USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Saugus > History of Lynn, Essex county, Massachusetts: including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant > Part 58
USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Nahant > History of Lynn, Essex county, Massachusetts: including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant > Part 58
USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Lynnfield > History of Lynn, Essex county, Massachusetts: including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant > Part 58
USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Swampscott > History of Lynn, Essex county, Massachusetts: including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant > Part 58
USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Lynn > History of Lynn, Essex county, Massachusetts: including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant > Part 58
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. - ALONZO LEWIS.
553
SONG. O Love! thou art a joyous thing, In this cold world of ours!
And yet how oft thy wayward wing Leaves thorns instead of flowers!
Thy rosy path is glowing bright, With gems of heaven bestrewn ; Yet thou canst mingle in thy might, The dreaded thunder stone.
Earth were indeed a cheerless place, Without thy soul-like smile ; And thou hast that in thy bright face Which can all ills beguile.
The cold in heart may blame thy truth, The void of soul may frown - The proud may seek to fetter youth, And crush its feelings down -
Yet still thou art the sweetest one Of all the cherub train, Whose task is given beneath the sun To soothe the heart of pain.
The foregoing specimens afford sufficient means whereby the reader may judge of the poetic talents of Mr. Lewis. When he set himself seriously at work he produced verses compact and polished. He was then rigidly artistic, fervor nor passion get- ting the better of settled rule. And his best poems bear the strongest evidence of the most elaborate preparation, affording further evidence that labor and patience bestowed on composi- tion are not wasted. In no case, excepting where extraordinary genius leads the way, is it safe to trust to mere emotionary flights. I think Dr. Channing somewhere advises young min- isters or writers to think deeply and then write rapidly. That he himself thought deeply is evinced by the light that glows on every page; and he no doubt wrote rapidly; but as to what followed, let the printers of his generation come up as witnesses. His manuscript was interlined and re-interlined in such an extra- ordinary manner that it was almost beyond the power of man to decipher .. And after it was in print, he made appalling havoc
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on the proof sheets. There were occasions when the proofs came from the Doctor's hand so much disfigured by alterations that the distressed printer found it most economical at once to distribute the types and re-set them. And when he examined even a second or third proof, numerous changes continued to be made in words and the collocation of sentences. But it was, without doubt, to this excessive polishing that his fame for elegance of composition was in a great degree attributable. His ideas were probably as fully expressed in the first instance ; but much of the magic effect flowed from the after marshalling of the expressions. Prescott, if I mistake not, somewhere says that in the final labor upon his works, he examined them sen- tence by sentence, to see if any improvement could be made. A beautiful lady is a sweet object in almost any garb ; but when she appears handsomely and becomingly clad, is most admired. And so of other things.
There is seldom any thing startling or vivid found in the poems of Mr. Lewis. But his descriptions are animated, his expressions melodious, his rhymes good. There is a delightful freshness about many of his illustrations ; an enduring value in his inculcations of purity and benevolence ; a touching languor in his pensiveness ; a charming earnestness in his faith. It has sometimes occurred to me that the severe criticism which ap- peared in the Cambridge Review, in 1831, had a serious effect on him, and was the occasion of his being virtually driven from a field he was so well fitted to adorn. No doubt that unfortu- nate paper was conceived rather in a spirit of heedless sport than malevolence. And had the writer seen the effect of his indiscretion that I saw, he certainly would have deeply re- gretted that he had not chosen some less sensitive subject to exercise his youthful satire upon. But had Mr. Lewis possessed the spirit and resolution of a Byron, he might have put his assailant to open shame, and turned the occurrence to the ben- efit of both.
Of Mr. Lewis's prose writings nothing need be said in this connection. His entire history is embodied in the pages of this volume ; and his matter is so designated that it can be readily distinguished.
He was for some time a newspaper, editor; but in that
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capacity was not particularly successful, though he really made a useful and interesting sheet. Toward opponents he was inclined to manifest acerbity, and was, withal, a little egotis- tical. A certain amount of egotism really seems to set becom- ingly on some people, and is useful to them, if accompanied by good nature and employed with discretion; but as ex- ercised by Mr. Lewis it can hardly be said to have much improved him.
