr. Ticknor found his time amply filled, especially by the affairs of the Public Library. M.66.] COMMERCIAL CRISIS. 405 The only letter of any general interest that has been found, dating from the first four or five months after his return, is the fol- lowing : — To Sir Edmund Head, Bart., Toronto. Boston, November 18, 1857. Dear Head, — The last time I saw you, I think you were in the hands of a London pohce officer."^ Of course we are all, in propor- tion, glad to find you safely returned to Toronto, and I should have told you so some days siuce, but I thought it was better to wait until you were fairly settled, and had got through your first batch of busi- ness. This, I trust, for your sake as well as mine, is now the case. We are all well, — daughter that was so ill, grandchild, and all, — and all still li^dng together in Park Street, after the fashion of the patriarchs. But the young folks will soon go away to a new home, which they are now fitting up with all the eagerness of inexperience ; and we shall have a heavy miss of them, and a heavier one of the baby, who is now the plaything of the house. It is, however, all right. But nothing else seems to be so just now. I need not tell you what a hurricane we have had in our commercial and monetary affairs. It has blown somewhat in Canada, I think, and even London and Paris have not been unconscious of it. But here it has been tremendous A great deal has, no doubt, been owing to a mad panic. But there have been deep causes at work for years to produce it. The people of this country have been spendthrifts, to a degree that, I think, no people in all its classes ever were before ; and as for the great merchants and manufacturers, the bank directors and rail- road managers, they have been gamblers, — gamblers more adventur- ous than any at the Bourse in Paris or ia the Credit Mobilier. "We shall, however, get over it, and, I suppose, take nothing by our ex- perience. The country was never more really prosperous, — never richer in all that goes to make up national wealth than it is now, — and as soon as this bourrasque is over, we shall go to spending, specu- lating, and gambhng, just as if nothing had ever happened. One of the most curious things about it, and perhaps one of those most worth considering, is the way in which people accept it and submit to it, as if it were the work of an irresistible fate. Debtors claim, as if it were a right, an extension of time for paying their notes, and creditors * See ante, p. 398. 406 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1857. everywhere grant it as a matter of course. It seems as if we had become used to such catastrophes, and had learnt to take them easy. The very bank circulation seems to have grown insensible ; for there is hardly a perceptible difference between gold and inconvertible paper. It was never so before under the same circumstances, and ought not to be so now. I cannot account for it on any good princi- ple, and do not like it in its moral aspects I had an excellent passage home, the one Mrs. Ticknor ought to have had ; for she had a very bad one, and was ill after her arrival. But, as I said, we are all well now, uncommonly well, and are enjoy* ing the season, which, for two months, has been very fine, and is still very mild.* I wish you had come this way, and given us a week. Yours faithfully, Geo. Tickuob. From Sir Edmund Head. Toronto, November 21, 1857. My dear Ticknor, — I got your letter this morning, and I was very glad to hear so good an account of you all. We have heard some rumors of the manner in which your monetary crisis had affected Mrs. Ticknor's family, and we were, I need not tell you, sincerely sorry for it. You left me, as you say, in the custody of the police. I escaped, on the whole, as well as could be expected, though, no doubt, if my real deserts had been before the court, I might have been more severely dealt with. We had a stormy passage out ; but I was glad that we took the Quebec route, for the last three days one is pretty sure to have smooth water, which is something gained on the passage. We left England all green, and found icicles a yard long on the cliffs of Belleisle Our banks have held their ground pretty well, but some of our land speculators have suffered, and will continue to suffer, from the pressure. I agree with you that the equal value of gold and incon- vertible paper at Boston is a strange phenomenon. I suppose, how- ever, it marks confidence in the ultimate ability of the issuers to meet all engagements, and it also seems to show that there is none of that irrational fear which tends to the hoarding of specie in less enMght- * In the following February lie writes : " We are enjoying a much finer win- ter than any of the three I have spent in Italy We have had almost unbroken bright, cheerful sunshine and a deUcious tonic atmosphere." M. Q6.] ILLNESS OF MR. PRESCOTT. 407 ened communities. I can easily understand that your suspension of cash payments was welcome on the other side of the Atlantic. So far as it had any effect, its tendency was to check the export of bullion. But I conceive that the consequences will last long after the resump- tion of specie payments, and will be felt in the pecuniary relations of New York and Boston. The readiness with which such a step can be resorted to will diminish confidence in Europe. Nor do I see how the Legislature in New York is to help the banks by legalizing such a course. The fifth section of the eighth article of their Constitution is explicit, in depriving the Legislature of the power to authorize a suspension of specie payments. (I do not think that in Massachusetts you have any such clause, but I am not sure.) This will be a notable example of the difficulty caused by the absence of any living sovereign body, for the people of the State of New York can only speak when called into life for the purpose. Until they have so spoken, one of two things must be the case, — either the banks must openly and professedly violate the law, or the Legislature must deliberately set aside the Constitution. I cannot enter on the slavery question, for I confess I do not see my way. If the Northern States secure Kansas as a free State, it will be the first time that their action has been ultimately successful With kindest regards. Yours most truly, Edmund Head. To Sir Charles Ltell. Boston, February 19, 1858. My dear Lyell, — .... I began a letter to you above a fortnight ago, the fragment of which is now before me, and would have crossed yours on the Atlantic if it had been finished ; but Prescott's illness came the next day, and drove everything else out of my mind for a time. Anna wrote you about the first attack and the early relief. Since that time, thank God, he has constantly gone on improving, and is now almost restored. .... He is, of course, kept on a low diet, and knows that there must always be a cloud between him and the future ; but, still, I believe there is many a year of happiness in store for him. His family, on both the father's and mother's side, have been long-lived ; and he has a revenue of good spirits which is better than all the inheritances of fortune. His chief trouble, and it is one that he begins to feel abeady, will be the giving up his habits 408 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1858. of exact industry, getting out of those iron grooves in which his life has so long run, and becoming comparatively an idle man But he must do it, and he has made up his mind to it. Indeed, he has understood his complaint perfectly from the first moment, and accepts all its conditions and consequences with the most absolute cheerfulness. Our financial troubles here, of which you speak, have been much like yours in Europe, and have come from the same causes. The suffering has been great, and will be long felt ; but whether anybody will learn anything by the bitter experience is very doubtful Our banking system is one cause of our troubles, but by no means the chief. The universal extravagance, the spendthrift character of the mass of the people, goes deeper than all their moneyed institutions. This, I think, is likely to be diminished for a good while Our politics are in a state of great confusion. As the elder Adams * said to me, when he was eighty-nine years old, about the politics of the State of New York for seventy years previous, "they are the Devil's incomprehensibles." The reason is that the old parties are breaking up, and the new ones are not yet sufficiently formed and organized to be intelligible. The great contest, as you know, is about Kansas. Buchanan has behaved as badly as possible about it ; the leaders of the Free Soil party no better. Both have treated it as a game for political power. It has been just as certain for nearly two years, as it is now admitted to be by everybody, that Kansas will be a free State, and yet, as each party has believed that it could profit more by the contest than its adversary could, the contest has been continued. Either party could have stopped it any time during the last two years Lecturing is as active as ever, and the lectures well attended. Among others we have now religious lectures, delivered in a large church on Sunday evenings by clergymen of all the different persua- sions, except the Catholics, in answer to one and the same question, namely, " Why, from love to God and man, do I hold the opinions in religion which I do hold ? " The attendance, I understand, is very large, and the discussions are conducted in the most tolerant spirit. This I regard as the natural result of free inquiry ; violence and bit- terness, indeed, for a time, but at last fair and faithful discussion. Thirty years ago such lectures would not have been decently man- aged ; forty years ago I think they would have been interrupted by rude noises and in other ways, so that they could not have been car- * President John Adams. M. 66.] LETTERS TO SIR E. HEAD. 409 ried on. Now they are listened to like any other grave discus- sions Eemember us all most affectionately to Mr. and Mrs. Homer and all their house, and believe us very affectionately yours. I sign for aU. Geo. Ticknor. To Sir Edmund Head. Boston, April 24, 1858. "We have taken a very nice furnished house, five miles out of town, and shall go there next month, taking with us the Dexters and the grand-daughter. I would never go away from my town-house except for mere change ; so pure is the air here, the Common so bright, and the house itself so much better and more comfortable — library and all — than anything I get elsewhere. But when I do leave my city appliances, I like to go to a new place every year, or nearly every year, so as to make a real change, and not go over the old drives annually. You governors have this changing life in perfection ; only now and then you are sent to very out-of-the-way places. To Sir Edmund Head. Boston, May 20, 1858. I cannot tell you how much we should be gratified if we could ac- cept your invitation, so true a pleasure would it be to us to spend a few days with you at any time and anywhere. But I suppose it is quite out of the question. "What I can have said to you about " moving round " this summer, as if I thought I should be more than commonly free, I do not easily comprehend The Public Library and two or three other things keep me here. I do not intend this shall be the case hereafter. Next year, I trust, I may execute a project I have had for many years at heart, — I mean that of making a good long visit at Niagara, where we shall be so near you that we can run do-wn to Toronto, and spend a few days with you, at any time that it will be easiest and pleasantest for you to receive us. Only you must not go off to be Governor- General of India or Muiister of State at home ; for there we shall never follow you. I do not wonder you are perplexed about J. Indeed, I partly foresaw the case, and I think you did last summer when we talked about it. But in this world we must not be like the good old lady, who asked at the bookseller's shop for the smallest-sized Bible with VOL. II. 18 410 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKXOR. [1858. the largest-sized print. And apropos of this, did you ever read Mrs. Barbauld's " Essay on Inconsistent Expectations " ? It is a little harsh and uncomfortable in its tone, but there is a cruel wisdom. in it about education, which often comes up to plague me I have always had two fixed ideas about young men : first, that they should be substantially educated in the country where they are proba- bly to live ; and second, that not a small part of the value of a uni- versity or public-school education consists in adjusting a young man, during the most flexible period of his life, to his place among the asso- ciates who can best help him onward. To these two considerations I should always be willing to sacrifice a good deal. But the question of exactly how much must be settled in each particular case, bal- ancing all advantages and disadvantages. And this is exactly your trouble now. I wish I could help you, as you suggest, but I cannot. He who stands in the centre is the only person who can see truly all the relations of the circumference. To Robert H. Gardiner, Esq. Boston,* June 25, 1858. Dear Mr. Gardiner, — I received with much pleasure your kind letter of the 17th, and the copy of Buckle, all safe and in good con- dition.t It is a remarkable book, as you say, and shows an astonish- ing amount of knowledge for a man of his years, and a power of gen- eralization remarkable at any age. His views of what is connected with our spiritual nature are, no doubt, unsound, and his radicalism is always offensive. I have seldom read a book with which I have so often been angry, and yet I have learnt, I think, a great deal from it, and had my mind waked up by it upon many matters, for it has suggested to me a great variety of points for inquiry, of which I might otherwise never have thought Yours very faithfully, Geo. Ticknor. In May, 1858, Mr. Ticknor received the following letter from Baron Humboldt, of which, according to the request in the post- script, he immediately sent a translation to one of the Boston daily newspapers, with an appropriate preface. This does not * In another letter, of nearly the same date, he says : " I shall be in town a great deal, and do my work there rather than in the country." t Lent by Mr. Ticknor to Mr. Gardiner. ^•66.] LETTER FROM HUaiBOLDT. 411 seem to preclude the insertion of the original here, which will be followed by JVIr. Ticknor's answer, or so much of it as has been found. MoN CHER ET EXCELLENT Aifi, — Dcs rappcits d'amitie qui re- montent si haut dans ma famille, rafifection que men frere Guillaume de Humboldt vous avait vouee lorsque tres jeune vous habitiez I'AUe- magne, m'imposent comme un devoir bien doux a accomplir, celui de vous donuer un signe de vie, c'est-a-dire, une marque renouvellee de men attachement, de mon interet pour votre patrie, un precis de mes travaux, Mes forces physiques baissent, mais avec lenteur. Ma demarche est moins certaine de direction, a cause d'une faiblesse (d'un relache- ment) dans les ligaments des genoux, mais je peux rester debout, sans etre fatigue, pendant une heure. Je continue a travailler le plus pendant la nuit, etant impitoyablement tourmente par ma corre- spondence, qui s'etend d'autant plus que Ton devient un objet de curiosite publique. Ce que Ton appelle la celebrite litteraire est sur- tout I'effet d'une longue patience de vivre. Ce genre d'illustration augmente a mesure que Timbecilite devient plus manifeste. Je ne suis jamais malade, mais souvent souffrant, comme on doit I'etre k I'age de 89 ans. N'ayant ete que deux personnes dans I'expedition Americaine (le malheureux Carlos Montufar,* fils du Marquis de Selvalegra de Quito, est tombe victime de son amour pour la liberte de sa patrie) il est assez remarquable que, tons deux, nous soyons arrives a un age si avance. Bonpland, encore tres occupe de travaux scientifiques, se ber^ant meme de I'espoir de visiter encore une fois I'Europe, et de rapporter, lui-meme, ses riches et belles collections botaniques et geo- logiques a Paris, a 85 ans, et jouit de plus de forces que moi. Je viens de publier en Allemagne le 4enie volume du Cosmos. On imprime en ce moment le 5^°ie volume, qui termine I'ouvrage si im- prudemment commence, et si favorablement accueilli par le pubhc. Le General Sabine m'ecrit que la traduction Anglaise est terminee, et va paraitre incessamment. La meme nouvelle m'est venue de France, de la part de M. Galuzzi, qui a passe tout I'hiver dans le midi, a Cannes. * Carlos de Montufar was a young man passionately attached to science, and accompanied Humboldt and Bonpland from Quito, where they arrived in Janu- ary, 1802, through all their travels in Peru and Mexico, till their embarkation at Vera Cruz, in the spring of 1804, (Note by Mr. Ticknor to the translation published June 9, 1858.) 412 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1858. Le grand et bel ouvrage d'Agassiz (les deux volumes) ne m'est arrive que depuis quelques jours. II produira uii grand efFet, par la grandeur des vues generales, et I'extreme sagacite dans les observations speciales embryologiques. Je n'ai jamais cru que cet homme illustre, qui est en meme temps un homme de cceur, une belle ame, accepterait les ofFres que noblement on lui a faites a Paris. Je savais que la re- connaissance le retiendrait dans une nouvelle patrie oil il trouve un si immense terrain a exploiter, et de grands moyens de secours. Puisse- t-il, k cote de tant de travaux anatomiques et pbysiologiques, dans les organismes inferieurs, vouloir nous donner aussi Ticbthyologie speci- fique de ces bassins nombreux dans le far TFest, a commencer par le Saint Empire des Mormons. Les sciences viennent de faire ici une perte immense, par la mort si inattendue du plus grand anatomists de notre siecle, le Professeur Jean Miiller."^ C'est une perte toute aussi immense pour les sciences, que I'a ete pour les arts la mort de I'immortel sculpteur Eaucb.f L'universalite deseconnaissances zoologiques dans les classes inferieures de I'organization, rapprochait Jean Miiller de Cuvier, ayant une grande preeminence dans la finesse du travail anatomique et physiologique. II a execute des grands et penibles voyages, a ses frais, sur les cotes de la Mediterranee, et dans les Mers du Nord. II n'y a que deux ans a peine qu'il a manque perir dans un naufrage sur le littoral de la Norvege. II s'est soutenu en nageant pendant plus d'une demie heure, et se croyait deja entierement perdu, lorsque merveilleusement il fut retire de I'eau. Je perds en lui un ami qui m'etait bien cher. C'etait un homme d'un grand talent, et d'un beau caractere a la fois. On admirait et Televation et I'independence de sentiments. 11 a fait d'enormes sacrifices pour se former une bibliotheque choisie non seule- ment d'anatomie, de physiologie et de zoologie, mais s'etendant sur toutes les sciences physiques. Elle se compose de plus de trois milles volumes, bien relies, et d'autant de volumes renfermant des disserta- tions si difficiles a reunir. M. Miiller depensait par an pres de 800 ecus (thaler) pour la reliure seule. II serait triste de voir dispersee, parcellee, une collection faite avec tant de soin. Comme en Europe * Johann Miiller had recently died, only fifty-seven years old. t Ranch, who died in 1857, was above eighty, and seemed, until shortly he- fore his death, destined to many years of health. When Humboldt kept his eighty-seventh birthday, the 14th September, 1856, with his niece, the admi- rable Mad, de Biilow, at Tegel, the favorite residence of her father, and of his brother William, he desired to have only one other person of the party, and that was Rauch, undoubtedly then the first of living sculptors. (Note by Mr. Ticknor.) ^.66.] "COSMOS." 413 on craint les doubles, je dois presque redouter que cette belle collection traverse le grand fleuve atlantique. J'ai presque Tair d'exciter votre appetit en me present'ant devant vous comme citoyen du monde, tandis que la Kirchenzeitung de Vienne me nomme, en lettres majuscules, un naturaHste assassin des ames, Seelenmorder. Agreez, je vous prie, mon cher et respectable ami, le renouvellement de la haute et affectueuse consideration que j'ai vouee depuis tant d'annees a votre talent et a votre caractere. A. V. Humboldt. A Berlin, ce 9 Mai, 1858. Da so viele mir wohlwoUende Menscben, farbige und weisse, in den Vereinigten Staaten, an mir Antheil nebmen, so ware es mir angenebm, theurer Freund, wenn dieser Brief von Ibnen ins Engliscbe iibertra- gen (obne Weglassen dessen was sich auf unsere gegenseitige Freund- scbaft beziebt) gedruckt werden konnte. Wenn Sie es fur notbwendig halten, konnten Sie zusetzen, icb batte die Bekamitmacbung selbst erbeten, weil icb so viele an micb gericbtete Briefe unbeantwortet gelassen.* * Translation of the above : — My dear a>T) excellent Friend, — Bonds of friendship which have their origin so far back in my family, and the affection felt for you by my brother, "William von Humboldt, when you lived in Germany as a young man, seem to impose on me the very pleasant duty of giving you some sign of life, — that is to say, a renewed proof of my attachment to you, and my interest in your coun- try, and a brief account of my labors. My physical strength declines, but it declines slowly. My steps are more uncertain in their direction, owing to a feebleness (a relaxing) of the ligaments of the knees ; but T can remain standing for an hour without being fatigued. I continue to work chiefly at night, being unrelentingly persecuted by my cor- respondence, which increases the more as one becomes an object of piiblic curiosity. What is called literary celebrity is especially the result of a long endurance of life. This kind of eminence increases, therefore, in proportion as imbecility becomes more manifest. I am never really ill, but often incom- moded, as is to be expected at the age of eighty-nine. Since we were only two persons in the American Expedition (the unfortunate Carlos Montufar, son of the Marquis de Selvalegra, of Quito, fell a victim to his love for the liberty of his countrj'), it is somewhat remarkable that we should both have reached so advanced an age. Bonpland, still much occupied with scientific labors, even cherishing the hope of visiting Europe again, and of bringing in person back to Paris his rich and beautiful collections in botany and geologj', is eighty-five years old, and enjoys greater strength than I do. I have just published in Germany the fourth volume of '' Cosmos," and they are now printing the fifth volume, which completes that work, so imprudently begun and so favorably received by the public. General Sabine writes me that 414 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1858. To Baron Alexander von Humboldt. Boston, U. S. A., July 8, 1858. My dear and venerated Friend, — I was much surprised to re- ceive your letter of May 9. I was still more gratified. Indeed, I cannot tell you how much I was gratified by it. It contained such excellent news of yourself ; it was so flattering to me that you should write to me at all. You are quite right in supposing that Agassiz will remain in the United States. In fact, he has never doubted. He is happily married. His social position is as agreeable as we can make it. His pecuniary resources are quite sufficient for his wants. The field for his peculiar labors is new and wide, and he is not only able, from his fine physical nature, to go over a large part of it himself, but he is forming a school which will carry on what he may leave unfinished. I thmk, there- fore, that by remaining here, he not only does well for himself, but for the cause of science, to which he so earnestly and efi'ectively de- votes his life. I gave him at once so much of your letter to me as related to him personally. He was very much gratified with it, and immediately sent to me for you, with his most ample acknowledg- the English translation is finished and will appear immediately. The same news comes to me from France, from M. Galuzzi, who has been passing the winter in the south, at Cannes. The great and beautiful work of Agassiz (the first two volumes) reached me only a few days since. It will produce a great effect by the breadth of its gen- eral views, and by the extreme sagacity of its special embryological observa- tions. I never believed that this illustrious man, who is no less a man of a constant and beautiful nature, would accept the offers nobly made him in Paris. I was sure that gratitude would bind him to a new country, where he finds a field so immense for his researches and great means of assistance, I hope he ma^' be inclined, together with his great anatomical and physiological labors among the inferior organisms, to give us also the specific ichthyology of the numerous basins of the "far West," beginning with the Holy Empire of the Mormons. Science has lately met with an immense loss here by the unexpected death of the greatest anatomist of our century. Prof. Johann Miiller. This loss is as great for science as was for art the death of the immortal sculptor. Ranch. The universality of his zoological knowledge in the inferior organizations placed Johann Miiller near Cuvier, having a great pre-eminence in the delicacy of his anatomical and physiological work. He made long and painful voyages, at his own expense, on the shores of the Mediterranean and in the Northern Seas. It is scarcely two years since he came near perishing by shipwreck on the coast of Norway. He sustained himself by swimming for more than half an hour, and considered himself quite lost, when he was wonderfully rescued. I lose in M. 66.] HUMBOLDT AND AGASSIZ. 415 ments for yonr kindness, three pamphlets on the subject of the fishes to be found in the basins of our " Far "West." This subject, to which you desired his attention to be called, is a very important part of the ichthyology of all North America, to which he has devoted himself ever since he has been among us, and has made a collection which is already become of great value, and to which he is constantly making large additions. The three pamphlets lq question I forwarded to you immediately, sending them through Mr. Cass, our Secretary of State, and the diplomatic channel ; so that if you have not already received them from our Minister in Berlin, he wiU no doubt transmit them to you very soon after this letter reaches you. I enclose you a copy of the translation of your letter to me. I caused it to be printed first in the " Boston Courier " of June 9, and from that journal it has been copied all over the country, into all sorts of newspapers. I think that not less than half a million of such cop- ies of it have thus been distributed ; so universal is the interest felt in your person and fame throughout the United States. Everywhere it has produced the same effect ; astonishment and gratitude for your continued health and strength, and for your unim- him a friend who was very dear to me. He was a man of great talent, and at the same time of a noble character. He was admirable for the elevation and independence of his opinions. By making enormous sacrifices he was able to form a choice library, not only of anatomy, physiology, and zoology, but one that extended over all the physical sciences. It consists of more than three thousand volumes, well bound, and of as many more volumes containing dis- sertations, so difficult to collect. Mr. Miiller spent nearly eight hundred tha- lers a year [six hundred dollars] for binding alone. It would be sad to see a collection dispersed and broken up which was made with so much care. Since duplicates are dreaded in Europe, I cannot help fearing lest this fine collection should cross the great Atlantic river. I have almost the air of exciting your appetite when I thus present myseK before you as a citizen of the world, while the " Chiirch Journal " of Vienna calls me, in capital letters, a naturalist assas- sin of souls, Seeleninorder. Accept, I beg you, my dear and respected friend, the renewal of the high and affectionate consideration which, for so many years, I have given to yoiir talents and to your character. A. V. Humboldt. Berles, 9 May, 1858. Since so many benevolent persons, colored as well as white, in the United States, take an interest in me, it would be agreeable to me, my dear friend, if this letter, translated into English by you, could be printed, without omitting what relates to our mutual friendship. If you think it necessary you can add that I have myself begged of you this publication, because I leave unanswered go many letters that are addressed to me. 416 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1858. paired intellectual resources and supremacy. In America we thank God for all these things, and count them among the blessings and honors of the age in which we live. I suppose you hear much about the United States and its public policy that is disagreeable. Indeed, I know you do. But I pray you to believe as little of it as you can. I have never belonged to the party that brought Mr. Buchanan into power, and never expect to sustain its measures on any national subject. Still, I do not impute to Mr. Buchanan all the political extravagances that are sometimes charged on him by my more ardent friends. That he desires the ex- tension of slavery I much doubt. That he cannot succeed in extend- ing it, if he desire so to do, I feel sure. Be persuaded, I pray you, that Kansas will be a free State. I felt certain of this when I had the happiness of seeing you in 1856, and I have never doubted it for a moment since. It may be a year or two before this result can be ac- complished. But it is, in my humble judgment, as certain as anything future can be. Nor will one square mile belonging now to the terri- tory of the United States be cursed with slavery, which is not at this present moment cursed wdth it. Of course I do not speak of Cuba or Mexico. I only pray that they may never be added to our Confed- eracy. Nor will they, except with the consent of Europe. To Sir Edmund Head. Boston, June 21, 1858. I hope the second edition of " Shall and Will " * may come soon, and that there will be plenty of quotations from Shakespeare in it. There ought to be, after the pains you took. The Bible, too, — King James's, — will furnish the best of illustrations. I am not certain but that it is the constant use of this book that has kept us so very exact about "Shall and Will," from the Puritan times down. At any rate, we are all right in New England. I never knew a person among us — who was bom here, or who was bred in our schools — to make a mistake in the use of these two idiomatic auxiliaries. In- deed, I do not think I hear one once a year, and it is so offensive to me, that I am sure a slight deviation would not escape my notice. Boston, September 14, 1858. Please thank kind Lady Head for transcribing the version of the last elegy of Propertius.t It is not very close, yet remarkably p^rase(Z, * An admirable treatise by Sir E. Head, t Translation by Sir E. Head. M. m.'\ THOMAS DOWSE. 417 — if I may use sucli a word, — so as to preserve the air and tone of the original. But I do not know how it is that all the expressions of feeling about death by the ancients — even this one, which is per- haps the best except the Alcestis — are so unsatisfactory. They seem to come out of dismal hoUows in the earth, and to be without even that warmth of merely human feeling, which they might surely have without the confident belief of immortality that is granted to us. Thus, for instance, to say nothing of his other odes of the same sort, the Ode of Horace to Posthumus, and especially the phrase placens uxor, has always seemed to me ineffably mean. I dare say I may be wrong, but I can't help it. Lord Napier spent seven or eight weeks at Nahant, and, I think, liked it very well. At any rate, he was very well liked by the peo- ple who saw him oftenest. I met him only two or three times, for the same reason that I saw so little of the E, s. They were all out of my beat by twenty miles. I suppose he represents the opinion of England when he shows less disposition than has been usual with your ministers, to fall in with our Northern notions about slavery, and to insist that Cuba shaU not be annexed to the United States. Probably it would do no harm to England to have us possess all the West Indies and all South America ; but I do not conceive it to be for our interest to have more territory, North or South. It is now nearly impossible to make, at Washington, laws which are absolutely necessary for one part of the country, and yet which can be endured or executed in another part ; and the larger we grow the more formi- dable this difi&culty will become. The followiiig note to Mr. Everett derives its interest from the anecdote with which it concludes, of an admirable old man, j\Ir. Thomas Dowse, who, beginning life as a journeyman leather- dresser, and continuing always in that craft, though becoming a wealthy master, early devoted every dollar he could save to the purchase of good English books. Having lived a bachelor to an advanced age, he left to the Massachusetts Historical Society a valuable library of about five thousand handsomely bound vol- umes. The simplicity and upright intelligence of Mr. Dowse had always attracted Mr. Ticknor, and he often quoted the au- tobiographical utterance which he records at the end of this note. 18* A A 418 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1859. To Hon. E. Everett. Park Street, December 10, 1858. My dear Everett, — .... If I had known that you intended to use Mr. Dowse's account of his youth to me in your most agreeable and interesting lecture last night,"^ I would have given it to you in writing. One or two of the items of his economies I cannot remem- ber ; but for the others I will give you, on the next leaf, what I be- lieve are the ipsissima verba of the old man, as he stood just by where I am now writing and leaned on the table. One item I have recalled since I repeated them to you, and if I could remember the others, the accumulation would be a little humorous and very striking. " But old, old, Master — " not Shallow, though Falstaff has it so. Yours sincerely, Geo. Ticknor. [Mr. Dowse's account of his own youth.] " Mr. Ticknor, when I was twenty-eight years old I had never been anything better than a journeyman leather-dresser ; I had never had more than twenty-five dollars a month ; I had never paid five dollars to be carried from one place to another ; I had never owned a pair of boots ; I had never paid a penny to go to the play or to see a sight, but I owned above six hundred volumes of good books, well bound." To Hon. Edward Twisleton. Boston, January 18, 1859. My dear Twisleton, — I thank you for the correction you have taken the pains to send me of an error in my " History of Spanish Literature," which I immediately entered in the margin of the copy from which I intend speedily to reprint it. I only wish my other friends would be equally observant and kind. Yon Raumer sent me one correction much like yours, — telling me that " Ferdinand," whom — in note 10 to Chapter XI. of the First Part — I had called "father of John I." of Portugal, was, in fact, his half -hr other. But this is all, and I mention it because it is so, as well as from its odd similarity to the one you have suggested. Even in the notes to the German and Spanish translations few mistakes have been pointed out. Now all this would be very consoling, — even very gratifying, — if it were not for one circumstance, viz. that I have found out so many mistakes myself, * When Mr. Everett had delivered a eulogy on Mr. Dowse, before the Massa- chusetts Historical Society. M. 67.] LETTER TO MR. TWISLETON. 419 that I have little confidence in my readers and reviewers, and am really anxious about the number that may still remain after I have done my best. Of family news, which are the most important and interesting to dear Ellen — and, therefore, to you — that I can send you, are they not written in the weekly chronicle she receives, from her old home, by every packet-ship ? The new engagement and the new grandchild are old stories to you already, and I hate repetitions, vain repetitions. I -ttdll only, therefore, sum up all, by saying that we are all well, and that, notwithstanding the changes and trials that have occurred during the last fifteen mouths,* the average of content and happiness in the family is, I think, as great as it ever was. As to the country, we go on much after the fashion you understand so well from autopsy When we talked about our affairs in 1856-57, I easily foresaw that Buchanan would be chosen ; that this would lead to no trouble with the governments of Europe, that Walker would faO. as a flibustero, and that nothing could prevent Kansas from being a free State. But I cannot foresee now, as I could then Equally uncertain is what is more immediate, — the result of the pres- ent important discussions in Congress about the construction of a rail- road from the Mississippi ; though it is not doubtful, I fear, whenever it is constructed, that it will be made a stupendous job, involving great corruption, in Congress and out of it And then, finally, as to the other great question, nobody, I think, knows what will be done about Utah ; though I have no doubt Mormonism will perish of its own wickedness and corruption, and would, in fact, have perished long ago but for the large recruits it has received from the North of Europe. Now, from all these negative and uncertain quantities if you can extract anything positive, I wish you joy of your ingenuity. I cannot. Your friends here, I think, are all well and doing well. Prescott told me yesterday that he had received letters from you and Mr. Adderley. I have seen him lately almost every day. He is looking as well as ever, and his constitution has accommodated itself, with wonderful alacrity, to the vegetable diet prescribed for him eleven months ago. But he does not yet feel himself equal to severe work, and has not undertaken any. In this I think he is wise.f * The financial troiibles of 1857 had impaired the fortunes of some of the relatives of Mrs. Ticknor and Mrs. Twisleton. t Mr. Prescott died nine days after this was written. The whole of this subject is reserved for a later chapter. 420 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1859. Savage, who is now, I think, seventy- five years old, is uncommonly vivacious and active. He is now getting proof-sheets of the first out of four volumes of his book of vain genealogies It may be hoped he will live to carry it through the press ; and perhaps we ought to hope that he will not long survive its completion. He would be unhappy without the work into which he has put so large a part of his life. Hillard is very well, and very active These are the three people we see most constantly ; oftener than we see anybody out of the family Tell dear Ellen that I love her just as much as I did when I was at Rutland Gate and Malvern, and hope still that she will come to the United States once more before I die. I talked much about her lately with Sam Eliot, who, with his wife and chil- dren, spent a week with us at New Year, and again, only yesterday, with Cogswell, who, after spending three or four days with us, went to New York this morning. The two Annas and Lizzie send love. So do I. So do Prescott and Hillard, to whom I gave your messages, and so does Savage, to whom you sent none. Always yours, Geo. Ticknor. To Sir Walter Calverly Trevelyan. Boston, U. S. A., June 28, 1859. My dear Sir Walter, — . . . . Hillard"^ can tell you all you will want to know about this country On the Maine Liquor Law, which interests you so much, and which, if it were possible to execute it honestly, would interest me equally, he knows at least as much as I do. But I rather think his opinion is substantially like mine ; namely, that it has not advanced the cause of temperance among us, and that it has tended much to bring all laws into disre- pute which are not in themselves popular It looks as if legis- lation upon the subject were effete. But we are a people fond of ex- periments ; and, perhaps, in time we shall hit upon something that will do good. I am sure I hope we shall. Just now I am much more troubled about the European war than about our liquor law, which I do not hear mentioned once a month. But, if you will keep out of it in England, I will be content. At one * Then visiting England, and introduced to Sir Walter Trevelyan by Mr. Ticknor. M. 67.] WAR IN ITALY. 421 time I trusted, or rather I hoped, that the financial question would override all the others, and that money would not be found to carry- on the contest. But armed men seem to spring from the earth, as they did in the times of Cadmus and Jason, merely because wicked- ness has been sown broadcast ; and the harvest of such seed can only be desolation and misery. Of course, our sympathies are all with the Italians. The difficulty is to see how they are to get any benefit from the struggle The ultimate horror is that, with every revolu- tion and war, the governments necessarily become more military, — the number of the standing armies is increased ; and this, if the his- tory of the race for three thousand years means anything, is the death of civilization Yours very faithfully, Geo. Ticknor. 