USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Salem > Historical sketch of the Salem Lyceum, with a list of the officers and lecturers since its formation in 1830, and an extract from the address of Gen. Henry K. Oliver, delivered at the opening of the fiftieth annual course of lectures, November 13, 1978 > Part 2
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To those of you who, year after year, during the last half century, have partaken of the wholesome food offered, at cheapest rate, by this institution, and who
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have come to its feasts as naturally and as regularly as herd and flock seek their pasture, it may seem singu- larly strange, that its initiation should have encountered opposition. Yet it did-though that antagonism from its very unreasonableness, served the good purpose or augmenting the earnestness and activity of its friends, and their resolve to achieve success. So to those who, after the lapse of a half century therefrom, shall cele- brate the establishment here of a Free Public Library, and a free Public Reading Room, whenever such " con- summation devoutly to be wished," shall occur, it will seem equally strange, perhaps incredible, that any op- position now, should have delayed an event which is, nevertheless, an inevitable certainty, though many may die without the sight. But returning-the good ship " Lyceum" was now launched, equipped, officered, and ready for sea, and a favoring breeze swelling her canvass, she began her voyage under the very best auspices.
As I recall the men who began this work, all or whom were my companions and friends, there returns the old feeling of profound respect for the noble and unselfish spirit which characterized them. I doubt whether in any community of equal population (we had then about 15,000 people), or in even one of a greater,-such an array of men, so noteworthy, so bril- liant, excelling in so great a variety of acquirement, could be found. And yet that array could here have then been doubled and trebled. Four of them were, at different dates, members of Congress, that distinc- tion, at that date, signifying high honor,-four were lawyers, three were clergymen, and five were men in absorbing and responsible business positions. Of the
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twenty original projectors, fifteen are dead, of the twelve who prepared the Constitution, eleven are dead, of the fifteen who composed the first corps of officers, twelve are dead. And as indicative of the sharp sec- tarianism that then divided and disturbed the commu- nity, it may be mentioned that these officers were se- lected, not without regard to their several religious be- liefs. Eight were of Unitarian, and seven of Ortho- dox creeds, all the five executive officers being Unita- rians, and yet no religious dissonances seem to have marred their doings, nor have any since disturbed the harmony of the institution, or of its management. Science and true learning stand on neutral ground, each bearing a perpetual flag of truce. The whole con- ducting of this institution has been with the utmost liberality and with unbiased impartiality, in both poli- tics and religion.
The earliest embarrassment encountered, was that of finding a room adapted to meet all the exigencies of varied lecture-work, that of the essayist, and that of the experimental scientist, and, at the same time. con- venient to the audience in all respects of seats, of sight, and of hearing. There was no such place, and the best that could be done was to use some one of our churches. The Mechanic Hall, now greatly improved, was not built till ten years later. The Methodist Chapel, in Sewall street, and the Universalist Church, on Rust street, were utilized during the first season, the introductory of February 24th, 1830, by Judge White,-and the second, of March 3d, by Rev. Dr. Brazer,-being delivered in the former, and the remain- ing twelve in the other two before named. So were the first five of the second course, beginning on the
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evening of December 1st, 1830,-the sixth of that course being given as the first in this hall, January 20th, 1831, by Hon. Stephen C. Phillips. During the sum- mer of 1830, and in the interval between the first and second course, this hall was erected on a portion of the then garden of Rev. Mr. Upham, then of the First Church, afterwards our Representative in Congress, who occupied the estate now owned by Dr. Cate. The building was planned and reared under the supervision of Col. Peabody. The land was purchased of Mrs. Sarah Orne, recently deceased, for $750, the cost of the building being about $4,500, including fixtures, and the property stands unincumbered. The changes of this year have greatly added to its conveniences. It is in the form of the ancient Roman Theatre, but with its stage carried farther back from the audience. For the purpose of hearers, it is well adapted, though a slight echo occasionally vexes the speaker, -but for advan- tageous display of illustrative diagrams, and show of tentative apparatus, it is not without objection, inas- much as the seats on the extreme right and left of the auditorium, afford no clear view of these means of elu- eidation The funds for its erection were from dona- tions by friends,-the money being advanced by Judge White, whose home was adjoining the City Hall.