In his earlier manhood he made some attempts at fictitious prose writing. But it was quite apparent that without severe discipline he could not succeed as a novelist. Much of the charm of that species of literature consists in well-sustained dialogue ; and he did not seem able to divest himself of his own individuality to an extent sufficient to make his colloquists appear natural.
He exhibited his poetical inclination in various ways besides the production of verses. For every locality that charmed, either from inherent beauty or historic association, he had an expressive name ; for the solitary glen of the forest and wild battlement of the shore he supplied a stirring legend; and many of the creations of his wealthy imagination will endure as long as the objects they adorn exist.
. In the material affairs of life Mr. Lewis was accustomed to take an eminently practical view. He had an earnest desire to pro- mote the permanent prosperity of his native place; and many suggestions of his regarding the dry ramifications of trade were not unprofitably heeded. His public spirit was for many years conspicuous. As early as 1824 he began to labor for the pro- tection of the Beach, which he saw was in danger of being ultimately destroyed by the ravages of the tide. He pertina- ciously pressed for the erection of a substantial granite wall, such as would at once prove a safeguard from the assaults of the ocean, and a fitting embellishment of art to one of the most beautiful objects of nature ; and at one time he was much elated in the hope that government would undertake the work. But he was destined never to be gratified by the sight of a more substantial and comely erection than a line of red cedars with marine debris interwoven and flanked by an embankment of loose stones and sand. The construction of the road to Nahant
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along the harbor side of the Beach was an enterprise carried forward very much through his instrumentality ; and it was a measure of great public utility, as any one who has ever been compelled by the tide to pursue his weary way upon the ridge, can testify. The light-house on Egg Rock was also established more through his exertions than those of any other. It is ques- tionable, however, whether in this matter, he did not allow his fancy to get the better of his judgment, as many have always thought that a light on the point of Nahant would answer quite as good a purpose, and be much more convenient. Yet it may not be true that the convenient is always to be esteemed above the ornamental and picturesque. The real question, without doubt, should be, which will in the largest degree conduce to improvement and enjoyment. The City Seal was drawn by him, and its emblematical representations afford evidence of his prac- tical turn and poetic conception ; though the engraver should have suggested that something a little more simple and clearly defined would have looked better.
It can not be said that the life of Mr. Lewis was an event- ful one. No more striking incidents attended his career than fall to the common lot, with perhaps one or two exceptions. He spent almost the whole of his days in his native place, only once or twice, and then for brief periods, making his home elsewhere.
His worldly condition can hardly be said ever to have greatly flourished. His mind was one that could not be seduced to the pursuit of wealth, as a leading object. While a teacher, his in- come was sufficient to supply all common wants, but insufficient to enable him to lay any thing by for future necessities. And as in that capacity the vigor of his life was spent, when he was compelled to resort to other pursuits, his gains were often pre- carious. There were occasions, indeed, when by his own decla- rations, he was not exempt from absolute want. In November, 1860, only two months before his death, he writes, " my daily support is a daily miracle." But it is not to be believed that he many times found himself in any thing like an extremity of want, surrounded as he was by those who would have deemed it a privilege to minister to his necessities, but who, from feel- ings of delicacy, might not, under mere suspicion, make proffers
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that they feared he would, in a moody moment, repulse as ob- trusions.
The mind of Mr. Lewis was of a peculiarly sensitive texture, and constantly disturbed by what to most persons would seem but trivial occurrences. He was likewise keenly alive to the opinions of others; and his thirst for praise almost assumed the form of an absolute disease; yet his mind was of too high an order to be satisfied with the cheap compliments that were bestowed upon him. And in his case was furnished a notable instance of a longing for that which, when attained, had no power to satisfy. Some minds are of such noble quality that they receive the praise of the mean, vulgar, and wicked, as an indignity. But it is quite as much as can be expected of most people, that they look with indifference on the censure or praise of the wrong minded. And if Mr. Lewis had disciplined him- self to this he would have passed a great many more happy hours. Constituted as he was, it will be perceived that he could not always be at peace with those around him, for few are accustomed to overlook demands engendered by such a temper, demands which might not unfrequently be put forth with aspe- rity and petulance. But beneath his sometimes unpromising surface there always dwelt that which was really noble and congenial ; and many a cultivated mind has passed with him intervals of sweet and profitable communion. .