422 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1859. CHAPTER XXI. Letters, 1859-61, to Sir C. Lyell, Hon. E. Everett, Sir E. Head, C. S. Daveis. To Sir Charles Ltell. Boston, May 17, 1859. My dear Lyell, — By the time this letter reaches London, I trust that you will be safely back in Harley Street, from the land of dikes and canals, — a strange country, which I visited once, and seemed to lead such a sort of amphibious existence, that I have never cared to go there again. But it was in the month of July, and the waters pumped up by the windmills did not give out Sabean odors. We feel very uncomfortable about the news we get from your side of the Atlantic But I had rather talk about the progress of civilization than its decay and death, which are, I conceive, the natu- ral results of the prevalence of military governments. So I will tell you about Agassiz and his affairs The establishment "* is a grand one, and I take an interest in it, not from any knowledge about the subject, or any personal regard for it, but because I think such an in- stitution will tend, more than anything else, at the present time, to lay the foundation for a real university among us, where all the great divisions of human knowledge shall be duly represented and taught. I had a vision of such an establishment forty years ago, when I came fresh from a two-years' residence at Gottingen ; but that was too soon. Nobody listened to me. Now, however, when we have the best law school in the country, one of the best observatories in the world, a good medical school, and a good botanical garden, I think the Law- rence Scientific School, with the Zoological and Paleontological Mu- seum, may push through a true university, and bring up the Greek, Latin, mathematics, history, philosophy, etc., to their proper level. At least I hope so, and mean to work for it We are looking for your paper on Etna, and I hope to be able to understand it, but do not feel sure. Of Mansell's lectures I have * The Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge. M. 67.] MUSEUM OF ZOOLOGY. 423 "better hopes. They are published here. We are all well, and all send love to dear Lady Lyell Yours always, Geo. Ticknor. In 1867 Mr. Ticknor, as one of the Trustees of the Zoological Museum, made some extemporaneous remarks before a com- mittee of the Legislature of Massachusetts, and after returning home he wrote down a part of what he remembered saying. One passage so connects itself with the contents of the preceding letter, that it seems well it should be added here. He evidently felt that, during the eight years that had intervened, his expecta- tions had been realized in some degree. I know almost nothing of the science he [Professor Agassiz] has illustrated, by labors and sacrifices, which I cannot find elsewhere among us. But this we all know. The different branches of human knowledge are closely connected, and each contributes its part to make up the grand sum of a state's culture and civiHzation. Nor do we find that, in any well-organized institution for education, any one of these branches gets easily much in advance of all the others. It is very difficult, very rarely knowTi in Europe, where so much depends on protection and privilege. In our own country, where everything is so free, where competition is of the very essence of our institutions, and where there are everywhere such ambitious longings for progress, it seems absolutely impossible. The great difficulty is at the begin- ning, to awake the first interest, to persuade us that we are really deficient. It is the first step that costs. Get one department to move, and the rest will follow. Get mathematics to move, or natural science, and the languages, history, and literature will follow. Ac- tive, earnest men, who are interested in any one branch, will not suffer it to linger far behind the others. Nobody will, I suppose, deny that natural science has been doing this work in Harvard College of late. But it has done more. It has tended to open that institution ; to make it a free university, acces- sible to all, whether they desire to receive instruction in one branch or in many. And for these great services, tending to make our chief college like a university on the Continent of Europe, and not like a close corporation, — such as the English universities are, — the cause of natural science has, of late years, been much favored by liberal and intelligent men in Massachusetts, as well as by the Legislature. 424 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1859. To Hon E. Everett. Niagara Falls, August 22, 1859. My dear Everett, — By intimations in my letters from Boston, I find you must have been there, only two or three days ago. Of course your plans must have been changed since we parted. Pray write to me, therefore, and tell me what they are. I hope you will remain in Boston until I return, which will be in about a month, — certainly before October 1 We have had a very pleasant summer so far, and are living here most agreeably in a cottage by ourselves, but belonging to the hotel on the English side, and facing both the falls. It is, on the whole, I think, the grandest scene known to me, though I dare say there are grander that I have never visited . When we first came here, Sir Edmund and Lady Head — who are only four or five hours off by rail — came and made us a visit of a few days, since which we have passed a fortnight with them at Toronto and are not without hopes that they will come to us again before we return home. She is a very charming, highly cul- tivated person, and he is one of the most accurate and accomplished scholars I have ever known. He has been a good deal in Spain, and has some curious Spanish books in his large library, over which we have had much talk. I think he can repeat more poe- try, Greek, Latin, German, and Spanish, than any person I ever knew. Toronto is much more of a place, and there are more cultivated people there, than I had any notion of. They have a good college for certain purposes, but the Province has another, on a larger and more liberal scale. They are just completing for it a very large stone building, — three sides of a quadrangle, — which is a finer build- ing and better adapted to its purposes than any similar one in the United States ; I suspect a finer building than any we have for any purpose whatever, except the Capitol at Washington. It is in the Norman style of architecture But if we are ignorant, as I think we are, about Canada, they are quite as ignorant about us. I think they hardly know more than the people in England do We are all well, and send kindest regards Yours sincerely, Geo. Ticknor. M. 68.] BIRTHDAY OF WASHINGTON IRVING. .425 To Sir Edmund Head. Boston, March 26, 1860. I have been invited by tbe Historical Society of New York, with Everett and one or two more hereabouts, to listen in their Music Hall to a discourse which Bryant, the poet, will deliver on Washington Irving's birthday, April 3, in honor of his genius and virtues. As I really loved and admired him very much, — having lived a good deal with him in London in 1818-19, just before the "Sketch Book" came out, when he was in straitened circumstances and little kno'v^'n, — I mean to go. I will not disguise from you, however, that Mrs. Ticknor and Anna, without whom, and their influence, I should not move, want a spree, and that Everett has entered into a bond to do all the talking. In this way I count upon a good time I had a letter yesterday from Lord Carlisle. He seems to think that busy times are on them in Europe, and rejoices — as we do here — that there are no complications with the United States. Glad- stone, too, he praises, as Reinike says, utermaten; but throws in a little doubt whether his judgment is equal to his genius and virtue. How striking it is, that two such scholars as he and Lewis should have made such capital Chancellors of the Exchequer ! I think either of them could, while in office, have stood successfully for a scholar- ship at Oxford. But what is Lewis doing with Babrius, and what set him out to do anything with him ? I only know the bookseller^s announcement. To Sir Edmund Head. Gaediner, Maine, July 26, 1860. My dear Head, — Your letter has come round by Boston, and reached me here, where Mrs. Ticknor and I are making a visit to our old friends, the Gardiners. I was very glad to get it, and to know that you are safe and well home from your fishing-frolic ; and that you had good success. I take it that few of the one hundred and five salmon that were slaughtered were killed by any hand but yours. If you get from it strength to face the campaign now impending, it will have done a good work for you. We came here last week, and shall remain till the last day of the present one, when we return home, where I have needful occupation^ for three or four days. But after that we shall be most happy to joia Lady Head, having no engagements from August 5 to September. We shall arrange our aff'airs so as to go to Gorham, whenever Ladj' 426 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [I860. Head advises us that she shall be glad to have us come. It is a good while since I have been in that country, and I shall enjoy it very much ; and besides that, I think I shall find it salutary. Since the last winter and spring, when I was a little overworked and run down, I find a tonic atmosphere very useful Certainly we shall be at home all the month of October, .... and count very much upon your visit. Pray make it as long as you can I shall be glad to have Garibaldi succeed ; but I do not see how all the Italian questions, which seem to be getting more and more com- plicated every day, are to be peaceably solved. Venice cannot remain as it is, and yet the rest of Italy be made quiet ; the Pope will not give up ; the Emperor cannot depose him, or permit revolution to go further in Italy than it has gone. In short, it is much like the old case of undertaking to blow the barrel of gunpowder half-way down. I do not see how it is to end. I am in great hopes, however, that Louis Napoleon was made to feel, at Baden, that there are limits to his power which he must not attempt to pass ; and from what I hear, I think he was made to feel it. I shall hardly hear from you again until your flurry is over,* but Lady Head will tell us all about it. Her case is a new illustration of the beneficent result of the revolution of 1776, which made the United States a refuge for the oppressed. Please give the love of all of us to her, and to C. and A., and assure them that we shall endeavor to keep up the reputation of our country for humanity. Yours always faithfully, Geo. Ticknor. To Mr. Charles S. Daveis. Boston, October 13, 1860. My dear Charles, — Since I wrote from the Glen,t I have heard of you — until yesterday — only by accident. Our calculations for our tour in the Mountains were overrun by two days, so that, when we reached Gorham again, I had no time either to see Lady Head off for Quebec, or to stop a night in Portland and see you, both of which I much regretted. Since our nominal return to Boston, which was necessary to keep other engagements, we have been little at home. "We made a visit directly to our kinsfolk in Berkshire, X which had * The visit of the Prince of Wales to Canada. t In the White Mountains. t Hon. B. R. Curtis and his family. M. 69.] VISIT OF THE PRINCE OF WALES. 427 been promised three successive years ; then we went to New York to buy carpets, missing Cogswell, or, as he pretends, avoiding him by a day ; then we went to some friends on the North River ; and now we are just come back from Savage's,* where we have been due since 1855. Of course the few intervening days at home have been busy enough. The practical result, however, of the whole is, that we have had an uncommonly pleasant summer, — generally a gay one for old folks, — and that we are now in excellent health, gathered comfort- ably to our own hearthstone, with good pluck to encounter a New England winter, which the two Annas like less than I do. Touching the Prince's visit, — of which you speak inquiringly, — I think you know just about as much as I do Everj'thing, how- ever, has, I believe, been done circumspectly, and is likely to turn out as well as can be expected. My whole service, I suppose, will be to conduct Anna to the ball, — her mother refusing absolutely to go, — for, as Judge Shaw will not be vis-d-vis to the Prince, neither Sparks nor I, nor any of the other gay young fellows associated with, us, can aspire to that distinction Thank you very much for your kind invitation ; but my migrations for the rest of the year can hardly be more than the good Vicar's, from the blue bed to the brown. You must come here. You are due some time before winter, and the sooner you come the better. Meantime, we all send love and kindest wishes. G. T. To Sir Edmund Head. Boston, Tuesday, October 23, 1860. The Prince's visit went off as well as possible Two things strike me in the whole affair. The first is, the deep ground of the cor- diality on the part of the masses. It is, I believe, that they felt they could show their good- will, without any fear of its being misconstrued into flattery. "When we were young and weak, our pride made us sensitive, and we were not disposed to such exhibitions of feeling. The ill-will of the War of Independence continued long ; continued, indeed, until lately ; and there has been a strong sense — produced by the ignorance and indiscretion of reviews and newspapers — that we were underv^alued by your nation. But the coming of your Prince among us was a compliment not to be misinterpreted or misunder- stood, and showed a confidence in our good feelings, which a people, * ^Ir. James Savage's country-place at Lunenburg, in the northern part of Massachusetts. 428 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1860. with much less generosity in their natures than I believe my country- men to possess, could not fail to accept, in the spirit in which it was offered. And they have certainly done it. I have no more doubt of it than I have of any fact in history.* The other thing is, that the open cordiality of the people here has rebuked and silenced anything that remained, in newspaper editors and reporters, of the old feelings of ill-will toward your country. I have watched the tone of our papers ever since the Prince touched at Newfoundland, and have observed how their tone has gradually changed, from occasional touches of ill manners to such as are un- exceptionable. This is especially true of the old democratic papers ; those, I mean, that have always taken sides against England, from the time of the French Kevolution. It is most desirable, and important, that this tone in our newspapers should be kept up, and that it should be met in a similar spirit by yours. On this point, both sides have heretofore behaved badly enough, and done more, I suspect, than all other causes, to keep up an ill-will between the two countries. For- merly, we were most in fault. Latterly, — allow me to say it, — you have been most in fault, especially the " Tiines," the " Saturday Re- view," and the " Quarterly " ; whose occasional blunders about the most obvious things only vex us the more, that men, so ignorant of what they discuss, should undertake to pass judgment upon our char- acter and doings. Now is the time to change all this. We are in the best possible temper for it, and are likely to continue so, if nothing comes from your side to cross and disturb us Our people are now in ex- cellent humor with themselves, and with you ; such, so far as England is concerned, as I never saw before, and never hoped to live to see. If your people are in the same temper about us, I think no trouble of a serious nature will arise in this generation I have written such a long letter, about matters with which I have very small concern, that I have hardly room to send the love of all of us to dear Lady Head, and C. and A. I shall look to hear from you very soon, and to have you all again under my roof-tree in February. Faithfully yours, G. TiCKNOR. * In answering this letter Sir Edmund says : " The views which you express •with reference to the effect of the Prince's visit are, I believe, quite correct. I have taken measures for letting the Queen see such portions of your letter as hear directly on the benefits likely to accrue to both countries, and I hope you will not think me indiscreet in doing so ^. 69.] LETTER FROM SIR EDMUND HEAD. 429 From Sir E. Head. Athen^um, [London,] November 23, 1860. My dear Ticknor, — I owe you another letter, were it only to thank you for your kindness in writing again so soon. I am able to say that everybody in this country sets the highest value on the cour- tesy and friendly bearing towards the Prince, shown in the United States. I may begin from the top, for I had the opportunity of talk- ing both to the Queen and Prince Albert on the subject last week. Your Minister (Dallas) and his wife were at the Castle at the same time wdth myself. The Prince appeared in good spirits, and per- fectly recovered from his long voyage. Neither her Majesty nor the Prince sjpoJx to me of your letters, but General Phipps ^yToie, to Lewis, saying how much they were interested by the fii-st. Lewis read to them such portions of the second as were adapted to royal ears Prince Albert expressed himself to me personally in terms much stronger than were necessary with reference to the Prince's visit. I attributed a large portion of its success to the Prince of Wales's own courtesy and good-nature, which is strictly true. Palmerston and Lord John Eussell were at the Castle, — the former vigorous enough to walk upwards of three miles with me and Lord St. Germans in the afternoon of Sunday. Lady Head is tolerably well, but she has had a bad cold. "We are at Farrance's, near Eaton Square, which is a most comfortable hotel. On Saturday, December 11, we shall be at Oxford, on our way to the West. MUman is very well; so are the Lyells. I examined Lyell's collection of the flint axe-heads from St. Acheul, in Picardy, con- temporaneous with the elephants, etc. Of their human origin there can be no doubt. The evidence of design in their fabrication is as clear as it would be in Paley's watch. Lyell speaks confidently of their geological date. Twisleton and his wife dined at Kent House last night. She is looking " peaky " from a cold, but otherwise well. Hogarth will resuscitate your print, and I have told him to frame it plainly. There is, I think, a considerable theological movement, since I was last in England, in a rationalistic direction. Kind regards to Mrs. Ticknor and Anna. Yours truly, Edmund Head. 430 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1860. To Sir Charles Lyell, Bart. Boston, November 27, 1860. My dear Lyell, — You will be glad, I think, to hear something about the state of affairs in the United States, from somebody with >vhom you are so well acquainted that you will know how to measure what he says All men, I think, are satisfied that our principles of government are about to be put to the test as they never yet have been. The sectional parties, that Washington and Hamilton foresaw as our greatest danger, and which Calhoun, Clay, Webster, and J. Q. Adams died believing they would break up the Union, are now fully formed From the time of Calhoun, or from the announcement of his dan- gerous and unsound doctrines, that is, from 1828, to 1832, the people of South Carolina have been gradually coming to the conclusion that it is not for their material interest to continue in the Union. Nearly all have now come to this persuasion.-**- .... They care little whether any other State goes with them ; so extravagantly excited have they become The State most likely to go with them is Alabama. Georgia is very much excited, and very unsound, as we think ; and Florida, a State of less consequence, is quite ready to go South. Carolina, however, is the only State about which, at this moment, there seems little or no doubt. But property everywhere is the great bond of society ; and in our slave-holding States the negroes consti- tute an extraordinary proportion of the wealth of the people This property, which, at the time when the Constitution was formed, existed in nearly all the States, we all promised should be secured to the South by the return of their fugitive slaves, and without this promise the Constitution could not have been formed at all. The slave States are now in a minority, and several of the free States have enacted laws to prevent the return of these fugitives. This is the main, substantial ground of their complaints. But it is not the only or chief ground. They believe themselves in danger ; and many of the leading men all through the South believe that if there were no danger in the case they should be better out of the Union than they are in it. All this, as you at once perceive, is neither legal nor logical. The * The passages omitted consist of amplifications and citations of facts, which seem needless now, and occupy much space. -^.69.] SECESSION ILLOGICAL. 431 laws they complain of have nowhere prevented the return of their fugitive slaves Moreover, they can be in no immediate danger. .... But all this avails nothing. The cry is, that the South is in danger^ because the South is in the minority, and is weak ; and they had better go out of the Union before they become weaker and more feeble by the constantly increasing power of the free States Meanwhile, the very suggestion has thrown the finances of the coun- try into confusion. There was a panic last week, worse in many re- spects than the formidable one of 1857 It was foreseen by nobody, and is a proof not only of the importance of the political questions at issue, but of the peculiar sensitiveness of men in a gov- ernment which is so purely a matter of opinion, and which has so few traditions and precedents to rest upon. Where it will end, no man can tell. With greater real wealth than we ever had before ; with enormous crops, which are so much wanted in Europe that they are sure to be turned into ready money at once ; and with exchanges in our favor, so that gold is coming in daily, one would think that it should end at once. But if we are going to quarrel at home, we have an element in our reckoning that was never there before, and the value and import of which none are wise enough to estimate If any country in all the world were governed according to the well- understood demands of its material interests, the people of that coun- try would be better off than the people of any other country on the face of the earth. But passions and personal interests rule more or less everywhere. Plectuntur Achivi is as true now as it .was eighteen hundred or three thousand years ago One thing, however, is certain. There will be more real profitable, substantial thinking upon political subjects done in the United States during the next six months, than has been done during the last ten years In no event will there be any attempt at coercion until we are much further ahead in our troubles and exasperation If it comes to fighting, we of the North of course shall beat. We have the moral and physical power, the wealth, and all the other means needful to carry through the contest successfully. But it will be such a contest as the civilized world has not seen for a long time ; much like one of the old contests between the Greek republics, and at the end, when, if it ever happens, we must have three, or four, or five millions of uneducated slaves on our hands, what shall we do with them ? Anna — the younger — asked this question of Count Cavour, in his opera-box, one night,* after he had shown us that he * In 1857. See ante, p. 352. 432 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1860. knew more about the politics and parties of this country than any- Italian we had seen all the preceding winter. " Mademoiselle," he answered, "je crois que vous parlerez beaucoup de I'emancipation, et que vous emanciperez fort peu." Shall we come to this condition, this point ? I trust not in my time ; but we are nearer to it than — six months ago — I thought it was possible we should be in ten years. .... By the end of January you will be able to judge of all these things as well as we can. By that time the programme will be out. Some people — and among them two or three whose opinions are worth having — believe that leading men at the South have already an understanding with Louis Napoleon, that, for certain advantages in trade, he should enter into an alliance, offensive and defensive, with them. I do not believe in this. But it may come with time Anna wrote to Lady Lyell so much about the Prince's visit, that I can add nothing, except my conviction that it has done good to the relations of the two countries The Duke of Newcastle and Dr. Acland were the only two persons of whom I saw a little, to any real pui'pose, during their two or three days' visit here. The Doctor is a most interesting and attractive person. There can be no doubt about that. The Duke talked well and wisely Commend us to Sir Edmund and Lady Head when you see them. We had a charming visit from them when they embarked, and most pleasant letters since their arrival. Yours faithfully, Geo. Ticknor. In a letter to Sir Edmund Head Mr. Ticknor says : — With Dr. Acland I had a charming day, driving about in Cam- bridge, Charlestown, and Boston, seven or eight hours, — one of which, or nearly one, was spent with him and Agassiz, alone in Agas- siz's Museum, and of which I must give you an account when I see you. It was one of the remarkable hours of my life. To Sir Edmund Head, Bart. Boston, April 8, 1861. My dear Head, — We are all asleep here, and have been for some time, personally and politically All North — the old Union — is asleep, but is not therefore doing well. In my judgment we are drifting. Perhaps some anchor will hold. But, if it does, the cable may snap. Of course, with these views, I do not feel better about our M. 69.] CIVIL WAR. 433 affairs than I did when you were here ; * nor take a more cheerful view of them than you do in your letters. To Sir Edmund Head. Boston, April 9, 1861. I had a letter this morning from a gentleman in Baltimore, emi- nent for his talents and position, who has exercised much influence through the border States against secession during the last four months. But he is now much disheartened. He says that disunion sentiments are gaining ground in Virginia and Maryland. He feels, as I think I told you I do, that we are drifting, and that nobody knows where we shall fetch up. "An intimate friend," he says, " and as I think the clearest-headed of the foreign ministers at Wash- ington, and a lover, too, of the United States, writes to me, ' We are here still in great uncertainty, and the process of disintegration finds no remedy.' " I think the same sense of uncertainty prevails everywhere. This, in itself, is mischief and disaster. Yours faithfully, Geo. Ticknor. To Sir Edmund Head. Boston, April 21, 1861. My dear Head, — I sent you by yesterday's express a parcel, about which the two papers I enclose ydW give you all the informa- tion you will need. The Danish books, I think, will be all you will want for some time. But there are other things to talk about now. The heather is on fire. I never before knew what a popular excitement can be. Holi- day enthusiasm I have seen often enough, and anxious crowds I re- member during the war of 1812-15, but never anything like this. Indeed, here at the North, at least, there never was anything like it ; for if the feeling were as deep and stern in 1775, it was by no means so intelligent or unanimous ; and then the masses to be moved were as a handful compared to our dense population now. The whole people, in fact, has come to a perception that the question is, whether we shall have anarchy or no. The sovereign — for the people is the only sovereign in this country — has begun to exercise his sovereign functions. Business is substantially suspended. Men * Six months before. VOL. II. 19 BB 434 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1861. think, wisely or unwisely, of the state of affairs, and not of much else. The whole population, men, women, and children, seem to be in the streets with Union favors and flags ; walking about uneasily, because their anxiety and nervous excitement will not permit them to stay at home, where all ordinary occupation has become unsavory. Public meetings are held everywhere, in the small towns and villages as much as in the cities ; considerable sums of money are voted to sustain the movement and take care of the families of those who are mustered into service ; and still larger sums are given by individuals. Nobody holds back. Civil war is freely accepted everywhere ; by some with alacrity, as the only means of settling a controversy based on long- cherished hatreds ; by others as something sent as a judgment from Heaven, like a flood or an earthquake ; by all as inevitable, by all as the least of the evils among which we are permitted to choose, anarchy being the obvious, and perhaps the only alternative. Here in Boston the people are constantly gathering about the State House — which you know is in front of my windows — and about Faneuil Hall, where the troops chiefly assemble or halt on their way through town. When soldiers march by there is grave shouting ; nothing like the common cheering. There is an earnestness such as I never witnessed before in any popular movement. To Sir Edmund Head. Boston, April 28, 1861. It [the last letter] was written just a week ago, and contained my first impressions about our outbreak at the North. Its character — that of the outbreak — remains the same ; much enthusiasm, much deep earnestness. Men and money are profusely off'ered ; the best blood among us volunteering and going, and money untold following them. Of course, more or less of both will be wasted ; but it is of consequence that the resolute courage and devotion should be sus- tained, and they are not likely to cost too much. We have been slow to kindle ; but we have made a Nebuchadnezzar's furnace of it at last, and the heat will remain, and the embers will smoulder, long after the flames that now light up everything shall cease to be seen or felt. The solid men of Boston are just organizing a State movement to collect funds, which shall be systematically applied when the resources of this first enthusiasm begin to fail Thus far it has been, on our part, a sort of crusade. But the regular armies will soon be ready to follow. M.Q9.] AWAKENING OF THE NORTH. 435 Througli the whole of the last six months, you see the working of our political institutions most strikingly. The people is the practical sovereign, and, until the people had been appealed to, and had moved, the Administration, whether of Buchanan or of Lincoln, could act with little efficiency. We drifted. Now the rudder is felt. Maryland must yield, or become a battle-ground over which the opposing forces will roll their floods alternately. Baltimore must open her gates, or the city will be all but razed. At least, so far we seem to see ahead. But the people, the sovereign, came to the rescue at the last moment. .... Now the movement — partly from having been so long delayed and restrained — is become absolute and impetuous, so that twice as many troops will speedily be in Scott's hands as he will want Meantime, I think that the moral efi'ect of our union and vigor at the North — which was wholly unexpected at the South — will tend to repress the Southern ardor for conquest, if not for fighting. We have never apprehended that we should be worsted in the end, and we do not now anticipate early reverses, or accidents of any conse- quence. We mean, on all accounts, to fight it out, once for alL . . . . Yours truly, Geo. Ticknor. 436 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1859. CHAPTEE XXII. 1859 to 1864. — Life of Prescott. — Civil War. THE heavy loss of dear and trusted friends had fallen on Mr. Ticknor repeatedly, for in Haven, Legare, and Webster he had parted from much that gave charm and interest to his thoughtful life at different periods ; but no blow of this kind struck so near the centre of his heart as that which deprived him of the delightful companionship of Prescott. Such constant affection as had united them for forty years is very rare, and their sympathy of tastes, heightened by the charm of Prescott's winning, joyous, affectionate nature, made their daily intercourse — and it was almost daily when both were in Boston — fasci- nating as well as important to their happiness. The warning of coming danger, given by Mr. Prescott's illness in 1858, had not been lost from sight, but there was much to feed the hope that he might still be spared for some years, and Mr. Ticknor said in a letter to Sir Edmund Head,* after his death, "The shock to me and to those nearest to him could hardly have been greater if he had been struck down two years ago." A short time afterwards,t in writing to Mrs. Twisleton, he says : " I do not get accustomed to the loss. Indeed, some- thing or other seems to make it fall afresh and heavier almost every day. I go to the house often, of course, and always find Susan in the little upper study where he used to work, with everything just as he left it the moment before he was struck down, .... and the whole room crowded and tapestried with associations and memories Much sunshine has been taken out of my way of life for the few years that I am to tread it, — ♦ Dated February 21, 1859, Mr. Prescott having died January 27. t March 8, 1859. ^. 67.] DEATH OF MR. PRESCOTT. 437 perhaps the few months only, for I seem to have grown old fast of late, and can see only a very little distance before me." The account he afterwards gave — in the Memoir — of his friend's death, and of its effect, contains no direct allusion to his own feeling, but every word bears the impress of a pathetic undercurrent of emotion, which makes that chapter wholly dif- ferent from anything that would have been written by one who stood in any other relation to the subject of it. The public recognition of its loss, " such a sensation as was never produced in this country by the death of a man of let- ters " j * the recollection that not the slightest neglect or impru- dence had hastened the end ; and that at the last moment of con- sciousness Prescott was his natural, cheerful self, — these were all admitted sources of comfort. Mr. Ticknor's faithful devotion and most delightful relations to the family of his friend, under whose will he was a trustee of his ample property, and whose children always looked on him as if he were one of their near- est relatives, was a further source of comfort. Very soon Mrs. Prescott and her children asked him to pre- pare a Memoir of his friend, and he consented, with no hesita- tion, except a little consideration whether, at his age, he might venture on so absorbing a task. On the 19th of April he wrote as follows to Lady Lyell : — Boston, April 19, 1859. My dear Lady Lyell, — I come to you for help, which you will readily give me. I think I shall write a Life of Prescott, and, if I do, I shall set about it at once. But, first of all, I want to see the materials for it collected and arranged. Those in possession of the family are ample and interesting ; especially a large number of memoranda concerning the course and modes of his studies, from the very beginning, with some of which I have been long acquainted, but did not know their extent or importance until I ran them over. Be- sides these, however, I want, of course, all his letters to his friends, and all the details I can get from them. Nobody in England can furnish a contribution of this sort such as you can, for nobody knew so much of him as you and Sir Charles did. * To Don Pascual de Gayangos. 438 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1859. What I especially desire to obtain from you is : — 1. All his letters and notes to you and your family, which I will carefully return to you, after I have taken from them all I may need ; unless you prefer to send me copies. 2. Permission to print any portion of the letters from you and yours which may be found among his papers, and which may be necessary to explain or illustrate such parts of his own as may be printed. 3. Any facts about him, and especially about his visit to England, of which you knew more than anybody else ; any anecdotes of him ; anything, in short, which may tend to set him rightly before the world, as we knew and loved him. In furnishing these materials for his Life, I am quite aware you will be obliged to rely on my discretion, as to the manner in which they will be used. But I hope you wall feel safe, and I think I can prom- ise that you wall be. I shall write by the next steamer, if not by this one, to Dean Mil- man, to Mr. Stirling, .... and to a few others When you have anything ready, be it more or less, just put it under an envelope and let it come, without waiting for more I do not mean to be pressed or do it in a hurry I have two capital letters from Sir Charles. Thank him for them in the most cordial manner, and tell him I shall write to him as soon as I can, and go into the Agassiz matter,t which is very thriving, and likely to come to excellent results. I am more engaged in it than I ought to be, considering that a more ignorant man in regard to natural science can hardly be found ; but Dr. Bigelow, who is in deeper than I am, is safe, and he and Agassiz will be held responsible for any mis- takes I may make. At least, I intend they shall be Anna writes, as usual, so that nothing remains for me but to give you my love, which you are always sure of, as well as that of all mine. Geo. Ticknor. Thenceforward he gave himself to his work of love with a sad pleasure. During the following summer, when he carried out his long-cherished wish to pass several weeks at ^N'iagara, he w^as busy there, and while visiting Sir Edmund Head at Toronto, writing about his friend. The following letter contains an allu- sion to this : — * The Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, of which Mr. Ticknor was a Trustee, as has already been said. JE. 68.] " LIFE OF PRESCOTT." 439 Boston, October 1, 1859. Dear Lady Lyell, — I came home some days ago and found your precious packet.* Yesterday and to-day I have read it through, — the whole of it, — but not with care, as I shall read it hereafter. It was too interesting for that. With many passages I was much touched, as you may well suppose ; others revived a thousand recol- lections, — pleasurable, painful, amusing. After I began to read I could not bear to be interrupted until I had finished it. Nobody has furnished me such a contribution ; no, not all put together. I get on with my work somewhat slowly, but quite as fast as I ex- pected. The great difficulty is to collect the materials. In this, his English friends have been more prompt than his American ones. But I cannot speak of this, or hardly of anything else, without rec- ollecting the Heads. I worked on Prescott's Life when I was at Toronto ; but how changed is ever}i;hing there now ! What sorrow ! what sorrow ! t . . . . We only know thus far what the telegraph has told us But we shall have letters in a day or two. Sir Henry Holland is somewhere in the United States, — his fifth visit, I think, within twenty years ; certainly his fourth within a dozen. Why can't you and Sir Charles imitate him ? . . . . He is to be here on Monday at Everett's, where I dine with him on Tuesday. The Prescotts are still all out of town, but Susan and Elizabeth come back in four or five days. They are all well, but I have as yet seen none of them October 4. — Sir Henry Holland came in yesterday afternoon and told me all sorts of news about people in London. He is looking very well, and can tell you about all the great men at Washington, for he has been stopping with the President. He goes to-morrow in the steamer that takes this. Anna sends her love, I mine. G.T. When he began the Life of Prescott he was already in his sixty-eighth year ; and this advanced age might have influenced him unfavorably in either of two ways, making him over-fas- tidious and hypercritical of his own composition, as he grew, in fact, to be a few years later ; or making him use undue haste, as regarding too much the possibility of not li^dng to finish it. He * Lady Lyell's reminiscences of Mr. Prescott. t Sir Edmund Head lost his only son by drowning at this time. 440 LIFE OF GEOKGE TICKNOR. [1861. avoided both dangers, wrote calmly and without hurry ; and, after giving about three years to the preparation of the manu- script, finding the time unfavorable for its pubHcation, he kept it by him for a while, and, going over it with care, undoubtedly added to the grace and proportion which distinguish it so much. Meantime the civil war broke out, the war which roused the whole country, North and South, excited the passions of men with a bitterness and intensity scarcely to be conceived of by those who did not witness it, and raged for four years in the Middle " border " States, with an untiring obstinacy that kept every citizen under a strain utterly unknown in peaceful days. Mr. Ticknor's letters during the spring of 1861 have already de- scribed the popular movement. His belief that the North was gaining strength year by year, while the South was losing it, remained the same, and he always asserted, as he did in those letters, that the North was sure to conquer in the war. No one who has read what he wrote during the previous years, when from afar he had foreseen the possibility of this conflict, and had felt that what his view of true patriotism led him to wish avoided or postponed was being rendered inevitable, can fail to perceive how deeply he would share the excitement of the time. He was in his seventieth year when war became an actual fact. The Constitution of the United States, which had been the ob- ject of his pride and admiration from his youth, " the best form of government that ever was made," * he saw often disregarded, heard often spoken of as if it were effete. After a visit in Maine he wrote to Mr. E. H, Gardiner, in September, 1861 : "I recol- lect that the acute lawyer who was at your house one evening with the mayor of your city t did not hesitate to say that we have no longer any Constitution, and that very little of it had been in existence for some years. I could not gainsay him." The Union, to him a reality such as it could only be to those who had loved the country while it was small, and had seen it * See letter to Mr. Daveis, ante, p. 195. t Gardiner, Maine. ^ M. 70.] GREAT QUESTIONS OF THE TIMES. 