His introductory lecture, upon "The Advantages of Knowledge," was a model of classical English, neither stilted nor meretricious in style, nor showy in lan- guage-but plain, clear, and forcible, an overflowing fountain of wise thought and well considered practical suggestion. No man in any community could be more earnest and solicitous for the mental and moral welfare of his fellow men, or a more pure example in all that
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pertains to a good life and to best citizenship. He gave his large and valuable private library to the Essex Institute, at different times, in all eight thousand vol- umes.
The first lecture in this hall was, as I have said, by Mr. Stephen C. Phillips, upon "the influence of this country and its age upon the condition of mankind." The author was equal to the theme, and the subject, fertile in suggestion and rich in substantial material, was admirably treated, and eloquently delivered. Mr. Phillips, the only son of one of our rich merchants, had graduated with distinction at Harvard in the class of 1819, in which same year Rufus Choate had gradu- ated at Dartmouth. He began life here under most favorable prestige, and with best auguries of suc- cess. An excellent scholar, with wide general cul- ture, a fluent and pleasing speaker, he kept the audi- ence in steady and vivid attention, and gave a lively impetus to the new departure. He did not give himself to professional study, but entered upon a commercial life.
Before speaking, as I propose to do, upon other lecturers and their lectures, let me give some statis- tics of the institution itself. The new hall, concen- trating the general interest upon something before un- known in Salem, and now recognized as the specialty of a new means of exceptional instruction and refined amusement, seemed to assure the success of the enter- prise, by "giving it a local habitation and a name "- and that assurance has been verified by the continuous and uninterrupted good work of half a century. The hall itself has also afforded convenient facilities for a great variety of gatherings, scientific, political, and
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innsical. Its central situation, facility of access, and general aptness ; its form and arrangement, all unite to render it desirable, while the seating is such that every- body can see everybody else.
The Lyceum has presented under its eighteen differ- ent Presidents (the term of Dr. Loring, how in its twelfth year, being the longest), 853 lectures, having enlisted in its service men of eminent rank in science and in letters.
I find on its records the names of Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate, Edward Everett, and his kinsman Alex ander H. Everett, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles F. Adams and ex-Presi- dent John Quincy Adams, Horace Mann, Jared Sparks, James Walker, Robert C. Winthrop, the twins, O. W. B. and B. W. O. Peabody, Caleb Cushing, Henry Giles, Edwin P. Whipple, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson, James Freeman Clarke, Ed- ward Everett Hale, Louis Agassiz, George William Curtis, Fanny Kemble, James T. Fields, and George Bancroft.
More than a score these, of the most eminent literary celebrities of their day, three of them Presidents of Harvard College and eight of them eminent members of Congress, while any one in the list could better have filled that position than any average member of to-day. Of this list I find that Mr. Emerson was the most fre- quently employed, having lectured twenty-eight times, and Wendell Phillips appearing sixteen times, Mr. Giles the same number, and James F. Clarke eight times. Of this list, Mr. Emerson, reckoning from the twentieth course, lectured in every course but one for twenty-one years. I doubt whether such continuity
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can be paralleled in any other Lyceum. In 1848 Prof. Agassiz gave one course of five on the Animal Crea- tion, and in 1849 one course of three on the Vegetable Kingdom. Mr. Giles, in 1842, one course of three on Irish History, Character, and Society. In 1848, J. P. Nichols gave a very instructive series of six, on As- tronomy. Of some few of these lectures I will speak farther on.
From the start it was intended to make use, to a considerable extent, of the talent and means of our own citizens, and I find among the names those of Judge White, John Brazer, Francis Peabody, A. L. Peirson, George Choate, Rufus Choate, Thomas Spencer, S. C. Phillips, Henry Colman, H. K. Oliver, Charles W. Upham, Jonathan Webb, John Pickering, Leverett Saltonstall, Caleb Foote, Edwin P. Whipple, George H. Devereux, Charles G. Page, George B. Loring, George W. Briggs, and Octavius B. Frothingham.
Payment for lectures, excepting for stated courses, was not the early rule, the necessary expenses of travel and of moving apparatus only being met. The highest single fee was of $100, to Mr. Webster; the lowest, $10 and $20, to ordinary parties. For lectures by Mr. Evans, repeated on successive evenings in a double course, $100 were paid ; and $400 to Mr. Barbour, for a course of nine double lectures on Phrenology. Towns- > men, after 1836, seemed to have received $20 a lecture. The employment of special "stars," at specially high rates, does not seem to have been encouraged.
