and, years afterwards, when the burden of the injury he had received was much heavier on his thoughts than it had been at first, and when an opportunity occurred to do an important kindness to the unhappy person who had inflicted it, he did it promptly and cordially. It was a Christian act, the more truly Christian, because, although the blow was certainly given by accident, he who inflicted it never expressed any sympathy with the terrible suffering he had occasioned. At least, the sufferer, to whom, if to anybody, he should have expressed it, never knew that he regretted what he had done." - pp. 19 – 22. In due season he returned to college, sobered and grown older by the discipline he had gone through, and with a more resolute purpose to make good use of his opportunities than he had before shown. He held a respectable rank in his class at the close of his academic career, and his wise father and affectionate mother were content with this, and much gratified with his graceful recitation of a Latin poem on Commencement day. His father's eminence at the bar led him naturally into the study of the law, though his love of society and his love of literature alike interfered with that exclusive devotion to the pursuit without which the prizes to the profession cannot be won. But all his plans were interrupted, and the current of his life arrested, by an attack of acute rheumatism which settled in his sound eye, and after severe and protracted suffering left it in so morbid and irritable a state that reading and study were out of the question, and even total blindness was apprehended. It was determined that everything else should be set aside for the restoration of his health and the preservation of the precious organ of sight, and a course of extensive foreign travel was determined upon, to recruit his exhausted constitution, as well as to enable him to consult the best oculists of London and Paris. Accordingly, on the 26th of September, 1815, he embarked at Boston for the Azores, in order to pass the winter with his maternal grandfather, who was United States Consul, residing at St. Michael's. He reached his destination after a tedious passage of twenty-two days. Mr. Ticknor says: "He was most kindly received by his grandfather, a generous, open-handed, open-hearted gentleman, seventy-two years old, who had long before married a lady of the island as his second wife, and was surrounded by a family of interesting children, some of whom were so near the age of their young nephew of the half-blood, that they made him most agreeable companions and friends. They were all then residing a few miles from Ponta Delgada, the capital of the island of St. Michael's, at a place called Rosto de Cão, from the supposed resemblance of its rocks to the head of a dog. It was a country-house, in the midst of charming gardens and the gayest cultivation. The young American, who had been little from home, and never beyond the influences of the rude climate in which he was born, enjoyed excessively the all but tropical vegetation with which he found himself thus suddenly surrounded ; the laurels and myrtles that everywhere sprang wild; and the multitudinous orange-groves which had been cultivated and extended chiefly. through his grandfather's spirit and energy, until their fruit had become the staple of the island, while, more than half the year, their flowers filled large portions of it with a delicious fragrance; 'Hesperian fables true, if true, here only.' "But his pleasures of this sort were short-lived. He had landed with a slight trouble in his eye, and a fortnight was hardly over before he was obliged to shut himself up with it. From November 1st to February 1st he was in a dark room; six weeks of the time in such total darkness, that the furniture could not be distinguished; and all the time living on a spare vegetable diet, and applying blisters to keep down active inflammation. But his spirits were proof alike against pain and abstinence. He has often described to me the exercise he took in his large room, hundreds of miles in all, walking from corner to corner, and thrusting out his elbows so as to get warning through them of his approach to the angles of the wall, whose plastering he absolutely wore away by the constant blows he thus inflicted on it. And all this time, he added, with the exception of a few days of acute suffering, he sang aloud, in his darkness and solitude, with unabated cheer. Later, when a little light could be admitted, he carefully covered his eyes, and listened to reading; and, at the worst, he enjoyed much of the society of his affectionate aunts and cousins." pp. 34, 35. The winter he passed at the Azores was far from being an unhappy one, for he was in the midst of a most amiable and affectionate family, and his own joyous temperament was proof against the depressing influences of infirm health and impaired sight. His letters to his friends at home, of which Mr. Ticknor prints several, are written in the gayest and happiest mood, and in reading them we can see how just a claim he had then, unknown youth as he was, to the love of all there who stood in near relations of blood or friendship to him. On the 8th of April, 1816, he left the Azores for London, and remained abroad till midsummer, 1817, visiting the most interesting portions of England, France, and Italy, seeing and enjoying much, in spite of his ever-present infirmity, which required daily care and daily sacrifice. The oculists whom he consulted gave him honest advice, telling him that his case admitted of no remedy and few alleviations; for it was ascertained that the eye originally injured was completely paralyzed, and that for the other little could be done but to add to its strength by strengthening the whole system. But there was a kindness in this frank statement; for, in order to bear up against any calamity, the first requisite is an assured knowledge of its measure and extent. There are few burdens that cannot be borne after we have learned their exact weight. Men who have lost their sight or their hearing, in whole or in part, will tell us that the most painful period of their experience was the period of struggle, when hope and fear were alternating in the breast, and that, when the worst was known, a comparative calm settled down