441 grow and flourish, was threatened and misrepresented by men who, he felt, were misguided and desperate. A generation had grown up, under his observation (though at the South, where he had scarcely been, and where he had not an intimate friend liv- ing), which had, as he knew, been by skilful leaders wilfully made blind as to the nature of that Union which he loved. They were blind to the fact that political sovereignty is capable of division according to subjects and powers, without lessening allegiance to the central government. Therefore, seeing some subjects and powers left in the hands of individual States, they believed they could throw off that allegiance when they pleased. He had seen this process going on for many years, under the guidance of Southern leaders and the menaces of !N"orthern ex- tremists. Slavery had always been to him a deeply, solemnly interest- ing question, the institution always in his eyes a curse, while he had dreaded both for masters and slaves any violent or sudden change. This had now become inevitable, but its consequences did not seem to him more promising than before. In February, 1862, he will be found to say,* "Since the firing of the first gun on Fort Sumter we have had, in fact, no choice. We must fight it out. Of the result I have never doubted. We shall beat the South. But what after thaf? I do not see For the South I have no vaticinations. The blackness of thick darkness rests upon them, and they deserve all they will suffer." * The passions, which, especially in the early period of the war, were at a pitch that menaced a reign of inhumanity and political persecution, and were actually expressed on both sides in acts quite exceeding a lawful warfare, caused him acute pain and anxiety. His long habit of watching and reflecting on the political movements of aU Christendom made him regard the subject from a difiTerent point of view from most men ; his age and com- * In a letter given a few pages later. Again, in April, 1863, he writes : " Whatever awaits us in the dark future depends, I believe, neither on elec- tions nor speeches nor wise discussions, but on fighting. I have thought so ever since the affair of Fort Sumter, and fire cannot bum it out of me." 19* 442 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1861. parative seclusion also gave a color to his feelings. His upper- most thought seemed always to be, that the greatest troubles for the country would come after the North had triumphed and the war was over ; his deepest feeling always for the success of the Northern armies and the predominance of Northern civilization. In writing to a young friend who was, for the moment, carried along with the tide of bitter and resentful feehngs, he says : * — I heard with great pain the tone of your remarks about the South- ern Secessionists and their leaders. They are in revolt, no doubt, or in a state of revolution, and we must resist them and their doctrines to the death. We can have no government else, and no society worth living in. But multitudes of men in all ages of the world have been under delusions equally strange and strong, and have died loyally and conscientiously in defence of them. Multitudes more will fol- low. Both sides in such cases fight for their opinions, and I had hoped that the day had gone by, even in France since 1848, when the prevailing party would resort to executions for treason, after they should have established their own position by victory or even be- fore it. But, besides this, we should, I think, recollect, in deahng with our present enemies, not only that they are fighting for what they beheve to be their rights, in open, recognized warfare, but that, whether we are hereafter to be one nation or two, we must always live side by side, and must always have intimate relations with each other for good or for evil to both ; and I, therefore, sincerely deprecate, as for twenty years I have deprecated, all bitterness and violence towards the South- em States, as of the worst augury for ourselves, and for the cause of civilization on this side of the Atlantic. Such insane hatreds as are now indulged by both parties in this contest — still more at the South than with us — can, I fear, only end in calamities which none of the present generation will live long enough to survive I have lately seen, by accident, many letters from the South — chiefly mercantile — which breathed this spirit fully. I have seen it placarded in the streets of Boston that we should hang the secession leaders as fast as we can get them into our power. I have found this course openly urged in leading papers of New York and Boston. It is even said that the government at Washington is now considering * This letter is printed from a draft, or copy, in Mr. Ticknor's writing, found among his papers. ^.70.] INTEREST IN THE WAR. 443 the expediency of adopting it I have, indeed, little fear that my government, or its military chief, will seriously consider such a suggestion, none that they will adopt it. But I have great fear that the spirit it implies will enter deeply into the present contest, and from time to time produce the deplorable results which it has so often, may I not say so uniformly, produced in the civil wars that have heretofore cursed the world, and of which the atrocities in the streets of Baltimore and in the hotel of Alexandria are, I fear, only a foretaste. It was with these feelings that I answered you the other day, when I had the pleasure of meeting you, and if you do not noiv share them, I am sure you are of a nature too high and noble not to share them hereafter. Your friend and servant, G. T. Mr. Ticknor contributed freely to the regular and the chari- table expenditures of the war.* During the early months of 1861 he carried on an animated correspondence with a distin- guished lawyer in Baltimore, a Union man, for interchange of information about the daily movements of opinion, where such vehement feeling was seething and surging. He welcomed offi- cers returning on furlough, or passing through Boston, at his house and table, getting from each whatever of news or indica- tions of popular feeling might come from the front. He went frequently to Braintree to see his old friend General Thayer, whose opinion on military affairs was acknowledged during the war by General Scott, in conversation, to be the highest author- ity in the United States, and these visits were returned by the old General, most often at breakfast-time, his own breakfast having been taken at five or half after. From General Thayer Mr. Ticknor received exact and keen-sighted explanations of all the movements of the armies on both sides, and was able to form clear judgments of the merits of military men who were often misjudged by the public. * He -nrites in 1866, " From that moment, therefore [of the attack on Fort Sumter], I began to contribute voluntarily in money and in all ways in which, a man of above threescore and ten could do it, to carry on the war, giving more in proportion to my fortune, I believe, than did most of the original Aboli- tionists. 444 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1862. Mr. Ticknor repeatedly took regular officers of high standing on pilgrimages to the old chief at Braintree, — General Robert Anderson, General Donaldson, and others. In the summer of 1862 he met General Scott at West Point, being accidentally with him at the moment he was informed that Pre-sident Lin- coln was on his way to consult him ; and when General McClel- lan visited Boston in 1863, he took great pleasure in meeting him. He talked with every one who could give him trustworthy information, with the same ardor he had always shown in study- ing public men and measures everywhere. The excitements of every-day life were great at that period. A long interval of military inaction, during which political in- trigues, blunders, and activity of all sorts were abundant, — all watched by Mr. Ticknor with vigilant observation, wliile he questioned friends fresh from Washington, and often got knowl- edge quite beyond the public view, — would be succeeded by battles, raids, successes, failures, that filled the air with the sounds of war. More than once the peaceful house in Park Street was roused at midnight by a friend bringing some start- ling telegram, of which he was sure the knowledge would be no- where more interesting than there. During the first eighteen months of the war his work on the biography of his friend was a great solace to Mr. Ticknor. After reading the morning paper with its war news, he could retire to his quiet library, and there, for two or three hours, could work undisturbed, retracing the pleasures and interests of the past. Later some visitor was sure to come in, and probably call his thoughts back to battles, losses, sorrows. His life might seem as sheltered as any, but his mind was full of eager interest, his heart was full of sjTnpathy ; the sons of friends and relatives were exposed, and suffered and died for their country ; his own house was full of stir, and the hum of voices often reached him, as he sat writing, from ladies busy in other rooms, preparing comforts for men in camps and hospitals. In the afternoon his daily walk usually ended at the Pubhc Library or at Mrs. Prescott's. In his Sunday afternoon walks he was for many winters accompanied by Mr. William W. M. 70.] DAILY LIFE. 445 Greenough, who says that they included occasional visits to poor dwellings, where a few moments of kindly talk and inquiry usually ended with some small gift of money. Sometimes, how- ever, there was a curious tale, of imposture discovered, to be told at dinner after one of these Sunday explorations. In the evening a game of whist was the almost essential seda- tive after exciting days ; yet there are well-remembered occasions, when this, too, was interrupted by the apparition of a young offi- cer joyously come to say good-by, on having received his com- mission and orders for the front, or of one limping in, full of disappointment that he could not yet be allowed to rejoin his regiment. Thus the lives of all were filled with strange elements, thoughts and duties that, by recurrence, acquired a temporary familiarity, but belong to no other than such an exceptional period. During these years one of Mr. Ticknor's few positive recrea- tions was that of dining, once a fortnight, with the " Friday- Club," the only social club of any kind to which he ever be- longed. In 1859 this most pleasant dinner-club was formed, limited to twelve members, and allowing only twelve persons to sit round its board. It need hardly be said that the party, in favor of which Mr. Ticknor made such an exception to his usual habits, was made up of his personal friends, and of men whose conversation rendered their meetings interesting and stimulat- ing.* Mr. Ticknor continued a member of this club until 1868, when he resigned on the ground of age. Mr. Ticknor's duties and interests in connection with the Zoological Museum at Cambridge, to which, for the sake of his friend Agassiz, he sincerely devoted himself, and the relations he still held to the Public Library, occupied him in congenial ways, but even here the excitements of the war intruded. He was greatly annoyed, once, by an attempt which was made to cause him to appear in the light of an opponent of the popular nulitary * The original members of this club were Professor Agassiz, Mr. W. Amory, Mr. Sidney Bartlett, Hon. B. R. Curtis, Mr. C. C. Felton, Mr. W. W. Green- ough, Mr. G. S. Hillard, Mr. R. M. Mason, Professor W. B. Rogers, Mr. C. W. Storey, and Mr. H. P. Sturgis. Mr. Ticknor joined it in 1861. 446 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1862. spirit, in order to prevent his re-election as a Trustee of the Pub- lic Library. The effort failed, but it was doubly displeasing to him in its public as well as its private aspect; for he always heartily disliked and disapproved the mingling of pohtical ques- tions in the management of that or any other institution for edu- cation or charity. In February, 1862, we have a long letter to Sir Charles Lyell almost entirely devoted to the subject of the war ; and in No- vember of the same year, another to Lady Lyell, wholly on the matter of the " Life of Prescott " ; extracts from which will give an insight into his thoughts and occupations at this time. To Sir Charles Lyell. Boston, February 11, 1862. My dear Lyell, — No doubt, I ought to have written to you be- fore. But I have had no heart to write to my friends in Europe, since our troubles took their present form and proportions You know how I have always thought and felt about the slavery question. I was never an Abolitionist, in the American sense of the word, because I never have believed that any form of emancipation that has been proposed could reach the enormous difl&culties of the case, and I am of the same mind now. Slavery is too monstrous an evil, as it exists in the United States, to be reached by the resources of legislation I have, therefore, always desired to treat the South with the greatest forbearance, not only because the present gen- eration is not responsible for the curse that is laid upon it, but be- cause I have felt that the longer the contest could be postponed, the better for us. I have hoped, too, that in the inevitable conflict with free labor, slavery would go to the wall. I remember writing to you in this sense, more than twenty years ago, and the results thus far have confirmed the hopes I then entertained. The slavery of the South has made the South poor. The free labor of the North has made us rich and strong. But all such hopes and thoughts were changed by the violent and unjustifiable secession, a year ago ; and, since the firing of the first gim. on Fort Sumter, we have had, in fact, no choice. We must fight it out. Of the results I have never doubted. We shall beat the South. But what after that ? I do not see. It has pleased God that, v.^hether we are to be two nations or one, we should Uve on the same M. 70.] CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY. 447 continent side by side, with no strong natural barrier to keep us asunder ; but now separated by hatreds which grow more insane and intense every month, and which generations will hardly extin- guish Our prosperity has entered largely into the prosperity of the world, and especially into that of England and France. You feel it to have been so. And some persons have been unwise enough to think that your interference in our domestic quarrel can do good to yourselves, and perhaps to us, by attempting to stop this cruel and wicked war. It is, I conceive, a great mistake. I have believed, since last August, that France was urging your government to some sort of intervention, — to break the blockade or to enforce a peace, — but the general opin- ion here has been that England has been the real mover in the matter, thus engendering a bitter hatred of your people, which the unjustifi- able tone of your papers and ours increases and exasperates. All this is wrong, and so far as you are excited by it to interv^ention, it is most unhappy and portentous. The temptation, no doubt, is strong. It almost always is in the case of civil wars, which, from their very na- ture, invite interested and neighboring nations to interfere. But how rarely has good come to anybody from such interference. In the present instance I am satisfied that it would only exasperate us, and lead to desperate measures As to the present comparative condition of North and South, there can be no question. At Richmond, and elsewhere beyond the Poto- mac, gold is at forty per cent premium, cofl'ee and tea at four or five prices, salt as dear Beef and bread they have in abimdance, and so resolute and embittered are they, that they seem content with this. But it cannot be. The women, I hear, in a large part of the South, will not speak to men who stay at home from the army with- out obvious and sufficient cause. But the suffering is great, however the proud spirit may bear up against it, and they must yield, unless, what is all but incredible, they should speedily gain great military success At the North the state of things is very different. There is no perceptible increase of poverty Nor is anybody disheartened. If you were here you would see little change in our modes of life, ex- cept that we are all busy and in earnest about the war."'^ .... This, * September 7, 1862, he wrote to his eldest daughter, then at Ne^vport : "I was very glad to see your name on the printed paper you sent yesterday. Give what money you think best, to the ladies with whom you are associated, and look to me to make it good. I was never so much in earnest about the war as 448 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1862. however, is not to last. The government must either impose taxes heavy enough to sustain its credit, as it ought to have done long ago, and then our incomes will all feel it, or it must rush into a paper cur- rencj'', and then, of course, prices must rise in proportion, and the whole end in disaster ; One thing, however, is certain. We are well off now. We were, I think, never so rich, and never had so much gold stored away for a specie basis. It is, therefore, owing to the unwise course of the Government that the Treasury and the banks have suspended their specie payments ; or, in other words, it is owing to the incompetency and corruption of the men at Washington The people are ready and willing to do their part. The people's agents are incom- petent A country that has shown the resources and spirit of the North — however they may have been misused, and may continue to be — cannot be ruined by a year or two of adverse fortune, or even more. Changed it will be, how, or how much, I cannot guess, nor do I find anybody worth listening to that can tell me. But we are young and full of life. Diseases that destroy the old are cast off by the vigor of youth ; and, though I may not live to see it, we shall again be strong and have an honored place among the nations. For the South I have no vaticinations. The blackness of thick darkness rests upon them, and they deserve all they will suffer. I admit that a portion of the North, and sometimes the whole North, has been very unjust to them. .... But it is all no justification of civil war It is the un- pardonable sin in a really free State. You will, perhaps, think me shabby if I stop without saying any- thing about the Trent affair, and so I may as well make a clean breast of it. Except Everett, all the persons hereabout in whose judgment I place confidence believed from the first that we had no case. I was fully of that mind As to the complaint about our closing up harbors, we are not very anxious. It is a harsh measure, but there are precedents enough for it, — more than there ought to be. But two will fully sustain the mere right. By the treaty of Utrecht you stipulated not only for the destruction of the fortifications of Dunkirk, but for filling up the port ; and in 1777 (I think it was that year) you destroyed the en- trance to Savannah, so that appropriations were made, not many years ago, by our Congress, to remove the obstructions, although the I have been for the last week, ■when the very atmosphere has been full of the spirit of change and trouble." M. 71.] PORTRAITS OF MR. PRESCOTT. 449 river, there, has cut for itself a new channel. I do not think that -sve have closed any but the minor and more shallow channels to any har- bor, leaving the more important to be watched by the blockade However, if England and France want a pretext for interfering with us, perhaps this will do as well as any other. No doubt the " Times," at least, will be satisfied with it Next week I intend to send you some photographs of Prescott, and ask you and Lady Lyell to see that they are properly engraved for my Life of him. I shall not print — though any time in the last year I could soon have been ready — until people begin to read something beside newspapers I enclose you two or three scraps from our papers of last evening and this morning. They are a fair speci- men of our daily food, — bitter ashes Yours always, Geo. Ticknor. Boston, November 25, 1862. My dear Lady Lyell, — We have not, until within a few days, been able to settle anything about the beautiful engravings you sent us,* or I should earlier have written to acknowledge your ever-faith- ful kindness. Nothing certainly could have been more judicious than the mode you took for getting the best that could be had, and your success has been greater than could reasonably have been expected, — so difficult or impossible is it, in a case like this, to satisfy the recol- lections of those who feel that they were always the nearest and dear- est, and that in consequence a sort of responsibility rests on them, which is not the less sensitive nor the less to be regarded, because it is not quite reasonable All of us feel truly grateful to you and Sir Charles for the thought- ful and safe way in which you went about the labor of love we ven- tured to ask from you. For myself, I have no idea, if all who have been called to counsel about it had been in London when you took your measures to get the engravings made, that we should have done difi'erently from what you yourseK did. Or, if we had, we should not, I am persuaded, have done so well. The Life, as you know, has been finished since early last spring, and lately I have been looking it over with his very near friend, Mr. W. H. Gardiner, who, you may remember, was his executor. Very likely I shall put it to press this winter. There seems no use in waiting. * One English engraving was accepted, that by Holl, of the portrait which faces the title-page. cc 450 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1864. If such things are postponed till the end of the war, and till the heal- ing influences of peace shall have brought the minds of men to a tolerable degree of tranquillity, we may wait till the Greek Calends. I see no light yet in the horizon. In the opening days of 1864, the first handsome quarto edi- tion of the " Life of Prescott " appeared, and was seized with avidity by the public. Mr. Ticknor gave away an unusual num- ber of copies, and, when some allusion to this by his daughter gave him a natural opportunity for saying it, he told her that he never meant to have any profit to himself from that book. It was evidently too near his heart for him to coin it into money. The merits of this Memoir have been fully recognized. Its genial style and the simple flow of the narrative are colored with a warm sense of the charms of Mr. Prescott's character, as well as a frank admission of those slight weaknesses which, by their peculiar flavor, only made him the more beloved by his friends. The lesson taught by that life of voluntary labor and of stern self-control, ingrafted on a facile, ease-loving nature, is kept steadily in view from first to last, while the picture of an heroic struggle against an ever-present infirmity, which might otherwise have been too sombre, is brightened by the happy use of almost trivial details. His heart went with his pen, and the narrative glows with the warmth of a strong personal affection, which gives it a charm that the best taste, the soundest judgment, and the most finished literary skill would not alone have secured. A few extracts from letters written by Mr. Ticknor to accom- pany presentation copies, and from letters which he received in relation to the Memoir, will close this subject. Boston, U. S. A., January 18, 1864. My dear Lord Carlisle,"'^ — I have desired Triibner & Co. to send you a copy of the " Life of Prescott," just published How- ever imperfect my part of it may be, I think you wdll desire to see it for the sake of its subject. That it is a truthful portrait of our friend seems to be admitted by those who knew him best. Whether there is life in the likeness I * This letter is printed from a rough draft. J^. 72.] LETTER FROM LORD CARLISLE. 451 know not, but I hope there is. I do not believe that there is flattery in it, or concealment, for who is there that I should seek to flatter by overpraise of him, and what was there in his life or character that anybody should desire to conceal ] About your own relations with him, I suppose I can hardly have been mistaken. I know how his heart turned to you from the very first. I know how, in his little study in Bedford Street, he showed you his private memoranda about his religious inquiries and convic- tions, for he told me of it at the time, and it was a proof of his inti- mate confidence which I think he never gave to anybody but to his wife, to you, and to me ; and to me very rarely, although I saw him so constantly and we exchanged our thoughts so freely. But you will judge of this, as you will of all else ; and if you are willing to give me your opinion of the book, or of any part of it, I shall be grateful for it. In any event, my dear Lord Carlisle, believe me, Yours very faithfully, Geo. Ticknor. In answer to this Lord Carlisle writes : — Dublin Castle, March 17, 1864, My dear Mr. Ticknor, — I fear you must have thought that my acknowledgments of your most kind letter and thrice welcome vol- ume come to you very tardily ; but I was determined not to leave a line unread before I wrote, and notwithstanding all the pleasure of the occupation, the many distractions which beset me here have not allowed it to be as rapid as would have been both natural and agreeable. My verdict is one of unalloyed approval. I think your memorial of our dear and honored friend is simple, complete, unaf- fected, and thus entirely suited to the character and qualities of its subject. How much it recalls to me that " sunny " countenance, pure heart, placid and blameless life. I think I can rely on myself, that I am not bribed into my admiration by the considerate manner in which I have been treated through your work, as I can assure you I consider that you have put no mean feather in my cap by exhibiting me to the world as one who had won^the regard of Prescott Pray give my very kindest regards to !Mrs. Ticknor Believe me, my dear Mr. Ticknor, Your most obliged and faithful Carlisle. 452 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1864. An old friend of Mr. Prescott, Mr. Theophilus Parsons, says : — Let me confess at once, you have surprised me most agreeably. Of course I knew that no mere literary excellence would be wanting. But I knew, also, that you were obliged to rely mainly on your long, close, and unreserved friendship with Prescott as the means of under- standing him — the events of his life and their bearing on his charac- ter — perfectly. And yet it was necessary to avoid the influence of this very friendship, so far as it tended to make you present him too favorably ; and then to avoid, with equal care, resisting this influence so far as to render your presentation of him cold and cheerless. To me it seemed that this task was, to the last degree, difl&cult, — too diflicult. But you have conquered the difficulty perfectly I will not deny that my relations with Prescott made me sensitive, and fastidious as to the character of that which must be his perma- nent memorial. But I am satisfied. You have done him no more than justice, but that justice is ample and complete. On the other hand, a literary man, who had not knovm Pres- cott, writes thus : — From J. E,. Chorlet. 76 Chester Square, Pimlico, February 24, 1864. My dear Tickxor, — .... I congratulate you on having so paid a tribute of friendship, as to make at the same time a welcome addi- tion to literature The halo round the name of a distinguished author would not, of itself, suffice to maintain the attraction of a story the topics of which are few, and nearly uniform in their respec- tive developments, from the critical period at which the moral and literary career of your friend was determined by a mere accident, .... and to give life, and a certain variety to what is essentially monotonous, is a task that an able pen could not have accomplished without a pious hand to guide it. .... The character portrayed is a very peculiar one, above all, I think, in its mixture of qualities seldom found in company with each other, and still more rarely admitting, when they do meet, of any productive union or auspicious progress. It is remarkable how much of wholesome industry was evolved from a source intrinsically mor- bid ; and this, too, in a character which, from the beginning, seems to have had a tendency to that kind of self-inspection which infirm health is apt to cherish until it becomes a positive disease. Mr. Pres- M. 72.] LETTER FROM MR. BANCROFT. 453 cott seems to have been rescued from such an extremity by the aid of a genial temperament, and it is curious to observe how, in him, this and other elements, which of themselves are signs of weakness and per- version, were adjusted and brought into harmony with the better side of his nature. The contrast and the composition are such as, I think, have rarely been witnessed elsewhere. There is one considerable underpart in the story, obvious, indeed, to any attentive eye, which, however, perhaps deserved a more prom- inent notice. Had IMr. Prescott been a poor man, such a solution as he made of a dif&cult problem would have been impossible. That he made good use of his advantages is his praise ; but in having them he owed much to fortune. Nor was he less fortunate, surely, in his friends. I suppose no man. of letters ever received more zealous and constant aid (of a kind which no money can procure) in the promotion of his work. This circum- stance, indeed, reflects honor on both sides ; for one whom all love to help must be one who merits their love. Nor can those who knew him not better learn what he must have been than by seeing the im- pression he made on those to whom he was known Yours very affectionately, J. R. Chorley. From Hon. George Bancroft. New Yoek, Sunday Evening. My dear Mr. Ticknor, — Your splendid New Year's gift reached me last evening in time to dip into it deeply before going to bed. This morning I rose before any one else in the house, lighted my own fire, and gave the quiet hours of a long morning to the life of our friend. I expected a great deal, a very great deal from you ; and you have far surpassed my expectation. You have given Prescott as he was, leaving no part of his character unportrayed. He was in life and in himself greater than his books, and you have shown him so. I find nothing omitted, nothing remissly done, and nothing overdone. I had feared that the uniformity of his life would cut off from your narrative the resources of novelty and variety and stirring interest ; and here, in the inward struggles of his mind, and his struggles with outward trials, you have brought out a more beautiful and attractive picture than if you had had to describe the escapes of a hero or the perils of an adventurer. Well as I knew Prescott, you have raised my conception of his fortitude, and self-control, and consciously noble 454 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1864. ambition. Your volume is a sermon to the young and a refreshment to the old, the best monument that one man of letters ever reared to his friendship for another ; and you have done your part so well, that, in raising a monument to Prescott, you have constructed an im- perishable one for yourself. So you see how many causes I have to thank you. I remain, my dear Mr. Ticknor, with sincere regard, Yours, Geo. Bancroft. "What a fortunate thing it is for the country that its two favorite aiithors, Prescott and Washington Irving, had each a nature so pure and generous. Prescott's example as a man will have an influence, the most chastening and the most benign, on our young men of coming generations. You have gained a triumph in letters ; but I think you are still more to be congratulated in having been able to set before our people every feature and form of his mind, as a model of integrity and a persevering, manly, successful war against difficulties which would have overwhelmed the resolution of many of the most buoyant and the most strong. You see I do not know where to stop. To Eev. Francis Wayland, D. D. March 9, 1864. My dear Dr. Wayland, — It can, I trust, hardly be needful, on your account, to tell you that your letter about the " Life of Prescott" gave me great pleasure. I hope that you knew that it would when you wrote it. But on my own account it is quite necessary that I should do so, for if I were not to thank you I should feel that I had "been guilty of a wrongful omission. Let me do it, then, very heartily, and somewhat humbly : very heartily, because I am grateful that you accept the view of my friend's character such as I have presented it ; and very humbly, because I cannot conscientiously accept most of the words of praise you so kindly send me. I wish I could. I should then feel that I have done, for Prescott's character and example, what the world had a right to claim from his biographer. But I must con- tent myseK with thinking that I have done the best I could. One thing I doubt not that you must have seen, — I was more in- terested about the man than about the author. The author, I think, can take care of himself ; and whether he can or not, he has put him- self into the hands of the world for judgment, and the world never fails to take jurisdiction in such cases. But the mariy mjfriendf was M. 72.] PRESCOTT'S HISTORIES. 455 put into my hands especially and trustingly. The difference of the two cases is, therefore, great, and I felt it from the outset. I do not claim, nor can any man now claim, to be the final judge of Prescott's histories. No doubt, it is possible that in some future time different views may prevail respecting one or another of the portions of the world's affairs to which he devoted himself. Neither Gillies, nor Clavier, nor Mitford, nor Ottfried Miiller could finally settle the History of Greece, though the materials for it had been ripening a thousand years in the minds of statesmen and scholars ; and I dare say that Grote has not done it, though he has stood on the shoulders of aU. of them. The same thing may happen about the times of Fer- dinand and Isabella, and about the Conquest of Mexico. I see no signs of it at present, and I do not really think it will ever happen. But if it should, those books of Prescott's will no more be forgotten, or neglected, than Herodotus, or Thucydides, or Plutarch, or Mitford, or Grote. Nobody can hereafter touch the subjects to which they are devoted without referring to them, and doing it with respect and ad- miration. But the man himself is in many important senses separate from all this. I knew him well, and I claim my portrait of him to be truth- ful. It may be ever so imperfectly or coarsely finished, but the great lines are right, and the likeness is there. Moreover, it is not flattered ; I have put in the wart. I claim, therefore, to have it received as the vera effigies. Whether the world will admit the claim, time must de- cide. But that spectators like you — the best and fairest of experts — have received it as such, is greatly gratifying to me. Again, there- fore, I thank you. To Wm. Picard, Esq., Cadiz. Boston, May 10, 1864. My dear Mr. Picard, — I am under great obligations to you for your three kind and interesting letters I should have written as soon as the first came to hand, but I was unwell, and very anxious about Mrs. Dexter, who was dangerously ill for a short time. But, thank God, she is much better, and I am nearly well ; as well as a man has a right to be who is nearly seventy-three years old You will be glad to hear that the e'dition de luxe of the " Life of Prescott " — two thousand copies — is already sold ; that another of five hundred copies is preparing as fast as possible ; and that, mean- time, two other editions, one in 8vo of fifteen hundred copies, and 456 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1862. one in 12mo, two thousand, are out and in good request. It is a great pleasure to me that the view I have given of my friend — I mean the view of him as greater and better than his books — is so generally accepted as I understand that it is. Our war goes on with increasing ferocity. There has been terrible fighting between the Rapidan and Richmond, since Thursday, with considerable advantage to our side, but nothing yet (noon, Tuesday, May 10) absolutely decisive of the fate of the city. Elsewhere, espe- cially in Louisiana, we have sustained losses. So things look as dark as ever. I still believe, however, that we shall gain the great battles, and defeat the great armies of the enemy. But after that, I fear, will begin our greatest difficulties. Meantime, luxury reigns as it never did before, in Boston, New York, and through the North gen- erally. With kindest regards from all of us to all of joui house, I remain, Yery faithfully yours, Geo. Ticknor. ^.71.] OLD AGE. 457 CHAPTER XXIII. 