Out of the whole number of 853 since the start in 1830, 170, or about one-fifth, have been given by Sa- lemites, and these generally on scientific subjects. Up to 1845, they had given 127. There was then a fall-
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ing off. Between 1845 and 1853 they gave 14, and in the seven next years, to 1860, but 4; in the following seventeen years 29, the greatest number by any one, and in the earlier courses, being 9, (H. K. Oliver). The concerts, usually at the opening of a course, have been 14 in number, all between 1830 and 1848, and all of exceptional excellence, as were the several exhi- bitions in Reading and in Declamation. I will now speak of some of the more prominent of the lectures, as I recall them, having already alluded tos those by Judge White and S. C. Phillips, and to those of Col. Peabody and Mr. Webb, and I select those by Mr. Emerson, Mr. Upham, Mr. Giles, Mr. Webster, Mr. Hudson, Mr. Whipple, Mr. Catlin, and the scientific lectures of Prof. Agassiz and Prof. Page.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, our most frequent lecturer, was a son of Rev. Wm. Emerson, of Boston, minister of its First Church, which, successively standing on State street, on the Joy's building site, and on Chauncy Place, is now on the Back Bay.
For variety of subject, aptness in treatment, great intellectual display, and profound power of thought, I can imagine nothing superior. It used to be said of him that he was too much of a transcendentalist, prone to discuss subjects transcending the reach of the senses, and so beyond reach of the average comprehension. Of his ability to grapple and to vanquish each and all of those he attempted, there is no lack of proof, while the very fact of his frequent appearance here, shows conclusively that he was never beyond our reach, how- ever high he soared, and that is a compliment to us, and we were never willing to dispense with his teach- ings. Not seldom were we startled by some new ap-
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plication of an old word to a new use, or of an old word applied felicitously to a new thought, and clothing that thought with new attraction. His leer tures that I specially mention, were those on Man- ners, and on Napoleon, and most impressive and win- ning of attention were they. To measure them all aright, one would need to be Emerson himself, and I will only venture a word or two about these two. He gave his own conception of fine manners. One meets them, he said, but once or twice in one's whole life. Their charm is that they are not assumed, neither fac- titions nor fictitious, being of very nature, natural. Concealing nothing, they display their perfectness by their naturalness, illustrated in each aet and word-their beautiful nature being more beautiful than any beauti- ful form or face, this unartful art of good manners be- ing the very finest of the fine arts. Are we now, in family and school and daily life, allowing it to become one of the lost arts ?
Bonaparte he characterized as the best known, and most powerful man of the 19th century, thoroughly of the times, timeserving, neither monk nor saint, nor hon- est man, and, in its true sense not a hero ; with no scruple of means in reaching his ends, acting on the Italian proverb, that " if you would succeed, you must not be too good." Catering for the many, he declared his aristocracy to be the rabble, and yet laboring, art- fully for that great middle class that was striving after wealth. In him were combined the elements of agita- tor, radical, destroyer of prescription, subverter of monopolies and abuse. The noble, the rich, and all sleepy conservatives, hated him, and so England, Rome, and Austria, homes of conservatism, aided by despotic
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Russia, fought him. His history was alluring, but he was destitute of sentiment, truth and honesty ; a bound- less liar, an unmatched egotist, who, in his premature old age, on his lonely island of exile, falsified dates and characters, and strove to make history the show of the theatre. To effect his aims, he would steal, drown, poison, or assassinate. In short, after one had pene- trated through the mist of power and splendor that en- veloped him, he would find that he had not reached a gentleman, but a rogue,-a villain,-a sort of Jupiter Scapin (as the French say), a scampy Jove. Now, I think, that a quiet life, however obscure, of being good and doing good, is vastly preferable to a life, that on review by posterity, receives such an excoriation.
Mr. Emerson's manner and pose of body on the stage, seemed, at first sight. to have an element of formality, something of stately dignity. Yet this impression van- ished very soon, and the hearer was won by the look of a cheerful and cheering face, the sound of a firm, distinct, and mellifluous voice, and an outpour in the very best English of most instructive and suggestive thought.
