USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Popular history of Boston > Part 14
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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
John Harvard was buried in Charlestown. A monument in the old burying-ground was erected to his memory by Harvard students, and was dedicated in 1828.
COLLEGES IN BOSTON.
Boston University seems destined to be one of the most popular and influential schools in America. It was founded in 1869 by Isaac Rich, Lee Claflin, and Jacob Sleeper. It includes three colleges, four professional schools, and a post- graduate scientific school. It admits females on the same conditions as males, and its standard of admission is very high. Its principal buildings are on Beacon Street, near the Athenæum, but its schools are located in different parts of the city. It is richly endowed, and all of its schools are attended with remarkable success.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a school of industrial science, was founded in 1861. It has forty instruc- tors and three hundred students. The Institute is on the Back Bay, has a noble Greek front, and is one of the finest edifices in the city.
25
386
Young Folks' History of Boston.
Such were some of the schools of the past, and such are some of the great institutions of learning at the present time. Truly the founders of Boston " built better than they knew." The influence of Boston schools is felt in every State of the Union, and is one of the elements of strength of the Republic.
-
"WHEN, from the sacred garden driven, Man fled before his Maker's wrath, An angel left her place in heaven, And crossed the wanderer's sunless path. 'T was Art, sweet Art ! New radiance broke Where her light foot flew o'er the ground ; And thus with seraph voice she spoke, - ' The Curse a Blessing shall be found.'
"She led him through the trackless wild, Where noontide sunbeam never blazed ; The thistle shrunk, the harvest smiled, And Nature gladdened as she gazed. Earth's thousand tribes of living things, At Art's command, to him are given ; The village grows, the city springs, And point their spires of faith to heaven.
" He rends the oak, and bids it ride, To guard the shores its beauty graced ; He smites the rock, - upheaved in pride, See towers of strength and domes of taste. Earth's teeming caves their wealth reveal, Fire bears his banner on the wave, He bids the mortal poison heal, And leaps triumphant o'er the grave.
" He plucks the pearls that stud the deep, Admiring Beauty's lap to fill ; He breaks the stubborn marble's sleep, And mocks his own Creator's skill ; With thoughts that swell his glowing soul, He bids the ore illume the page, And proudly scorning Time's control, Commerces with an unborn age.
" In fields of air he writes his name, And treads the chambers of the sky ; He reads the stars, and grasps the flame That quivers round the Throne on high. In war renowned, in peace sublime, He moves in greatness and in grace ; His power, subduing space and time, Links realm to realm, and race to race."
CHARLES SPRAGUE.
.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE ASSOCIATIONS OF BOSTON POETRY.
THE first Boston poet was Rev. John Cotton, whom Cotton Mather calls the " father and glory of Boston." He was the second pastor of the earliest church, a correspondent of Cromwell, and a most conscientious and zealous preacher. He thus alludes to his work in the new colony in one of his poems : -
" When I think of the sweet and gracious company That at Boston once I had, And of the long peace of a fruitful ministry For twenty years enjoyed."
His skill as a poet may be seen in the following quaint, elegant, and ingenious lines addressed to Rev. Thomas Hooker of Hartford : -
" To see three things was holy Austin's wish, - Rome in her flower, Christ Jesus in the flesh, And Paul in the pulpit : lately men might see Two first and more in Hooker's ministry.
Zion in beauty is a fairer sight Than Rome in flower, with all her glory dight : Yet Zion's beauty did more clearly shine In Hooker's rule and doctrine : both divine.
390
Young Folks' History of Boston.
"Christ in the spirit is more than Christ in flesh, Our souls to quicken and our states to bless, Yet Christ in spirit brake forth mightily In faithful Hooker's searching ministry.
" Paul in the pulpit Hooker could not reach, Yet did he Christ in spirit so lively preach That living hearers thought he did inherit A double portion of Paul's lively spirit."
Governor Bradford of Plymouth Colony, one of the May- flower's pilgrims, was also a poet. We give a single specimen of his verse : -
TO BOSTON.