1863 to 1866. — Letters to G. T. Curtis, Sir C. Lijell, Sir E. Head, R. H. Gardiner, Friend B. B. Wiffen, General Thayer, G. F. Bradford, Professor Louis Agassiz, Lady Cranworth. — Death of Mr, Everett. DURII*^G the period of old age, upon which Mr. Ticknor had now entered, he led a tranquil, simple life, adapted to his condition, and filled with serene and appropriate enjoyments. He had always made friends among the young, and his house continued to be the resort of many persons of all ages, who con- tributed to his pleasure by their society. The last five summers of his life he passed in Brookline, one of the prettiest spots among the charming environs of Boston, where he took a pleas- ant cottage, so situated that he had long-tried friends close around him, and, through private garden-walks, could reach these and other younger neighbors, who welcomed him with warm and cheerful greetings. These summer days were truly days of ease, when books and correspondence, interchange of informal visits, and daily drives made up a goodly sum of rational satisfaction. His letters grew fewer and shorter ; but it will be seen in the remaining selection that he still wrote many, and often on top- ics both interesting and various. The first of these, by their dates, retrace a little the steps already trod ; but a few pages will bring us again to the point we lately left. To George T. Curtis, New York. Boston, February 5, 1863. My dear George, — I want to know how you are, and how you get on, one and all, great and small, for it is some time since I have heard. The Judge, I suppose, has been with you for a week, and we VOL, II. 20 458 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1863. hope to see him soon. No doubt he will tell us about you. But I should like to know what you have to say, for yourself and your home. We are all well, — uncommonly so. I think — but am not sure — that all four of us, meaning my wife, Anna, and Lizzie, shall go to Everett's to-night, a thing the like of which all of us have not done together, I suppose, for some years. But it is in honor of McClellan, and so we all screw our courage to the sticking-place and go. His visit here has gone off as well as could be. I have dined with him twice, lunched with him once, and met him less seriously three or four times besides. He has always borne himself becomingly. His cheerful equanimity is absolute and universal. I think if he were to-morrow to go back to his railroad in Hlinois, or to the head of the armies, his manner would be just the same, and his spirits un- touched by either emergency. He has not suffered himself to make a speech since he came here, and, strange to say, seems to have no itching to do it, and yet the people have run after him everywhere all the same. He told me that he had never been so received in any other city ; and his principal aid. Colonel Wright, told me the same thing. Crowds run after his carriage, and stop and wait at the doors where he alights to visit, to catch a glimpse of him as he goes in and out ; and as for the multitude that gathered at the Tremont House the day he professed " to receive," I am sure I saw nearer ten thousand than five waiting for a possible chance. The street was crowded from School Street to Bromfield Street. And all this not only without any incitement from the gentlemen who brought him here, but much of it accepted by them very anxiously. Indeed, no ten or twenty men could have got up such a movement. It has come right up from the people themselves, warm, hearty, spontaneous. Do not, however, misunderstand me. I do not suppose that such a movement tends either to restore him to the head of the armies, or to make him President of the United States. It is simply a grace- ful tribute to his services, and it has been cordially paid, — not forgetting, at the same time, that it damages the men who have treated him so ill. He does not conceal that he is much gratified with it ; his wife and his aids admit plenary astonishment, as well as pleasure Yours always, Geo. Ticknor. M. 71.] REPRESENTATION OF MINORITIES. 459 To George T. Curtis. Boston, March 30, 1863. I send you by this mail a pamphlet which I want you to read, and tell me in a few general words what you think of it. Some very sen- sible people believe its fundamental idea important and practicable. .... Perhaps you know its author, — Fisher of Philadelphia, grad- uated at Cambridge in 1825, — a man of large fortune, conscientious, little accustomed to writing, as you will see by his style and modes of discussion, but determined to think for himself, and willing, I dare say, to make sacrifices to his convictions in action, if needful He explained his plan, for representation by totalities, to me in Paris in 1857 ; but I thought nothing more about it until he was here a few weeks ago and told me he should soon print on the sub- ject. His system, if carried into real, faithful effect, would, no doubt, break up the power of caucuses, and much impair the in- fluence of demagogues ; but the question is whether the people will not, after all, prefer the false gods they have so long worshipped. In other words, can they be got out of the old, deep ruts in which they have been so long misled. It seems to me as if, like Mac- beth, we must wade over whatever may be the cost or the conse- quences. And where are we going to, wben we get to the other side without a Constitution ? says we are going to the D — 1 as fast as we can, and ought to be very grateful that we have got a D — 1 to go to. That is his fashion of expressing the state of things. How do you express it in New York ? . . . . Many people are glad that the Presi- dent is substantially made an irresponsible Dictator, though they have no confidence in him or his advisers ; arguing that, if they are not sustained until victories enough are won to tide the present forms of our government over to another administration of its af- fairs, we shall go utterly to pieces now ; chaos wt.11 come again novj. But, suppose we fail of the victories, or, on the other hand, suppose we get them, and the dictatorship should be continued, in military forms, by the silent consent of a people too grateful for success and salvation, what then ? Just now, men who hold the opinions referred to seem to have reached the point suggested by Macaulay, that there are times when liberty must be given up to save society. But are we called to this terribly stem sacrifice by the present state of things ? . . . . 460 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1863. To Sir Charles Lyell. Boston, March 31, 1863. My dear Lyell, — I have not yet finished your book about the antiquity of all of us, but I cannot longer delay thanking you for it. I have enjoyed it so far very much, and shall, no doubt, to the end. True, my ignorance prevents my opinion from being worth a button ; but then, even in this view of the matter, I represent a large fraction of your readers, and may therefore assume that the pleasure I have had has been shared by many. We may, at least, feel sure that in many most important points we know how far geology has got on. The parts that have thus far most interested me relate to those lacustrine people, a feeble folk, I suppose, like the conies in Scripture, but nearer to us, by a good deal, than the people who made the arrow- heads and hatchets in the valley of the Somme, so that I really am more curious about them. Next after your account of these lacus- trines, I have been most interested about the history of the origin and development of Darwin's, theory, concerning which I suppose more is to follow, which I have not yet reached. But then your style is so cr^^stal clear and so befitting your subject, that I read all with interest. Only, from ignorance, I have to read slow. The " Memoirs of Miles Byrne," which came, I suppose, from you or from Lady Lyell, at the same time, is as different from your book as one book can well be from another. Of this, too, I have read only the larger half, and am still going on -wdth it. It seems to have, everywhere, the impress of truth upon it, and so it must be among the safe memoires pour servir. But then the infinite details, which con- tribute to give it this character, are very confusing. A man ought to know the topography of the parts of Ireland to which it refers, as he knows that of his own village, and have heard all about its people and their nicknames. To one conclusion, however, we fairly come, from the first volume of the brave old soldier, and that is the one he would be most anxious about ; I mean, how cruelly and wickedly the Irish of that period were treated by the British government. Much of what I have read comes to me with great force, now that we are in the midst of a civil war ourselves. How we get on you can judge as well as we, perhaps better Keep your eyes on the Mississippi, and see if we soon clear out that great thoroughfare, and divide and break the resources of the Confederacy. This is the first and vital conflict, and I watch everything relating to it, daily, with intense anxiety. The Administration has received from Congress M. 71.] CHARACTER OF SIR GEORGE LEWIS. 461 everything that can be asked, men and money without stint, and a power to declare martial law all over the country. If we fail, there- fore, it will not be from want of the spirit of the old Roman dicta- torship. But I do not think we shall fail, though I think the Presi- dent and his advisers are not equal to the emergency. The people, however, are. At least I trust so, and so believe. We are all well Yours sincerely, Geo. Ticknor. To George T. Curtis, Esq., New York. Boston, May 8, 1863. The outside world in one shape intrudes upon everybody, even the most secluded, in these days. Hooker's disasters will be gradually let in upon the country, but what will be the effect ? Will people wake up to the position of affairs, or will they go on in the old ways of talking, and caucusing, and making proclamations ? It seems to be settled in the minds of the community, that a civil war, of the gigantic proportions to which this one has attained, is to be carried on by the old machinery of party, that we are to have great popular meetings, with the galleries reserved for the ladies, and music to en- tertain them ; loyal leagues of men and women ; dinners and diimer speeches, and all the claptrap devices of the times of a great election. Why, you might as well set the men and women, and the newspapers, and the caucuses, and clubs, to put out a volcano, or stop an earth- quake. If the President don't see this and make a clean sweep, he cannot, I think, get on much farther For myself, I do not think my opinion is worth much until I get rid of the lumbago. When I do, perhaps I shall enlist, — perhaps not To Sir Edmund Head. Boston, May 12, 1863. My dear Head, — You have met with a great loss,* and I cannot refuse myseK the gratification of telling you that I sympathize with you very sincerely. I have just been reading the remarks in the House of Commons by Mr. Walpole and Mr. Disraeli, on the loss sustained by the nation ; but I thought of you all the time, and of our last meeting at Kent House, and talking with Sir George Lewis till after midnight, the day but one before I left London. * By the death of Sir George Comewall Lewis. 462 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. 1863. Of course I knew Mm but little, but there was one quality of his mind of vast consequence to bim as a statesman, and to his country, which was very quickly apparent ; I mean his instinctive fairness. He was singularly able and willing to change his opinion, when new facts came to unsettle his old one. He seemed to do it, too, without regret. This struck me the first time I saw him, which was at break- fast at Lord Stanhope's, in July, 1856, and it was still more strongly apparent the next morning at breakfast at his o"\vn house ; the con- versation on both occasions having been much on American affairs. .... And so it continued, I think, every time I saw him that sum- mer, and the next, down to the last dinner at his house, when we were together. I remember that I used to think he had the greatest respect for facts of any man I ever saw, and an extraordinary power of determining, from internal evidence, what were such. I suppose this meant, that the love of truth was the uppermost visible quality in his character."^ How Lady Theresa will bear her loss, coming so close upon that of her daughter, I do not know. Her place in the world seems to be made vacant by it as much as that of Sir George ; for she should always be associated with those who hold in their hands large power. At least, it has always so seemed to me, in the little I have known of her ; so admirably did she appear to be fitted, both by her intellect- ual constitution and accomplishments, and by her gentle wisdom and graceful tact in society, for a place among those who manage the affairs of the world She has, I apprehend, a very affec- tionate nature. At least, when I last knew her, the death of her mother — who had then been dead some years — still lay heavy on her heart * Id his reply to this letter Sir Edmund says : " Your letter is very striking, and very true, with reference to poor Lewis's mind and character, — so much so that I shall venture to take a liberty, which I hope you will pardon. I shall cause an extract from it (of course without your name) to be used in an article which will appear in the next ' Edinburgh Review.' " In answer to this, again, Mr. Ticknor writes : "I have not seen the July number of the 'Edinburgh,' and, indeed, do not know whether it has come. Tlierefore I am still uncertain what you may have found in my letter that could be turned to accoimt. What I thought, and still think, about Sir George Lewis, as one of the most remarkable men I have met, I know very well. What I said about him is quite another matter, for I remember nothing of it. But whatever it was, you are welcome to it. I only wish it may have been better than I can think it was. Please tell me, however, who wrote the article, for though I naturally suppose you did, I should like to know for certain." Sir Edmund admitted that he wrote it. M. 72.] LETTERS TO MR. GARDINER. 463 To Robert H. Gardiner, Esq., Gardixer. Newport, R.L, August 29, 1863. When I first wrote to you that I did not like to venture a journey in very hot weather, I had a misgiving that I was standing on pretty slippery ground Since my last letter, however, — now ten days ago, — 3^Irs. Ticknor has been constantly in bed, Dr. Barker attending her generally twice a day, and I have been in bed part of the time in a contiguous room, and imder his care the whole of it Yesterday, while I was still confined to my bed. Sir Henry Hol- land, who visited you at Gardiner a few years ago, came in upon me straight from London. I had a long talk with him, from which I in- fer that the best chance our friends in England see for us is, that we should continue our victories, until we feel strong and magnanimous enough to proclaim an amnesty, and offer the South to settle every- thing — a new constitution and all — by a convention. So Little do they know Latrobe of Baltimore, who came in the evening, has a wholly differ- ent remedy The plan does not seem to me to be wiser than Sir Henry^s ; but each is as good as any I have heard of. ... . To Robert H. Gardiner, Gardiner. Boston, November 11, 1863. My dear Mr. Gardiner, — I cannot tell you how much I was touched by your letter, which came yesterday afternoon. Two days earlier I had heard of your illness, indistinctly, indeed, as to the form and detail, but decisively as to its character ; and the next day I talked the matter over with our old and faithful friend, Mr. ^Minot, and determined to write to-day to Erederic, as he had already done.* But your letter leaves me no doubt ; I am permitted by not only your Christian equanimity, — of which I never doubted, — but by your clear-sighted comprehension of your own case, to write to you with- out embarrassment. A position like yours, understood, and accepted as you accept it, is a teaching for all. I recognize it as such, and shall endeavor to profit by it. The time for me must be short, as it must be for everybody who is well past his threescore and ten. I shall write to you from time to time, as I may have anything to * Mr. Gardiner had become aware that he had a fatal disease, and had writ- ten openly and tranquilly upon the subject to his friends. 464 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1864. say that I think can interest you. I know that nothing can prevent you from being interested iu the fate of a country that you have loved so long, and to which you intrust a posterity dearer to you than life. That we shall not be utterly ruined, I trust and believe. If we have offended against Heaven as a nation in many ways, I hope that we are not cast off altogether ; and that your children and mine may con- tinue to find a resting-place here, which — with trials, indeed, but not severer than they will profit by — may yet give them and theirs the resources needful for happiness and improvement. But it will not be the same country that you and I have lived in. As Dr. Bowditch said to me, above thirty years ago, in a manner so impressive that I remember the spot where we stood, and rarely pass it without recall- ing the circumstance, " "We are living in the best days of the repub- lic. That the worst will follow soon does not seem to me very likely. But nations advance, and thrive, and die, like men ; and can no more have a second youth than their inhabitants can." Since I have been writing, Mr. Minot has been in to tell me that he has had a letter from you to-day, and answered it. He seems in good health, quite as good as he enjoyed when he was with you last summer. But his spirits are probably less bright. The cold weather is not a refreshment to him as it is to me ; and he is saddened, I can see, by your illness. He feels as I did, when Dr. Hayward, my old playmate, was taken away, that my turn may come next. Proximus ardet Ucalegon. My neighbor's house is gone, and the conflagration must reach mine very soon I have still enough to do to keep me contented, and to encourage me to work on. I hope, as long as I have strength, that I shall never be in want of occupation for others. Old people, I think, take little pleasure in working for themselves Believe me always faithfully and affectionately yours, Geo. Ticknor. To Robert H. Gardiner, Esq., Gardiner. Boston, January 14, 1864. My dear Mr. Gardiner, — "We receive constantly the most grati- fying accounts of your condition, in whatever, at this stage of your progress onwards, is important and consoling. But when I turn to tell you so, and put pen to paper, even in answer to your pleasant letter of last week, I stop and hesitate what I shall say. It seems as if the words that have to travel so far, along with the every-day busi' M. 72.] LOSS OF FRIENDS. 465 ness of common life, must grow hollow and unmeaning before they reach you, while I would have them fresh and warm, as they would be if I were sitting by your side, and could adapt them to the varying condition of your mind, as your thoughts inevitably sway to and fro under the pressure of bodily infirmities. Still, I cannot help wTiting, if it be only to say that we are all of us more and more desirous to hear of you, and more and more interested, and gratified, with what comes to us. God, I feel very trustful, will be gentle in his dealings with you, as he has always been. The temperament it pleased him to give you originally has insured to you, through a long and happy life, a remarkable degree of composure and equanimity. And so, I fully beKeve, it will continue to the end. Certainly I pray that it may be so. If I could know what would interest and occupy your thoughts at the moment when my letter will reach you, I might fill out a sheet or more, as usual. But, in fact, when I wrote to you last and now again, I do not feel as if I could write on common subjects, or think about common things. I see you too distinctly for this, on your sofa in the library, surrounded by those you most love on earth, and still giving and receiving pleasure. I do not, indeed, hear the words you utter, but I know their meaning, full of gentleness and love ; and I know that those who do hear them will treasure them up, and that, hereafter, some of them will reach me. Meantime, we shall continue to think and speak of you daily, and cherish for you the affection which has so long been a part of our happiness, and which no change or separation can impair. "With tender regards from Mrs. Ticknor and myself to Mrs. Gardi- ner, and to all whom love and duty alike gather round you, believe me, my dear IMr. Gardiner, now and always Your sincere friend, George Ticknor. To B. B. WiFFEN. Boston, U. S. A,, March 25, 1864. Friend Benjamin B. "Wiffen, — I received, three days ago, from Triibner & Co., a rich copy of the improved CX. Consideraziones de Juan de Valdes, together vdih. your very kind and interesting letter of the 8th of last month. I thank you for both very cordially, and shall preserve them among the things that I hold to be precious. Your notice of the death of a sister, who had been your companion from childhood, and whose empty seat by your hearth makes you 20* DD 466 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1864. feel very desolate, touches me nearly. I am old, — almost seventy- three, — and the few friends of my youth and riper years, that have remained to me until now, are constantly dropping away. One has fallen this week. Another will go soon. And the rest must follow before long, whether it pleases God that I should precede them or not. ': In 1819 I spent two or three days with the Duke of Bedford at Wobum Abbey.* There was a brilliant party there, just at the end of the shooting-season, — the old Lord Spencer, Frere, the Jerseys, etc. One forenoon I remember that, with your brother, and a clergy- man whose name I have forgotten, I walked a good deal about the grounds and park. Lord John was at home, and my recollections of him — with whom I have kept up some intercourse from time to time ever since — and of your brother are most agreeable, as they are, in- deed, of the whole visit. From Lord John I had a letter yesterday, and am glad to find that, notwithstanding the contests of party and his elevation — if it be such — to the peerage, his literary tastes are still strong. You ask me if there are, in the United States, any public libraries to which you may send the reprints of the ancient Spanish Eeformers, and where they would be preserved, and would serve the purposes of literature ? I answer, confidently, that there are many such. Har- vard College, near Boston, and the Astor Library, New York, are among the more prominent of the number. But the one I will ven- ture to commend to your favor is the Boston Public Library, of which I send you, by this mail, the last annual report, to show you, in part, what it is. The first portion of this report was drawn up by Mr. Everett, formerly our Minister in England, and our principal Secretary of State at home, — an accomplished scholar as well as a wise states- man. The second part was drawn up by myself, and the third by the very efiicient Superintendent of the institution I have given to it above three thousand volumes, many of them rare ; and intend to give to it my Spanish and Portuguese collections, which will make as many more. If these facts, together with what you will find in the report I send, should induce you to favor us, I shall be grateful, and will insure the fulfilment of your designs and wishes, as far as it may be done anywhere. If, however, your kindness should take another direction, I shall not complain Yours very faithfully, George Ticknor. * See Vol. I. p. 268. M. 72.] INDEX TO CLEMENCIN. 467 To Charles Frederic Bradford, Esq., Boston. Park Street, April 1, 1864. My dear Mr. Bradford, — I received this forenoon your Index to Clemen cin's Notes on Don Quixote, a marvellous work, carefully prepared, beautifully -wTitten, tastefully bound. That you should have done this in any degree to please me, is a gratification such as a scholar seldom receives ; that you should give me such a charming copy of it demands and receives my very cordial and sincere thanks. I have looked over several pages of it, and many separate heads, and find it accurate, as I expected it would be. Hereafter, I shall use it for the serious purposes of study, and do not doubt that I shall often be benefited by it. When I see how much patient, faithful labor you have bestowed upon this Index, I am consoled by the thought that if it was kindly intended for me, it has, like other good works, not been without ad- vantage to its author. You must have learnt a great deal about the liistory and criticism of Spanish literature, which you would be sorry to part with. Others, too, will use it and profit by it.* Your graceful and modest account of the imperfect advantages you have enjoyed for literary culture surprised me very much, as com- pared with the results you have reached. I knew from yourself, and in other ways, that your early opportunities had been small, but I had no idea that they had been so very inconsiderable. It makes me ashamed to think that, with all the means vouchsafed to me, I have yet done no more. I assure you, I feel this painfully at the moment I write it. Please to give my kind regards to IVIrs. Bradford, and tell her that I congratulate her on your release from this hard, long work. I can- not doubt that she must, sometimes, have thought that you were giv- ing to it time to which she had a better claim. But it is done, and again I thank you for it, adding, that if, as you kindly say, I have in any way helped you in your studies, I shall feel bound to do it still more hereafter, in order partly to balance my present obligation. Yours very faithfully, Geo. Ticknor. * Mr. Bradford has since enlarged this Index, and has made, "with his owm hand, other exquisite copies of it, of which he has presented one to Harvard College, and one wholly in Spanish is now on its way to Spain for the Royal Academy, of which he has been made a member. 468 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1864. To Sir Edmund Head. Boston, April 20, 1864. My dear Head, — .... As soon as I received Sir George's book * about the Administrations, 1783-1830, I read the first article, which is largely" about American affairs ; and as I went on, I kept saying to myself, " He ought to have been a judge, he ought to have been Lord Chancellor." Nothing in the way of investigation seems ever to escape him, and when all his facts are brought together, then comes in his judicial fairness, and makes everything clear, as measured by some recognized principle. See what he says about Lord Shelbume's career, and especially what he says about Fox's mistake in joining Lord North. I do not know anything like it in political history. Romilly and Horner had a good deal of the same character ; but, though they came to as fair and honest results as anybody, they were both practising lawyers, and preserved something of the air of advocates, in the form and turn of their discussions. Perhaps Lewis might have had the same air if he had been in the courts, and had had clients to conciliate as well as to serve. As it is, we get, I think, in him only a sort of clear, judicial statesmanship, of which — very likely because I know so little of political history — I can refer to no other example. How is it ? ... . To Brigadier-General Stlvanus Thayer. Boston, April 29, 1864. My dear General, — I can't help it this once. Next time it shall be " My dear Thayer," as of old. But to-day you must consent to be "the General," and nothing else. At any rate, since last evening, when I saw the announcement in the paper, I have had you con- stantly before me with the two stars on your shoulder-strap ; feeling all the time that a galaxy would not be an overstatement of your deserts, so far as the creation of West Point, and the education of the officers of our army, is concerned. But enough of this. I do not con- gratulate you. When only an act of decent justice is done, the person who does it is to be congratulated, if anybody is. I therefore con- gratulate a little — not much — the Secretary of War, and if anybody else has had a hand in it, I congratulate him, too ; but I never saw the Secretary, and never expect to see him, so that my congratulations will be lost in thin air, like all those unavailing supplications in Homer. * Sir G. C. Lewis. M. 73.] DEATH OF MR. EVERETT. 469 You have not answered my note about a visit. Do not let that — the visit, I mean — be lost in the same thin air. I want to have a long talk or two with you, and never shall do it unless you come here Yours always, General or no General, but old classmate, Geo. Ticknor. When Mr. Ticknor made, on his seventy-sixth birthday, the list of his early friends, — from whom only death was to part him,* — he had already endured the pain of separation from nearly all those who were not destined to survive him. The death of Mr. Everett in January, 1865, was a shock from its extreme suddenness, and it broke up an intercourse which, for the previous fourteen or fifteen years, had been extremely close and confidential. Their meetings, when both were in Boston, were almost daily, and the number of notes which passed between them was so great as to cause amused comments in the family, on this lady-like or lover-like frequency of billets-doux, t On the day of Mr. Everett's death Mr. Ticknor wrote to Mr. G. T. Curtis : — Boston, Sunday, January 15, 1865. "^ My dear George, — Everett died of apoplexy this morning at about half past four o'clock. I went to see him yesterday, because he was unwell, although I was, myself, not quite right for going out in bad weather. He was sujffer- ing from a terrible cold, which he caught last Monday, when he made a legal argument before referees about the damage done to his estate in Medford by the Charlestown water- works ; and afterwards, before dinner, made the speech you have seen about the Savannah case. The doctor — Hay ward — had been anxious about him at first, but was soon relieved of any apprehension of immediate danger, though he treated him tenderly, and visited him t^Ndce daily, watching him with care, as he said, because he was above seventy. When I saw * See Vol. I. p. 316. t Mr. Everett was in the habit of preserving everything of this kind, and Mr. Ticknor received back more than five hundred notes and letters which he had written. Almost all were short ; a large quantity he destroyed, and of the re- mainder only a few were of so general a character that they could be used in these volumes. 1 470 LIFE OP GEORGE TICKNOR. [186 him yesterday, he could not speak above a whisper, and was evidently quite ill, but he was in his library and moved about the room freely, giving directions and making arrangements for a person who was copying something for him. I came away without any special anx- iety about the case. This morning early I was sent for ; but I stayed in bed late, not being well, and Michael, when he brought the shaving-water, was imwilling to tell me. As breakfast was ready your aunt thought it better to wait till I had had the needed refreshment. So I did not get there till after nine. William was alone, and had seen nobody but his uncle I sent for Mr. Winthrop, who came at once, but we were able to settle nothing, and are to go again at half past twelve I do not yet come to any living perception of what has happened ; everything was so natural in that library, that when Winthrop came in my first impression was that Everett was entering the room. A minute afterwards I think I felt worse than I have at any time. It is a terrible shock.* .... To General Thayer, Braintree. Boston, April 25, 1865. My dear Thayer, — Faithful Michael — my true follower of four- teen years' standing — honestly owned to me, two days ago, that you called here some time since, — date uncertain, — and that he forgot to tell me of it. I forgave him, though I was tant soit peu chagrin^. As it is no fault of mine, I trust that you will make it up to me, as generous men are wont to do. Especially I beg you to remember your promise to come in, about these days, and spend a night or more with us. We are quite alone, — Anna in London, Lizzie in New York, both for their health ; and even some of our most intimate friends away, some for one reason, some for another. So we are very solitary. And only think what has happened t that we must talk about ! I never dreamed, in my worst fears, of living through such a period of horrors. Indeed, I hardly comprehend now what has hap- pened. .... * In a note to General Thayer he says : "We shall miss him [Everett] very much. I had known him almost as long as I have known you. Pray try to live a little longer ; I can't spare you all." t Assassination of President Lincoln, M. 74.] DEATH OF SIR WILLIAM ROWAN HAMILTON. 471 To Sir Edmund Head. Boston, September 20, 1865. My dear Head, — .... Tell me what you think about Lord Derby^s Iliad. Sometimes he is not up to the German critics, among whom, if I follow him at all, it is only by accident. But his Miltonic blank-verse, I think, shows that he has a true feeling about his work. It is a great while since I have seen old Potter's iEschylus, but Lord Derby has sometimes reminded me of that fierce Greek dogma- tist. I kept Pope, Chapman, and Cowper on the table, as well as the original ; but the English triumvirate seemed to me as pale before Lord Derby, while I was reading him, as he did before the Greek. On looking again at your Spanish proverb I am a little uncertain — notwithstanding your ever clear and fair chirography — whether you wrote mear el vado, or mear at vado Mear el vado may sig- nify, knocking away the very foundations on which you build. But quien sale ? The context, if there is one, might show. Agassiz is having his own way in Brazil as much as he ever had here. The Emperor does everything for him that he wants, gives him a steamer to go up the Amazon free of every possible charge, puts two engineers ahoard who have surveyed the river, etc. I am sorry to see the death of Hamilton, the Irish mathematician. A great light is put out. I saw him knighted in 1835, and he gave Anna a few days afterwards a grand sonnet, which he wrote on the occasion, and which I now have It is certainly fine as few sonnets are.* * Such a gift to a chUd was, of course, meant for her father. This allusion to the sonnet (already mentioned, Vol. I. p. 425, note) gives an opportunity to present the sonnet itself here which is quite irresistible : — A prater. O 'brooding Spirit of Wisdom and of Love, Whose mighty wings even now o'ershadow me, Absorb me in thine own immensity, And raise me far my finite self above ! Purge vanity away, and the weak care That name or fame of me may widely spread : And the deep wish leave burning in their stead, Thy blissful influence afar to bear, — Or see it home ! Let no desire of ease. No lack of courage, faith, or love, delay Mine own steps in that high thought-paven way In which my soul her clear commission sees : Yet with an equal joy let me behold Thy chariot o'er that way by others roll'd ! 472 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1866. To Professor Louis Agassiz. Boston, U. S. A., January 14, 1866. My dear Agassiz, — You have written me three interesting and important letters from Brazil, and I have answered neither of them, partly from good reasons, partly from poor ; neither worth remember- ing now. But I think I have done exactly what you meant I should do ; I have used them in every way I could for the benefit of the Museum, and of your present expedition. Out of them, mainly, I have made two reports, which I suppose will be published this win- ter, and which I hope you will find substantially right. But this is all. We have all agreed that it was better not to go into the newspapers at present ; but rather to leave the account of your doings and their results to come out from higher and more authentic sources, or what will ultimately be best, from yourself. .... There is, however, one matter about which it seems especially im- portant to write to you now. By your last letter to me, dated Manaos, 23d November, as well as from other letters I have seen, it is appar- ent that you would like to stay longer in Brazil ; probably another season. It does not surprise me. You are, besides many other things higher and better, a collector. You are a passionate collector. I have seen and known many such, but I never saw one who was satisfied with what he had gathered. There is, however, somewhere, a natural and necessary limit to everything human, and it is clearly the part of wisdom to discover betimes where that limit is fixed, lest we should make serious mistakes in what is most important for the ordering of our lives ; I mean, if it is in a matter which really concerns our well- being and success. At the present moment, and in relation to your present plans, there seem to be two points of this sort, in which you and your friends are alike deeply interested. The first relates to the care and preservation of the specimens you laaj collect, and which must, most of them, per- ish or lose their value if not cared for in good season and efficiently. Before you went to South America there were twice as many speci- mens in your possession as could be properly arranged in the present building. You bade me say so in one of the Reports of the Commit- tee on the Museum, and it was said accordingly, and remains now of record. Since you left us vast numbers of other specimens have been received, by way of exchange and donation, from Europe and all parts of the world ; and there seems, from your letters, to be no end to those you are sending from Brazil. We do not believe that it will be possi- ^.74.] LETTEE TO PROFESSOR AGASSIZ. 473 ble tx) erect all the buildings and provide all the scientific service, attendance, and materials necessary to protect and maintain in good condition such masses of specimens, and make them intelligible and useful. The mill will be stopped from the floods that will be poiired upon the machinery through which alone it can be made to move On the other point I speak wholly from the authority of scientific experts in whom you have confidence. It relates to yourself only, and to your great and noble purposes and objects ki life. I do not feel that anybody has a right to object to your devoting yourself ex- clusively to the highest investigations in natural science, postponing to them all labors relating to the mere collection and preservation of the materials for doing so. It is your clear right. You have done an immense deal of work of this humbler sort. The Museum exists by your generous sacrifices. You are emeritus^ and it may be your duty, as well as your right, to change in this respect the present course of your life. But I do not suppose that such devotion to the very highest purposes of science would be any injury to the Museum, which, on the contrary, you would illustrate and render every year more important and useful by your labors. But your collections, as I am assured, are already larger, much larger, than you can submit to such investigations as you intend to make, even if you should live as long as those most attached to you can hope or ask that you should. Indeed, those who best know as- sure me, that the time you are now giving to the accumulation of specimens — which may, after all, perish from want of the means needful to protect them — might, in their judgment, be better em- ployed for your own fame, and for the advancement of such scien- tific investigations as you can make better than any man alive, and without which these same vast collections might as well remain in their blind kegs, in the dark cellar where they are now hidden away, and so your vast personal labors and disinterested sacrifices, in bring- ing them together, be mainly lost. It is, I fear, not unlikely, that, surrounded and solicited as you are now by such extraordinary means of readily accumulating what you value more than all gold, and to collecting which you have devoted so much of your life and your great powers, you will feel that I am writing ungraciously. But I am sure that I ought to write to you thus freely and frankly, not only from our personal relations and from your most open and kind nature, but because I know that I only send you the earnest convictions of those who most value you, and whom you most value 474 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1866. All would ask you to come home as soon as you can make con- venient and becoming arrangements to do so. And how you will be received ! . . . . To Sir Edmund Head. Boston, January 30, 1866. My dear Head, — I should have written to you earlier, I suppose, but I have been ill However, the doctors have patched me up, so that I am well enough for 74 - 5. At least, I am as well off as the eidolon of Branca d'Oria, and, perhaps, as hollow. E mangia, e 6ee, e dorme, e veste panni. We shall see. Among other things that I missed while I was in this " interlunar cave," I failed to see your Icelandic translation, in Frazer, till yester- day. I sent for it three times ; but, as so often happens, I did not get it till I went for it myself. But I have been paid for my trouble. I enjoyed it very much, and have become eager to see more, of which I find a notice in the " Times," that came to me a few days ago. Mean- while, I want the title of Bechstein's " Deutsches Lesebuch," so that I can order it, and read " Es stehen die Sterne am Himmel." Biirger was a miserable scamp ; but still I should be sorry to have the credit of Lenore taken away from him. I have always understood that he got the hint for it from hearing a peasant-girl, as she was washing in a clear moonlight night, sing about "Die Todten reiten schnelle, Feins Liebchen, graut dix nicht." At least, this was the tradition at Gottingen, — not, perhaps, in the days of Matilda Pottingen, but just half a century ago, when I lived there ; and I don't like to have it disturbed, except on very good grounds. .... We have just finished reading " Lecky " loud, — by far the most interesting book I have read since poor Buckle's, and more satis- factory than his, — not presumptuous in its generalizations, and safer in its statements of fact Yours ever, Geo. Ticknor. To Lady Cranworth. Boston, U. S. A., December 24, 1866. My dear Lady Cranworth, — .... Please to tell Lord Cran- worth, that, bearing his suggestion in mind, I read " Le Conscrit," as, in fact, I had run it over when it first came out. It is a very inter- M. 75.] MILITAKY CONSCRIPTION. 