It is not worth while to deny that every one loves to see his name in honorable connection, in print. And in a local history, almost every person who has in any way made himself conspic- uous, expects that his name will appear. I have heard Mr. Lewis censured for not noticing this or that individual, as if his silence arose from "prejudice. But the complaints were as likely, perhaps, to have had their origin in wounded pride as in an honest desire that the most healthful examples should be presented. Reflection will convince every reasonable person that many are conspicuous in ways that it would do no good to celebrate, and that multitudes who are known only in the most circumscribed sphere are more deserving of having their names perpetuated. The historian must himself act as judge in all such matters, and is presumed to have a conscientious appreci- ation of his responsibilities. And he far better shows his integ- U2*
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rity by silence than by elevating the unworthy, who, from some meretricious surroundings have become objects of momen- tary observation. That Mr. Lewis had strong antipathies and prejudices, his most ardent friends would not deny. But that he was unable to exercise sufficient control over them to pre- vent their having an influence in the preparation of his History, we will not admit.
He had a kind heart, and few were more ready to aid others, though his interest might be compromised by his benevolence. He never turned his back upon such as came recommended by misfortune. And numberless good offices did he perform with- out the hope of reward and without receiving even the cheap return of gratitude. Still more; many and many a time was he subjected to the severe trial of suffering the taunts of those in prosperity whom he had befriended in adversity ; a trial so much beyond the common limit of human endurance that the mind which can escape unembittered must be more than ordi- nary. And when, under such trials, he was led to complain, his complaints should not so often have been regarded as the mere ebullitions of a diseased sensibility. In the piece just quoted from he says, " Within a short time I have been taunted in the street for my poverty."
That large class of unenlightened men who are ruled by the love of money are accustomed to view the poor, however meri- torious or exalted by genius, with disdain. But the men of genius, even while they can really feel nothing but contempt toward their arrogant brethren, generally have sufficient saga- city to avoid offending them, as from them they may, by that flattery which always reaches the vulgar mind, derive benefits - the flattery which supposes intellectual superiority. But Mr. Lewis's mind was not one that could easily yield to the airs of the supercilious, and hence he often subjected himself to indig- nities where the cringing would have received favors. He says, " If I, like others, had devoted my life solely to my own interest, I might now be reveling in wealth ; but your hundred thousand dollar men, who never knew what it was to want a meal of victuals, can have no idea of him who has to support a family without means." This is a mournful truth; but Mr. Lewis was not the man to make it known in a way to ensure relief. In his
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complaints, which he occasionally put forth in the public prints, he was rather inclined to take a step beyond the sublime in pathos, and his emotional extravagances excited feelings very different from pity. Witness the following: "I have spent more than forty years in endeavoring to convince the world that love is the essence of true religion, and no person ever lived in Lynn who has been so much abused, lampooned and traduced as I." He probably wrote this in a moment of excite- ment occasioned by the taunt of some vulgar assailant, who by most men of his understanding would have been passed by un- noticed; and he should not have hastened to a printing office and sent it forth under his own hand; for the truth is that it would be difficult to point to another individual in the whole history of Lynn, who presented himself as such a shining mark, and escaped with so little lampooning.
Mr. Lewis was eminently what is called a self-made man ; and to his industry and perseverence as much as to his natural gifts was his success in the way of fame to be attributed. But it may be assuming something to say that industry and perseve- rence are not as much natural gifts as any others, though usu- ally they are spoken of rather as habits. Indeed is it not true that the great majority of those who are conspicuous, not to say illustrious, in the world, have no intellectual superiority over the mass of those by whom they are surrounded, but are raised by vigorous and continued effort in the pursuit of a defi- nite object? But not many possess that earnest persistency without which very few indeed can ascend the heights of renown. And how many, be it repeated, feel, all their lives that they have that within, which, if developed, would exalt, but who yet dream their lives away, finding at the close that they have but floated along, with the common tide, day by day gilding their dreams with the expectation that the time was approaching when they were to arouse and valiantly pursue the upward career. It seem as if there were a destiny shaping our ends.