" O Boston, though thou now art grown To be a great and wealthy town, Yet I have seen thee a void place, Shrubs and bushes covering thy face, And house in thee none were there, Nor such as gold and silk did wear, No drunkenness were then in thee, Nor such excess as now we see, We then drunk freely of thy spring, Without paying of anything."
A picture of the Golden Age indeed.
The favorite poet of the colony was Anne Bradstreet, daughter of Governor Dudley. She had an English reputa- tion, and was greatly admired and praised by Cotton Mather. She was an ambitious writer and made free use of obscure classical quotations. One of her long poems is entitled " The Four Monarchies of the World."
We have spoken of Mather Byles's poetry. Benjamin Frank- lin wrote poems, and John Quincy Adams produced several elegant reflective poems which may be found in many col- lections.
391
Fohn Pierpont.
Richard H. Dana, who lately died at the age of more than ninety years, was the first of the generation of poets of the present century. Al- though he lived to be so old he closed his literary work in middle age. He was a man of excellent influence both in literature and private life.
The fine historic poem found in many school Readers and Speakers entitled " The Dirge of Alaric the Visigoth " was written by Edward Everett at Harvard College.
SC
GASFATS.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
We now come to a generation of poets whose works are the classics of American literature.
PIERPONT.
John Pierpont, author of the " Airs of Palestine," and in his day the poet of Boston's great public occasions, was born at Litchfield, Connecticut, 1785. In 1819 he was ordained pastor of Hollis Street Church. He was an eloquent ad- vocate of the temperance and the antislavery cause. At the age of seventy-six he went into the Union army as chaplain of a Massachusetts regiment, and was one of the oldest chaplains in the field. He died at Medford, 1866. As we have spoken of him elsewhere, we give but a brief notice in this connection.
392
Young Folks' History of Boston.
CHARLES SPRAGUE
was known in the city as the " poet-banker." Like Pierpont, he was a descendant of one of the fine old New England families. He was educa- ted in the Franklin School. In 1825 he was elected . cashier in the Globe Bank, and he held the office until the time of his death, or nearly half a century.
He was a lover of his home, his family, and friends. Nearly all of his best-known poems were inspired by home affection, as for example : -
" We are all here, Father, mother, sister, brother."
16
CHARLES SPRAGUE.
His lines entitled "The
Brothers" have the same spirit, and show how sacred to him was his own hearth-stone : -
" We in one mother's arms were locked, Long be her love repaid ! In the same cradle we were rocked, Round the same hearth we played.
"We are but two : be that the bond To hold us till we die ; Shoulder to shoulder let us stand, Till side by side we lie."
Next to his family Mr. Sprague loved his native city. We have heard it stated, we know not with what truth, that he
393
Henry Ware, Fr.
only spent one night out of the city for twenty-five years, and that on that occasion, on returning home, he expressed a wish to a friend that twenty-five years might pass ere he should spend a night out of Boston again. His finest poem, with which nearly every schoolboy is familiar, entitled " Ode on Art," and beginning : -
" When, from the sacred garden driven, Man fled before his Maker's wrath,"
was written for the Mechanics' Fair, or the 6th Triennial Festival of the Mechanics' Charitable Association, in 1824. The exhibitions of this Association were way-marks in the progress of Boston's industrial arts ; the Mechanics' Building and Hall, on Chauncy and Bedford Streets, were built from the funds of this society, and the old Mechanics' Fair was a local pride and glory. A permanent building for the exhibition has just been completed on Huntington Avenue.
The old Chauncy Street Church, which Sprague vaguely pictures in the poem entitled "The Winged Worshippers," is gone. The elegant structure on Berkeley Street known as the First Church is its successor. The society, before its removal to Chauncy Street, occupied the Old Brick Church, a quaint structure famous in early history, which stood where is now the Rogers Building, on Washington Street.
HENRY WARE, JR.
We took a walk, on a recent Sunday morning, to the Second Church, on the Boston Back Bay, which stands be- tween the Institute of Technology and the New Old South Church. The beautiful chapel is adorned with mural inscrip- tions containing the names of the pastors of the church, beginning with John Cotton and Cotton Mather, and ending with Ralph Waldo Emerson. Among the mural epitaphs is" that of Henry Ware, Jr. He was pastor of the church as it
394
Young Folks' History of Boston.
existed at its most flourishing period in another part of the city, for twelve years.