475 esting, life-like book. But I fear it will produce no permanent effect on the French national character, or on the military tastes that seem to have become a part of it. French men and women, in every vil- lage of their country, have seen similar cases of heart-rending misery, and heard tales of them repeated from the time they introduced the heathenish Eoman conscription, above sixty years ago, and, what is worse, they have been proud of such cases, and taught the victims to be proud of them. Nothing, it seems to me, tends more to make war savage than this cruel, forced service, which the soldier who survives it yet claims at last as his great glory ^ because he cannot afford to suf- fer so much and get no honor for it. It is a splendid sort of barbar- ism that is thus promoted, but it is barbarism, after all ; for it tends more and more to make the military character predominate over the civil. 476 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1867. CHAPTEE XXIV. 1867 to 1870. — Letters to Sir E. Head, Hon. E. Twisleton, Sir Walter Trevelyan, the King of Saxony, G. T. Curtis, General Thayer. To Sir Edmund Head, London. Boston, February 21, 1867. My dear Head, — I am surprised to find that I sent you no an- swer atout tlie meaning of El moron in the ballad of " Blanca sois, Senora Mia." To be sure, I had no doubt but that it meant the horse, as soon as you gave me the suggestion of Mrs. Marshall, and I rather think that we ought both of us to feel a little mortified that we needed the lady's hint. And, to be sure, further I can say in reply to your question, that I do not remember any other case in which the name of the color is put for the horse, although I will bet a penny I ought to recollect cases in which pardo, hayo, etc., are so used. But is not Sancho's ass just as good as any horse in the world, and just as classi- cal, and is he not called el rucio fifty times in " Don Quixote " ? And now I am in the way of confessing, I will acknowledge that I do not remember telling you how much I delight in the " Death of old King Gorm." See how old and forgetful I grow ! So I have just read it over again, and have enjoyed it as much as I did when it first came out. Not so the translation from Theocritus, which I have seen lately. It is fine, but I do not like it so much. I wonder whether I take less than I used to, to the classical fashions. On the whole, I think not, though I sometimes suspect it ; I should be sorry, in my old age, to become disloyal, and don't mean to. I looked, an hour or two ago, into Boswell's Johnson, and be- thought me that you are the Secretary of Johnson's old club. Pray tell me what sort of records have been kept of its meetings, and what sort you keep ? Has anything more satisfactory been published about it than is to be found in Vol. I. of " Croker" ? How many of you are there now ? How often do you meet 1 How many, on an average, come together, and what sort of times do you have ? I have looked over Wornum's " Life of Holbein," as you counselled. M. 75.] SPANISH MATTERS. 477 But I find it very hard reading, so ill is it written. Still, it contains a great many new facts, and ranch careful investigation. I hope he will not make out a case against the Dresden Madonna, for it is surely a magnificent picture, and should not be slightly dispossessed of its prescriptive rights. Probably I am prejudiced about it ; but, if I am, I can't help it, and am not ashamed of it Kindest and most faithful regards to Lady Head and yourself, and love to the children from all of us. Tell me about them. Yours ever, Geo. Ticknor. Thinking over the matter of the moreno, and your question whether I knew any other case in which the color of the horse is put, in Span- ish, for the horse himself, I turned to a poor ballad by Jacinto Polo de Medina, m the beginning of his third Academia. It is on the old subject of a game of cams, and is (of course almost) intended as a compliment to the different persons who figure in it. The first who comes in is Don Jorge Bemal, — "En un bayo, cabos negros, Que en una andaluza yegua Engendro el vlento ec." Another is Don Francisco de Berastegui, who and later, — " encomienda Al vlento un rucio," — " Ocupo Don Salvador Carillo (gloria suprema) Un ala^an que a los vientos A saber correr ensena." Indeed, I have little doubt that the mere word for color was used in Spanish to indicate the horse, as often as we use sorrel, etc. ; and I shall never forget how full half a century ago, in the Reit-bahn at Gottingen, I used to be delighted when the Stall-meister called out, " Der Schimmel fiir den Herm Ticknor," because a gray horse was the best in the large establishment. In short, must it not be the same in all languages ? To Sir Edmund Head, London. BROOKLUfE, August 2, 1867. My dear Head, — You are a day in advance of me, but no more ; for I laid out your last letter yesterday to answer it, and in the even- 478 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1867. ing came yours of July 18, — very agreeable and instructive, like all its predecessors, but not satisfactory so far as Lady Head is concerned. By this time, however, I trust she is getting draughts of health at Aix-la-Chapelle, Aachen, Aquisgran, or whatever else they choose to make out of the Koman aquse. I have been there twice, and thought the place detestable both times ; winter and summer alike Thank you for your notices of " the Club," and for the little printed sheet, which I suppose was intended for official convenience. What you told me about a similar document, prepared earlier by Dean Mil- man, made me send to him for it, and not long since I received from his kindness a copy of it, with his MSS, additions down to Dr. Wm. Smith, 1867. I keep all these as very curious matters. On running over the list, I was surprised to find that I had known so many of the members, and on examining it, in consequence, with more care, I find that I have had more or less correspondence with twenty-nine out of the one hundred and fifty-seven members, beginning with Sir Joseph Banks, who runs back to 1778 ; besides which I have met in society and talked with at least twenty-seven more ; so that I have really known fifty-six of the old Johnson Club, all since 1815 ! The reason is that I am such an old fellow ; I was seventy-six yester- day We are all well and prosperous. I am better than I have been for two years, and take great comfort in the tolerated laziness of old age. The Dexters are just gone to the sea-coast for five or six weeks' sea- bathing ; but I am safe in adding their kind regards to ours, for all of you. Yours faithfully, Geo. Ticknor. Tell me about Sir Francis Doyle, and the Professorship of Poetry at Oxford. I have known his family and himself many years, and he sent me lately the volume of Poems by which he claimed, and appar- ently won, the place. Is he obliged to reside ? To HIS Majesty John, King of Saxony. Boston, U. S. A., September 6, 1867. Sire, — The political condition of the world, on both sides of the Atlantic, does not seem to have become more tranquil or hopeful since I received your Majesty's last kind and interesting letter, in which you spoke of it so justly. We all look, in this country, with M. 75.] EMPEKOR MAXIMILIAN. 479 great anxiety on the state of affairs in Europe. We do not see how a war is to be avoided next summer, and hardly comprehend by what statesmanship it has already been postponed so long. The ill-will of nations has no other effective mode of expressing itself, and is sure enough to reach this one at last. How strong the ill-will has become between France and Prussia, since the battle of Sadowa, we cannot measure as you can. But it is an old grudge, which has been fester- ing in the hearts of Prussians and Frenchmen ever since the time of Xapoleon the First. I witnessed it in both countries, when I was in Europe above fifty years ago, and it has never subsided since. In my country it is much the same. We are suffering from causes which go far back in our history, and which have been very active and formidable since the question of slavery began to be angrily dis- cussed on political grounds, almost forty years ago But, notwithstanding our own troubles, the minds of men, all through the country, have been much shaken by the cruel and shame- ful death of Maximilian, in Mexico, — a prince so cultivated, so high-minded, so noble in his whole nature, that his murder seems to bring a disgrace on the age in which we live. I see that his works are about to be published, and I shall be anxious to read them, that I may better understand his history and character When I look at this unsettled and uncertain condition of things everywhere, I sometimes think we live in a decaying civilization. It seems to me, in such dark moments, as if we are all gradually ruining, as, I suppose, all the known civilizations of the world — from the Assyrian do-wn — have been ruined, by the concentration of immense masses of people in the unwholesome moral atmosphere of great cities ; and by the unending increase of their armies, and the enormous preponderance of a military spirit, both of which separate men from the beneficent influences of the soil thev were sent iato the world to cultivate, and lead directly to those violent revolutions which destrov all sense of law and dutv, and at last overturn society itself. My consolation, when these dark prospects rise before me, is that such changes demand all but geological periods. But my real refuge is among my books. Amidst these I always t I find peace. One work, which, of late, has much interested me, I took the liberty of sending, a few days ago, to your Majesty, as something you may not be sorry to see. It is the translation of the " Divina Commedia," recently published here by our well-known poet, Long- fellow. He has been many years employed on it, — above five-and- twenty within my own knowledge, — imposing upon himself, all the 480 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1867. time, such rigorous conditions that I wonder he has been able to do it at all. For he has rendered the whole poem absolutely line for line, making each line express exactly what belongs to the corre- sponding line in the original ; — not a particle more, not a particle less. In this he has been more severe with himself than any translator . of Dante kno^vTi to me, — more, even, than your Majesty has been i Among my pleasures in reading your Majesty's translation of the " Divina Commedia," in the beautiful copy of the new edition you sent me last winter, and now again in reading a copy which Long- fellow has sent me of his English version, is a revival of the recol- lection of those charming evenings in your palace, above thirty years ago, when, with Cams and Forster, I listened to Tieck as he read, at each session, a canto of the Commedia, just as it had come fresh and warm from your hand, while we each of us sat wdth the original Italian, and suggested any alterations that might occur to either of us. I shall never forget the conscientious kindness wdth which you listened to the little we could say, what careful discussions fol- lowed every doubt, how admirably Tieck read, and how delight- ful and instructive the whole was. A full generation of men — as generations have been reckoned from Homer's time doAvn — has since passed away, and with it Tieck and Forster, — a fact not so remarkable, certainly, as that the three others still survive. But Cams must be very old. Does he still preserve the faculties which so long distinguished him ? Is he well ? * Among the changes of life, be assured that Mrs. Ticknor and my- self do not fail to hear with grieved sympathy of the heavy sorrows * This seems an appropriate place to introduce a memorandum made about this period by Mr. Ticknor, recalling one of the pleasures of his middle life. "The little meetings at Prince John's were, I believe, sometimes called the 'Academia Dantesca,' and extended through the years when the Prince was making his translation. I went to only two or three of them, in the winter of 1835-36, and never met anybody at them, except Tieck, Dr. Carus, and Karl Forster, though I believe other persons were occasionally there, especially the Mit-Regent, afterwards King Frederic. I think there are notices of them in the Life of Forster, 1846, Avhere I am kindly remembered as meeting him at the Prince's, which I never did except on these occasions. Forster was an excellent Italian scholar, and translated, as early as 1807, from Dante. So was Carus, who made a plan of the * Divina Commedia,' of which he gave me a copy still to be found in my large paper Landino. Tieck was not so exact in his Italian as they were, but was more genial and agreeable." Forster says of Mr. Ticknor, "I see him often, and grow ever fonder of him," and admires the direct simplicity and "honest handshake " of his greeting to the Prince as "a good contrast to our forms." JE. 76.] ENGLISH AFFAIRS. 481 that befall your Majest/s house and home. So happy a group of fine children as we first knew gathered around you, and afterwards a fam- ily circle grown up into beauty and strength. And now only three left ! ... . Pray express to the Queen our sincere sympathy. We should be ungrateful indeed if we did not feel it, after all the kindness we received in Dresden from your whole family. Remember us, too, to the Princess Amelia, who was so considerate to us, not only at home, but when w^e met her afterwards in Florence, and whose works are kept among our pleasant reading and that of our friends. Preserve us, I pray you, in your kind recollections, and believe me to be always, very faithfully and affectionately, Your Majesty^s friend and servant, Geo. Ticknor. To Sir Edmund Head, London. Boston, January 8, 1868. My dear Head, — The new year must not get on any farther mth- out my recognizing that I owe you a good deal of happiness, and wishing you a great deal more. I think I wrote to you last, just after we came to town in the late autumn ; but whether I did or not, I want to hear from you again. If we had not, in the mean time, heard of Lady Head's recovery, I should have claimed a letter sooner. But we want to hear about all of you, — not forgetting yourself. We want to hear, too, about what you are doing in Parliament, and in politics. I do not half like the position of your affairs, and still less their promise. Your Sheffield troubles with their branches, and your Fenians everywhere look dark. The two movements come from different motives, and tend in different directions, but there is a com- mon ground of radicalism and disorder, on which they can too easily coalesce. If you ever do have an upturning of society from its foun- dations in England, I have always believed that your revolution wiU be bloodier than the French. Your upper classes have a great deal more principle, character, and courage ; and your lower classes are much less easy to satisfy, and have more definite political notions, — more training for a revolution, — and less religion. Tell me that I am mistaken. I want to be. I need not tell you how we get on here ; for you know, without my help, what we have done and what we are doing ; and nobody can predict what we shall do VOL. II. 21 BE 482 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1868. We have had some of your young countrymen here lately, who seem to look upon us as a political mine, that is to be wrought for the benefit of the rest of the world : Mr. Strutt, — son of Lord Rayleigh, — Lord Morley, Lord Amberley with his free-spoken wife. Lord Cam- perdown, Mr, Cowper, Mr. HoUond, and some others, with Miss Suli- van, — a niece of Lord Palmerston, an uncommonly lady-like, cultivated woman. They were all in my library one night together, and I have not seen so intellectual a set of young Englishmen in the United States since Lord Stanley, Denison, Labouchere, and Wharncliffe were here, five-and-twenty years ago. Strutt was senior wrangler at Cam- bridge a few years since ; Morley was about as high at Oxford ; and Cowper, HoUond, and Camperdown were evidently men who stood, or meant to stand, on the intellectual qualities Agassiz and his wife are just about to publish a book — only one volume — on Brazil. You must read it, for it is full of matter, very pleasantly presented. "We have just finished it, in what they call an "advance copy," and the two Annas have enjoyed it as much as I have. Lady Head, I am sure, will like it. But you know how fond we are of Agassiz, and perhaps we like the book overmuch, especially as we have been reading it in an " advance copy," as such things are called, and so have had nobody to moderate our opinion. We are all well, grandchildren and all ; and all who have ever seen you and yours send you affectionate regards. Ever yours, Geo. Ticknor, To Hon. Edward Twisleton. Boston, March 22, 1868. Mt dear Twisleton, — Your sad letter * came at the proper time, and I have desired ever since to answer it, but I have felt that I could not do it without a considerable efi'ort, and so I have kept post- poning it under the vain hope that time would make it easier. It does not ; such things are not easy at 76-7. I was really attached to Sir Edmund Head ; and as the attachment came late in life, and was formed after our tastes and opinions were matured, the idea of its * Sir Edmund Head died very suddenly, of disease of the heart, on the 28th of January, and Mr. Ticknor felt the loss of his friendship deeply. The verses mentioned by Mr. Twisleton, are, he says, " by Bland, of the Greek Anthology, which, among others, Bland wrote in reference to himself, under the impression M.n.l DEATH OF SIE EDMUND HEAD. 483 termination never seemed to be one of its elements. Certainly, I think, it never occurred to me that I should survive him, though, per- haps, I had sometimes worse fears than that. What you tell me of his own anticipations, founded on the verses of Bland, which he so long recollected, falls in with my own impres- sions, and with what he intimated to me more than once in two visits of some length which we made to him in Canada. I think he feared a slow decay of his faculties, with, perhaps, a long Hfe. Yet he was so full of physical strength, which he delighted to enjoy in the most vigorous bodily exercises, and he took such pleasure in the resources of his marvellous memory, as well as in a sort of general intellectual activity, which he spread over so many subjects of elegant culture, as well as of judicial and administrative policy, that I never much shared his own apprehensions or those of his friends. To Hon. Edward Twisleton. Boston, April 29, 1869. My dear Twisleton, — Don't give me up because I have grown old. At 77-8 a man does, not what he most Hkes to do, but what he is able to do ; and I am not able to do the haK of what I could in a day only a few years ago, nor haK as well as then. A long time be- fore I came to this conclusion good old Dr. Jackson, whom you must remember, told me, in one of the last visits he ever made me, that he was reduced to one third. It seemed to me very strange, but I now find that my time is come, and coming. I feel constantly a great weariness, and avoid all the work I can, except reading, of which I have not yet begun to tire. I hope it will last me out, especially my love of old books ; but I do not know. I care little about new ones. During the year past you have been very good to me, and I take much pleasure in acknowledging it. that he should not live long." Sir Edmnnd repeated them, nearly word for word, after an interval of twenty-five years, having only heard them recited once. They are as follows : — " While others set, thy sun shall fall ; Night without eve shall close on thee : And he who made, with sudden call ShaU bid, and thou shalt cease to he. " So whispers Nature, whispers Sorrow : And I would greet the things they say, But for the thought of those whose morrow Hangs trembling on my little day." 484 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1869. Your letter about Mr. Herman Merivale came before lie did, which I think is always an agreeable circumstance in letters of introduction. I was very glad to see him again, and liked him better the more I knew of him. He was a good deal with us, and I did for him gladly what I could during the few days he stayed here. When you see him, pray give him our kind regards, and ask him to come again, I thank you, too, for a copy of the thirteenth report of the Civil Service Commissioners. It is very interesting and curious. But I did something better with it than look it carefully over, and learn what I could from it. I put it into the hands of an old friend of mine. General Thayer, who made West Point all that it is, and who, though above eighty-four years old, and therefore no longer able to make anything «lse, is doing what he can to have a similar system of examination for office introduced here But though we need this system more than any other country, it will be difficult to estab- lish it among us. Those who have the power are naturally unwilling to give it up, and will make a good fight to keep it. Still, there are 80 many more that want to have men both of ability and of honesty to do their work for them in public affairs, that I do not despair The copy you sent me of your report on the subject — going far back, as it does, and giving results — has done good service. No doubt, like any other system, it has its weak side, when it is brought to the test of a wide experience. The higher offices, I sup- pose, cannot be reached by it, and for those of less consequence the qualities you can ascertain, by any prearranged system of inquiries, will somewhat restrict the range of your subsequent choice for office, and, therefore, sometimes prevent you from taking the person best fitted for the office you want to fill I am told, too, that some persons refuse to submit to examinations for places in India and else- where, who have yet good qualifications for them, and would seek them under other circumstances, or might be sought for them. Yet I cannot but think you get a safer class of men, on the whole, even in the Foreign Office, where I suppose your attaches may claim a regu- lar advancement, which may sometimes lead to awkward results. At least, I feel sure that we should in this country do better I hope you will write to me again before long ; and that when you do you will tell me about Lady Head and her daughters. Mean- time, if you see them, pray give them our affectionate regards. We think of them and speak of them often. Only yesterday I read over Sir Edmund's beautiful verses on a Pan-Athenaic vase. Yours sincerely, Geo. Ticknor. M. 78.] « LIFE OF WEBSTER." 485 In 1869 Mr. George Ticknor Curtis had in press Ms " Life of Webster," and Mr. Ticknor gave careful perusal to both manu- script and proof-sheets of this work, in which he took a deep in- terest. A great number of short letters and many pages of mem- oranda, in his handwriting, testify to the fidelity and industry with which he performed this labor oi love. The following will serve as a specimen of his tone. To George T. Ott^tis, Esq. Brookline, July 30, 1869. My dear George, — Your letter of the 26th came yesterday, and the proof I enclose came late this forenoon On reading the proofs I am moi^ and more struck with the fact, that the events you relate, most of which have happened in my time, seem to me to have occurred much longer ago than they really did. The civil war of '61 has made a great gulf between what happened before it in our century and what has happened since, or what is likely to happen hereafter. It does not seem to me as if I were liv- ing in the country in which I was bom, or in which I received what- ever I ever got of political education or principles. "Webster seems to have been the last of the Eomans ; and yet he, too, made mistakes. But I hope you will give a good prominence to his solemn protest in the Senate against the annexation of Texas. It is one of the grandest things he ever did But I am interrupted. William Gardiner, Mrs. Cabot, etc., and dirmer immediately ; in short, nothing before the post, but, Ever yours, and all well, Geo. T. To Sir Walter C. Trevelyan, Bart. Boston, U. S. A., August 31, 1869. My dear Trevelyan, — My silence is not forgetfulness, neither is it ingratitude ; it is simply old age. I am past seventy-eight, and, ; like nearly everybody of that age, I do, not what I like best to do, but what I can. I cannot walk much, and I forget a great deal, and I write as httle as I can. Reading is my great resource, and I have / lately been much amused with Crabbe Robinson, who is a model for old men, as far as their strength holds out. But your letter to me, 486 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1869. written above a year ago, full of kindness and interesting facts, was as welcome to me as ever, and so was the remarkable " Canterbury Keport," with its marvellously condensed appendix, which came a few days ago. On both I must say a word, for I think, even from your letter, that you like to hear talk on the suppression of intemper- ance better than on almost anything else. Indeed, it has long been a main object with you in life, — certainly a most worthy one. And, first, you seem in Great Britain to have got hold of a better and more effective mode of contending against this monstrous evil than we have in Massachusetts and Maine ; for you come, as nearly as you can, to the voluntary principle, which seems needful in all virtue, and, perhaps, in all real and satisfactory reform in manners and morals. But when union of efforts is necessary, as it is in this c-ase, the smaller each union is, in moderate numbers, — if the aggre- gate of all the unions is numerous enough, — the more likely is the main general purpose to be carried. The most formidable political combination of our times was, I suppose, the " Tugend-Bund " of 1808, etc., because it consisted of an immense number of small socie- ties, scattered all over Germany, but little connected with each other except by their one great object, and really knowing little about each other's operations and mode of proceeding. Now, if I understand the matter, you have in the Province of Can- terbury, — embracing, to bd sure, a large part of England, — above a thousand parishes, hamlets, etc., where money will not buy the means of intoxication. It is a great thing, and it has been brought about without legislation. On the other hand, we are attempting to compel the whole million and more of our people in Massachusetts, by the most stringent legis- lation, to do the same thing, — i. e. to stop the sale of all intoxicating liquors. But no people, and especially no people living under such free institutions as ours, can thus be driven. It is a moderate state- ment to say, that in Massachusetts the " Liquor Law," as it is called, is broken a hundred thousand times a day. In Boston, I think any man can get what he wants, from a pipe of wine to a glass of beer, whenever he likes, and as often as he likes. Now this is a bad thing for the law, the courts, and the police generally ; and it is the worse because a sort of moral foundation is claimed for disregarding such a law, — I mean, because it is claimed that it makes only one party an offender, when both parties are ; since, if I buy a bottle of wine, I tempt the seller to do wrong for gain, and so become a party to the offence. M. 78.] THIEBAUT DE CHAMPAGNE. 487 But I will not cany any more coal to Newcastle. You know, from your very able periodicals and discussions on the subject, what we are doing in Massachusetts as well as we do ourselves. What you have sent me from time to time proves it. I only wish you would tell me what you think of our modus (yperandi, as compared with yours. If anything is published here that I think you will like to see, and are not likely to get as soon as you will care to have it, I will send it to you at once. This is very possible, nowadays, for the liquor question is getting mixed up with our general politics, which it never ought to be, any more than a question in religion. But such things can rarely be avoided in so free institutions as ours, — perhaps not in yours What you tell me of Thiebaut de Champagne is very curious, and much of it new. He was always one of my favorites, from 1817, when I studied the earliest French literature in Paris, under the advice of Roquefort and Eaynouard, and made such collections of books as they told me to make. But I never heard before the tradition that he brought home with him from Palestine the "Provence Rose," which we cultivate here in a country Thiebaut never dreamt of ; nor did I ever suppose that there were such remains of the ancient splendor of Provence as you describe. Please to tell me, therefore, when you write, — and I hope that, remembering my age, you will write before long, — please to give me the titles of anything published within the last twenty years about the old Chansonnier, if it will give you no trouble to do it. You see I remember your old tricks in Italy, col- lecting all sorts of books of local history in out-of-the-way places. I do not know Mr. Bright of Waltham, to whom you refer ; but I know his book about his English — not his American — ancestors, and looked in it directly for the engraving of the house where you were married. It is very curious, as are many books of our genealo- gies, tracing the connection between our two countries. I only wish there were more proofs of such connection down to our own times, and that they were heartier But I think I have -written as much as my strength will fairly enable me to write at one time. I will not, therefore, go on even to say a word, as I meant to, about the Oxford and Harvard Race, except to add, that we are surprised at the immense interest it excited ; and that we can hardly hope, if your young men come here next year, as I hope they will, that we can receive them with equal fervor. But as for manly kindness and honor, I think we can promise all that any- body will desire. Yours faithfully, Geo. Ticknor. 488 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1869. To J. G. Cogswell, Esq. Brookline, September 7, 1869. My dear Cogswell, — .... We had a most agreeable visit from Mrs. Barton * and you, and would gladly have had more of it. In- deed, we had more from her, for she came again yesterday, and spent an hour or two more talking about " the books." She is a charming woman, as she always was, and does not look nearly so old as I am obliged to remember that she must be. She read me a paper which she had, I think, shown you, drawn up as skilfully as her father would have done it, and told me that you were to have, for a fortnight, the two catalogues she brought here when she came with you on Saturday. I wish the books in both were well settled on the shelves of the Boston Library.f But I had no opinions to give her different from those I gave her when you were present, to wit, that she should make up her opinion from the best information she can get As property the collection is, no doubt, valuable, and she does not purpose to part with it without a proper compensation. But she can easily find out its value. You are to help her, and I am very glad of it, for I cannot The principal matter, of course, is the Shakespeare collection. She says that Rodd told her husband fifteen years ago that it was the fifth most important Shakespeare Library in the world. It must, I sup- pose, be higher on the list now. At any rate, there will be nothing like it in this country for many a year, if there ever is ; and whoever on this side of the Atlantic wants to write carefully and well about Shakespeare or the old English drama, must sit down by the Barton books and study his subject there, or else go to England. But I think Mrs. Barton is not only a very winning and attractive person, but that she has in her character a great deal of her mother, who was one of the most intelligent and acute women I ever knew, and of her father, who made the Code for Louisiana, and who, as Gen- eral Jackson's Secretary of State, wrote the famous proclamation. I think, therefore, that she needs little help in such a matter as that of * Formerly Miss Cora Livingston, daughter of Mrs. Edward Livingston. See Vol. I. pp. 350, 351. t Tlie " Barton Library," containing both the Shakespeare collection and the miscellaneous library here mentioned, is now among the treasures of the Boston Public Library. It was purchased from Mrs. Barton shortly before her death, in 1873. M. 78.] OLD FEIENDS. 489 the books, which she knew all about in her husband's lifetime, and all whose opinions about them are familiar to her. She will not make mistakes, nor do I mean to make that of thinking that I know more than she and you do. Yours ever, Geo. Ticknor. To General S. Thayer. Boston, January 26, 1870. My very dear old Friexd, — Thank you for your inquiry ; to which I can only reply, that the New Year begins as well as the Old Year leaves off, except that it makes me no younger, but adds to my days, which get to be rather bui'thensome. However, that is no mat- ter ; I eat well, drink well, and sleep well ; I can read all the time, and do it ; but as to walking, it is nearly among the lost arts. But you must come and see. I hear of you in town now and then, and hope for you constantly. Mr. Minot, who is older than you are, gets up the hill every now and then ; and the other day absolutely met here Judge Phillips, from Cambridge, who is quite as old as he is. So I do not despair. Prac- tically, you are younger than I am. So is Cogswell ; but he moves as little, almost, as I do. We all, from my wife down, send our love to you, and want to see you. We shall not any of us have such another w^ter to move about in, — hardly many days like to-day. Look out, therefore, for to- morrow. Yours from 1804 - 5, Geo. Ticknor. To THE King of Saxony. Boston, U. S. A., September 29, 1870. Sire, — Your Majesty is called to great private suffering, as well as to great public anxieties. We have just received a notice of the death of your excellent sister, the Princess Amelia, and we well know what sorrow this brings upon you and your house. She was so good, so in- tellectual, so agreeable. Be assured that we sympathize, in my home, with this your great affliction. We can never forget the constant kindness of the Princess to us when we lived in Dresden, and when we met her in Florence. All of my family who recollect her, as well as younger members who never had the happiness to see her, and very 21* 490 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1870. many persons in my country, axe familiar with her charming dramas, and estimate, as they should, the bright light that has been extin- guished. We have indeed known little of the Princess Amelia's life for the last two or three years, but none the less do we know how her loss will be felt by those who were constantly near her, and shared her daily kindness and thoughtful love. For such a loss there is no sufficient preparation. It may have been long anticipated, but it comes as a shock at last. We can only submit, and be grateful for the life that preceded it. Most heartily, too, do we sympathize with your Majesty and your people in the great and terrible changes now going on in Europe. .... We can all, now, cordially congratulate your Majesty on the great recent successes of your country in the war which has been so unjustifiably brought upon you, and can trust confidingly in their continuance. In my house we watch daily for the accounts of what is done by the Saxon troops, and rejoice cordially as we see how your sons and your subjects have distinguished themselves, their King, and their country. Our last accounts, on which we can rely, are of the surrender of Strasburg. But we receive daily, by the Cable, stories of what was done twenty-four and thirty-six hours earlier, in this terrible war ; some true, more, probably, false. StUl, whatever we hear, be assured that we are interested for Saxony, that we always desire your welfare, your success, your honor, and that we can never cease to sympathize deeply in whatever may befall you, or to pray God for your protec- tion and happiness Be assured that I remain, faithfully and affectionately. Your friend and servant, GEORaE TiCKNOR. From his !Majestt, the King of Saxony. Wesenstein, the 17 October, 1870. Dear Sir, — I have received, some days ago, your letter of the 29th of September, and was astonished to see that you were already ac- quainted with the death of my poor sister. My answer to your last letter seemed not yet to have reached you, and I am uncertain if it was written before or after this lamentable event. I thank you heartily for the part you take in my sorrow, and for all you say on account of the dear departed. It was for me, and for us all, a great loss ; for me particularly, as she was the last of my brothers and sis- M. 79.] CLOSE OF CORRESPONDENCE. 491 ters. She has left, in the whole country, a very good memory. Her last years were very retired. In the year 1855 she had submitted to an operation for cataract, which relieved her at least of the almost complete blindness which was her fate. She could again write and read, but at a certain distance her eye — the one was entirely lost — was very feeble. Since this time she had abandoned her authorship. The political situation of the last period, since 1866, preoccupied her much, and I believe that the war of this summer has much contrib- uted to abridge her life. Yet her death was a very gentle one. She died in the moment when the priest was on the point of reaching her the sacrament, almost without a single pang. To her last hour she continued a true friend to her family, and a sincere and pious Christian. I wrote you already, in my last letter, of the successes of our arms and the honorable part which my troops and my sons have taken in it. Now they are before Paris, and form a part of the blockade of this immense city. May God give us soon an honorable peace, and put an end to the bloodshed, and all other calamities of war. The internal confusion in France is a difficulty for the success of nego- tiations. Adieu, dear friend. I am, with the sincerest sentiments. Your affectionate John.* * These letters closed this correspondence, and Mr. Ticknor's is the last, from his hand, that has come into the possession of his family. After Mr. Ticknor's death, King John wrote a letter of condolence, as warm, as simple, and sincere as any received at that time, and he afterwards went over the whole corre- spondence with great care, both his own and Mr. Ticknor's letters, with reference to the present memoir, — specified which of his own letters must be excluded from pubhcation, and gave other directions which have been duly observed. A year after Mr. Ticknor's death, Mr. Charles Ehot Norton was received in a private audience by the King, in his cabinet, and before closing the interview his Majesty took him into a more private room, — where all the objects gave token of its being the scene of his secluded labors and retire- ment, — in order to show him an engraving of Mr. Ticknor hung there, desiring him to tell Mrs. Ticknor where he had placed it. 492 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1871. CHAPTER XXV. Conclusion. \ /^N the 1st of August, 1870, Mr. Ticknor entered his eigh- V_/ tieth year. He was feeble, but free from any distinct bodily ailment. The heats of summer reduced his strength, and later in the year he was confined to his bed for a few days by a passing indisposition ; but, on the whole, he was well, though he had ceased to be active, to rise early, or to walk much. AU the faculties of his mind were clear. Even his memory, which he himself thought impaired, seemed to others still extraordinary, and his senses were all well preserved, save for a slight deafness. His days were calm and cheerful ; he was cordial in his greet- ings to his friends as ever, and sitting in his library, surrounded by the treasures he had so faithfully used, he thoroughly enjoyed the leisure which permitted him to choose from among them those best suited to the taste and humor of the moment.* New Year's Day, 1871, feU on Sunday, but he had some visitors with whom he talked with his former animation. Mr. Jefferson Coolidge, — a member of the Friday Club, though much younger than most of its members, — who spoke of being in want of a subject for reading, asked him what book was interesting him, and, putting his hand on a volume of the " Life of Scott," Hr. Ticknor said he was reading that for the fourth time.; and then went on to speak of the biographies which make our knowledge of the history of English literature, for the half-century or more that opened with Dr. Johnson, more complete than for any other period, possibly in any literature. * He caused fhe words " Libris semper amicis " to be inscribed on the base of a little statuette of him, made by Martin Milmore as a compliment and expression of gratitude. ^. 