A great poet has said that Providence prepared a niche for every man. But if that be the case, one is almost constrained to believe that it was left for each to find his own, and that most niches had, through blindness or perversity, become filled by wrong occupants. Somehow early habits, social attractions,
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or drear misfortune seem to have intervened to prevent what might have been, and we behold the wit of a Voltaire spent in raising a laugh among sooty-faced workmen ; the reflection of a Newton in calculating the moves on a greasy checker-board ; the skill of a Linnaeus in arranging posies for a country lass. These are incidents which appear among the mysteries of human life; and there are others. Do we not every day behold in high places of honor and trust multitudes who would better become the miller's frock or fisherman's fear-naught; in the pulpit and at the bar numbers who should never have looked beyond the lumber woods or arable fields for their spheres of 1 usefulness ?
Under the baleful influence of an inordinate love of money, many denounce the person who is not constantly toiling in some pursuit the end of which is mere pecuniary gain, as indolent, or in some way deluded. And if they are able to perceive and appreciate any thing of intellectual superiority or moral exalta- tion, they avoid an open and honest recognition of it, affecting to despise what they cannot attain. And the world's censures drive many timid souls from the higher path of duty and enjoy- ment. It must have been delightful to the mind of Mr. Lewis, as it is to every enlightened mind, to divest itself of the clog- ging interests of the present and flee to the communion of the noble and virtuous of the past. Most men live only in the present, having no apprehension of their power to enjoy ex- tended lives, lives reaching back to times over which multiplied years have thrown a lustrous veil. But the intelligent lover of history has this illimitable field of enjoyment open before him; here he holds communion with the better representatives of our race, undisturbed by the agitations of active life around him; here he comes, a quiet spectator of the great drama which has been performing ever since the world began. While the selfish and sordid see no benefit or enjoyment in thus re- verting to the past, the philosopher and philanthropist deem it among the most useful and elevating occupations of mankind. It has been said that were it not for the historian or the bard, the greatest name would soon pass into oblivion. And without the historian or the bard the most brilliant era would soon become obscured. To them is the world indebted for the safe
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transmission of all that is worthy of being handed along from age to age, for the preservation of noble names and useful knowledge. And do not these reflections suggest that our little community owes a debt of gratitude to the Historian and Bard who labored to maintain a record of her worthies and to per- petuate a memory of her pleasant scenes ?
That Mr. Lewis himself had a more than ordinary craving for posthumous fame is not to be denied. And with such a longing it is not remarkable that he should have been willing to labor without the hope of any such reward as with most people would be the incentive to diligence. While in a strictly moral sense such a craving may not be applauded, it yet may make the possessor an instrument of much good. And in the case of our friend, the beneficial results were very great. A mind constituted like his derives much pleasure from the pursuit of its darling object. And he no doubt received the most satisfac- tory compensation for his toil in the conviction that his fame would survive and his name be lauded through generation after generation. And his name and his fame will survive - survive and be green in the memory of men long after the great mul- titude of those of our community who proudly conceived them- selves essential to the welfare of the world, are forgotten; though a better fate will attend the names of those few whose meritorious acts gave them a place in his History.
Multitudes begin a good course with energy, pursue it to a certain point, and then relax their efforts, having gained, as they would have it, the point for which they strove. And these, having set their standard too low, quit the world without having accomplished half that was in their power. And it is doubtful whether Mr. Lewis should not be ranked among these. He certainly did not do all he was capable of doing. After the production of his larger volume of Poems, and his History, he seemed to feel as if his work were chiefly done. His mind, though it returned often and lingered fondly about the pleasant paths of literature, appeared soon to weary and turn to other pur- suits. But circumstances that he could not govern may have enforced this seeming indifference, for he says, referring to a proposed new edition of his History, "In the morning I set about the History of Lynn, but my wife comes in and inquires,
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HISTORY OF LYNN.