There are men who come into the world royally endowed with dispositions and graces to exalt the aims and thoughts of those whom they reach by their influence. Such a man was Henry Ware. He was born at Hingham, Massachusetts, 1794, and died in 1843. To live for the good of others was the inspiration of his stainless and prayerful youth. For twelve years one of the most cultivated congregations in Boston was drawn to his church. The edifice where he preached was called the Cockerell Church, from the un- churchly bird on the vane. It stood on Hanover Street. Charlotte Cushman began life as a public singer here.
If a discriminating student of literature were to be asked what he considered the most sublime production of any New-England poet, he would probably answer, The lines to the Ursa Major by Henry Ware, Jr. It is almost the only Miltonic production of the American muse : -
" Awake, my soul,
And meditate the wonder ! Countless suns Blaze round thee, leading forth their countless worlds, - Worlds in whose bosoms living things rejoice, And drink the bliss of being from the fount Of all-pervading Love. What mind can know, What tongue can utter, all their multitudes ! Thus numberless in numberless abodes, Known but to thee, blessed Father! Thine they are, - Thy children, and thy care, and none o'erlooked Of thee ! No; not the humblest soul that dwells Upon the humblest globe which wheels its course Amid the giant glories of the sky,
Like the mean mote that dances in the beam Amongst the mirrored lamps, which fling
Their wasteful splendor from the palace wall, None, none escape the kindness of thy care ; All compassed underneath thy spacious wing, Each fed and guided by thy powerful hand.
KILBURNIS -
THE "OLD BRICK " CHURCH.
.
-
397
Henry Ware, Fr.
" Tell me, ye splendid orbs ! as from your throne Ye mark the rolling provinces that own Your sway, - what beings fill those bright abodes ? How formed, how gifted ; what their powers, their state, Their happiness, their wisdom? Do they bear The stamp of human nature? Or has God Peopled those purer realms with loftier forms And more celestial minds ? Does Innocence Still wear her native and untainted bloom? Or has Sin breathed his deadly blight abroad, And sowed corruption in those fairy bowers? Has War trod o'er them with his foot of fire ? And Slavery forged his chains ? and Wrath and Hate And sordid Selfishness and cruel Lust Leagued their base bands to tread out light and truth, And scatter woe where Heaven had planted joy ? Or are they yet all paradise, unfallen And uncorrupt, existence one long joy, Without disease upon the frame, or sin Upon the heart, or weariness of life, Hope never quenched, and age unknown, And death unfeared ; while fresh and fadeless youth Glows in the light from God's near throne of love ? Open your lips, ye wonderful and fair !
" Speak, speak ! the mysteries of those living worlds Unfold ! No language ? Everlasting light, And everlasting silence? Yet the eye May read and understand. The hand of God Has written legibly what man may know, - The glory of the Maker. There it shines, Ineffable, unchangeable ; and man, Bound to the surface of this pigmy globe, May know and ask no more. In other days,, When death shall give the encumbered spirit wings, Its range shall be extended ; it shall roam, Perchance, amongst those vast, mysterious spheres ; Shall pass from orb to orb, and dwell in each Familiar with its children, learn their laws, And share their state, and study and adore The infinite varieties of bliss
398
Young Folks' History of Boston.
And beauty, by the hand of Power divine Lavished on all its works. Eternity Shall thus roll on with ever fresh delight ; No pause of pleasure or improvement ; world On world still opening to the instructed mind, - An unexhausted universe, and time But adding to its glories. While the soul,
Advancing ever to the Source of light And all perfection, lives, adores, and reigns In cloudless knowledge, purity, and bliss."
We make this copious extract from the poem for the pur- pose of giving force to an incident that is not well known.
Henry Ware died in the prime of manhood. When the last hour was approaching, the thoughts and visions that had wrapt and entranced his mind when writing the majestic poem seemed to come back to him again. His mind went up, up to the golden circles and zones, and wandered again among the stars. "My mind," he said, " is crowded with precious thoughts of death and immortality. I feel like one who views the parting of the clouds on a dark night. Star after star begins to appear in the space beyond; and the stars I see are but the sentinels of the radiant myriads yet to be revealed."