79.] LAST DAYS. 493 " Take Boswell," he said, " then Southey's Cowper, the lives of Mackintosh,* Scott, Southey, and so on, and the memoirs are so rich." With 'Ml. Charles Francis Adams, who visited him that even- ing, he had a most spirited and agreeable conversation, in the course of which he expatiated, with more force and terseness of expression than usual, on a theory which had for some time taken strong hold on his thoughts. He said that the ancient civilizations of the world had been undermined and destroyed by two causes, — the increase of standing armies, and the growth of great cities ; and that modern civilization had now added to these sources of decay a third, in the hypothecation of every nation's property to other nations. He also spoke with earnest- ness of the dissatisfaction of the European people with all their present forms of government, and of the reasonableness of this discontent. The next day friends came to bring him the greetings of the season, and he dined with his children and grandchildren, who came to keep the little festival with him. But on the third day of the year there was an obvious change in his condition, and the first signs of paralysis — though slight and almost doubtful — showed themselves. So gradual was the progress of disease, that for some days he still saw his friends, and still left his bed- room for a part of the day, his mind and his speech not being at all afi"ected. His friend. Dr. Bigelow, though older than himself, took a share in the medical charge of his case, and made him daily visits, in which their former habits of humorous discussion still continued ; and once, after the patient was con- fined to bed, the two old classicists were heard quoting Greek together, d, Venvi Vun de Vautre. Mr. George Ticknor Curtis, who came from ^ew York to see * This memoir had a particular charm for Mr. Ticknor in the last months of his life, and he often said, as he laid it down, that it seemed to him as fresh and interesting as in the first of his several readings of it. With the " Life of Scott " he continued occupied untU the last, having just reached the concluding volume when his strength failed, and even then desiring to have it read to him, thus linking his last hours with those of the friend and the object of admira- tion of his early days. 494 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. [1871. his uncle, having at this time asked for and obtained from him a copy of one of his early productions, — the " Life of Lafay- ette," — received a caution about it, very characteristic of the honest exactness in matters of fact for which Mr. Ticknor was always marked. He desired Mr. Curtis to turn to a passage in which he had made the statement that the Duke of Orleans (Egahte) was on the staircase at Versailles when it was invaded by the mob, and Louis XVI. and his Queen were carried to Paris. " I wish you," he said, " to take notice, and to remem- ber that this statement is not true. When I wrote and printed it, it was an accepted fact in the history of the time, believed all over Europe then, and for a long while afterwards. But subse- quent researches have shown that the Duke was not there. See to it that the passage is corrected." On the tenth day of his illness he was moved into his beloved library for the last time, and early in the morning of the 26th of January he ceased to breathe. And so gently ended a long life which had been filled to the 1^ brim with intellectual activity, and with labors useful to the mental life of his time, and to the young and the poor around * him. He died without suffering or long decay ; and, like his father, he was ready to go ; like him, when he came to his death- bed, there was nothing disturbing his mind, " he had nothing to ^ do but to die." Looking back over this long life, we see an unusual consist- ency in the framework of mind and character from the first; an unusually steady development of certain elements and princi- ples ; the whole structure growing with a symmetry to which the freedom from external impediments contributed much, no doubt, but which was mainly due to a well-directed and very vigorous individual wiU. Where this is the case, it is difficult to analyze and describe the combination of quahties we see, and yet avoid too much eulogy. Taking up the consideration of Mr. Ticknor's character at the period of his first return from Europe, we cannot help perceiv- ing the danger there was of his being isolated from his fellow- citizens by the culture he had gained through twofold means ; M. 79.] MENTAL AND MORAL QUALITIES. 495 through his brilliant experience in European society, and his un- tiring use of that and of all his other opportunities. It is quite certain, however, that his attractive qualities, with his sincere desire to be useful to the community, saved him from this peril. He had earnestness and zeal, entire purity, consciousness of high intentions, and a resolute will. His love of truth and right being so often shocked, his hatred of baseness or corruption, and distrust of fanatics and demagogues, so often roused, — these very virtues sometimes gave him an appearance of intolerance and loftiness ; but the impression passed away, if the person receiv- ing it had any further opportunity of testing ]Mr. Ticknor's char- acter and bearing. His special mental gifts, a quick apprehension and a retentive memory, were both remarkable. These were, as they generally axe, accompanied by a thirst for acquisition, which his parents had naturally developed in the direction of hterary culture, since they possessed it in some measure themselves, and were accus- tomed to stimulate it in others. We can see, too, indirectly, in his early letter, describing Lord Jeffrey's visit to Boston, what was the tone of conversation and manners — somewhat measured and formal, but full of thought and real courtesy — that pre- vailed in the then small town where he was born, and that tended to develop the quahties and resources most prized in his own earlv home. But his later development was greatly due to moral qualities acting on and directing his intellect ; for in him a healthy and manly nature was trained, even in the atmosphere of an indul- gent home, to self-control, industry, and the highest respect for truth in every form. These three elements, joined to his two special mental gifts, made him a scholar, earnest, exact, disinter- ested, and faithful ; and a gentleman whose good-breeding and most winning manners caused him, from the early period of his youth when he first passed the borders of his native New Eng- land, to be welcomed in refined society everywhere. To his moral qualities it was due that he continued always in an attitude of inquiry, always craving more, and more exact knowledge, and that he held himself, until he was twenty-eight 496 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. years old, in a process of education such as most youths are apt to consider unnecessary after twenty or twenty-one. When he was young, the best plea it seemed possible to make before the bar of Europe for the intellect of America was, that the raw material was abundant, but the appliances for educa- tion so imperfect that originality had no chance of obtaining justice, for want of scholarship to place it well before the world. Mr. Ticknor felt this want ; but before he sought to supply it abroad he had proved, that, when the eager thirst was accom- panied by certain moral attributes, attainments were possible, even here, sufficient to place their possessor in full communion with the more fortunate inhabitants of countries which offered every means of mental training. No better discipline of mind could have been secured, in the most famous schools and universities, than was attained by him with the defective means and amidst the simple customs of New England at the beginning of this century. No better foundation for success of the highest kind could have been laid than that which, when he was a boy, made self-mastery, integrity, and love of work the essentials of his daily life as much as the air he breathed. No better foundation than this can be laid for such continual progress in thought, as is the product of knowl- edge stored and methodized, and of moral purpose always rising as the knowledge advances. To his moral qualities, again, was due his paramount and ob- vious purpose of making his knowledge, his experience, and his thought of use to others, especially to the young, and of placing all his powers at the service of his fellow-men. yfi^ j i The great vivacity and earnestness of his nature could not, with all his self-mastery, be always restrained from too great vehemence and pertinacity in discussion, but irritation was rarely made obvious in words. His disinterested aims were cherished ; his natural cheerfulness he cultivated as a part of the require- ments of manliness and kindness, and of religion ; therefore, though he was often disposed to be anxious, and to exercise great caution in the affairs of daily life, he was never depressed or discontented. When inevitable trouble or annoyance came, CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS. 497 in large matters or small, he held his peace ; and the habit of finding grievances, or of hiding the real blessings of life behind imaginary ills, was far from his disposition. There was nothing affected or artificial about him, for his whole nature was too strong and sincere, even if his Hfe-long consideration for others had not checked such weakness ; and there was no eccentricity in his ways. It was characteristic of his wise self-knowledge and resolute will, that, having, like many other men, formed the opinion that it is judicious to retire from responsibilities and duties before the judgment is weakened by age, unlike most other men, he acted on this opinion. Four or five years before his death he resigned all responsibilities and trusts, even giving the charge of his property, at last, to his son-in-law, and employing his daughter in small matters of business, by which she gained in- struction, but of which he must have been reluctant to abandon even the practical charge. Thus, at all periods, we see the vigorous will and the vigorous intellect moulding each other. These volumes consist so much of the writings of him who is their subject, that his " opinions and qualities are, perhaps, as fairly shown as they were even in intimate intercourse, and, "uniting these more personal and private compositions with his published works, his intellectual gifts are made apparent. That he appreciated wit and imagination, without possessing them in large measure, and that his taste in the Fine Arts was that of a healthy, quick intelligence, carefully trained by observa- tion, rather than a spontaneous instinct, will be seen without disparagement. As a student of character, he was vigilant, thoughtful, and kindly, his recorded judgments of persons being very rarely pointed by a severe remark of any sort ; or, if any severity is found in his letters and journals, it is sure to rest on some moral ground. He was not disposed to be satirical, though he was sometimes stern, and his principle was always to weigh his judgments carefully and to be just. If, however, he had noted a fact in the career or the character of a man which dis- tinctly indicated a moral want in his nature, he never forgot it. FF 498 LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR. The welcome he received, before he attained his majority, among the clever men of his own community, — lawyers, preach- ers, and merchants who had seen the world ; Mr. Jefferson's ap- probation of him as a representative of American youth, shown by his voluntary offer of letters of introduction for Europe ; Madame de Stael's determination, after her children had seen him enough to describe him to her, that she would see him whether her physicians gave permission or not, — are but the early signs of the attraction and resources he bore about him. His early experience of society in Paris and London was calcu- lated to ingraft on the somewhat grave and formal courtesy of his home circle more promptitude and presence of mind in con- versation, and to introduce the same element into the expression of that deference and poHteness which are the unselfish essence of high breeding. At the end of his life his name was widely known, and his character and intellect were respected wherever in Europe and America they were familiar, and, after its close, tokens of this were abundantly given in pubHc and private channels. Societies honored him ; many notices of him appeared in the public prints ; the poor missed his ready compassion. But among the testimonies called forth by his death there was one which ex- pressed with singular felicity a thought that existed in many minds. A youth of seventeen, who, like his parents and grand- parents, was familiar in Mr. Ticknor's house, showed his father a passage in Cicero's " De Senectute " as being singularly appli- cable to their venerable friend, especially in its concluding sen- tence : " Cujus sermone ita turn cupide fruebar, quasi jam divi- narem, illo extincto, fore unde discerem neminem," — I enjoyed his conversation as if I had had a presentiment that after his death there would be no one from whom I could learn any- thing. APPENDIX A. EXTRACTS FROM THE LETTERS OF MR. ELISHA TICKNOR TO HIS SON GEORGE, DURING HIS ABSENCE IN EUROPE, 1815-1819. Boston, Sunday Evening, April 16, 1815. My dearest and best op Sons, — I hope, and pray God, that this journey may terminate for you better than any one has to those who have travelled for similar purposes. I can't but believe, — Deo volente, — should you improve the opportunities put into your hands, it will prove greatly to your advantage, should you live — which may God grant — to return to your native country again. Our trial on our last parting was more than we could bear for the moment ; but, overcome as we were, nothing but an entire reliance on God could support either your mother or me. "We committed you, immediately on your quitting our shore and turning your eye with a last look on our town and country, to God, depending on him for support and comfort, and relying on him to protect and encourage your heart while absent, and, when it seemeth to him good, to return you to us again in safety and in health. This evening the good man, Mr. Savage, is with us. He is good, or he would not have been here. Your note by the pilot is just handed to us by the goodness of Mr. Watson. Thank you heartily for this favor, for this little remembrance. We had better do as you say, my son, — " we are now only to think how soon we shall meet again." This little scrap, which contains so much, is a precious mor- sel to us. We hope you will do your best to unite with us on this point. Monday, 17. — How often have we thought of you, my dear son, since our parting hands were separated ! The weather has been fine with us. The moon shone bright, and the heavens seemed to favor your departure, and to tell you, while you are doing your duty, you have nothing to fear. 500 APPENDIX A. Tuesday, 18. — .... I have this day bought four yearling ewes and one yearling ram of the Montarco Merino breed flock, which I have long wished to be interested iru I now own Merinos of the three great travelling flocks of Spain, viz. of the Guadaloup, Paular, and Montarco. I keep them in distinct, separate flocks, that I may know in a few years which flock gives the finest and largest fleece, and keeps in flesh and health with the least trouble. Friday, 21. — . . . . One thing I forgot to recommend to you before you went away ; that is, to use technicals in conversation much more freely than you have been in the habit of doing. They form, to all intents and purposes, when properly used, another language, and raise a man, in the estimation of good judges, as far above the common level of literary men, as they are raised above the common level of the vulgar. I don't yn&h you to use them on all occasions, however trifling ; but never talk with a chemist, a botanist, or with philosophers and scientific men, without being able to use them as freely as you are able to use your alphabet. Monday, 24. — .... You have now commenced a great under- taking. I hope it has been begun -with, prudence and deliberation, and that it will terminate without any regret on your part. All you now have to do is, to be honest, to be faithful to yourself, and do jus- tice to your credentials ; and then, if you live, you will return with great pleasure and satisfaction to those who have interested them- selves in your favor. Yours is no common case. They believe you will do them justice. Travel rather in the manner of a clergyman — in the habit and simplicity of a literary, modest gentleman, which will never fail of recommending you wherever you go — than in the style of a man of property, of one at leisure, or of one travelling for pleasure alone, which is not your case. Thursday, 27. — I have just heard Captain Eoulstone announce, as he passed our window, this morning, that Bonaparte was in Paris, at the head of 80,000 men. Pho ! ! It may be true, but I don't believe it I begin to be quite reconciled to your absence, in the anticipation of what you will be when you return, — the use and happiness you will be to me, your friends, and your country. A short absence can be of no use to you. You must prepare yourself for a long and useful one ; and I am sure this course will make the last part of your life pleasant to you, and honorable to me and yourself. I can look for- ward and see you, every week, and every month, employed in some part of Europe in acquiring something which will be useful and APPENDIX A. 501 pleasant to you in after life. So long as you continue to be the kind, discreet, wise, and dutiful son, so long I shall anticipate all I can wish in one who has been so long devoted to the wishes of his parents and friends ; and so long I shall continue, even to the end of my life, to aid and assist you, and make the path of life easy and pleasant to you August 9. — .... The great object of your journey I am sure you will keep in mind, and never turn to the right hand nor to the left, viz. to improve in solid science, the arts, and literature, and in the knowledge of men, as well as to learn to describe the former, and those of the latter, on paper with so much candor and justice as to give pleasure to every one who reads after you And also, from what you see and discover, to learn how to improve and economize in living, so as to live genteelly, respectably, and even profusely on a small and narrow income You have not left your home for the sole purpose of describing the lawns, the hills, the valleys, the tops of mountains, the columns of smoke, the villages, — except for amusement, and as shades to ornament your other improvements, which may be often and happily interspersed ; but you have left your father to grow wiser and better, — to learn how to be more useful to yourself, your friends, and your country. Nommher 6. — .... Savage comes to see us every Sunday even- ing, as faithful and as constantly as the sun rises and sets. Good and charming as he is, it is not my son, my only son, whom I love and esteem so much. It is not George, whom I have so often seen sitting by us, and amusing us with his ovna. composition, or by some well- written piece of another, or giving us some outlines of his plans and his studies, which he meant to pursue in some future time. These are scenes now past and gone, and when they will return again to cheer the hearts of your aged parents, God only knows. You are in his hands By this time, I suppose, you want to know all about our affairs at home, and what we have been doing since you left us. We remain here in the old house, myself in the great chair reading, or at my table writing or settling my accounts, while your mother sits by me knitting, sewing, or talking, as she pleases ; but we are often talking about you, looking at your likeness, and telling a thousand things you would say and do, if you were only with us, and sitting by as as you used to do. But this is what we can't have. Evervthing now is in imagination, although sometimes it seems almost to be a reality ; and, when it is so, the happiness is inexpressible, and I almost start from 502 APPENDIX A. my seat, and when I come to myself, I say, Omtie est rectum. Gaudeo te esse prcBsentem mecum in imaginatione January 9, 1816. — In your absence, I dare say, you will never interest yourself in the politics of any nation. Every nation has her own peculiarities, and her party feeUngs and politics, and is as tena- cious of her own opinions as we are, or have been, in this country. f As every individual in a nation is as tenacious of his own opinion as ■ the nation herself, so you will be willing he should enjoy it without any opposition. I know you are not violent in any of your opinions, and that is one of the best traits in your character, and it will always, should you live, give you comfort and consolation in old age. October 22. — Your No. 46 tells us that, although you have given us accounts of duels and disturbances among the students, yet you have no interest in any of their concerns, but associate with few, and those are professors of the University, who can be of use to you in aU your pursuits. This course I approve, and it must be of great advantage to you. I never supposed you would associate or become acquainted with any of the students Your No. 49, of July 6, tells us also that you are a little sad. I am very sorry for it. You are too far from home to be sad. Brighten up, my son, we will do all for you we can. We can't be on the spot, you know. You must act the father, the mother, and son. TVe could do no more were we with you. Do the best for yourseK you can, and we shall be satisfied. Your studies go on well, you say. That is great. This ought to rouse you from your sadness, and I am sure it will. You are study- ing systematically, you say, the moral and political state of Germany under Professor Saalfeld. I hope all your studies will be pursued systematically, so that you can call them into use whenever necessity requires. This, I think, has so long been your practice that it has now become habitual November 4, — .... I am very glad to learn that you have been 80 fortunate as to have found such old and pleasant friends and companionable gentlemen as Professor Blumenbach and Judge Zach- aria. You may remember, my son, that when you can please, and satisfy, and command their attention and esteem, and give them a fair opportunity to communicate to you, they will be infinitely more useful to you than young men of great learning, who lack in wisdom and experience. Therefore, if you mean to receive any benefit from the aged, give them an opportunity to tell their own story in their own way, and you will be improved, and they will be pleased. But they eh-ould never be contradicted, nor be told " I have often thought so APPENDIX A. 503 myself." And what gives me great comfort is, that I have always found this spirit, to the full, in your kind and benevolent heart, and always ready to give credit for it in others November 9. — . . . . You wrote me, in your No. 45, of June the 5th, that you recite German to Dr. Schultze, and read aloud to him, in some book, as I desired, which requires some considerable exertion of the voice. This I like. I am pleased to learn it from you. I wish you, however, my son, in this part of your improve- ment, to understand me distinctly. It is not of so much importance for you to read aloud to a German, as it is that a German should read aloud to you. Select one of the finest oratorical readers in Gottingen, whose voice is round, and full, and melodious. Place yourself twenty feet from him, if possible. Request him to select and read aloud to you a pathetic oratorical piece in German. Such a piece, if possi- ble, as will command all the powers of speech and eloquence Twenty pieces thus read to you by him, and in turn by you to him, in his tone of voice, would do you ten, twenty, yes, thirty times as much good as it would for you to read to him first, and in the com- mon way, at common distance, and in common language. It is the tone of the voice, and the attitude of a polished German scholar, which you need, to be able to read and speak German well, like a German gentleman and scholar. Do the same in Paris, in Rome, in London, and what you will hear and see otherwise, at the bar, and from the pulpit, and in common conversation, without any particular exertion of your own, will be sufficient to answer all your purposes, and aU my expectations, which are but few, although you may think they are many You may imagine, by my writing to you so much and so frequently on the improvement of time, and on the economy of your expenses, that I am not only very much concerned, but that I am very solici- tous about you. If you have any such idea as this, you are greatly mistaken. I have no fear, except for your health and happiness. If you suppose Professor Stuart and I expect too much from you and Everett, you and he should not write such flattering accounts to Dr. Kirkland and Savage, of the advantages which Gottingen possesses over Cambridge and other universities in this country. So long as you and he draw such strong comparisons, and tell us that the Uni- versity of Gottingen possesses ten times the advantages, and that a student can progress ten times as fast under her auspices as one can imder those of our universities, what must be the fair expectations of those to whom you two young gentlemen wTite 1 That you ought 504 APPENDIX A. to write the truth, and the whole truth, just as it strikes your mind, I don't doubt. Whether it ought to be communicated by private letters to your friends, or by your journal, I do not know. Your friends, I know, will expect eveiything in letters, therefore I would write but few letters, and those I would write in my best style, and write my sober, honest opinion, without any exaggeration February 8, 1817. — I read carefully your letter to me of the 9th of November last. No. 59, as well as both of yours to Dr. Kirkland, and made up my mind, as I had done long before, and as you have learnt by my letters before now, that a seat at the University is much more congenial to your taste, genius, and habits, in my opinion, than to be employed on the boisterous and vexatious ocean of law and politioe. After reading your letter, and examining the subject with care, and fearing, by the contents of your letter, that I had misstated to you the conversation which took place between me and Dr. Kirk- land, at two several times, I called on him and handed him your letter in the affirmative, which he read, and was, to appearances, much pleased, as I really thought he was. I soon found that my statement to you was correct .... To see Athens, my son, is not worth exposing your life, nor the time nor the money you must spend to see it. Whatever time you spend, let it be for useful purposes, — let them be like seed sown in a rich soil, from which we may expect some thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred fold. While I think of it, I will here state, that, however corrupt may be the character of Lord Byron, and how- ever much you ought to despise both, yet he is entitled, as a stranger, to your thanks and gratitude for his kindness and attention to you while in London, and for the facilities with which he furnished you for Greece. Yet I hope, should you hereafter meet him anywhere on the Continent, that you will seek no further acquaintance with him. It will be of no credit to you in this country. March 22. — Since I returned from Hanover, my dearest and best of sons, I have not been very deficient or neglectful, as the multi- plicity of my letters show the fact. To sit down quietly by myself, and write to my son, is one of the greatest pleasures I enjoy ; except when I learn he is well, prosperous, and studious, judicious and happy, and reljdng on God, with an honest, thankful heart for all the ben- efits he enjoys, and for all the improvements he has made. When I hear you are well, and healthy, and contented, and pleased, you know not the joys of your father's, your mother's heart. These joys you never will know, you never can know, till you become a father APPENDIX A. 505 yourself. Perhaps, under your present circumstances, you may im- a<7ine, you may persuade yourself, that no parents can feel more for their children than you feel for your parents, and your near friends and relations. I hope, my son, you will never have such sensations, such pangs for us as we have felt, and still feel, for you, exposed as you are to temptations, to sickness, and loss of life. We pray God to preserve your life, and return you to the arms and affections of your parents and friends April 24. — . . . . [As to the time of his return.] I have always meant, whenever I ^vrote you, to leave it altogether with you ; but to extend it beyond four years from the time you left I did not feel willing. But I have consented, in several letters, to your remain- ing abroad long enough to qualify yourself for the two professorships, and to remain till you were satisfied that you had done your duty. We have consented to this deprivation altogether for your good, for your happiness, my son, and for that of the public, while, at the same time, no one so much desires to see, and embrace, and enjoy the society of their son as we do ; but we feel we are called, at this time, to make sacrifices which we before had never thought of. Now, you see, my son, I am explicit enough to be perfectly understood, and that you do, as to the time, as you think best. Make yourself happy and comfortable. Shun everything that does not lead to improve- ment ; keep yourself from temptation ; be just and honest ; love your father and mother, as you always have done ; remember your friends, they certainly don't forget you. January 17, 1819. — I wrote you on the first inst. by way of New York, my dearest, my best of sons, to give you the distressing intelli- gence of the death of your beloved mother ; and no mother, I trust, was ever loved better by a son than she was by you, and no mother, I believe, ever loved a son better than she loved you. But she is gone, I trust, to a better world I am now very anxious and very uneasy to hear from you, and I grow more and more so as the time of your absence draws nigher and nigher the close. Notwith- standing my feelings, I can't consent to your placing yourself upon the high seas for home till the best season for crossing the Atlantic arrives. Then, I pray you, my son, put yourself on board a sound ship, with a trusty and an intelligent captain, and come home in God's own time Your sainted, your now glorified mother often spoke of the season of your return in the spring ; and, especially in the latter part of her sickness, — when her strength was so gone as to her it appeared impossible she could ever recover, — she begged I VOL. IT. 22 506 APPENDIX A. would -write to you, and tell you not unreasonably to mourn for the loss of your mother, but to do your great work in your absence faith- fully in the fear of God, that you may return honorably to your friends and to your profession, in which she trusted and hoped and believed you would be useful to yourself and friends, and serve God in your day and generation ; and hoped you would remember it would be but a short time before you must go to her, — she could never return to you again. " Tell him, also, not to come out in the cold, distressing season, but to wait a little longer, and come in the pleasant season. Ah, I know my son. Why do I say this ? I know I have long experienced his prudence and good judgment in all his affairs and all his arrangements." She charged Savage to beg you not to regret your last yeai-'s absence, but remember it is all right ; we ought not to complain, — it is God who has done it, and all we have to do is to submit to his will and pleasure. She made all her arrangements in relation to her funeral, and made several little presents to those she loved My son, I am satisfied, as yet, with everything you have done, and I believe your friends who are worth satisfying are as much so as I am. If you come home, my son, with the same moral, pious, and well-ground- ed principles as, I trust, you had when you left me, you will be to me that comfort which I can never express to you without tears in my eyes, nor without such feelings as will be impossible for me to ex- press Farewell, my son. God bless you, wherever you are, and return you m safety, in God's own time, to the arms and affec- tions of your father and friends. Elisha Ticknor. APPENDIX C. 50( APPENDIX B. REVIEWS AND MINOR WRITINGS. 1812. On Moore's Anacreon. " On Milton's Paradise Lost. " On Sermons by the late Rev. S. C. Thatcher. 1816. On Michael Stiefl. 1824. On Griscom's Tour in Europe. On Scenes in Italy, by an American. On Free Schools of New England. Outlines of the Life of General Lafayette. North American Review. Reprinted, London, 1825. 1825. On Amusements in Spain. " Remarks on Changes, etc., in Harvard College. 1826. Memoir of N. A. Haven. 1827. On Works of Chateaubriand. 1831. On Works of Daniel Webster. 1832. Lecture on The Best Mode of Teaching the Li\dng Languages. 1849. On Memoirs of Rev. J. S. Buckminster. (( u APPENDIX C. LITERARY HONORS. 1816. Mineralogical Society of Jena. 1818. Royal Academy of History, Madrid. 1821. American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston. " American Academy of Languages and Belles-Lettres, Boston. 1825. Columbian Institute, Washington, D. C. 1828. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia. 1832. Royal Patriotic Society, Havana. 1833. Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. 1845. American Ethnological Society, New York. 608 APPENDIX D. 1850. Doctor of Laws, Harvard College, Massachusetts. Doctor of Laws, Brown University, Rhode Island. Society of Antiquaries, of London. Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore. 1857. Institute of Science, Letters, and Arts, of Lombardy. 1858. Doctor of Laws, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. " Historical Society of Tennessee, Nashville. 1864. Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 1866. Numismatic and Antiquarian Society, Philadelphia. Doctor Literarum Humaniorum, Regents of the University of the State of New York, Albany. u APPENDIX D. BEQUEST BY MR. TICKNOR, TO THE BOSTON PUBLIC LI- BRARY, OF HIS COLLECTION OF SPANISH AND PORTU- GUESE BOOKS. When Mr. Ticknor's will was proved, the following article in it was made known : — Ninth. On the death of my wife I give to the city of Boston, where I was born, where I have lived a long and happy life, and where I hope to die, all my books and manuscripts in the Spanish and Portuguese languages ; and I further give and bequeath to the same city of Boston, the sum of four thousand dollars, to be paid within one year after the probate of this my will, the same to be always kept by the said city safely invested at interest, for the pur- poses hereinafter specified. But I make these two bequests to the city of Boston only in trust for the following purposes, and no other, to wit: — (1.) That in the course of each and every five years during the twenty-five years next succeeding the receipt by the said city of the said sum of four thousand dollars, the said city shall expend not less than one thousand dollars in the purchase of books in the Spanish and Portuguese languages and literatures, or in one of them, and fur- thermore expressing it as my wish, but not as my requirement, in APPENDIX D. 509 order, so far as may be, to insure the purcliase of books already de- termined to be worth possessing, that no books shall be so purchased durin^y said twenty-five years, nor afterwards, from the income of the said fund of four thousand doUai'S, which shall not have been pub- lished in some one edition at least five years, — it being my will that every book purchased at any time from the income of my said fund of four thousand dollars shall be a book of permanent value and authority, and neither newspapers, periodicals, nor other popular pub- lications not likely to be of lasting consideration. (2.) That no person whatever shall, at any time, or under any cir- cumstances, except for binding or needful repairs in binding, be per- mitted to remove from the proper rooms of the Public Library any of the books hereby bequeathed or for the purchase of which provision is hereby made, but that within such rooms, and at all such times and hours, and under such restrictions as the Trustees or other lawful man- agers of the said Library may deem expedient or reasonable, each and all of said books so bequeathed, or so purchased, shall be freely acces- sible for reference or study to all such persons as may be permitted to resort to said Library or to use it. (3.) That at the end of the twenty-five years aforesaid, and in each and every year thereafter forever, the said city of Boston shall cause the income of the said fund of four thousand dollars, but no part of the principal, to be expended in the purchase of books of permanent value, either in the Spanish and Portuguese languages, or in such other languages as may be deemed expedient by the Trustees of the said Li- brary, or other persons having lawful charge of the same, but always under the conditions and restrictions hereinbefore expressed, namely, that the same shall be used only in the proper rooms of the said Library, and never lent abroad or out of them. (4.) That none of the books bequeathed by me as aforesaid, or to be purchased from the income of the fund of four thousand dollars as aforesaid, shall at any time be sold, exchanged, or given away ; but that they shall, if not inconvenient, be kept together, like the Bow- ditch and the Parker collections now in the said Library. (5.) That if at any time the fund aforesaid shall, from any cause whatever, become diminished, then at least one half of the annual in- come thereof shall yearly be added to the principal until the fall sum of four thousand dollars shall be made good again. (6.) But in case the city of Boston shall refuse or neglect, for the space of one year after the probate of this my w^ll, to accept the said bequests of books, manuscripts, and money, on the trusts and con- 510 APPENDIX D. cUtions hereinbefore set forth, or shall at any time, after accepting the same, fail or neglect faithfully to fulfil each and all of said trusts and conditions, according to their true spirit and intent, then, and in either of said cases, I give and bequeath the said books, manuscripts, and money to the President and Fellows of Harvard College, in the city of Cambridge, for the use of the General Library of said College, upon the same trusts and conditions, so far as the same can be applicable to the said General Library, giving, as I do hereby give, to the said President and Fellows, full power to sue for and recover the said books, manuscripts, and money, or any of them, from the said city of Boston, or from any person or persons who may have the same, or any of them, in his or their possession. About two months after !Mr. Ticknor's death, Mr. W. S. Dexter, on behalf of the Executors, informed the City Council of the city of Bos- ton, through the Mayor, that Mrs. Ticknor had offered to relinquish her right to retain the books thus bequeathed to the city ; and the City Council accepted the bequest, in accordance with the terms and conditions of the will. Eesolutions were passed in relation to this sub- ject by the City Council, April 4, 1871, and by the Trustees of the Library, April 26 ; and the books were removed to the Library build- ing at once. INDEX TO VOLS. I. AND II. Abbotsfobd, I. 282-284, H. 160, 175. Abbott, Jacob, I. 405. Abercromfcie, Mr., 11. 91. Aberdeen, Earl of, II. 364, 365, 368, 372. Ackenbladt, J. D., I. 179. Acland, Dr., H. 432. Acton, Sir John (Lord), II. 373 and note, 374, 396, 397. Adair, Right Hon. Sir Robert, I. 269. Adams, Hon. Charles Francis, IL 493. Adams, John, President U. S., I. 12, 13, 30, 330, 339, n. 408 ; death of, L 377 ; eulogy on, by Webster, 378. Adams, John Quincy, President U. S., L 12, 49, 54, .339, 349, 409, 459. Adams, Mrs. John, I. 13. Adams, Mrs. John Quincy, I. 349. Adderley, Right Hon. Charles, U. 358, 363, 419. Addington, Mr., I. 350, 411. Adelaide, Madame, II. 121. Agassiz, Louis, I. 421 and note, II. 231 and note, 310, 412, 414, 422, 423, 432, 438, 446 and note, 471, 482 ; letter to, 472. Aiken, Charles, L 416. Alba, Count d', I. 248, 249. Albani, Cardinal, I. 181. Albany, Countess of, 1. 183, 184, IL 57. Albemarle, Earl of, II. 149 150. Alberi, Professor Eugenio, II. 315. Albert, Prince Consort, II. 429. Alberti, Count, Tasso M33., IL 52, 53, 78, 79 and note. Aldobrandini, Princess, I. 256 and note. See Borghese, Princess. Alertz, Dr., IL 85. Alfieri, Marquis, II. 42. Alfieri, Yittorio, I. 184, II. 57; anecdote of, 158. Alhambra, I. 230, 231, 232 and note. Alison, Dr., L 427, IL 164, 175. Alison, Miss, 11. 164. Alison, Mrs., L 426-427, II. 164, 175. Alison, Rey. Dr. , I. 280, 414. Allen, Miss, U. 77. Allen, John, I. 265, 408, H. 149, 150, 176. Allston, Washington, I. 316 and note, 388, n. 76, 196, 269. Ahnack's, I. 296, 412, 413. Alps, Austrian and Bavarian, 11. 