speak not only of the historian, but of the friend? As I have seen Mr. Prescott in the relations of private life, at table, in the drawing-room or the library; as I have heard his merry laugh and pleasant voice; as I have heard him contributing by his ample stories of knowledge, his genial humor and friendly nature, to the enlightenment and comfort of all around him; as I have noted the undimmed cheerfulness and serenity of his character, and the benignity of his disposition, free from all morbid egotism and embittered depression; as I have marked how calmly and courageously he carried the heavy load of his privation; I have thought that the world had gained much in the partial eclipse of his sight. Not often is it that we are indebted with such lay sermons-sermons which come home to our hearts and lives with telling power, when they preach to us in facts, and are quickened by the vital throb of reality. From association with him, I have always gone forth a more contented, cheerful man.

Of a townsman of Mr. Prescott am I now to speak; of a young man, mighty in endurance, and withal admirable beyond praise for what he has done. I mean Francis Parkman,

author of the History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac. Not blind, yet unable to fasten his gaze upon any object, and thus disabled from reading and writing; the victim of fearful pains in eyes, head and limbs, which for months together subjected him to a torture well nigh as searching and exquisite as that of the rack, he has yet devoted himself to literary pursuits. Collecting his mind, and composing it under the pressure of the fiercest physical anguish, without halting or wavering he has pursued his labors.

The work he has given to the world is one of the most admirable specimens of historical composition produced in our country. Fresh, vigorons, and singularly graphic in style, its masterly grouping and picturesque treatment of a most interesting era in our annals must commend it to the warmest approval of the literary public; and coming as it does from a man circumstanced as I have described, it seems to me one of the noblest trophies which valor has wrung from suffering. Nor satisfied with this, he has, still under the pressure of affliction, prosecuted his labors, and is now engaged upon a history of the French Empire in Ararica. If conduct such as this does not

-glare out upon the world like the struggles and achievements of warriors, yet when the world comes to mature age, it will appreciate these triumphs over infirmity and agony more than victories compassed by blood and fire.

And now am I brought to the last and most renowned of all my heroes; one whose name has become a household word throughout the nations of the earth; whose colossal fame is only surpassed by his more colossal genius. Born in Bread street, London, in December, 1608, he enjoyed throughout early life all the advantages which the affection and taste of cultivated parents, in affluent circumstances, could furnish. Provided with the best masters, he early showed an amazing aptitude for learning, which only grew with his growth. At the same time he manifested a remarkable talent for versification. Let us describe the daily course of his youthful life in his own forcible English. The passage is from the Apology for Smectymnuus; and is in answer to aspersions upon his morals.

"Those morning haunts are where they should be at home; not sleeping nor concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, but up and stirring in winter, often ere the sound of

any bell awakens men to labor or devotion; in summer, as oft with the bird that first rouses, or not much tardier, to read good authors, or cause them to be read till the attention be weary, or the memory have its full fraught. Then with useful and generous labors, preserving the body's health and hardiness, to render lightsome, clear, and not lumpish obedience to the mind, to the cause of religion, and our country's liberty, when it shall require firm hearts in sound bodies to cover their stations rather than see the ruin of our Protestantism and the enforcement of a slavish life,"

It was with a noble appreciation of the ideal of literary aims, and with a wise choice of authors, that he read. He preferred, he says, "above them all, the two famous renowners of Beatrice and Laura, who never write, but to the honor of those to whom they devote their verse, displaying sublime and pure thoughts without transgression. And long it was not after, when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter, in things laudable, ought himself to be a true poem; that is a composition and pattern of the best and

honorablest things; not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men, or famous cities, unless that he gave himself experience and practice of all that is praiseworthy."

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And again: "That I may tell ye whither my younger feet wandered, I betook me among those lofty fables and romances which recount in solemn cantos the deeds of knighthood, founded by our victorious kings, and from hence had in renown over all Christendom. * From the laureate fraternity of poets, riper years, and the careless round of studying and reading, led me to the shady spaces of philosophy, but chiefly to the divine volumes of Plato, and his equal Xenophon; where, if I should tell ye what I learned of chastity and love-I mean that which is truly so, whose charming cup is only virtue, which she bears in her hand to those that are worthy; the rest are cheated with a thick intoxicating potion which a certain sorcerer, the abuser of love's name, carries about-and how the first and chiefest of love begins and ends in the soul, producing those happy twins of her divine generation, knowledge and virtue. With such abstracted sublimities as these, it might be worth your listening, reader, as I may one