The origin of another poem- a once popular school poem - illustrates the dignity of the writer's character. Henry Ware's friends were the representatives of wealth and cultured conservatism. But right, to him, was the first con- sideration, and he stood up grandly for the cause of the slave when antislavery ideas were unpopular in Boston. He be- lieved that the moral sense of America would break the fet- ters of the bondsman ; and he spoke of the coming day of universal liberty with the fire and assurance of an ancient prophet. The press assailed him ; the pulpit stood apart from him ; but the lamp of his faith burned with a steady flame. At this time, in the last years of his life, the great news of the
399
Henry W. Longfellow.
West Indian emancipation came ringing over the sea. Eng- land had emancipated 800,000 slaves. The abolitionists held meetings for congratulation and rejoicing. Ware was the poet of the enthusiastic feeling, and his muse caught the spirit of the event. He produced a poem that thrilled many hearts and fired the reformers throughout the land. It was a key-note for freedom, and it stood as a prophecy for twenty years. It was the last poem of his life. How grandly it reads in the light of God's providence to-day ! We need quote only the opening lines, for it is familiar to all who have had experience in elocutionary exer- cises : -
" Oppression shall not always reign, There comes a brighter day."
The story of its origin will explain the words which used to be mystical to us : -
" Old Faneuil echoes to the roar, And rocks as never rocked before And ne'er shall rock again."
Ware sleeps in Mount Auburn.
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
Some time ago, while collecting material for this chapter, we went to Cambridge. The horse-car stopped on a broad, shaded avenue, just outside of Old Cambridge, leaving us under the long, bright archway of October trees. It was a dreamy, hazy afternoon, in whose still, mellow air one might hear the crisp leaves as they dropped among the seared grasses and faded flowers.
A little back from the avenue, garnished with billowy shrub- bery which the early autumn had so touched that every hedge
400
Young Folks' History of Boston.
seemed to have its burning bush, and among old elms illumi- nated by spires and turrets of flame, stood an ancient man- sion, whose airy porticos and broad, stately appearance reminded the stranger that he looked upon a relic of colo- nial days. Everything around the mansion seemed quiet, grand, and old. The great elms embraced it with their glowing arms ; centennial elms they were, under whose shade Washington and Lafayette had stood.
The house is the residence of Henry Wadsworth Longfel- low. All of our readers who love his pure poetry, so full of refreshment and exhilaration, have visited this old mansion, at least, in their dreams.
" Somewhat back from the village street Stands the old-fashioned country-seat. Across its antique portico Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw. And from its station in the hall The ancient time-piece says to all, - Forever - never ! Never -forever !"
It was in this old house that the " Psalm of Life," " Ex- celsior," " Footsteps of Angels," "Hiawatha," and many other poems, familiar as household names, were written.
The house was built for the Vassal family, who were among the most wealthy residents of Cambridge in colonial days. When under the Cambridge elms Washington took command of the American army, in July, 1775, this capacious mansion became his headquarters. Here, more than a hundred years ago, those distinguished persons whose names are associated with the Revolutionary history used to visit him. The house afterwards became the residence of the professors and presi- dents of Harvard College. In 1835 Mr. Longfellow, having been appointed Professor of Modern Languages and Litera-
40I
Henry W. Longfellow.
ture in Harvard College, took up his residence in this historic house.
The poet was born in Portland, Maine, in 1807. In his boyhood he was noted for his studious habits, and such were his brilliancy and industry that he entered Bowdoin College at the early age of fourteen.
It is reported that his first compositions were rejected when offered to a publisher. However this may be, it is true that he wrote in his early years such beautiful poems as the " Hymn of the Moravian Nuns," "The Woods in Winter," and " The Spirit of Beauty."
After his graduation he visited Europe, studying art and the modern languages in the grand old continental cities. His poems have since followed him into all the countries through which he travelled in youth, having been translated into all the principal European tongues.
He made a second visit to Europe in 1835, before assuming the duties of the Harvard professorship. He studied in the old Northern cities, and there laid the foundation of those poems and works associated with Scandinavian history and literature.