27-34; Swiss, 34 ; Tyrolese, etc. , 99. Althorp, visits, II. 170-173. Alvin,M.,n. 312. Amberley, Yiscount and Viscountess, U. 482. American Institute, G. T. lectures before, I. 393. Amiens, Bishop of, I. 254. Amory, William, n. 445 note. Ampere, J. J., II. 343 and note, 346, 347-- Amsterdam, visits, I. 69. Ancillon, J. P. F., L 496, 497, 499, 500- 503. Ancona, visits, I. 167. Anderson, Dr., I. 274, 275, 280. Anderson, Greneral Robert, II. 444. Anglona, Duchess of, II. 126. Anglona, Prince of, I. 207. Anhalt-Dessau, Duchess of, I. 479 and note. Anthology Club, G. T. member of, I. 9. Antonelli, Cardinal, II. 348. Appleyard, Mr., II. 170. Arago, F. D., II. 136. Aranjuez, I. 195, 220 - 222. Arconati, Madame, I. 450, 451, IT. 95, 96, 97,101,106,111,139,352. Arconati, Marquis, I. 450, 451, 452, II. 101, 111, 1-39, 352. Argyll, Duchess of, II. 363, 367, 372. Argyll, Duke of, II. 322, 323, 367, 372. Amheim, Barones.^ von (Bettina), I. 500. Arrivabene, Count Giovanni, I. 450,451, IL 139, 328 and note. Ashburton, Lord, II. 364, 366. Astor, John Jacob, II. 247 note, 300. Astor, W. B.,L 26,178. Athenaeum, Boston, I. 8, 12, 370, 371, 379 and note. 612 INDEX. Athenaeum Club, London, n. 145, 146, 378, 384,390. Atterson, Miss, I. 109. Auckland, Lord (First), I. 264. Auersperg, Count (Anastasius Grun), II. 2, 9,10. Austin, Mrs. Sarali, I. 411, 413, 500, II. 384, 390. Azzelini, I. 176. Babbage, Ch.\rles, I. 407, 422, IL 176, 178, 181. Bachi, Pietro, I. 368 note. Baden, Grand Duke of, II. 330. Bagot, Sir Charles and Lady Mary, I. 295 and note. Baillie, Miss Joanna, I. 413, 414, 479, 11. 153. Bainbridge, Commodore, I. 373. Baird, Sir David, I. 412, 413. Balbo, Count Cesare, I. 210, 212, 213, 306, 307, II. 38 - 42, 118, 127, a53 ; letters from, I. 307, 309. Balbo, Countess, I. 209. Balbo, Count Prospero, I. 209, 210, 308, H. 42. Baldissero, Count and Countess, 11. 1-26. Balhorn, Herr, I. 85. Baltimore, visits, I. 41, 349, 351. Bancroft, Hon. George, I. 385, II. 258, 259 note ; letter from, 453 Bandinel, Dr., II. 168, 169. Banks, Su- Joseph, L 258 note, 263, 294, II. 478. Barante, Baron de, I. 137, 138, 256, U. 129, 130, 134, 136. Barbieri, 11. 77. Barbour, Philip, I. 347. Barcelona, visits, I. 185, 191. Baring, Bingham, I. 411. Baring, Thomas, I. 411, II. 324. Barker, Dr. Fordyce, II. 463. Barnard, Mr., I. 459. Barolo, Marchesa, II. 40, 41. Barolo, Marchese, II. 38, 40, 41, 42. Barrett, Elizabeth, 11. 146 and note. Barthelemy, E.,II. 131. Barthelemy-Saint-Hilaire, Jules, 11. 119. Bartlett, Sidney, II. 93 note, 445 note. BartoUni, Lorenzo, II. 55. Barton Library, II. 488 and note. Barton, Mrs. Thomas P., II. 488 and note. Bassano, Due de, II 131. Bastard, Count, II. 126, 137, 138. Bates, Joshua, II. 149, 179, 284, 305 and note, 306, 309, 310, 311 and note, 312, 317, 358, 365, 366, 372, 387. Baudissin, Count, I. 467, 468, 473 and note, 475, 476, 482, 491. Baudissin, Countess, I. 467. Bauer, Mademoiselle, I. 469, 478 and note. Bavaria, Crown Prince of (Ludwig I.), L 177. Beaufort, Lady, II. 385. Beaumont, Elie de, II. 125. Beaumont, Gustave de, I. 421. Beauvillers, M.,I. 122. Becchi, II. 53. Becher, Lady, II. 371. See O'Neil, Miss. Beck, Dr., Professor at Harvard College, I. 351, 352. Beck, Dr. Romeyn, II. 281. Beck, Professor, I. 108. Beckford, William, I. 246 and note. Bedford, Sixth Duke of, I. 268, 269, 270, n. 466. Belem, Church and Convent, I. 244. Belgiojoso, Princess, II. 124, 126, 127, 130. Belhaven, Lord, II. 368. Bell, J., I. 248, 249. BeU, John, I. 173, 174, 180. Bell, Joseph, I. 7. Bell, Professor, II. 162. BeU, Sir Charles, II. 163, 164 ; Lady, 163, 164,360. Bellinghausen, Baron, II. 314. BeUocq, L.,II. 48, 89,90. Benci, 1. 174. Benecke, Professor, I. 70, 76, 79, 82. Benedictine Monasteries in Austria, II. 22- 30. Benvenuti, 11. 76. Berchet, Giovanni, I. 450, II. 101. Berg. President von, I. 122. BerUn, visits, I. 109, 493-503, II. 313, 314, 330,331-333. Bernard, General, I. 350. Bemstorff, Count and Countess, 11. 373. Berryer, P. A., II. 130,138. Bertrand, Favre, I. 153, 155. Bethune, Mademoiselle de, II. 125. Bigelow, Dr. Jacob, I. 12, 316 note, 319, II. 438, 493. Bigelow, J. P., II. 305. Bigelow, Timothy, I. 13. Binney, Horace, II. 37, 46. Birkbeck, Dr., II. 178. Blacas, Duchess de, II. 348, 356. Blake, George, I. 20. Bland, Robert, verses by, II. 482 note, 483. Bligh, President, I. 372. Bliss, Mrs., II. 263. Blumenbach, Madame, I. 103. Blumenbach, Professor, I. 70, 71, 80, 85,94, 103, 104, 105, 121. Blumner, Madame de, I. 481. Boccaccio's house at Certaldo, 11. 91. Bodenhausen, II. 6. Bohl von Faber, I. 236 and note. Bologna, visits, 1. 166, II. 47. INDEX. 513 Bolognetti-Cenci, Count and Countess, 11. 71. Bombelles, Count, II 35, 49. Bombelles, Count Henri, I. 246, 247, 11, 6, 11,12 Bonaparte, Caroline, ■widow of Murat, n. 60, 127, 141 Bonaparte, Christine (Countess Posse), I. 182, 183 note, 446. Bonaparte, Emperor Napoleon I., return from Elba, I. 49 , Dr. Parr on, 50 ; By- ron's feeling for, 60 ; anecdotes of, 61, 123. Bonaparte, Jerome, I. 83, 84, 111, H. 60, 88. Bonaparte, Letizia (Madame Mere), I. 181. Bonaparte, Louis, I. 181, II. 87. Bonaparte, Louis (Emperor Napoleon rH.), n. 88 and note. Bonaparte, Lucien, 1. 181, 182, U. 60. Bonaparte, Madame Lucien, I. 182, 183, 11. 60. Bonaparte, Pauline. See Borghese. Bonaparte, Princess Charlotte, II. 87, 88. Bonaparte, Princess Matilda, II. 88 and note. Bond, Professor, II. 310. Bonstetten, Baron de, I. 153, 156, 157, 164, 470 note. Borghese, Don Camillo, IT. 61, 66. Borghese, Princess Pauline Bonaparte, I. 181, II. 66. Borghese, Prince Francesco, II. 61, 62, 84, 346 note. Borghese, Prmcess, II. 61, 64, 66, 67, 80,342 and note, 345. Borgieri, I. 162. Bose, Comtesse, I. 467. Bose, Count, I 459. Bose, Countess, I. 459, 476. Bossange, Hector, 11. 102. Bostock,Dr., 1.416. Boston, G. T. bom in, I. 1; condition of, 1800-1815, 17-21; town-meetings, 20; comparison with Athens, 20 ; in 1819, 315, 316 and note ; condition in 1839, IL 188, 203. Boston Provident Institution for Savings, G. T. Trustee of. I. 379 note. Boston Public Library, II. 284 and note, 299 - 320 ; G. T.'s peculiar views on, 300- 303, 304, 306, 307, 316, 319, 320 ; building for, 308 ; G. T. goes to Europe for, 311 - 817 ; gifts of books to, 318 note, 319 ; President of Trustees, 320 ; interest in, 333, 338, 351, 381, 382, 400, 409, 446, 487 and note. Boswell, James, I. 53, 55. Boswell, junior, I. 58. Botta, C. G. G., I. 164. Bottiger, K. A., I. 456, 457. Boucheron, II. 42. Bouverie, Hon. E., n. 148, 363. 22* Bowditch, Dr. Nathaniel, I. 316, 371, 391, 405, II. 190, 464. Bowring, Dr. (Sir John), II. 65. Bradford, Charles Frederick, letter to, II. 467 and note. Brandes, C A., 1. 178, IL 325. Brandes, Dr. Karl, II. 313, 314, 331. Brassier, M., I. 501. Breme, Marquis de, 1. 161, 164. Breton, General, II. 376. Bridgeman, Laura, II. 194, 195. Bright, H. A., II. 400. Brignole, Marquis, II. 114. Brisbane, Sh- Thomas, I. 419, 422. British Association for the Advancement of Science, fifth meeting of, I. 419-424. Brodie, Professor, II. 358. Broglia di Monbello, Count, IT. 91. BrogUe, Albert Due de, 11. 369. BrogHe, Duchesse de, I. 128, 131, 132, 133, 137, 138, 151, 152, 257, 314, II. 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 116, 120, 126, 130, 133, 134, 135, 137, 139 and note, 355; letter from, I. 311. Broglie, Victor Due de, I. 128, 139, 151, 155, 253, 257 note, 263, 312, 314, II. 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, no, 129, LSO, 131, 133, 134, 139, 143, 145, 3>4, 355, 356, 369. Brookline, I. 385, II 457. Brooks, Edward, 1. 154, 156, 158. Brooks, Shirley, II. 254 note, 256 note. Brosias, Dr., I. 11. Brougham, Henry Lord, I. 266, 279, IT. 150, 151, 175, 176, 178, 193, SU. Brown, Dr., I. 280 and note. Bruen, Rev. M., I. 364 note. Bruess, Countess, I. 154. Brunet, G., II. 255 and note. Brunetti, Count, II. 38. Brussels, visits, I. 450, II. 311, 313, 328. Buckland, Dr., I. 404-406,11.168, 169,176. Buckle, W. H., n. 255 and note; civiliza- tion in Europe, 410. Buckminster, Miss Eliza, I. 331, 377 note. Buckminster, Miss Lucy, I. 9 and note, 10. Buckminster, Rev. Joseph S., I. 8, 9, 17; death of, 10 ; G. T. in charge of his pa- pers, 10 note. Bugeaud, General, 11. 133, 134. Buller, Mrs., I. 411. Bulow, Baron Edouard von, I. 462, 474, 475, 479, 483, 489. Bulwer,SirHenry(Lord Balling), 11.263, 269. Bunbury, Edward, II. 360. Bunsen, Carl Josias, 1. 177, 178, 11. 58, 59, 62, 66, 67, 70, 76, 79, 84, 85. 287, 312, 315, 328. Bunsen, Mrs., II. 58, 62, 329. Bunsen, Rev. E. 11. 169. Buonarotti, II. 56. Burgess, Sir James Bland, I. 60, 62. GG 514 INDEX. Burlington, Earl of, n. 363. Burr, Aaron, I. 261, II. 35, 113, 114. Bussierre, Baron de, I. 464, 470. Buttini, Dr.,I. 154. Byron, Lady, I. 60, 63, 66, 67, 68, 410 and note, 448. Byron, Lord, I. 54, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 110, 114, 165, 166, 411, 446. Caballero, Fernan, pseud., I. 236 note. Cabot, George, I. 12, 13, 14, 396. Cadaval, Duchess de, I. 249. Cadiz, I. 193 ; visits, 236. Caernarvon, Earl of, II. 364, 371. Calasanzios Convent, I. 195. Calderon de la Barca, Don A., 11. 248, 263. Calhoun, John C, I. 349, 381. Cambridge, Duchess of, II. 381. Cambridge, Duke of, II. 381. Cambridge, England, visits, I. 270, 271, 11. 155-159. Cambridge, Princess Mary of, 11. 381. Cammuccini, Cav., II. 76. Camoens, I. 244, 252. Campagna of Rome, 1. 168. Campbell, Rev. John, n. 281. CampbeU, Sir John, I. 245, 246. CampbeU, Thomas, I. 62, 63, 35, 282, 410, n. 360. Camperdown, Third Earl of, II. 482. Camporesi, prima donna, II. 76. Campuzano, M., II. 126. Canning, anecdote of, II. 150. Canova, Antonio, I. 172. Capponi, Marchese Gaetano, II. 52, 53. Capponi, Marchese Gino, II. 56, 77, 315, 339. Capuccini, Monsignor, II. 85. Cardwell, Edward (Lord), IL 323, 384, 397, 398, 399. Cardwell, Mrs. E., II. 384, 397. Cardwell, Mrs., II. 397. Carlisle, Seventh Earl of, 11. 271, 425 ; letter to, 450 ; letter from, 451. See Morpeth. Carlyle, Dr.,II. 59. Carlyle, Thomas, II. 180. Carmignani, H. 92, 93, 94. Carroll, Archbishop, I. 41. Carroll, Charles, I. 41. Cams, Dr., L 459, 473, 475, 482, H. 480 and note. Cass, General Lewis, n. 113, 141. Cassell, visits, I. 121, Castel-Branco, Baron. See Lacerda. Castiglione, Madame de, n. 370, 372. Castro, Don Adolfo de, 11. 259. Castro, Don Joao de, I. 246. Cavour, Count Camillo di, U. 352, 353, 431. Chadwick, Edwin, 11. 147. Chalmers, Rev. Dr., I. 405. Chaloner, Mr.,L443. Channing, Dr. Walter, 1. 148, 391 ; letters to, 94, 149. Channing, Edward T. , I. 9, 12, 26 ; letters to, 30, 42, 83, 89, 96, 107, 118, 183. Channing, Mrs. Walter, letters to, I. 148, 188. Channing, Rev. William E., I. 17, 84, 96, 178, 316, 327, 382, 391, 405, 479, H. 101, 160, 188, 300 ; letter to, 200. Chantrey, Sir Francis, II. 178. Chapman, Dr., I. 16. Charlottesville, visits, I. 34, 348. Chasles, Philarete, 11. 256 note. Chastellux, Count de, 1. 109. Chateaubriand, Madame de, I. 355. Chateaubriand, Vte., I. 137,138, 139, 140, 146, 254, 255, 304, H. 132. Chatterton, Lady, II. 371. Chauncy, Commodore, I. 373. Cheverus, Bishop, I. 18 note. Cheves, Langdon, I, 350, 351. Chigi family, II. 61, 64. Chigi, Prince, 11. 74. Chirk Castle, I. 52. Chorley, H. F., II. 149, 374. Chorley, J. R., H. 374, 384, 385 ; letter from, 452. Christina, Queen Dowager of Spain, U. 342. Cibrario, Luigi, II. 353. Cicognara, Count, I. 163, 164, 166. Cintra, I. 245-247 ; convention of, 246. Circourt, Count Adolphe de, I. 470 and note, 475 note, 482, 483, 485, 486, H. 114,115, 117. 122, 123, 125, 126, 137, 138, 139, 143, 190, 235, 256 note, 373, 355; letters to, 204, 347, 355. Circourt, Countess Anastasie Klustine de, I. 470 and note, 482, 483, 485, 486, H. 137, 139, 355, 356. Civil War in the United States, H. 433-435, 440-444, 445-449, 456, 460,461, 463. Clanricarde, Marquis and Marchioness, 11. 374, 381. Clare, Lord, I. 422. Clarendon, Countess of, IT. 323. Clarendon, Fourth Earl of, II. 323, 324, 325, 327, 372, 373, 382. Clarke, Dr., IL 156. Clarke, Miss Mary, H. 106, 124. See Mohl, Madame. Clarke, Mrs., II. 156, 157. Clay, Henry, I. 350, 381, H. 263, 264. Clemencin, Diego, 1. 197. Clementine, Princess of France, n. 121. Clerk, John, I. 277, 280. Cloncurry, Lord, I. 422. Cogswell, Joseph Green, I. 116, 156, 173, 273, 278 note, 282, 284, 285, 316 note, 318 and note, 332, 336, 385, IL 79, 85, 100, 245, 247 note, 289, 420 ; letter to, 488. INDEX. 515 Golden, Colonel David, H. 207. Cole, Viscount, n. 176. Coleridge, Henry Nelson, IL 144, 149, 153, 181. Coleridge, Mrs. Henry N. (Sara T.), I 285, 286, n. 153. Coleridge, Mrs. S. T., L 285, 286, U. 153. Coles, Miss, I. 29. Coles, Secretary, I. 29. Colloredo, Count, I. 484, 11. 343, 344. Common School Journal of Connecticut, I. 2 note. Conde, Jos6 Antonio, I. 187, 197. Confalonieri, Count, II. 96. Confalonieri, Count Federigo, I. 161 and note, 162, 164, 256, 450, II. 96, 103, 104, 107,108,109-113. ConsalTi, Cardinal, I. 180. Constant, Benjamin, I. 131, 134, 138, 143, 145, 152. Constant, Madame, II. 355. Contrabandists, journey -vrith, from Seville to Lisbon, L 241, 243 note. Cooke, G. F., I. 53 note, 127, 473. Coolidge, T. Jefferson, U. 492. Coppet, visits, II. 36. Copleston, Mr., I. 405. Copyright, International, II. 278-280. Coquerel, Athanase, n. 131. Cordova, visits, I. 224-228; cathedral- mosque of, 224, 225 ; hermits of, 226, 227 ; society in, 227, 228. Correa de Serra, Abbe, 1. 16 and note. Cossi, Count, II. 42. Cotton, W. C.,n. 168,169. Cousin, Victor, 11. 138. Cowper, Countess, I. 408, 409, 412, H. 181. Cowper, Earl, I. 408. Cowper, Hon. H. F., 11. 482. Cowper, Lady Fanny, 11. 181. Crampton, Richard, II. 327 and note. Crampton, Sir Philip, I. 420. Cranboume, Lord, I. 268. Cranston, G., I. 277. Cranworth, Lady, H. 368, 397, 398, 399 ; let- ter to, 474. Cranworth, Lord-Chancellor, 11. 368, 400, 474. Craufurd,Mr.,I. 270. Craufurd, Sir J.,L 270. Craven, Mr., I. 175. Creighton, Sir Alexander, I. 421, 422. Creuzer, G. F., I. 125, H. 100. Crillon, Due de, I. 255, II. 128. Crosse, Andrew, n. 182, 183. Cumming, Sir William, I. 176. Curran, John Philpot, I. 294. Curtis, Augustus, I. 4. Curtis, Benjamin, first husband of Mrs. E. Ticknor, graduate of Harvard College, I. 3 ; surgeon in Revolutionary Army, phy- sician in Boston, dies young, I. 4 and note ; father of Mrs. W. H. Woodward, Benjamin, Harriet, and Augustus Curtis, grandfather of B. R. and G. T. Curtis, L4. Curtis, Benjamin, son of Dr. B. C. and Mrs. E., 1. 4. Curtis, Benjamin R. , I. 4, n. 215 note, 310 ; Judge of the U. S. Supreme Court, 401, 426 and note, 445 note, 457 ; letter to, 402 and note. Curtis, C P., I. 316 note. Curtis, Eliza, wife of W. H. Woodward, I. 4, 7, 276. Curtis, George Ticknor, 1. 4, 317, H. 244, 254, 287, 326, 488, 493 ; letter to G. S. HUlard, I. 326, 391, n. 187, 402 note ; letters to, n. 222, 225, 231, 277, 327, 457, 459, 461, 469, 485. Curtis, Harriet, I. 4. Curtis, Mrs. T. B., 11. 76 note. Curtis, Rev. Philip, I. 3. Curtis, T. B., I. 316 note. Cushman, Miss Charlotte, n. 357 note. Custis, Miss Nellie (Mrs. Peter), I. 38. Cuvier, Baron, I. 255. Czartoryski, Prince, n. 113. Dahi, J. C. C.,I. 482,490. Dalbiack, Sir Charles, n. 179. Dallas, G. M., H. 372. Dallas, Report, I. 30. Dalton, Mr., I. 422. Dana, Richard H., poet, letter to, IT. 74-76. Dante, study of, I. 85, 86, 394, 466, 470,472, 475 and note, 482, H. 69, 201, 480 and note. D'Appony, Count, 11. 19, 111, 114. Dartmouth College, case of, vs. Woodward, I. 4 ; EUsha Ticknor graduate of, 1. 1, 5 ; Dr. Wheelock President of, I. 5 ; G. T. member and graduate of, I. 6, 7. Dartmouth, Earl of, IL 179. D'Aumale, Due, H. 371, 382. D'Aumale, Duchesse, 11. 376, 382. Daveis, Charles S. , I. 316 note ; letters to, 24, 43, 51, 87, 169, 232 note, 334, 336, 337, .339, 344, 378, 379, 394, 396, 397, 398, 399, 401, II. 192, 195, 226, 229, 239, 281, 283, 289, 426. Davis, Hart, I. 447. Davis, Judge, I. 329, 340, 355. Davis, Mr. and Mrs. I. P., L 328. Davis, Mr. Samuel, I. 329. Davoust, Madame, I. 146, 147. Davoust, Marechal, I. 146, 147. Davy, Dr., I. 271. Davy, Lady, I. 57, 128, U. 179. Davy, Sir Humphry, I. 54, 57, 60, 128, 152. 516 INDEX. Day, Professor, 1. 14. Deaf-mutes, teaching of, in Madrid, I. 196. De Bresson, I. 501. De Candolle, A. P., I. 154, 155. Decazes, Count (Duke), I. 253, 254, 256, II. 106, 119, 136. D'Eckstein, Baron, II. 125, 127. De Crollis, II. 69. De Gerando, Baron, II. 130, 141. Dehn, Professor, II. 331. De la RiTe, Auguste, II. 346, 347. De la Rive, President, I. 152, 153, 154, 156, II. 37. Delessert, Baron, II. 133, 137. Delessert, Madame Francois, II. 137. De Metz, II. 137. Denison, Mr., 11.169. Denison, Right Hon. Evelyn (Lord Ossing- ton), I. 408 note, II. 324, 378, 482. De Pradt, I. 257 and note, 263. De Saussure, Madame, I. 153. De Saussure, Madame Necker, I. 155 and note. Devonshire, Duchess of, I. 177, 180, 255. Devrient, Emil, I. 483. Dewey, Rev. Orville, II. 273. Dexter, Mrs. W. S., II. 298 note, 321, 341, 353, 354, 356, 358, 366, 369, 381, 455, 458, 470, 478 ; letters to, II. 327, 335. Dexter, Samuel, I. 9, 10 note, 20, 39, 40, 41 note. Dexter, William Sohier , II. 321 , 322 and note, 368,478; letter to, 334. D'Haussonville, Viscount, H. 104, 120, 126. D'Haussonville, Viscountess, 11. 104, 120, 126, 354, 355, 356. Dickens, Charles, II. 207. Dickerson, Governor, I. 381. Dickinson, Dr., I. 412. Diederichstein, Baroness, I. 471. Dietrichstein, Count, II. 11, 12. Dino, Due de, II. 91. D'Israeli, I., T. 62. Disraeli, Right Hon. B., II. 382, 461. Dissen, Professor, I. 70, 95, 115, 121. D'lvemois, Sir Francis, I. 153, 155. Donaldson, General, II. 444. Don, General Sir George, I. 235 and note. Don Quixote, I. 186, 223, II. 476 ; Clemen- cin's notes to, index of, 467. Donkin, Professor, II. 394, 395. Dosne, M. and Madame, II. 130. Doudan, X., II. 104, 126, 131, 143, 354. Douglas, Lady, I. 180. Downie, Sir John, I. 238, 240, 241. Downshire, Dowager-Marchioness of, I. 268, 295, 296. Downshire, Marquess of, I. 296. Dowse, Thomas, n. 417, 418. Doyle, II. 376. Doyle, Francis Hastings (Sir), I. 447, II. 478. Doyle, Miss, I 447. Doyle, Sir Francis, I. 442, 446, 447, U. 149 Draveil Chateau, visits, I. 146-148. Dresden, visits, 1. 109, 456-489, II. 329, 330, 333, 334 ; picture-gallery, 1. 109, 468. Drew, Mrs., I. 180. Droz, M., II. 130. Dublin visits, I. 419-425. Duchatel, Count C. M. T., H. 126, 129, 131, 136. Dufferin, Lord, II. 372. Dumont, M., I. 154, 430, II. 37. Duncan, Dr., II. 168. Dundas, Dr., I. 440,444, Dundas, Sir W., II. 79. Duras, Due de, I. 253. Duras, Duchess de, I. 253, 254, 255 and note, 256, 258 - 263, 304, II. 125, 132, 355. Durham, First Earl of, II. 146. Duval, Judge, L 39. Duvergier de Hauranne, II. 131, 136. Dwight, Miss Anna, I, 398. Dwight, Miss Catherine, death of, I. 456. Dwight, Miss Ellen. See Twisleton, Hon. Mrs. E. Dyce, Rev. A., II. 181. Eastlake, Sir Charles, II. 383, 384. Ebrington, Viscount and Viscountess, I. 269, II 371. Eckhardstein , Baron, I. 177. Edge worth. Miss Honora, I. 427. See Beau- fort, Lady. Edge worth. Miss Maria, I. 446, 458, II. 118, 119, 230; opinion of 6. T., I. 392; visit to, 426-432; letters from, 388, U. 174 note ; letters to, 174, 188, 193, 219. Edgeworth, Mrs. R. L., I. 426, 427 and note, 428 ; death of, 432 note. Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, I. 427, 428,430, 431. Edgeworth town, visits, I. 426-432. Edheljertha, story of, I. 331-333. Edinburgh, visits, I. 273-282; society in, 276 ; visits, II. 161 - 164. Ehrenberg, C. G., 11.332. Eichhorn, Professor, I. 70, 76, 79, 80,82,84, 95, 121. Einsiedel, Count and Countess, I. 485. Elgin, Countess of, II. 126. Elgin, Seventh Earl of, I. 279. Eliot, Miss Anna, I. 334 and note, 335. See Ticknor, Mrs. George. Eliot, Miss Catherine. See Norton, Mrs. Andrews. Eliot, Mrs. Samuel, letter to, I. 337. Eliot, Samuel Atkins, II. 250, 260 note; letters to, I. 331, 340. INDEX. 517 Eliot, Samuel, founder of Greek Professor- ship at Harvard College, I. 335 and note. Eliot, Samuel, II. 420. Ellesmere, Earl and Countess of, II. 322. EUice, Colonel, L 279. ElUee, Edward, n. 371. ElUce, Mr. , U 181. Ellice, Young, II. 149. Elliot, Author of " Com Law Rhymes," I. 441. Elmsley, Peter, I. 58 and note. Elphinstone, Right Hon. Mount-Stuart, II. 68, 70, 72, 154. Elwin, Rev. W., H. 365, 367, 369. Emmet, Thomas Addis, I. 39, 40, 41 note. Empson, William, II. 152, 154, 155. Encke, J. F., n. 332. England, visits, I. 49-68, 251, 263-272, 285- 298, 404 - 449, H. 144 - 159, 166 - 183, 311,317,322-327,357-400. Eppes, Mr., I. 31. Ercolani, Prince, n. 88. Ersch, Professor, I. Ill, 112. Erring, George W., I. 186, 187, 188, 212. Escoiquiz, Don Juan, I. 219. Escorial, I. 195, 197, 214-216. Eskeles, Baron, 11. 10. Essex Street, Boston, G. T.'s first home in, I. 3 note, 4. Europe, visits, I. 49 -299, 402-511, II. 1- 183,321-400. Eustis, Governor, I. 20. Everett, Alexander Hill, I. 11, 12, 316 and note, 345, .380, 459 note. Everett, Edward, I. 12, 49, 68, 71, 77, 80, 84, 121, 316 and note, II. 231, 2.58, 259 note, 288, 304 and note, 305, 306, 308, 317, 320, 425, 4.39, 448, 458, 466; letters to, 268, 284, 300, 311, 313, 316, 324, 325, 418, 424 ; letters from, 303, 309 ; death of, 469 and note, 470 and note. Everett, Mrs. A. H , I. 345. Everett, William, II. 309, 470. Eynard, M., U. 116, 129, 133, 134. Eynard, Madame, n. 133. Fabee, M.,n. 57. Falconieri, Prince, II. 52. Falcke, Hofrath, I. 124. Falkenstein, Dr. Charles, I. 465, 475, 482. Falmouth, Viscount, I. 412. "Family, The," Club at Cambridge, I. 271. Farrar, Professor John, I. 332, 355. Fauriel, Charles, II. 102, 103, 106, 114, 124, 127, 130. Fea.C, I. 179. Feder, Professor, I. 77. Felton, C. C, H. 256 note, 310, 445 note. " Ferdinand and Isabella," II. 142, 143, 147, 149, 151, 161, 162, 179, 190. Compared with " Conquest of Mexico," IL 209, 246. Ferdinand VII., King of Spain, I. 191, 206, 212. Ferguson, Dr., I. 417. Fesch, Cardinal, I. 181, 11. 64 and note. Fiacchi, Abb6, II. 90 and note. Filipowicz, Madame, I. 406. Fisher, Joshua Francis, II. 459. Fitzgerald, Lord, I. 501. Fitzpatrick, Lady, II. 176. Fitzwilliam, Hon. George, II. 358. Fitzwilliam, Lady Charlotte, U. 178, 353, 359, 392, 393. Fitzwilliam, Third Earl, I. 436, 437, 439- 445, n. 144, 159, 178, 358, 362, 392, 393 ; letter to, 187. Flahault, Count and Countess, I. 277, n. 380. Fletcher, Miss, I. 279, 433 and note, 434, IL 163. Fletcher, Mrs., I. 279 and note, 433, 434, n. 106, 163. Florence, visits, I. 183, H. 48-58, 87-91, 315,338-340,350, 35L Flligel, Dr. Felix, II. 313. Follen, Dr. Charles, Professor at Harvard College, I. 351, 352, 368 note. Folsom, Charles, I. 389, 390. Forbes, Captain, I. 262. Forbes, Hon. Francis, I. 458, 459, 461, 463, 477, 478, 486, 489, II. 8, 19, 329. Forbes, Mr., n. 164. Forbes, Sir Francis, 11. 156. Forbin, Count, I. 255, 257. Ford, Richard, IL. 255 and note, 255 note, 259, 322, 385. Forster, Hofrath Friedrich, I. 493, 495. r»rster, Professor Karl, I. 475, 482, H. 480 and note. Forti, II. 48, 88. Fossombroni, Count, II. 49. Foster, Sir Augustus, II. 40, 41. Fox, Colonel C. J. (General), I. 408, U. 370. Fox, Lady Mary, I. 408, 409. Francisco, Don, Prince of Spain, I. 206. Frankfort-on-Main, visits, I. 122. Franklin, Benjamin, I. 286. Franklin, Lady, I. 425. Franklin Public School, Boston, ElishaTick- nor principal of, I. 2. Franklin, Sir John, I. 419, 420, 421, 422, 42.5- Freeman, Rev. Dr. J., L 17, .35, 53. Frere, John Hookham, I. 264, 267, H. 466. " Friday Club," II. 445 and note. Frisbie, Professor, I. .355. 356. Fromel, Mr. Paul, H. 313. Froriep, L. F. von, I. 4.54, 455, 457. Fry, Elizabeth, II. 134, Fuller, Captain, 1.61. 518 INDEX. Fullerton, Lord, IT. 163. Fullerton, Mrs., II. 163. Fulton's steam frigates, I. 27. Funchal, Count, I. 177, 179, 263. Gabeielli, General, II. 67. Gabrielli, Prince, II. 60, 67, 82. Gabrielli, Princess, II 60, 67, 68, 82. Gaetano, Marchese, EL. 61, 70, 79. See Ser- moneta. Gagern, Baron, I. 122, 123. Galeffl, Cardinal, II. 71. Galit2an, Princess, II. 55. Gallatin, Albert, I. 142, 143, 144, 145, 252, n. 121, 226. Gallois, J. A. C.,1. 143. Gannett, Mrs. E. S., II. 81 and note. Gannett, Rev. E. S., notice of G. T., I. 327 and note, II. 81 and note, 82. Gans, Professor, I. 494, II. 105. Garay,Don M. de, I. 191, 192, 196, 212. Gardiner, Maine, visits, I. 337, 385, n. 425, 440. Gardiner, Mrs. R. H., H. 425,465 ; letter to, I. 395. Gardiner, Rev. Frederic T., U. 463. Gardiner, Rev. J. S. J., I. 8, 11. Gardiner, R. H., I. 316 note, 337,11. 425, 440 ; letters to, 410, 463, 464. Gardiner, William H., H. 449, 485. Gamett, Mrs., II. 122. Gaskell, Mr. and Mrs., I. 439. Gaskell, Mrs. E. C, n. 347. Gasparin, Count, II. 131. (Jaston, William, I. 31. Gauss, Professor, I. 70. Gayangos,Don Pascual de,n. 162 and note, 181, 182, 245, 246, 255; letters to, 246, 247, 249, 259. Gazzera, Abb6, 11. 42. Gell, Sir William, I. 175. Gener, I. 346. Geneseo, visits, 11. 225 and note, 281. Geneva, visits, 1. 152-158, U. 36, 37. Genlis, Madame de, n. 391. Geological Society and Club, 11. 176. George (IV.), Prince Regent, I. 67. Georgetown, D. C, visits, I. 28, 30, 38. Gerhard, E., II. 58, 59, 66, 328, 329. German language, difficulty of studying it, I. 11, 25, 26 ; high and low, 87. German literature, I. 87-89, 118-120 ; re- public of letters, 99-102. German metaphysics, I. 96-99- German political and moral state, 1. 102, 103. German Universities, I. 89, 90, 102. Gesenius, W., I. 111. Gibraltar, visits, I. 235, 236. Gibson, John, H. 360, 399. Gibson, Miss, H. 332. Gifford, Wilham, I. 58, 60, 62, 294. Gilbert, Davies, I. 405, II. 182. Girod de I'Ain, II 131. Giustiniani, Prince, Nuncio,!. 188, 193, 194 note, II 73, 74, 79, 86. Gladstone, Right Hon. W. E., 11. 378, 425. Glenelg, Lord, II 362, 363, 365, 366, 371. Gloucester, Duchess of, II. 146. Godley, J.R.,II 358,363,368. Godwin, William, and Mrs. W. , I. 130, 294. Goethe, Wollgang A. von, I. 113, 114, 115, 165,211, 455, 490 note, 500. Goldsborough, Capt. U. S. N., II. 310. Goltz, Count, I 122. Gonzales, librarian, Madrid, I. 197. Gott, Messrs., I. 438. Gottingen, I. 11, 395; G T. arrives at, 69; Ufe there, 70-107, 116-121 ; description of, 74, 75. Gottingen University, L 70, 72, 75, 76, 82; during the French war, 83, 84 ; Literary Club, 85 ; secret societies, 90-93. Gourieff, Count, I. 487. Goyon, Count, U. 344, 347. Graham, Lady James, I. 407. Grammont, Duchess de, I. 257. Granada, I. 193; visits, 228-232; Arch- bishop of, 228, 229 and note, 232; Cathe- dral of, 229. Grant, Mrs. Anne, of Laggan, I. 274, 278 and note, 279, II. 162. Granville, Countess of, 11. 373, 374, 381. Granville, Earl, II. 141, 362, 365, 373, 374. Grassi, Padre, I. 193 note. Graves, Dr., I. 420,421. Gray, Francis Calley, I. 31, 318 and note, 328, 371, II. 79, 85, 100, 184, 191, 207, 229 and note, 233 and note. Gray, Thomas, I. 285. Greenough, founder of Royal Geological Society, IL 176. Greenough, Horatio, II. 48 and note, 76 ; letter to, 241 and note. Greenough, William W., II. 314, 317, 320, 325, 444, 445 and note ; letter to, ^51. Greg, William Rathbone, U. 65, 167,276, 361, 362. Gr6goire, Count Bishop, T. 130, 143. Gregorovius, Ferd., II. 344. Gregory, Mr., II. 164. Grenville, Mr. Thomas, II. 177. Grey, Earl, I. 295, 408. Grey, Sir George, T. 411. Griffiths, Professor, I. 419. Grillparzer, Franz, 11. 8. Griscom, Professor, I. 298. Gri.si, Giulia, I. 4')7, 413, 436. Grote, George, I. 415, II. 337, 389. Guadiana River, I. 222 and note, 242. INDEX. 519 Giiaiaqui, Count, I. 217, 218. Guild, Mr. and Mrs. B., II. 229. Guild, Samuel EUot, n. 225. Guilford, Lord, I. 175. Guillemard, U. 182. Guizot, Francois, I. 256, 314, U. 104, 109, 119, 120, 126, 129, 130, 131, 134, 135, 136, 137, 139 and note, 140, 143, 192, 293, 355. Haase, I. 482. Hale, Nathan, I. 12. Hall, Capt. Basil, II. 8 and note, 13. Hallam, Henry, I. 58, II. 144, 145, 146, 148, 150, 151, 152, 153, 176, 178, 190, 326, 361; letter from, 258. Halle, Tisits, I. 110. Hamborough, Mr. and Mrs., II. 377. Hamilton, Alexander, I. 261 and note, 11. 113. Hamilton, Bishop of Salisbury, 11. 379. Hamilton, Lady, I. 211. Hamilton, Professor (Sir William Rowan), I. 420, 422, 423, 425 and note, n. 471 and note. Hamilton, Sir George, I. 501. Hamilton, Sir William, n. 162, 163, 164; Lady, 163, 164. Hampden, Dr., Bishop of Hereford, 11. 375. Hampden, Miss, n. 380. Hampton Court, H. 382, 383. Hand, Professor, I. 115. HanoTcr.N. H., 1. 3 not€,4,5, 6, 3S4, 385 and note ; Elisha Ticknor dies there, 2, 335. Hanover, visits, I. 77. Harcourt, Colonel, II. 323, 376, 377, 378. Hareourt, Lady Catherine, 11. 376, 377, 378. Harcourt, Lady Susan, II. 391. Harcourt, Rev. William Yemon, I. 424, 435, 436, 4.37, n. 390, 391. 392 ; Mrs., L 437, II. 390, 391, .392. Harcourt, (Sir) William Vernon, n. 373. Hardegg, Count, n. 6. Hardenberg, Prince, I. 485. Hare, Francis, 11. 76 and note, 79, 80, 82 ; Mrs., n. 82. Harness, Rev. William, I. 411, 416 note, 11. 371. Harper, Charles Carroll, II. 65. Harper, General Robert, I. 351. Harpers, Messrs., II. 255. Harris, Leavitt, 11. 113 and note. Harrison, George, I. 193 note. Harrowby, Second Earl of, U. 323. Hartford Convention, I. 12 - 14. Hartford, visits, I. 14 Harvard College, G. T. nominated to a Pro- fessorship in, I. 116 ; accepts, 120 ; enters on Professorship, 319 - 326 ; attempted re- forms in, 353-369, 379,399-401; views for, n. 422, 423 ; made LL. D. in, 508. Hatfield. See Salisbury. Hatherton, Baron and Baroness, n. 371. Hatton, visits, I. 52. Haven, Miss, I. 68. Haven, N. A., 1. 123 note, 316 note, 336, 337, II. 436 ; letters to, I. 23, 49, 68, 338, 354, 359; letters from, 354 note, 377 note; death of, 377 ; memoir of, 377, 380. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, I 389, U. 400. Hawtrey, Dr., n. 372, 379. Hayne, Colonel Robert Y., I. 351. Hayward, Abraham, II. 371, 372, 378, 382. Hayward, Dr., II. 310, 464. Hayward, Dr. G., II. 469. Hazlitt, William, I. 293, 294. Head, Lady, n. 363, 365, 367, 369, 372, 384, 385, 386, 397, 398, 399, 416, 424, 425, 426, 428, 432, 478, 479, 487. Head, Sir Edmund, IL 149, 180, 272, 363, 364, 365, 367, 369, 371, 384, 385, 386, 397, 398, 424, 4-36, 438, 439 ; letters to, 269, 270, 275, 285, 288, 289, 292, 293, 405, 406, 409, 416, 425, 427, 432, 433, 4-34, 461, 468, 471, 474, 476, 477, 481 ; letters from, 406, 429 ; death of, 482 and note. Head, Sir Francis, I. 380, H. 177, 182. Heber, Richard, I. 264, 267. Heeren, Professor, I. 80. Heidelberg, visits, I. 124, II. 100, 101, 327. Heinrich, Professor, n. 28, 29, 30. Heldewier, II. 41. Helps, (Sir) Arthur, U. 374. Hercolani, Prince, I. 166, 183. Herder, Baron von, I. 478. Hermann, Professor, I. 108, 112. Herschel, Su: John, H. 176, 178. Hertzberg, Countess, I. 467. Hess, M., II. 37. Heyne, Professor, I. 95, 105, 106. Higginson, Barbara. See Perkins, Mrs. S. G. Higginson, Stephen, 1. 12, 13. Hillard, George Stilhnan, I. 326 note, 391 note, n. 192, 196, 230, 256 note, 271, 289, 291, 361, 362 note, 402 note, 420, 445 note ; letter to, 234 ; edits fourth edition of " History of Spanish Literature,' ■ 262 note. Hillhouse, Mr.,1. 14. Hill, Lord Arthur, I. 442. Hobhouse, (Sir) John Cam, 1. 165. Hofwyl School, II. 35. Hogg, James, I. 278, Hogg, Mr., L 416. Holland House, I. 295, 408, 418, H. 176, 181, 361, 367, 370, 373, 383, 384. Holland, Lord (Third), L 263, 264, 265, 267, 294, 408, 418, 422, II. 146, 147, 149, 150, 176, 182 ; Spanish library, I. 457 ; Lady, 264 and note, 26.5, 408, 409, II. 147. 149, 177. Holland, Lord (Fourth), II. &59, 366, 373, 384 ; Lady, 367, 369, 373, 379, 383. 520 INDEX. Holland, Dr. (Sir Henry), I. 446, H. 145, 151, 152, 259, 326, 371, 384, 439, 463. Holland, Queen of, II. 371, 381. Ilollond, Mr., II. 479. Holmes, Dr. 0. W., II. 310. Hopkinson, Francis, I. 15. Hopkinson, Judge, I. 15. Hopkinson, Mrs., I 16. Horner, Francis, II. 150, 468. Horner, Leonard, II. 332, ^58, 409. Homer, Mrs. L., II. 332, 358, 359, 360, 409. Hosmer, Miss Harriet G., II. 371, 383, 384. House of Commons, G. T. called before Com- mittee of, I. 415 ; debate in, 416 ; debate in, II. 378. House of Lords, debate in, II. 365. Houston, General S., I. 372, 373, 374. Huber, Francois, L 156, 157, II. 37. Huber, V. A., II. 260. Hubner, Julius, II. 329. Hudson River, visits, I. 386, II. 282. Hiigel, Baron von, II. Ill, 112. Hiilsemann, Chevalier, II. 263. Humboldt, Baron Alexander von, 1. 128, 129, 130, 134 and note, 135, 138, 145, 146, 254, 255, 257, 258 note, 263, 498, 499, 500, 501 II 3, 4, 20 note, 260, 315, 830 and note, 332, 333, 339, 340, 341 ; letter from, 411 ; letter to, 414. Humboldt, Mad. von (Wilhelm), 1. 177, 178, II 59. Humboldt, Wilhelm von, II. 411. Hume, Colonel, I. 447. Hume, Joseph, II. 156, 157. Hunt, Jonathan, I. 7, 381. Hunt, Leigh, I. 292, 294. Inpantado, Duqtte del, I. 206. Irving, Washington, I. 291, 293, 479, 492, II. 247, 248, 256 note, 454 ; letter to, 245. Ischl, II. 31. " Italians, The," by Mr. Bucke, rejected by a London audience, I. 291. Italinski, I. 179. Italy, visits, I, 160-184, 11. 37-99, 335- 353. Jablonowski, Princess, II, 88 and note. Jackson, General Andrew, I. 480. Jackson, Judge, I. 40, 371. Jakobs, Professor, I. Ill, 112. Jameson, Mrs. II. 201, 202. Jamieson, Robert, I. 275. Janvier, M., II. 106, 120. Jarcke, Dr., II. 1, 3, 5, 11. Jardine, Mr., II. 374. Jarvis, Charles, I. 20. Jaubert, II. 133, 136. Jefferson, Thomas, President U. S., 1. 16, 53, 110, 212, 345, 346, 377, II. 498 ; G. T. vis- its, 34-38, 348, 349; his philosophy, 37 ; opinion of Bonaparte, 301 ; plans for uni- versity, 301, 303; letters from, 300, 302 and note ; eulogy on, 378. Jeffrey, Francis (Lord), I. 30, 42, 43 -47, 277, 280, II. 146, 147, 148, 150, 151, 154, 495. Jersey, Countess of, I. 138, 269, 296, 297, 410, II. 466. Jewett, C. C, II. 304 note, 308, 310, 313, 314. Johnson, Samuel, I. 53, 55; " The Club,'» n. 476, 478 ; life of, 492. Johnstone, Judge, I. 381. JoinvUle, Prince and Princess, 11. 382. Jones, Commodore, I 373. Jones, Mr., II. 65. Jordan, Baron von, I. 461, 478. Jomard, E. F., II. 117, 125, 133, 141. Jouberton, Anna, I. 183, 11. 88. Jouffroy, II. 133. Jourdain, Camille, 1. 255. Jouy,V. E. de, II. 108, 141. Julius. Dr., II. 260 ; letter to, 250. Jusuf, n. 133, 134, 137. Kahlden, Baroness, I. 489. Kaltenbaeck, II. 2, 8. Kane, Mr., I. 376. Kastner, Professor, I. 76, 77. Kean, Edmund, I. 67, 127. Keating, Dr. Oliver, I. 10. Keiblinger, librarian of Molk, 11. 23. Kemble, Stephen, I. 291, 292. Kempt, Sir James, EL. 176. Kenney,Mr., I. 406. Kent, Duchess of, I. 435, 437. Kent, James, Chancellor, I. 338-340, 380, II. 200, 226. Kenyon, Edward, II. 1. Kenyon, John, I. 411 and note, 418, II. 144, 145, 149, 181, 182, 183, 323; letters to, 212, 223, 291. Kenyon, Mrs. John, I. 456. Kestner, A., II. 58, 59, 64, 65, 72, 64. Kestner, Charlotte Buff, I. 78. Kildare, Marquis of, II. 168. King, Rufus, I. 350, 351. Kinglake, J. A., II. 378, 382. Kingsley, Professor, I. 14. Kirkland, Dr. , President of Harvard College, I. 332, 355, 360, 368 ; letter to, 321-323. Klopstock.F. G., I. 125. Kmety General, II. 373. Knapp, Professor, I. 112, 113. Koenneritz, von, II. 115. Kossuth, Louis, II. 276. Krause of Weisstropp, I. 476, II. 10. Kremsmlinster Monastery, II. 27-30. Kurtz of St. Florian, II. 25, 26, 27. INDEX. 521 Laboucheee, Hejtrt (Lord Taunton), I. 408, 411, II. 322, Sn, 372, 385, 482. Labouchere, Lady Mary, II. 372, 385, 386. La Caieta, n. 385. La Carolina, I. 223. Lacerda, I. 246, 247, 249. T.acreteUe, Charles, I. 133-135, 139. Lafayette, General Marquis de, I. 139,143, 151, 152, 155, 257, 263, 344 and note, 350, 351, n. 106, 494. Lafayette, Madame de, II. 106. La Fontaine, Auguste, I. 112. Lagrange, visits, I. 151, 152. La Granja. See St Ildefonso. Laharpe, General, II. 35, 36. Lake George, visits, II. 281 and note, 289. LaJlemand, General, U. 113. Lamartine, A. de, I. 470 note, II. 116, 117, 119, 128, 136, 137, 141. Lamb, Charles, L 294. Lamb, Sir Frederic, 11. 1. Lansdowne, Marchioness of, I. 413, 415, II, 151. Lansdowne, Marquess of, I. 263, 264, 430, 11. 145, 146, 151, 259, 323, 324, 325, 363, 366, 371, 380. La Place, Marquis de, I. 255. La Place, Marquis de, Jeune, IT. 131. Lardner, Dr. Dionysius, I. 425 and note. Latour-Maubourg, Marquis de, 11. 61. Latrobe, John H. B., U. 463. Lauderdale, Earl of, I. 264. Lausanne, visits, 1. 152, 155, 11. 35, 36. Laval, Montmorency, Due Adrien de, 1. 128, 137, 188, 189, 193, 194 note, 204 note, 209, 210, 212-214, 218, 258, 295, 309, 311 ; letters from, 303, 305 ; death of, 307 note. Lawrence, Hon. Abbott, IL 260 note, 300, 302. Lawrence, James, IL 304. Lawrence, Mrs. James, n. 324, 347. Leake, Colonel, 11. 155. Lebanon, Conn., Elisha Ticknor bom there, I. 1. Lebanon, N. H., I. 4, 5. Lebrun, P. A., U. 116, 131. Le Chevalier, J. B., I. 131. Le Clerc, General, 1. 123. Le Fleming, Lady, I. 434. Legare, Hugh Swinton, I. 278 note, 450, 488, 489, n. 204 note, 436 ; letters to, 191 and note, 196, 197, 198, 207, 210, 211 ; death of, 212, 213 and note. Leghorn, visits, I. 183. Leibnitz MSS. in Hanover, I. 78. Leipzdg, visits, I. 107, U. 313, 316, 330. Lenox, Robert, I. 15. Lenzoni, Marchess, 11. 48,56,57, 88, 91, 92. Lepsiufi, Dr., K. B., H. 58, 84, 332. Lerchenfeld, Baron, II. 1, 2, 6, 7, 11, 19. Leslie, C. R., I. 389 and note, IL 181. Lesseps, Baron J. B. B., I. 248. Lesseps, Ferd. de, U. 364, 381. Lewis, George CornewaU (Sir G. C), n. 180, 323, 363, 366, 385, 468 ; death of, 461, 462 and note. Lewis, Lady Theresa, II. 323, 359, 366, 370, 372, 385, 462. See Lister, Lady T. Lewis, M. G., L 67, 165. Leyser, General von, I. 465, 476, 486, 491. Lichtenstein, Professor, I. 501. Lieven, Prince, I. 381. Lieven, Princess, II. 120. Lindenau, Baron von, L 457, 458, 460, 464, 476, 489,491, n. 190. Lisbon, visits, L 243, 250. Lister, Lady Theresa, I. 407 and note, 418, n. 147. Literary honors received by G. T , n 507. Lister, Thomas, I. 407 note, 418, IL 148. Litta, Marcheseand Marchesa, EL 95, 96, 97. Litton, Mr. , L 421. Liverpool, visits, I 49, 297, 298, 402-404, II. 321, 400. Livingston, Edward, L 123, 350, 351, 380, 381, 382, n. 118, 488. Livingston, Judge, I. 39. Livingston, Mr. and Mrs. Maturin, I. 386. Livingston, Mrs. Edward, L 350, 351, 381, 382, IL 488. Llangollen, visits, I. 51, 52. Lloyd, Professor, L 405. Lockhart, John G. , IX 147, 179, 189. Lockhart, Mrs. J. G., L 407. Lohrmann, W. G., I. 459, 482. London, Tower of, I. 446, 447. London, visits, I. 51, 54 - 68, 251, 263-267, 289-298,406-418,445-449,11 144-156, 175-18.3, 311, 312, 321-327, 357-376, 378-387 Long, Professor George, I 348. LongfeUow, Henry W., I. 399, H. 196, 204, 479. LongfeUow, Stephen, I. 14. Loretto, visits, I. 167. Lough, John Graham, II. 152. Louis PhUippe, King of the French, H. 16, 19, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 121, 122, 135. Louvois, Marchioness de, I. 253. LoveU, Mrs., L 286, U. 166. Lovering, Professor J. , II. 310. Lowe, Rev. Mr., I. 440, 441, 445. Lowe, Right Hon Robert, 11. 380. Lowell, John, I. 339, 356, 360. Lbwenstein-Wertheim, Princess, I. 487, 489. Lubbock, Sir John, n. 179. Lucca, visits, 11. 94, 95. Ludolf, Count, IL 69 and note, 70, 79, 80. 522 INDEX. Lund, I. 177. Lushington, Mrs. , IL 72. Liittichau, M. de. , I. 476 and note, 491. Luttichau, Madame Ida de, I. 476,481, 482, 483, 485, 491, II. 334. Lutzow, Count, IL 76, 342. Liitzow, Countess, II. 76. Luxmoore, Misses, I. 432 note, II. 178 and note. LyeU, Charles (Sir Charles), II. 176, 197, 203, 219, 223, 224, 244 note, 269 note, 294, 313, 329, 357, 358, 359, 363, 364, 365, 367, 369, 370, 429, 437; letters to, 215, 216, 230, 234, 240, 253, 271, 273, 276, 287, 296, 407, 422, 430, 446, 460. LyeU, Colonel H., II. 360. Lyell, Mrs. (Lady), II. 197, 293, 223, 291, 294, 313 and note, 322, 328, 329, 357, 358, 359, 363, 364, 365, 367, 369, 370, 423, 432, 460 ; letters to, 437, 439, 449. Lyman, Mrs. Theodore, I. 10. Lynch, John, I. 389 note. Lyndhurst, Lord Chancellor, I 443, n. 365, 371. Macaulat, T. B., n. 260 note, 269 note, 323, 324, 325, 361, 362, 366, 367, 369, 373. Macbeth, Henderson's reading of, L 55,56. Mackenzie, 11. 155. Mackenzie, Henry, I. 279. Mackenzie, Miss, of Seaforth, IT. 85, 86 note. Mackintosh, Robert J., 11. 181. Mackintosh, Sir James, L 50, 263, 264, 265, 279, 289, 290, 291, 430 ; Lady, 290. McClellan, General George B., H. 444, 458. McCIellan, Mrs. George B., IL 458. McLane, Louis, I. 409. McLane, Miss, L 277,278. McNeill, Mr , L 417, II. 12, 13. McNeill, Mrs., I 417, II. 164. Madison, J., President of the United States, L 29, 30, 34, 53, 110, 346, 347, 409. Madison, Mrs., I. 29, 30, 346, 347. Madraso, Jose de, I. 186 and note. Madrid, visits, I. 185, 186-220; described, 190-214. Mahon, Yiscount, U. 258 and note, 292. See Stanhope, Earl. Mai, Monsignor, 11. 81 and note, 82, 83. Maidstone, Yiscount. II. 80- Maison, Marshal, II. 130, 136. Malaga, I. 233, 234. Malaga, Bishop, I. 234, 2a5. Malchus, Baron, 11. 100. Malibran, Madame, I. 407, 413. Mallett, J. L.,II. 274. Maltby, Bishop of Durham, II. 178. Maltby, Mr., I. 58, 413. Malthus, T. R.,L 290. Manchester, Mass., II. 239 and note, 268. Manchester, (Seventh) Duke and Duchess of, II. 381. Manning, Mr., I. 61. Manzoni, Alessandro, II. 44, 45, 95, 96, 97. Manzoni, Madame, IL 44. Marchetti, Count and Countess, I. 168. Mareuil, Baron de, I. 350. Marialva, Marques de, I. 180, 246, 263. Marie Amelie, Queen of the French, II. 121, 135. Marie Louise, Empress, 11. 