Mr. Upham's lectures, in 1831, on that obscure de- lusion, the Salem Witchcraft, indicated rare industry and perseverance of research, with impartial well-bal- anced judgment of historical evidence and traditionary rumor. They became the foundation of his exhaustive work on that strange and most unhappy delusion,-a delusion by no means confined to this part of the world, -a work in which patience and thoroughness of inves- tigation are only equalled by accuracy of detail and at- tractive literary style and finish. The work has become a standard authority. When delivered here, the sev-
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eral lectures were of great length, yet local interest in the subject, local allusions, and local names and celeb- rities, and the eminent fitness of treating this special theme near the place of the occurrences, excited a vivid interest, and kept the large audiences in close attention for more than two hours on each evening. By the well-known work, in which they are now united, and by . his admirable and accurate .biography of Col. Timothy Pickering, our townsman of revolutionary fame, Mr. Upham has attained a well merited renown as an author. He was a member of Congress in 1854, and the Mayor of the city in 1852.
Rufus Choate's lecture, on the "Romance of the Sea," in 1837, a subject for which his birth-place and ear- ly associations and impressions well fitted him, was as unique in its title as it was marvellous in its treatment and exposition. Of all his rich and surpassingly beau- tiful productions, this was foremost, and most eagerly ' sought. He was born and had been reared mid the sights and the scenes of the "sad sea-wave.". He had listened, in boyhood, to its hoarse murmurings. its defiant roar, and its terrific ragings. His imagination, stimulated by all his early associations, teemed with metaphoric allusions to the ocean, its surroundings, and its eventful histories. Nay, the danger was not want- ing, at one time, that the sea would gain a hero, and the law lose one of its most brilliant and dazzling gems.
My acquaintance with Mr. Choate began at college, in 1816, and was of that intimate nature which college life always creates, when there are but few to share it. Dartmouth had, at that time, but one hundred and six- teen students, in all its four classes, and he, of the class
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of 1819, was head and shoulders above every man in all that makes perfection of scholarship and literary finish, yet all unconscious did he seem to be of his own complete eminence. As I have written of him in anoth- er place, "my mind's eye often sees his manly and at- tractive figure and strangely winning face, and my mind's ear often hears his deeply resonant and impres- sive voice ; and there is again wakened many a remin- . iscence of his gentleness of temper and disposition, his warm sympathies, his innate sense of right, his refined courtesy, his completeness as a gentleman, his love of all that is beautiful in life, in nature, and in art; his wonderful mental gifts, his marvellous memory and ac- quisition of all varied learning." No man in college was ever named with him in rate of scholarship. In fact, we set him apart and above us all, as on a pedes- tal by himself, "himself his only parallel." His essays then were best of all, leading us captive by his grasp of subject, his eloquent diction, his beautiful imagery, and charm of profuse illustration, his command of words and skill in their use ; and in this "Romance of the Sea," and in his others, "The History of Poland," (1831), and " The applicability of American scenes and history to the genius of Walter Scott," he showed an equal command of his themes, and equal power and at- traction in treatment and delivery. But of all his pro- ductions, this was the crowning glory. A singular fate befel it ; it having been stolen after a delivery in New York. the only consolation for the great loss being that no mortal save himself, or, perhaps, his son Rufus, could possibly decipher it. Like all the rest of his chirography, it was burdened with abbreviations, inter- linings, and erasures,-a very labyrinth of hieroglyphics,
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resembling nothing so much as the tracks on paper of an ink-smeared spider.
From about 1823, Mr. Choate practised law in Pea- body, then South Danvers ; in 1828, he removed to Sa- lem : and in 1836, to Boston. He represented this dis- trict in Congress in 1831 and 1834-two sessions-dy- ing in July, 1859, at Halifax, on his second voyage to Europe. The universality of grief which this event occasioned, expressed the strong hold he had upon all hearts. The pulpit bore witness to his excellence as a man, and his noble moral influence, and the Bar to his great power as a lawyer and an advocate, and a fair and honorable antagonist.
The lecture of Daniel Webster, at the opening of the 8th Course, in 1836, " upon Popular Knowledge as ap- plied to scientific improvements," though in some de- gree outside and foreign to his habitual studies and pur- suits as a lawyer and a statesman, was treated with that comprehensive grasp and command which become the normal function of minds of rarest power, minds which compensate all the many and great deficiencies of early training, by a victorious mastery over the widest range of knowledge. The attention of the audience was
riveted to the speaker from the beginning to the end. To be sure it was Webster, in his full development, in his massive and superb presence and quiet self-posses- sion,-with the clear utterance of his rich, deep-toned and musical voice, and his grace of delivery, the out- ward manifestations of the marvellous intellect within -these all conspiring to hold to an almost breathless listening. The subject was handled in an entirely sim- ple way, no one failing to follow as he showed the real and abiding functions of science to be the inciting of
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art, to bring the power of the human mind to the aid of the human hand; to promote all convenience, to lighten labor, to mitigate toil by enlarging the domain of the human intellect over the elements of matter, to make those clements submit to human rule, human bidding, and to fullest co-operation in securing human happiness.