' What are we going to have for dinner ?'" - an inquiry which certainly might, under the embarrassments of real penury, be expected to have a depressing effect. As a general thing, small pecuniary returns attend literary labor. And praise is better calculated to satisfy an empty head than an empty stom- ach. The two editions of his History, Mr. Lewis asserted, in a newspaper article, in 1860, were published at a loss. In a Lynn paper of the 22d of June, 1844, which was a few weeks before the issuing of the second edition, the editor remarks " We are informed by Mr. Lewis that he began at the pond on the Com- mon and went to Emes's factory, in Sangus, and obtained only fifteen subscribers." And it is not at all probable that he was more successful with his Poems than with his History, for the market value of prose is generally above that of poetry.
Such were the contrarieties of temper possessed by Mr. Lewis, that he was like no other man; and it was common for even his intimate friends to remark that they did "not know how to take him." It would be difficult to analyze his character, and unfair to examine it by any but the most flexible rules.
In early life he had turns of dejection. And after he had arrived at manhood, similar turns, in two instances, matured into insanity, and it was found necessary to place him in an asylum. But in his later years, the turns were rather of irrita- bility than dejection.
And this seems a proper place to state that some of the friends of Mr. Lewis have thought that his whole after character was affected by an affair of the heart which transpired in youth. He had become ardently attached to a young lady who could not reciprocate his tender impressions. And when he became convinced that it would be fruitless to prosecute his suit, a period of deep depression supervened, weighing down his spirits for months. The details of such affairs are not often made public ; and as the pain is endured in sacred privacy few can readily perceive, in a given case, the sufficiency of the cause for the effect. The world is altogether too apt to scoff at such occurrences, and by unfeeling taunts increase the anguish of the wounded heart ; they pity one who has lost a few dollars, but for the yearning heart that cannot attain its dearest object have nothing better than a sneer. There was certainly sor e-
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thing in the character of Mr. Lewis that bore likeness to one thus affected. He had times of sadness when outward affairs seemed brightest, and times of irritability, apparently arising from a disturbance of the contemplation of softened memories.
In religion, Mr. Lewis was somewhat vacillating, at least so far as the outward manifestation was concerned, he having at different times joined various professing bodies - the Calvinistic Congregationalists, Methodists, and Quakers, for instance. But he never swerved from a cordial acceptance of the christian faith, and for the best part of his life was a member of the Pro- testant Episcopal Church, doing much to sustain the early foot- holds of Episcopal worship in Lynn. I should judge from his occasional remarks, that among his accepted doctrines was that of predestination, in an enlarged sense, though it did not appear day by day to yield in him its ripest fruits, for it seems to be a doctrine, which, whether true or false, if fully and cordially em- braced, must impart a very great degree of rest and comfort to the mind. So long as a man imagines himself capable of shaping his own destiny, he will remain restless and unsatisfied. But if he sincerely believes himself the chosen instrument to work out the will of a beneficent Superior, and has disciplined him- self to the docile performance of his behests he will feel an in- . describable freedom from disturbing cares and distrusts. If his condition is humble he is contented, because he is there, a necessary link in the great chain that binds time to eternity, dim for a while, but perhaps in the course of events to become as bright as any. If he is in affluence he feels no pride, because no merit of his own placed him there; and though the same Providence that assigned to him his present position may here- after have a very different one for him to occupy, he feels pre- pared courageously to meet what he cannot escape. The hearty predestinarian is unassuming in prosperity, patient in adver- sity, unmoved amid the greatest calamities, heroic on the ' redest battle field. What did the doctrine do for the early New England settlers - what for the champions of the English Commonwealth ? But there is such a propensity to throw the shadows of a grim and exacting theology over it, when all should be trustful, bright, and hopeful, that it becomes cheer- ss and repulsive to many a warm heart. To such a mind as
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