upon the spirit. It could not be expected that his journey would be productive of great intellectual benefit. What we bring home from Europe is in exact proportion to what we take out, and few youths of twenty can take out much. His first two or three years after reaching home were happy years. At home, everything that the most tender and vigilant affection could suggest was done to make the burden of his misfortune as light as possible, and if he chose to go abroad, he was everywhere eagerly welcomed, as well for his father's sake as for his own. But this period of his life, otherwise so sunny, was darkened by anxious uncertainty as to his future, and by perplexing questions as to what profession or occupation he should adopt. Some approach to certainty was made when he determined to renounce all thoughts of the profession of the law; but this only narrowed the field of choice, leaving still a range quite wide enough for uneasy doubts and painful misgivings. While thus deliberating, he fell in love and married, and upon this interesting event in his life Mr. Ticknor shall speak. "On the evening of the 4th of May, 1820, which was his twentyfourth birthday, he was married at the house of Mrs. Amory, in Franklin Place. It was a wedding with a supper, in the old-fashioned style, somewhat solemn and stately at first; many elderly people being of the party, and especially an aged grandmother of the bride, whose presence enforced something of formality. But later in the evening our gayety was free in proportion to the restraints that had previously been laid upon it. "The young couple went immediately to the house of the Prescott family in Bedford Street, the same house, by a pleasant coincidence, in which Miss Linzee, the mother of the bride, had been married to Mr. Amory five and twenty years before; and there they lived as long as that ample and comfortable old mansion stood. "Another coincidence connected with this marriage should be added, although it was certainly one that augured little of the happiness that followed. The grandfathers of Mr. Prescott and Miss Amory had been engaged on opposite sides during the war for American Independence, and even on opposite sides of the same fight; Colonel Prescott having commanded on Bunker Hill, while Captain Linzee, of the sloop-of-war Falcon, cannonaded him and his redoubt from the waters of Charles River, where the Falcon was moored during the whole of the battle. The swords that had been worn by the soldier and the sailor on that memorable day came down as heirlooms in their respective families, until at last they met in the library of the man of letters, where, quietly crossed over his books, they often excited the notice alike of strangers and of friends. After his death they were transferred, as he had desired, to the Historical Society of Massachusetts, on whose walls they have become the memorials at once of many a hard-fought field and of victories no less renowned than those of war.' A more appropriate resting-place for them could not have been found. And there, we trust, they may rest in peace so long as the two nations shall exist, - trophies, indeed, of the past, but warnings for the future. “At the time of his marriage my friend was one of the finest-looking men I have ever seen; or, if this should be deemed in some respects a strong expression, I shall be fully justified, by those who remember him at that period, in saying that he was one of the most attractive. He was tall, well formed, manly in his bearing but gentle, with light-brown hair that was hardly changed or diminished by years, with a clear complexion and a ruddy flush on his cheek that kept for him to the last an appearance of comparative youth, but, above all, with a smile that was the most absolutely contagious I ever looked upon. As he grew older, he stooped a little. His father's figure was bent at even an earlier age, but it was from an organic infirmity of the chest, unknown to the constitution of the son, who stooped chiefly from a downward inclination which he instinctively gave to his head so as to protect his eye from the light. But his manly character and air were always, to a remarkable degree, the same. Even in the last months of his life, when he was in some other respects not a little changed, he appeared at least ten years younger than he really was. And as for the gracious, sunny smile that seemed to grow sweeter as he grew older, it was not entirely obliterated even by the touch of death. Indeed, take him for all in all, I think no man ever walked our streets, as he did day by day, that attracted such regard and good-will from so many; for, however few he might know, there were very many that knew him, and watched him with unspoken welcomes as he passed along." — pp. 53 – 55. This sketch of Mr. Prescott as he was at the age of twentyfour will not be pronounced at all beyond the truth by those who remember him. Young, handsome, attractive in manners, happily married, not obliged to earn his daily bread by daily toil, and with an infirmity of sight, what was more natural than that he should give himself up to a life of easy indulgence, without distinct aim or purpose, and who could have judged him severely if, with his disability, he had yielded to the temptations to which so many yield who have no such excuse? But beneath his light and joyous exterior there was a strong will and a vigilant conscience. He knew and felt that a life of aimless ease was not right, and he also knew that to him, at least, labor-continuous, resolute labor-labor upon some plan and towards some defined end was the only condition of happiness in this world. He had decided, as we before said, to give up the law, and a further step in progress was made when he determined to make literature a profession. This seemed the natural result of his tastes and training, but the choice was not made without grave reflection and careful self-communing, as well as with a distinct perception of the difficulties which lay in his path. He immediately began, by a course of diligent study, to repair the deficiencies of his early education, and to lay anew the foundations of his knowledge. He renewed his acquaintance with the classical writers of Rome, of whom he had learned something at school and in college. He went through |