6. Marina, Fr. M., I. 197. Mariotti, Luigi, pseud. Antonio Gallenga, n. 339. Marron,P. H.. I. 130. Marryat, H. 168. Mars, MUe.,L 126. Marshall, Chief Justice U. S., I. 33, 38. Martens, Professor, I. 77. Martin, Aim4, II. 118. Martinetti, Count, I. 166. Martinetti, Countess, L 166, 167,11. 47, 114, 120, 126. Mason, James J., death of, I. 456. Mason, Jeremiah, I. 123 and note, 395, 396, n. 196, 208, 209, 210, 211. Mason, Robert Means, II. 445 note. Mason, William Powell, I. 12, 316 note. Massachusetts Congregational Charitable So- ciety, G. T. ofllcer of, I. 379 note. Massachusetts Farm School for Boys, G. T. Treasurer of, I. 379 note. Massachusetts General Hospital, G. T. Trus- tee of, I. 379 note, 384. Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Com- pany, G. T. Director and Vice-President, I. 379 note. Massachusetts Mutual Fire Insurance Com- pany, I. 2. Massimo, Christine de Saxe, Princess, II. 65, 71,81. Massimo, Monsignor, IT. 68. Massimo, Prince, II. 65, 68, 69, 77. Maxwell, Henry, 11. 165 note. Maxwell, Marmaduke Constable, II. 165, 166. Maxwell, Mrs. Marmaduke C, 11. 165, 166. Mazois.F., 1.179. Mazzei, Filippo, 11. 92, 93 and note. Medici, Lorenzo de, II. 89, 90. Medico, Count del, I. 446. Medina-Celi, I. 195. Meineke, J. A. F. A., H. 332. Melbourne, Yiscount, L 408, 409, II. 19, 352. Menou, Count de, I. 381, 382. Meredith, Mrs. William, I. 15. Meredith, William, I. 15. Meredith, William, Jr., I. 15. Merimee, Prosper, 11. 106, 125. INDEX. 523 MeriTale, Hermann, H. 363, 382, 334, 484. Mettemich, Prince Clement, II. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 24, 74, 112, 214, 290 ; con- Tersation with, 13-18; dinner, 18-20; Princess, 6, 7, 10, 11, 17, 18, 19. Meyer, I. 115. Mezzofanti, Abbate, I. 166, II. 78, 79, 83, 84. Micali, Giuseppe, II. 48, 51, 52, 53, 57. MichaeUs, J. D., I. 76, 77, 127. Mignet, II. 115, 118, 119, 125, 127, 130, 136, 138, a55, 356, 368. Milan, visits, I. 161, II. 42-45, 95 -97, 335. Mildmay, Humphrey, II. 322, 387, 390. Mildmay, Mrs., II. 388. MiUbank, Sir R. and Lady, I. 67, 68. Mihnan. H. H. (Bean), II. 151,152,154,178, 180, 182, .323, 324, 329, 332, 358, 367, 369, 372, 386, 387, 478 ; letters to, 203, 265. Milman, Mrs., II. 179, 180, 204, 324, 329, 332, 358, 369, 372, 386, 387. Milmore, Martin, II. 492 note. 3Iilnes, R. Monckton (Lord Houghton), II. 364, 367, 368, 371, 372, 373, 388, 389, 390. Miltitz, Baron, I. 501. Milton, study of, I. 394. ililton, Tiscount, death of, I. 456, II. 156. Minot, William, II. 463, 464, 489. Minto, Countess of, I. 408, 412. Minto, Second Earl of, I. 408. Mitford, Miss, I. 418, 419 and note. Mitscherlich , Professor, I. 92. Mittermaier, Professor, II. 100, .329. Mohl, Madame Jules, II. 362, 369, 373. Mohl, Professor Jules, 11. 124, 127. Mohl, Professor Robert, II. 329. Mojon.Dr., II. 107. Mojon, Madame Bianca Milesi, XL 107 and note, 122, 131,138. Mol^, Count, II. 107, 110, 111,112,115, 135, 136, 140, 355. Molk Monastery, H. 21, 22-24, 26. Moller, I. 124. Monk, J. H., Bishop of Gloucester, I. 271. Monod, A., II. 103. Monroe, J., President of the United States, I. 349. Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, II. 98 and note. Montalembert, Count, II. 104, 127, 130, 137. Montalembert, Count«ss, II. 127. Montalivet, Count, II. 131. Mont Blanc, I. 154, 156. Monte, Domingo del, II. 256 not«. Monteagle, Lord, II. 363, 366, 371, 380. Montebello, Due and Duchessede, II. 35. Montgomery, James, I. 440, 441. Montgomery, Mrs., I. 386. Monticello,!. 30 ; visits, 34-38. Mont^jo. See Teba. Montmorency, Due Mathieu de, I. 304 and note. Montmorency-LavaL See Laval. Moore, Thomas, I. 420, 422, 425. Moore's Charity School, Elisha Ticknor head of, 1.1; connected with Dartmouth CoUege, 2. Moratin, L. F., I. 252. Moreau, General, I. 488. Morehead, Rev. Dr., I. 280, 414. Morgan, Lady, I. 425, II. 178. Morley, First Earl of, I. 407, II. 181 ; Coun- tess of, I. 407, II. 181, 384. Morley, Second Earl of, II. 366, 372 ; Coun- tess of, 372. Morley, Third Earl of, II. 482. Mornington, Countess of, I. 295, 296. Morpeth, Viscount, 11. 197. See Carlisle, Earl of. Morris, Gouvemeur, I. 256. Morris, Rev. Mr., II. 396. Morrow, Governor, I. 372. Mortemart, Yiscomte and Viscomtesse de, 11. 61, 66. Mos, Marquesa de, I. 207. Motley, J. Lothrop, letter from, II. 256. Miihlenburg, Dr., I. 111. Mulgrave, Countess, II. 179. Mulgrave, Eari of, I. 420, 421, 422, 423,424, 435,437,438. Mliller, Johann, I. 115. MiiUer, Johann, II. 412. Miinchhausen, Baron, I. 501. Munich, visits, II. 34, 99. MUnster, Count, I. 77, 78. Murchison, (Sir) Roderick, I. 419, 421, II. 155, 176, 179, 371. Mure, Colonel William, n. 70, 77, 80. Murray, J. A., I. 277, 408. Murray, John, 11.147, 255. Murray, John, senior, L 58, 60, 62, 68, 294. Murray, Mr., II. 149. Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cam- bridge, II. 422, 423, 4.38 and note, 445. Musgrave, Bishop of Hereford, II. 178. Musgrave, Mr., I. 246,247. 248. Musignano, Charles Bonaparte, Prince (after- wards Canino), U. 60, 66, 85, 127, 14L N.^AjfT, I. 339, 385. Namias, Dr., II 314. Napier, Lord, II. 417. Napier, McYey, II. 161, 162. Napier of Dublin, II. 378. Naples, Ferdinand H. King of, IT. 6, 10, IL Naples, visits, I. 174 - 176, H. 350, 35L Nasse, Dr., I. 454. Naumann, II. 12, 19. Naumann, Professor C. F. , I. 454. Navarrete, M. F. de., I. 197. 524 INDEX. Neander, J. TV. A., I. 493. Necker de Saussure, Madame, 1. 155 and note. Necker, M. and Madame, II. 37. Nelson, Lord, anecdote of, I. 63. Nemours, Due de, I. 493. New Bedford, lands in, I. 298. Newcastle, England, I. 272. Newcastle, Fifth Duke of, II. 432. New Ilaven, visits, I. 14. New Orleans, battle of, I. 29, 37. Newton, Stewart, I. 412, 421, 422. New York, visits, I. 15, 27, 404, II. 222, 226. Niagara, visits, I. 386, U. 221, 225,277, 281. Nibby, Antonio, II. 83. Nibby, Carlo, L 171. Niccolini, Giov. B., 11. 49, 53,57, 88. Nichols, Rev. J., I. 336, II. 196. Niebuhr, B. G., 1. 127, 177, 178, II. 326. Niemeyer, Chancellor, 1. 110, 113. Niemeyer, Professor, I. Ill, 112. Noailles, Alexis de, I. 254. Nodier, Charles, II. 123. Nodier, Madame C, II. 123. Noel, R. R.,I. 506. Norman, Mr., II. 390. Northampton, Marquis of, IT. 176. Norton, Charles Eliot, II. 328, 491 note. Norton, Mrs. Andrews, I. 334 note, 398 note, II. 282, 328. Norton, Professor Andrews, 1.17,319,334, 355, 356, II. 188, 229, 287. Nostitz, General, II. 332. O'CoxNELL, Damel, I. 411, 416, 480. Odescalchi, Cardinal, TI. 85. Odillon-Barrot, II. 136. Oehlenschlager, Adam, I. 126. Ogilvie, James, I. 8. Oken, Professor, I. 115. Ole Bull, II. 226. Oliver, Robert, 1-41. 0-Neil,Miss,I. 53. Ord, Mr., I. 415. Orleans, Due d', I. 493, II. 122. Orleans, H61ene, Duchesse d', II. 121, 131, 135. OrlofF, Madame d', U. 80. Ofisuna, Duchess of, I. 205, 207, 208, 223, H. 126. Otis, H. G., 1. 12, 13, 14, 20, 21, 40, 339, 359, 360. Ouseley, Sir Gore and Lady, II. 372. Overbeck, II. 77. Owen, Robert, of Lanark, I. 278. Oxford, visits, I. 289, 404, n. 168, 169. Paez de la Cadena, I. 489. Pageot, M.,II. 106. Painting, Spanish School of, 1.216,221,239. Palafox y Melzi, Don J., I. 206. Pallrey, John Gorham, I. 331. Palgrave, Sir Francis, U. 152, 154. Palissot, Baron, I. 131. Pallavicini, Princess-Abbess, II. 71. Pahnella, Count, I. 248, 263, 264 and note, 267. Pahnerston, Viscount, I. 458, n. 325, 372, 373,378,381,382,384,429. Pahnerston, Viscountess, II. 372, 384. Paniz2d, Antonio, II. 325, 359, 375. Paris, visits, I. 126 -151 ; police afiFair with, 141-146; visits, 253-263, II. 102-143, 353-356 ; salons, I. 253, II. 355. Parish, Daniel, I. 15, 16, 27. Parker, Chief Justice of Massachusetts, I. 9,10 note, 11,340. Parker, Mr., I. 146, 148. Parker, Mr., I. 407. Park Street, house in, I. 387-389. Parr, Dr., L 50, 52, 53, 288, 289. Parsons, Chief Justice, I. 396. Parsons, Theophilus, II. 452. Parsons, William, I. 331, 332. Pa^quier, Chancelier, Due, II. 1-34. Pastoret, Count (Marquis), I. 253, 255, 256. Pastoret, Countess (Marquise), I. 255, 256, II. 118 and note, 119, 128, 134, 139. Patin, Professor, II. 130. Patterson, Mr., I. 193 note. Pauli, Dr. , II. 328. Peabody, Rev. W. 0. B., I. 428 and note. Peacock, Professor, II. 156, 158. Peel, Frederic, II. 323. Peel, Sir Robert, I. 416, 417, 480 ; death of, II. 268. Pelet de la Lozere, II. 131. PeUico, Silvio, I. 450, II. 38, 39, 40, 41. Pennsylvania, visits, II. 221, 222. Pentland, Mr., II. 346. Pepperell, I. 337, 385. Percival, Mr., II. 394, 395. Perkins, Colonel T. H., 1. 328, 370. Perkins, James, I. 370. Perkins, Mrs. S. G., L 13, 49, 68,260,328,331. Perkins, S. G., I. 12, 13, 14, 49, 68. Perkins, S. H., I. 68 and note, 121. Pertz, Dr., II. 313 and note, 332, 358, 359, 365. Pertz, Mrs., II. 359,365. Peter, America Pinkney, I. 38 ; Britannia Wellington, 38; Columbia Washington, 38 ; Thomas, 38. Peter, Mrs. See Custis. Peters, of Merton, II. 168. Petrarch, letter on, 1. 341-344. Philadelphia, visits, I. 15, 352, II. 222. Phillips, Jonathan, II. 300. Phillips, Professor J., I. 422, 437 and note, II. 176. Phillips, Thomas J., I. 443, II. 155. INDEX. 525 Phillips, Willard, I. 391, II. 489. Piacenza, visits (Placentia), I. 162, II. 338. Picard, William, letter to, II. 455. Piccolomini, Monsignor, II. 67, 68. Pichler, Caroline, II. 12. Pichon, Baron, I. 132, 261, II. 113, 114, 120. Pickering, John, I. 85, 391, n. 251. Pickering, Octavius, I. 391. Pictet, Deodati, I. 153, II. 37. Pictet, Professor, I. 153, 155, 159, II. 37. Pierce, Professor B., II. 310. PiUans, James, I. 280. PUtz, Dr., II. 313. Pinkney, William, I. 39, 40, 41 and note. Pisa, visits, II. 92-94. Pittsfield, Mass., EUsha Ticknor head of school in, I. 2. PiusVn.,I. 173, 174. Pizarro, Chev. Don L., I. 207, 208, 212. Plattner, II. 58, 59. Playfair, Professor, I. 276, 279. Plymouth, visits, I. 327-331. Podenas, Marquis de, II. 41. Podenas, Marquise de, II. 41, 125. Poinsett, Joel R., I. 350 and note. Pole, Mrs., 1.467,471. Polk, Mr., I. 381. Ponsonby, Frederic, I. 443. Ponsonby, Mr., II. 176. Porson, Richard, I. 108. Portal, Dr., 1. 133, 138. PortaUs, Count, II. 134, 135. Porter, Dr., I. 356. Porter, Miss Jane, II. 178. Portland, visits, I. a37, 385. Portsmouth, N. H., visits, I. 123 note. Portugal, visits, I. 242-249 ; people of, 242. Possd, Count, I. 183 and note. Poss6, Countess. See Bonaparte, Christine. Pozzo di Borgo, Count, I. 131, II. 149. Prague, visits, I. 509-511, II. 314. Prescott, Judge W., I. 12, 13, 316, 337, 339, 840, 345, a55 and note, 356, 359, 360, 361, 371,383, 391, U. 207 note. "Prescott, Life of," n. 437-440, 444, 449- 456. Prescott, Mrs. "W., I. 317 and note, 345, IL 207 note. Prescott, Mrs. W. H., H. 322, 324, 350, 354, 436, 437, 439, 444. Prescott, W. H., I. 316 and note, 317 and note, 391, II. 189, 190, 191, 196, 207 note, 251, 255 and note, 256 note, 258, 259 note, 260, 264, 269 note, 272, 275, 291, 293, 407, 419, 420 ; goes to Washington with G. T. , I. 380, 381 ; letters to, 341, 346, 349, 386,"^ 479, II. 14i;i42; 209, 322, 338, 342, 349, 354, 366 ; letter from, 252 ; death of, 419 note, 436. Preston, Mr. and Mrs., n. 39L Preston, W. C, of South Carolina, L 278^ note, 298. Prevost, Professor, L 155, II. 37. Prichard,Dr., I. 422. Primary Schools of Boston, 1. 2 and note, 336. Prossedi, Princess, I. 182, 194 note. See GabrieUi. Provencal studies, I. 252, II. 487. Prussia, Frederic WLUiam HI. King of, I. 502. Prussia, Frederic William FV. King of, 11. 330, 331, 332, 333, 340, 341. Prussia, Prince of, II. 331 and note. Puibusque, A. de, II. 288, 355. Purgstall, Baroness, II. 8. Putland, Mr. and Mrs., I. 425. QcABANTiN'E near Bologna, U. 46, 47. Quebec, visits, I. 386. Quetelet,M., I. 450. Quincy, Hon. Josiah, I. 339, 345, 368. Quincy, Mrs. J. , I. 345. Quinet, Edgar, IL 101, 127. Racztnski, Count, I. 495, 501, n. 330. Radetzky, Marshal, II 336, 338. Radnor, Lord and Lady, II. 178. Ralston, Mr., L 278 note. Ramirez, II. 41. Ramsay, Mrs. E. , II. 164. Ramsay, Rev. Edward (Dean), U. 164 and note. Rancliffe, Baroness, L 458, 459. Randall, Miss, I. 312 and note, IL 104. Randohr, I. 175. Randolph, Colonel, I. 35. Randolph, John, of Roanoke, I. 15, 16, 27, 381. Randolph, Mrs., I. 35, 348. Randolph, T. J. and EUen, L 35, 37, 348. Ranke, Professor, II. 332. Ranch, Christian, L 495, H. 341, 412 and note. Rauzan, Due de, II. 128. Rauzan, Duchesse de, II. 125, 130, 137, 348, 355, 356. Rawlmson, Colonel (Sir H.), U. 375, 378. Raymond, Rev. Dr. , II. 145. Raynouard, I. 252, IL 487. R^camier, Madame, I. 137, 304. Recke, Frau von der, I. 474. Reed, II. 181. Rees, Dr , I. 55. Reeve, Henry, IL 369. Regina, Duke de, I. 446. Reichenbach, H. T. L., I. 475, 482. Reid, Mrs. , I. 415 and note. R^musat, C. F. M. , Count de, n. 131, 137. RetzEch, Moritz, L 466, 474, 476, 484, 490. Reumont, Baron Alfred von, 11. 315, 339. 526 INDEX. Reviews and minor writings, list of, II. 507. Reynolds, Dr. Edward, I. 154. Rich, Obadiah, II. 245 and note, 249. Richardson, II. 360. Richelieu, Duo de, 1. 143, 144, 145,253, 262. Richmond, Virginia, visits, I. 12, 33. Riemer, Professor, I. 115, 116. Rigaud, Professor, I. 422. Rignano, Duea di, II. 346. Rignano, Duchessa di, II. 347. Rilliet, Madame, I. 152, II. 37. Rinteln, Carl Meyer von, II. 328 and note. Rio, A. F. , II. 182. Rivas, Duchess de, I. 207. Rivas, Duke de, I. 225, 227. Robinson, Henry Crabbe, I. 411, II. 86 and note, 97, 98, 100, 146, 485. Robinson, Professor, I. 422. Rocca, Alphonse de, II. 104. Rocca, M. de, I. 138. Rochefoucauld, Due de la, I. 256, II. 61. Rockingham, Marquess of, I. 440, 441. Roden,Earlof, II. 362. Rogers, Miss, II. 180, 181, 182. Rogers, Mr. , II. 389. Rogers, Professor W. B., II. 310, 445 note. Rogers, Samuel, I. 406, 410 and note, 412 and note, 414, 430, II. 145, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 244 note. Roget, Dr. , I. 416. Roman Catholic Church, dedication of, I. 18 note. Rome, visits, I. 169-174, II. 58-86, 315, 338-349; society in, I. 176-183; ruins of, II. 63, 68, 70, 81, 345. Roquefort, II. 487. Roscoe, William, I. 50, 51, 52, 297, 298. Rose, Mr., English Minister in Berlin, I. 109, 110, 119. Rosini, Giovanni, II. 93, 94. Ross, Sir John, I. 419, 422. Rossi, De, 11.345. Rossi, Pellegxino, 11. 106 and note, 108,115, 116, 120. Rotch, William, I. 299. Rotterdam, visits, I. 68. "Rough Notes," etc., by Sir F. B. Head, I. 380. Rousseau, J. J., I. 156, 158. Roxburgh, Duke and Duchess of, 11. 179. Roy, Comtesse de, II. 125. Rudiger, Professor, I. 113. Ruelens, Charles, II. 312, 313. Ruskin, John, 11. 170. Russell, Lord John, I. 166, 264, 269,270, 290, 291, 407, II. 176, 181, 323, 380, 429, 466. Russell, Lord William, I. 267, 269, 499, 501. RusseU, Sir H., 11. 79. Saalfeld, Professor, I. 102. Saavedra, Don Angel de (Duke de Rivas), L 225, 228 and note. St. Andre, M. de, I. 381. St. Bernard, Pass of, I. 158 ; monks of, 159. St. Domingo Revolution, I. 13. St. Florian Monastery, II. 24-27. St. Hilaire, Rossieuw de, II. 256 note, 259. St. lago. Marques de, I. 207 ; his sister Paulita, 207. St. Ildefonso, I. 214,216-218. St. Leon, L 133, 134. St. Sunond, Marquis of, I. 206. St. Val, Mademoiselle, I. 126. Ste. Aulau-e, Count de, I. 253, II. 129, 134. Ste. Aulaire, Countess de, 1. 256, II. 108, 114, 120, 134, 354, 355. Ste. Beuve, C. A. , IL 105. Ste. Sulpice, Seminary of, II. 132. Salerno, Prince of, II. 10 ; Princess of, 382. Sales, Francis, I. 7, 368. Salisbury, First Marquess of, I. 267, 268 ; Marchioness of, 268. Salviati, L 450, 451. Sands, Dr., I. 425. Sandwich, Cape Cod, visits with Mr. Web- ster, I. 386. Santa Cruz, Marques de, I. 195, 207, 221, 223 ; library of, II. 248; son of, 263. Santa Cruz, Marquesade, I. 208. Santarem, Marques de, II. 133. San Teodoro, Duca di, I. 174. Saragossa. See Zaragoza. Sartorius von Waltershausen, I. 121. Sauli, II. 42. Savage, James, I. 2, 9, 85, 252, 273, 316 note, 319 and note, 391, II. 292, 420, 427. Savigny, F. K. von, I. 499. Saxe-Cobourg, Duke of, II. 332. Saxony, Anton King of, I. 461, 463, 464,465, 466, 467, 481 ; death of, II. 12 note. Saxony, Princess Amelie Duchess of, I. 463, 465,469,477, IL 54, 55, 88,89,201,202, 481 ; death of, 489, 490. Saxony, Princess Augusta Duchess of, I. 461 note, 463, 484, 486. Saxony, Prince Frederic Duke of and Re- gent (also King of), I. 462 note, 463, 468, 485, 486, II. 12, 480 note. Saxony, Prince John Duke of (also King of), I. 462 note, 463, 464, 466, 467, 468- 469, 470, 471, 472, 475, 477, 482, 489, IL 49, 225 note, 330, 340; letters to, 189, 201, 228, 235,266, 294, 478, 489; letters from, 202, 233, 237, 490. Saxony, Prince Maximilian Duke of, I. 461 note, 463, 471, II. 54, 55, 88, 90. Saxony, Princess John Duchess of (also Queen of), I. 484 and note, II. 202, 481. INDEX. 527 Saxony, Princess Louise Duchess of, I. 463, n. 54, 55. Saxony, Princess Marie Duchess and Ee- gentess of (also Queen of), I. 463, 467, 484. Say, Louis, 1. 133, 134. Say and Sele, Lord, II. 378. Schack, Baron, II. 250, 344. Schadow, II. 330. Schadow, Rudolph, I. 177. Schafer, Professor, I. 108. Schlegel, A. W., I. 127, 128, 129, 131, 134, 138, 153, 430, 453, 454, 483, II. 101, 103, 326. Schlegel, Friedrich von, 1. 122, 123, 127. Schlosser, II. 100. Schultze, Dr., L 70, 73 note, 80, 81 and note, 82, 121. Schunz, Hofrath, I. 112. Schwabe, Dr., I. 58. Scilla, Pruice, I. 212, 219. Sclopis, Count, II. 42 and note. Scott, Anne, L 283. Scott, General Winfield, II. 435, 443, 444. Scott, Sir Walter, L 24, 275, 276, 280,281, 283, 284, 430, II. 160, 161, 175, 189, 360 ; portrait of, I. 388, 389, 407. Scott, Sophia, I. 281, 283, 284. Scott,Walter, Jr., 1.284. Seaver, Mr., Mayor of Boston, 11. 303. Secession, II. 4-30, 442, 446. Sedgwick, Professor, I. 271, 419, 420 note, 421, II. 156, 157, 176, 177, 178, 179. Segovia, visits, I. 218 ; Bishop of, 218. Senior, Nassau Wiliiam, I. 407, 412 and note, 451, IL 145, 147, 1-51, 178, 325, 362, 363, 364, 366, 369, 3n,375, 380, .385. Senonnes, Viscount de, I. 2.55, 262, 263. Sermoneta, Duca di, II. 346 and note, 347, 348. Servia, life in, I. 478. Seville, L 237-241; Alcazar, 238, 240; Cathedral, 238, 239 ; people of, 239, 240. Seymour, Mr., I. 447. Shakespeare, study of. T. 394 : Tieck's read- ing of, 473, 477, 482 ; Schlegel's trans- lation of 468, 483 Sharon, Mass., E. Billings (Mrs. E. Ticknor), bom and keeps school in, I. 3. Sharp, Richard, " Conversation," I. 55, 56. Shaw, William S., founder of the Boston Athenaeum, T. 8. 12. Shelbume, Lady, II. 371, 380. Shelbume, Lord, II. 147, 176. Shiel, I. 415. Siddons, Mrs., L 55, 56, 66. Sierra Morena, I. 223. Silliman, Professor B., I. 14. Simeon, Sir John, II. 372, 373. Simond, 1. 153, 179, II. .37. Simplon, crosses, I. 160. Sinclair, Miss, II. 164. Sismondi, Mrs., I. 290, II. 77, 80. Sismondi, Simonde de, I. 151, 290, 291, 295, 297, 314, IL 37, 77, 80, 107. Skene, James, I. 283. Skinner, Mr. and Mrs., II. 158. Skrine, Mrs. and the Misses, II. 156,159. Slavery in the United States, I. 479, II. 199, 200, 216-219, 221, 223, 272, 285, 286, 296, 297,430,441,446. Sloane, F. J.,U. 315. Smidt, Senator, I. 122, 123. Smith, Benjamin, I. 175. Smith, EUzabeth, I. 433. Smith, Professor Nathan, I. 14. Smith, Rev. Sydney, I. 265, 413, 414, 417, 418, 446, IL 146, 150, 151, 214, 215, 216. Smith, Sir James, I. 57. Smyth,Edward, I. 438. Smyth, Professor W., I. 271, 272, 415 and note, 438, 439, II. 145, 146, 149, 152, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 193. Sneyd, Miss Mary, I. 426, 428, n. 174 and note. Sohnar, Miss, I. 495. Somerset, Lady Granville, H. 388, 389. Somerville, Dr., I. 448- Somerville, Mrs., I. 411, 412, 448, 479, 11. 154, 178. Sommariva, Marchese, I. 175. Sonntag, M., I. 460. Southey, Bertha, II. 166. Southey, Edith and Isabella, I. 285. Southey, Mrs. R., I. 286 and note, 434; death of, II. 149. Southey, Robert, I. 50, 135, 136, 285-287, 434, II. 145, 149, 166, 190 ; Ubrary sale, 248. Souvestre, Emile, II. 107 note. Souza, Madame de, I. 248. Souza, Monsieur de, I. 252, 267. Spain, government of, 1. 191 ; Inquisition in, 193; vi.sitsin,185-241. Spanish books, G. T.'s collection of, I. 325 note, II. 245 - 248, 249, 250, 270, 288, 289, 361. Given to Boston Public Library, 508. Spanish bull-fights, I. 202-204 ; law courts, 233 ; people, 198, 242. Spanish hbraries, I. 197, 215, 216, 252, 457, II. 2, 127, 360, 361, 364, 374, 382, 384. Spanish Uterature, passage on, in inaugural address, I. 320 ; lectures on, 325 and note. " Spanish Literature, History of," II. 231, 243-262; notices of, 2.55, 256; editions of, 261, 262; translations, 254, 255, 260, 275, 418. Sparks, Jared, n. 191, 363, 372. Sparmann, Herr, I. 504 note, IT. 25. Spencer, Second Earl, I. 269, 295, H. 466. 628 INDEX. Spencer, Third Earl ("Honest Althorp "), I. 442, 443, 444, 445, II. 170, 171, 172, 173. Spinola, Marquis, II. 342. Sprengel, Professor, I. Ill, 112, 113. Stackelberg, Count, I. 460. Stael, Auguste, Baron de, I. 128,138,139, 151, 155, 312, II. 36, 37, 104 ; writings, I. 314 and note ; letter from, 313. Stael, Madame de, I. 11, 57, 60, 61, 98, 119, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 132, 133, 136, 138, 151, 189, 213, 430, 497, 498, II. 37, 134, 355,498. Staoi, Madame la Baronne Auguste de, II. 354 and note. Stafford, Marchioness of, II. 332. Stanhope, Countess of, II. 359,365,387,388, 389. Stanhope, Earl of, II. 322,323, 369, 362, 364, 365, 366, 387, 388, 389, 462. Stanhope, Lady Evelyn, 11. 364. Stanley, II. 181. Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, II. 178. Stanley, Hon. Edward (Fourteenth Earl of Derby), I. 408 note, II. 479) translation of the Iliad, 471. Stanley, Hon. Mr. , L 424. Stanley, Lord (Fifteenth Earl of Derby), II. 362, 365, 373, 378. Stanley, Mrs., II. 369. Stapfer, P. A. , I. 130. Stebbins, Miss, II. 357. Steinla, Moritz, I. 490. Stephen, James (Sir J. ), II. 180 and note. Stephens, John L., II. 201, 202. Stephens, Mr. , I. 248. Stephenson, George, II. 149. Sternberg, Baron Ungem, I. 460, 483. Steuber, II. 6. Stewart, General, I. 381. Stewart, Mrs. Dugald, II. 164. Stiltz, of St. Florian, II. 25, 26, 27. Stirling, William Sir William Stirling Max- well), II. 271, 322, 323, 363, 364, 305, 368, 369, 378. Stockmar, Baron, IL 179. Stokes, II. 176. Stolberg, Countess, I. 125. Stolberg, Leopold, I. 125. Storey, C. W. , IL 445 note. Story, Joseph, Judge, I. 40, 316 note, 339, 340, 361 ; letter to, 392. Strauss, J. , II. 5. StroganofF, Count, I. 462, 464, 465, 468, 491. Stroganoff, Countess, I. 462, 486, 487. Strutt, Hon. J. W. , IL 482. Stuart, Abb6, IL 80, 82. Stuart de Rothesay, Lord, IL 64. Stuart, Lady Dudley, I. 446 and note. See Bonaparte, Christine. Stuart, Lord Dudley, L 446 and note. Sturgis, H. P. , II. 445 note. Sturgis, Russell, IL 390. " Subaltern," by Gleig, I. 380. Sulivan, Miss, II. 482. Sullivan, Richard, I. 12. Sullivan, William, L 9, 11, 12, 20, 40, 381. Sulmona, Prince (since Borghese), II. 61, 66, 84. Sulmona, Princess, II. 61, 66. Sumner, Charles, IL 199, 296, 297. Survilliers, Countess, IL 87. Sussex, Duke of, IL 152. Switzerland, visits, L 152-160, IL 34-37. Tagus River, I. 243. Tait, Bishop of London, II. 371, 384. Talfourd, Sir T. N., II. 181. Talleyrand, Prince, L 13, 123, 254,258-263, II. 35, 113, 114. Tahna, L 126, 127. Tarentum, Archbishop of, L 174. Tascher de la Pagerie, IL 131. Tasso MSS., forgery of, by Alberti, II. 52, 53, 79 and note. Tastu, Mad. Amable, II. 124, 128, 129. TatistchefF, Madame de, I. 211. Tatistcheff, M. de, I. 210, 212. Taylor, Abbe, L 173. Taylor, General Zachary, President of the United States, II. 263 ; death of, 266. Taylor, Henry (Sir H.), I. 418, IL 145, 180, 368. Taylor, Mr. and Mrs. John, I. 425 and note, 432 note, II. 178. Tazewell, Littleton WaUer, I. 350, 381. Tchitchagof, Admiral, I. 179. Teba, Count de, I. 233, 235. Teba, Countess de, 1.233, 234 and note, 309. Temmel, A., II. 80. Ternaux-Compans, Henri, II. 118, 127, 133, 355. Temaux-Compans, Mad., II. 133. Terregles, II. 165. Tetschen, visits, I. 504 - 509. Thacher, Rev. S. C, I. 11. Thackeray, W. M., II. 294 and note, 323, 327 note. Thayer, Sylvanus, Brigadier-General U. S. A., I. 7, 8 and note, 316 note, 372-375, 386, II. 310, 443, 444, 484 ; letters to, 468, 470, 489. Theatre, French, L 149, 150 ; Spanish, 201. Thierry, Augustin, I. 314, II. 115, 124, 126, 127, 129, 133, 137, 142, 143. Thiers, L. A., IL 130, 133, 136, 138, 139, 140, 355. Thiersch, Professor, 1. 114, 115. Thompson, Mr. and Lady Mary, I. 440- Thompson, Mr., II. 55- INDEX. 629 Thompson, Poulett, TI. 147. Thomson, Thoma-s, I. 275, 277, 280, II. 162, 163. Thomdike, Augustus, I. 132, 386. Thomdike, Colonel, I. 371. Thome, Colonel, II. 116. Thorwaldsen , Albert, I. 177, 178, II. 59, 75, 78 and note, 84. Thun-Hohenstein, Count von, I. 504 note, 505, 506, 507, 508, II. 330, 380. Thun-Hohenstein, Countess von, 1. 505, 506, 508 ; death of, II. 330. Thun-Hohenstein, Count Franz von, I. 505, II. 330. Thun-Hohenstein, Count Friedrich von, I. 505, II. .331, 336, -3.38, 380, 384. Thun-Hohenstein, Countess Friedrich, n. 336, 3S0, aS4. Thun-Hohenstein, Count Leo von, I. 505, 506, 509, 510, II. 314, aSl. Thun-Hohenstein, Countesses Anna and Jo- sephine, I. 505, II. 33D, 380, 384. Ticknor, Anna Eliot, daughter of G. T., I. 382, 384, II. 77, 174, 208, 227, 263, 291, 346, 354, 367, 400, 427, 429, 431, 447 note, 458, 470. Ticknor, Elisha, father of G. T., graduate of Dartmouth College, head of Moore's school, I. 1 ; of a school in Pittsfield, Mas-s., 2; of Franklin School, Boston, 2; author of " English Exercises," 2 ; grocer, 2 ; connection with Fire Insurance Com- pany, Savings Bank, and Boston Primary Schools, 2 and note ; retires from business in 1812, 2 ; his appearance, 3 ; qualities, 3 and note ; importer of Merino sheep, 3 note ; marriage, 4 ; G. T.'s account of, 6, 7 ; feeling at the death of Washington, 21 , confidence between him and his son, 22 ; letters to, 27, 28, 29, 31, 73 and note, 74, 79, 81, 84, 95, 99, 102, 116, 131, 141, 155, 172, 173, 185, 186, 189, 250, 251, 252, 273, 274, 275, 289 ; his death, 2, 334 ; letters from, to his son, II 499-506. Ticknor, Elizabeth Bilhngs, mother of G. T., I. 1; bom in Sharon, Mass., 3; teacher, 3; marries B. Curtis, 3; left a widow, opens a school in Boston, mar- ries Elisha Ticknor, 4 ; letter to, 103 ; ill- ness, 250 ; death, 273, 274, 275. Ticknor, Eliza Sullivan, daughter of G. T., I. 397, II. 174, 208, 227, 291. See Dexter, Mrs. W. S. Ticknor, George : — 1791. Bom August 1, in Boston, 1. 1. 1801. Examined for Dartmouth College and admitted, 6. 1803-5. Studying French and Spanish with Mr. Sales and Greek with Mr. E. Webster, 7. VOL. II. 23 1805-7. At Dartmouth College, 7. 1807 - 10. Studying Greek and Latin with Dr. Gardiner, 8, 9. 1810 - 13. Studying law with Mr. W. Sul- Uvan,9; admitted to the bar, practises one year, 9-11. 1814 - 15 . Abandons the law an d prepares , by study and travel, for going to Eu- rope, 11, 12; visits Virginia, Hartford Convention, Mr. Jefferson, 12-16, 26- 41. 1815 - 16. To England, Holland, and Got- tingen, 49 - 106 ; Weimar, Berhn, Dres- den, 106-116 ; Gottingen, 116-121. 1817-18. Accepts professorship at Har' vard College, 120; visits France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, 121-249. 1819. Paris,London, and Edinburgh, 250- 298 ; death of his mother, 273 ; return to America, 299 ; inauguration as pro- fessor, 319. 1821. Death of his father, 334 ; marriage, 335. 1821-35. Life in Boston, labors in Ms professorship, activity in charitable and educational movements, 3.34-402. 1823-27. Efforts for reform in Harvard College, pamphlet on changes in college, a53-369. 1824. Writes "Life of Lafayette," 344; winter in Washington and Virginia, 346 - 351. 1826. Examiner at West Point, 372-376 ; writes " Memoir of N. A. Haven," 377. 1834. Death of his only son, 398. 1835. Resignation of professorship, 399; second visit to Europe, 402 -511, II. 1- 183. 18a5-36. England, Ireland, Belgium, Ger- many, I. 402-456; winter in Dresden, 456 -492 ; BerUn, Bohemia, 493 - 511. 1836-37. Austria, Bavaria, Switzerland, Italy, II. 1-58, winter in Rome, 58- 86. 1837-88. Italy, Tyrol, Bavaria, Heidel- berg, 87-101; winter in Paris, 102- 143; London and Scotland, 144-183; return to America, 183, 184. 1838 - 56. Life in Boston, 184 - 311 ; sum- mers at Woods' Hole, 187, 208-210; journeys, 221, 222 ; Geneseo, 225 : jour- neys, 226 - 228 ; Manchester, Mass., 239, 268 ; journeys and Lake George, 277, 281,289. 1840-49. "History of Spanish Litera- ture," 243 - 262. 1850. Visit to Washington, 263, 264. 1852 - 67. Connection with Boston Public Library, 299-320. HH 630 INDEX. 1856-57. Third visit to Europe, 321- 400; London, Brussels, Dresden, Ber- lin, Vienna, Milan, Florence, 311 -315, 321-341; winter in Rome, 315, 316, &il-349; Naples, Florence, Turin, Par- is, London, 317, 349-404. 1857 - 70. In Boston, 404 - 498. 1859-64. "Life of Prescott," 436-440, 444,449-456. 1861-65. Civil war, 433-435, 440-444, 446-449,458-461. 1866 - 70. Summers at Brookline, 457, 485, 488. 1871. January 26, his death in Boston, 494. Ticknor, George, early advantages, I. 1 ; examined in Cicero's Orations and the Greek Testament, and admitted to Dart- mouth College at 10 years old, 6; Ufe at College from 14 to 16 years old pleasant and safe, but not laborious, 7 ; during eight succeeding years, uncommon rela- tions with the most prominent men in Boston, 8, 9, 10 and note ; resolving to devote himself to letters, seeks informa- tion about German Universities, and studies German, 11, 12, 24; club for practising Latin, 12; goes abroad with distinct purposes of study, 23, 24; hav- ing seen the distinguished persons in the United States, 13, 29, 33, 35, and such foreigners as Abbe Correa, 16, and Francis Jeffrey, 43-47, goes to Europe and passes four years there, 49 - 298 ; seventeen months in Gcittingen, 69-121 ; pursues his studies in five languages, 81, 86 ; works twelve or more hours daily, 79, 95; studies German, 76, and Greek, 81 ; attends lectures in Theology, 79, and Natural History, 80; takes private courses on Dante, 85 ; the Fine Arts, Statistics, and the Spirit of the Times, 86 ; never parts from Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, and the Greek Testament, 86 ; admiration for Shakespeare and Milton, 148 ; in Paris, studies French language and literature, and the Langue Romane,with Le Chevalier, Roquefort, and Raynouard, 131, and II. 487 ; in Rome, studies antiq- uities with Nibby, I. 171, and Italian, 172,173; after accepting professorship in Harvard College, decides to go to Spain, 117 ; knows Spanish before going, 186 ; studies Spanish language and literature in Madrid with Conde and others, 187 ; made Corresponding Member of the Spanish Academy, II. 507 ; studies Spanish and Portuguese in Paris with Moratin and de Souza, I. 252 ; Scotch literature in Edinburgh with Jamieson, 275; great opportunities and success in society, 58, 114, 129, 132, 135, 177, 178, 253, 258, 264, 280, 287, 312 ; returns home and labors in his professorship, 319-327, 353-369,400, II. 422 ; death of his moth- er, I. 273 ; religious opinions, 327 ; at- tempts made to convert him to Catholi- cism, 193 note ; death of his father, 334 ; marries, 335 ; domestic life, 336, 384, 396 ; death of two children, 397, 398 ; two sur- vive, 404; permanent home, 387-390, II. 187 ; hospitable habits, I. 390, 391 ; long friendships, 316 and note, 317-319, 318 note, 377 note ; private library, 319, 326 ; Spanish books, 325 note, 457, IL 245,249, 250, 289, 361; health, L 383; industry, 383 ; methodical habits, 385 note ; studies Dante, 85, 394, 475 note; Shakespeare, 394, 473 note ; Milton, 394 ; resigns pro- fessorship, 399; second visit to Europe, 400-411, IL 1-183; for ten years after his return home engaged in writing the "History of Spanish Literature," 243- 262, 244 note ; correspondence, 187-242 ; political opinions, 185-187, 195 ; on pris- on discipline, 228, 229 ; on repudiation, 205, 214, 215 ; on the Revolutions of 1848, 230-232; on slavery, 216-219,221,223, 285 ; on civil war, 443, 448 ; on interna- tional copyrights, 278 -280 ; labors for the Boston Public Library, pecuUar views for it, 300-304, 30G, 307, 316-319; corre- spondence, 402 - 435 ; death of Prescott, 43G ; his own feeling about his Memoir of Prescott, 451, 454, 456 ; old age, 457 ; cor- respondence, 457-491; last days, 492- 494; his special mental gifts, 495; com- bination of an efficient intellect, high moral purpose, and a vigorous will, 495 - 497. Ticknor, George Haven, son of G. T., birth and death of, I. 397, 398. Ticknor, Mrs George, I. 335, 336, 345, 346, 350, 379, 384, 386, 388, 396, 397, 399, 401, 404, 410 and note, 411, 412, 418, 432 note, 456 note, II. 27, 28, 91, 141, 167, 174, 202, 203, 204, 208, 222, 226, 227, 233, 261, 270, 322, 329, 330, 346, 354, 356, 406, 407, 427, 429, 432, 438, 458, 463, 482 ; letters to, I. 372 - 376, 381 - 382, IL 331, 357, 366, 368 - 400. Ticknor, Elisha, grandfather of G. T., I. 5, 6. Ticknor, Susan Perkins, daughter of G. T., birth and death of, I. 397. Tieck, Friedrich, I. 495, 504. Tieck, Ludwig, I. 457, 460, 462, 468, 469, 472, 473, 475, 477,481, 482, 483, 485, 491, 503, II. 334, 480 and note ; Ubrary of, 250 ; letter from, 260. INDEX. 531 Tiedge, C. F., L 474, 475, 482, II 334. Tiernay, George, I. 263. Tintoretto, I. 163. Titian-s Assumption, I. 163. Tobin, Sir John, I. 425. Tocca, Chevalier, L 175. TocqueTille, Alexis de, I. 421 and note, 458, XL 355, 361, 362, 364, 366, 369, 371, 385. Tolken, Professor, L 497. Tommaseo, Niccolo, II. 138, 139 and note. Torlonia, Duchess, II. 62. Torlonia, Prince, 11. 67. Torrigiani, Marchese Carlo de, II. 52. Totten, General, L 375. Tourgueneff, Alexander, XL 101, 117, 120, 125, 130. Tourguenefif, N., IL 125. Tremenheere, Hugh Seymoiir, 11 274 and note. Trench, Dean (Archbishop), IL 358, 363, 364. Trenton Falls, visits, I. 386. Trevelyan, Mr. (Sir Walter Calverly), LL 65, 72, 73, 87, 393, 394, 395 ; letters to, 420, 485. Trevelyan, Mrs. (Lady), IL 66, 72, 73, 87, 394, 395. Trist, Mr. and Mrs. , I. 348. Trotter, Hon. Mrs. , IL 148. Trotti, Marchese and Marchesa, U. 95, 96, 97. Trowbridge, Sir Thomas, L 180, 277. Truchsess, II. 41. Tudor, William, "Life of James Otis," I. 338 and note. Turin, visits, II. 37-42, a51-353. Turner, Robert, IL 374, Tuscany, Grand Duchess Dowager of, IT. 54, 55,90. Tuscany, Grand Duchess of, 11. 54, 89, 90. Tuscany, Leopold Grand Duke of, I. 489, IL 49, 50, 51, 53, 54, 315, 339, 340. Twisleton, Hon. Edward, II. 321 and note, 323, 329, .3.56, 357. 364, 365, 366, 370, 373, 376, 378, 379, 387, 397, 429; letters to, 418, 482, 483. Twisleton, Hon. Mrs. Edward, II. 321 and note, 329, 356, a57. 3-58, 359, 363, 364, 365, 366, 368, 370, 376, 378, 379, 397, 400, 419, 420, 429, 436. Tyrol, II. 34, 99. Tytler, Patrick Fraser, IL 150. Ubaldo, Marchese, I. 175. TJgoni, Camillo, JL 103, 107. Ullmann, Professor, II. 100. " Uncle Tom's Cabin," II. 286. Van Buren, Martin, I. 372, 409. Van De Wever, Sylvain, IL 149, 310, 311, 323, 325, 372. Vane, Lord Harry, n. 382, Van Rensselaer, General, I. 38L Varnhagen von Ense, I. 495, IL 331, 382. Vathek. See Beckford. Vatican Museums, II. 62, 80, 82 ; library, 82, 83, 84. Vaughan, Benjamin, I. 55, 352 note, 413. Vaughan, Dr., II. 357. Vaughan, John, I. 15, 55,352. Vaughan, Mr. , I. 209, 372 and note, 381, 382. Vaughan, William, L 55, 58, 263, 352 note, 413, IL 152. Vedia, Don Enrique de, II. 255. Venice, visits, I. 162-166, II. 97-99,314, 338. Verplanck, Mr., I. 38L Victoria, Princess, I. 435, 437 ; Queen, II. 146, 260 note, 429. Vieil-Castel, Count H. de, IL 106, 13L Vienna, visits, IL 1-20, 314. VignoUes, Rev. Mr., L 424. Vilain Quatorze, Count and Countess, II. 90. Villafranca, Marques de, I. 197. Villareal, Dukede, II. 114. Villemain, A. F., L 131, 133, 139, II. 104, 126, 130, 131, 134, 138, 260, &54, 366. Villers, pamphlet in defence of Gottingen University, 1. 11. ViUiers, Duke of Buckingham, record of his death, I. 438. Villiers, Hon. Edward, I. 437 and note, II. 148, 180. ViUiers, Hon. Mrs. Edward, I. 437 and note, IL 180, 372. ViUiers, Mrs. , I. 418, II. 147 and note, 148. Virginia, visits, I. 26, 31 - 38. Visconti Cav., P. E., IL 59, 346, 347. Vogel von Vogelstein, L 482, 490. Volkel, I. 121. Von der Hagen, I. 496. Von Hammer-PurgstaU, Baron, IL 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13. Von Hammer-PurgstaU, Madame, II. 2. Von Raumer, I. 485, II. 5, 102, 330. Voss, J. H. , L 105, 106, 124, 125, 126. Voss, Madame, I. 125, 126. Voss, Professor, I. 113. Voyages from England, I. 298, II. 1S3. Voyages to England, I. 49, 402, II. 321. Waagen, G. F. , L 497, IL 383, 385. Wadsworth, James S., II. 225 and note. Wadsworth, Miss, II. 225 and note. Wadsworth, Mr. James, I. 386. Wadsworth, Mrs. W. W., n. 281. Wagner, Dr., I. 154. Waldo, Mr., I. 14. Wales , Prince of , visit of, to the Ue i ' ed States, II. 426, 427, 428 and note, 429, 4.32. Wallenstein, Baron, I. 346 and note, 350. 532 INDEX. Walsh, Miss Anna, I. 396 and note. Walsh, Robert, I. 16, 392 note, 396 note, II. 143. Warburton, I. 415. Ward, Samuel Gray, 11. 85, 100. Ward, T. W., 11.284. Warden, D. B.,I. 142. Ware, Dr. J., II. 310. Ware, Dr., Professor in Harvard College, I. 355, 356. Warren, Dr. J. C, I. 10, 12. Warren, Dr. J. C, 2d., I. 10. Washington, General, death of, I. 21 ; modes of life, 38 ; Talleyrand's feeling towards, 261 and note. Washington, Judge, I. 38. Washington, visits, I. 26, 38,346, 349, 380- 382. II. 263. Waterloo, battle of, I. 60, 62, 64, 65. Waterloo, visits, I. 452, 453. Waterton, Charles, I. 439. Watertown, I. 385. Watts of the British Museum, II. 359, 360, 375. Watzdorff, General, I. 458, 491. WatzdorfF, Mlle.,1.467. Wayland, Rev. Dr. F., II. 219 note ; letter to, 454. Webster, Daniel, I. 5, 123 note, 316 and note, 317, 328, 839, 340, 345, 346, 348, 350, 361, 381, 382, 386, 387, 391, 396, 409, II. 189, 199, 200, 206, 207, 210, 263, 264, 265, 266 and note, 278 ; Plymouth Oration, I. 329, 330 ; eulogy on Ex-Presidents, 377, 378; works reviewed by G. T., 392, 393; letters to, 370, II. 272 ; death and funeral of, 283 and note, 284, 436 ; G. T. Uterary executor of, 284 note. Webster, Ezekiel, I. 7. Webster, Mrs. Daniel, I. 328, 331. Weimar, visits, I. 113. Welcker, Professor, 1. 121, 454, II. 101, 325, 328. Weld, Isaac, I. 420, 424, 425. Weld, Mr., II. 165. Wellesley, Lady Georgina,I. 189, 211, 806. Wellesley, Sir Henry (Lord Cowley), I. 188, 189, 209, 295. Wellington, Duke of, I. 62, 64,65, 296. Wells, Samuel, I. 143. Wells, William, I. 8. Wensleydale, Lady, 11. 363, 3B6, 368. Wensleydale, Lord, II. 363, 366, 367, 368, 372. Wentworth House, visits, I. 440-445, II. 392, 393. Werther, Goethe's, 1. 12, II. 58, 72. West, Benjamin, I. 63. West, Mr. , I. 14. Westmoreland, Countess of, II. 77, 80, 82. West Point Examination, I. 372-376. West Point, G. T. visitor to the academy, I. 372. West Point, visits, I. 386, II. 282. Whamcliffe, Lord, II. 482. Whately, Archbishop, I- 412 and note, 413, 451. Wheaton, Henry, I. 494, 496, 499, 501. Wheelock, Dr., President of Dartmouth Col- lege, 1. 5, 6. Wheelock, Mrs., I. 5. WTiewell, WilUam, I. 420, 421, 422, XL 152, 153, 156, 157, 176, 384. Whishaw, Mr., 1.415. White, Colonel, I. 373. White, Miss Lydia, 1. 176. White Mountains, II. 226 - 228. Whitney, inventor of the cotton-gin, I. 14. Wickham, Edmund, I. 298. Wickham, William, I. 33. Wieck, Clara (Schumann), I. 474. Wiegel, I. 179. Wiflen, Friend B. B., letter to, II. 465. Wight, Isle of, visits, II. 376-378. Wilberforce, William, I. 297. Wilde, Mr., L 14. Wilde(Q. C), II. 363. Wilde,R. H.,II. 54. Wilkes, John, I. 55. Wilkes, Miss (Mrs. Jeffrey), 1. 42. Wilkie, Sir David, I. 421, 422, 425, 448, 449. Wilkinson, II. 155. Wilkinson, Sir Gardiner, II. 371. William IV., King of England, I. 409. Williams, Friend, I. 337 note, 385. WiUiams, General Sir William, II. 372. Williams, Miss Helen Maria, 1. 130, 132,135, 138. Williams, Mr. Samuel, I. 297 and note. Willis, Mr., of Caius College, I. 436. Wilmot, Mr., 1.411. Wilson, II. 361. Wilson, John, I. 278 and note, II. 163, 164. Wilson, Professor, II. 155. Winckelmann, J. J. , 1. 178, II. 59. Winder, General, I. 29. Winsor, Justin, II. 318. Winthrop, Hon. Robert C, II. 263, 305, 470. Wirt, William, I. 33, 35L Wiseman, Dr. (Cardinal), II. 73, 77, 80. Wobum Abbey, I. 269, 270, II. 466. Wolf, F. A., philologist, 1.105, 106, 107,112. 114, 124. Wolf, Ferdinand, II. 2, 256 note, 260, 314 ; letter to, 274. Wolff, Emil, II. 58, 59, 84. Woodbury, L., I. 381. Woods' Hole, visits, U. 187, 196. Woodward, Mrs., I 4, 7, 273, 276. Woodward, Professor, I. 6. INDEX. 533 Woodward, WUliam H., I. 4, 7, 250. Wordsworth, Miss, I. 287, 432. Wordsworth, Mrs. , I. 287, 432, II. 167. Wordsworth, WilUam, I. 287, 288, 411, 432, 433, 434, II. 85, 86, 97, 98, 99, 167. Worseiey, Vice-Chancellor, II. 158. WortJey, Hon. Stuart, I. 408 note. See WhamclifFe. Wright, Colonel, n. 458. Wyse, Mr., I. 183 note. Wyse, Mrs. , II. 60. ToRK, England, I. 272 ; Musical FeitiTal in, 435-437. Yorke, Colonel Richard, I. 442. Zachabu, Jtn)GE, 1. 103. Zaragoza, Maid of, I. 206. Zanoni, Abb6, II. 90. Zedlitz, Baron, II. 12. Zeschau, Count, I. 460. Zeschau, Countess, I. 486, 491. Ziegenhorn, Baron, 1. 177. THE END. CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A DUE DATE ' 201-6503 Printed in USA {^ 92T454 Tl F 1^ BOUND DtU . ' 1955