I can make but brief allusion to the admirable and. instructive lectures of Mr. H. N. Hudson, upon Shaks- peare (1845 and 1846), with their energetic style and aphoristic sentences, provocative, every way, to farther study of that marvellous genius who "expanded the reach of the drama beyond all its former limits ; de- veloping humanity in its stronger lights and subtler movements in a language more diversified by fancy and passion, than was ever before uttered."
Brief, too, must be my reference to the vivacious and quiekening essays of our once townsman, E. P. Whip- ple, sparkling and crispy, full of richest wit and raciest humor, with sound and discriminating analysis of the subject in hand. Three of them I distinctly recall- one upon " Wit and Humor," one upon the " Ludicrous Side of Life," and one upon the " Literature of Impu- dence," this last, I venture to say-never attempted by any one else, and in which he gave many a stunning specimen of the sublimest insolence and swagger-felic- itous specimens of what the Greek poet Menander, calls the very best provision for a prosperous life.
A few words,-all too few for their merit,-must be given to the lectures of Mr. Henry Giles. They were 14 in number, on eleven different subjects, the three upon Irish History, Character and Society, being (not indeed better than the rest, all were of the highest
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character, of marked originality and best finish), yet specially striking for their fervid eloquence and intense magnetism, embodying, as they did, in burning words and impassioned utterance, the soul-felt warmth, and the overmastering earnestness of an Irishman pro- claiming the wrongs of his country, and pleading her cause before the jary of all the world. To Mr. Giles's moral nature wrong was wrong, and the wrongs suf- fered by his country at the hand of England, were the wrongest of all wrongs, and he denounced them in words, not like those of Talleyrand, "made to conceal thought," but in words that were the voice of the heart, coming, with no uncertain sound, but in tones intended to brand with infamy the nation that he believed had been to his country a worse foe than Russia to Poland. His other lectures, best remembered by me, (all were given in the seasons between 1843 and 1849, ) were those upon Burns, Don Quixote, and Falstaff,-all of which evinced a quick, yet exact insight into the inner thought domain of their several authors, revealing, as it were, an inside view of the working of the brain and of its parturitions, by force of intensest stimulus of the imag- ination. What would be adequate fee for one such look while the brain of Cervantes was generating Don Quix- ote, or Shakspeare was in genesis of that mountain of bombast, whom the merry wives of Windsor packed into a buck-basket. Ah ! what peals of laughter echoed through this hall as Giles,-himself quickened and in- oculating us all with the drollery of his subject, his eyes flashing with merriment, his features all aglow with the jollity of his theme, his very frame in a flutter of excite- ment,-poured from his eloquent tongue, his matchless delineation of this motley conception of the immortal
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bard equally at home from fairy to Falstaff, from clown to king. Equally fervid, also, was he in all else he gave us, and I can hardly recall a popular lecturer, who so thoroughly captured his audience and held them en- chained to his speech.
But I must not omit mention of the lectures upon the life, manners, and customs, and history of our aborigi- nal Indians, by George Catlin of Wyoming, and after- wards of Philadelphia, who, in the year 1832, penetrat- ed what was then called the Far West,-the region be- yond the Missouri river and the Rocky mountains, and north of the Arkansas, that mainly north of the 40th degree of north latitude, where are now the states of Kansas, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Dacotah-and passed eight years with "Lo, the poor Indian", "overcoming", as he says, "all the hazards and pri- vations of a life devoted to the production of a lit- eral delineation of races, rapidly passing away, of a dying people, who have no historians to write their annals ; and to perpetuating some monument to the memory of lofty and noble tribes. Indian tribes, in their primitive genuineness, the original, pure, unadul- terated article,-not that which by contact with the pale faced stealers of their land-heritage, has been de- bauched by white men and rotted by whiskey, but as ne, the first white man they had seen, found them, honest, hospitable, brave, stoical, crafty, cruel, revengeful, re- lentless, never knowing fear nor fearing death. He visited eighteen different tribes, speaking nearly as many dialects, and comprising about four hundred thousand souls. A painter by profession and taking with him all necessary apparatus, he brought safely home, three hun- dred and ten portraits of men and women, in all their va- riety of costumes, of peace and of war, -and two hun-
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