Professor Longfellow has lived forty years in the old man- sion. With a poet's reverence for old associations, he has refused to have the house altered in any respect, but has filled its antique rooms with books, pictures, statues, and flowers.
We turned from the arched street and entered the open lawn, in whose low grass the late crickets were singing. We were led into the broad hall of the old mansion, through which a wide staircase ascends, and around which are hung pictures and other decorations of art, and where once the form of Washington was often seen.
" Up and down the echoing stairs, Heavy with the weight of cares, Sounded his majestic tread."
26
402
Young Folks' History of Boston.
One of the old rooms occupied by Washington is his study, and to this we were led. It is a fine apartment, richly stored with cabinets of books and with choice works of art. On the table is Coleridge's inkstand, from which was possibly written the "Ancient Mariner." Among numerous relics near at hand are Tom Moore's waste-paper basket, and a small fragment of Dante's coffin. Green plants mingle with the works of art, and the busts of departed friends recall inci- dents of the years that live only in books or in memory.
In this study stands an old clock, a stately piece of furni- ture, rising from floor to ceiling, and burnished with the deep, rich color that only age can give. It has sounded the hours in which many of the poet's best compositions have been writ- ten, and is made familiar by the poem, " The Old Clock on the Stairs."
Longfellow's poems are as familiar as words of common comfort. Yet, unlike these words, they have not lost their sense of daily use. Nearly every one is acquainted with some of them ; most people know many of them ; every schoolboy reads and declaims them ; and every pulpit quotes them. When a speaker's best thoughts struggle for expres- sion he seeks their help ; when bereavement comes into the family these poems are moistened with tears. There are few lives which they have not befriended, and those they have touched, their virtue has refined and elevated.
What a flight of "winged words " has gone out of this old mansion to minister to the refreshment of the world !
ORIGIN OF LONGFELLOW'S POEMS.
It may interest our readers to know the circumstances under which the most familiar of Longfellow's poems were written.
The " Psalm of Life " was written in Cambridge on a fra- grant summer morning in 1838. Professor Longfellow was
403
Longfellow's Poems.
then a young man, hopeful and aspiring ; life lay open before him, and the poem but reflected the glow of the poet's spirit and expressed the longing of his heart. He regarded it at first as a personal meditation, like a hopeful entry in one's private diary, and refused to publish it. The poem was printed at last and flew over the world. A portion of it was lately found in Japan, inscribed in Japanese on a fan, which was sent to the poet, who now has it in his possession.
" I was once riding in London," said Mr. Longfellow, " when a laborer approached the carriage and asked, 'Are you the writer of the " Psalm of Life "?'
"' I am.'
"' Will you allow me to shake hands with you?'
"We clasped hands warmly. The carriage passed on, and I saw him no more ; but I remember that as one of the most gratifying compliments I ever received, because it was so sin- cere."
The " Footsteps of Angels," read by so many with tear- ful memories of the loved and lost, was also an expression of his own feelings. Mr. Longfellow's first wife, a lady of great excellence and loveliness of character, accompanied him to Europe, and died in Rotterdam in 1835. Her decease in the bright morning of life was one of the experiences that make his early poems so tender in their suggestiveness when they speak of bereavement.
" Then the forms of the departed Enter at the open door ; The beloved, the true-hearted, Come to visit me once more.
" And with them the being beauteous, Who unto my youth was given,
More than all things else to love me, And is now a saint in heaven."
404
Young Folks' History of Boston.
" Excelsior " was written late on an autumn evening in 1841. The poet had received a letter from Charles Sumner, which, we may suppose, was full of noble sentiments. The word " excelsior " caught his eye on a piece of newspaper ; a poetic vision rose before him in harmony with the occasion and his stimulated feelings, and he wrote the first draught of the poem on the back of Mr. Sumner's letter.
"The Wreck of the Hesperus " was written in 1839, at midnight. A violent storm had occurred the night before. The distress and disaster at sea had been great, especially on the capes of the New England coast. The poet was sitting in his study late at night, when the shadowy vision of the wrecked Hesperus came vividly before him. He went to bed but could not sleep. He arose and wrote the poem, which came into his mind by stanzas rather than by lines, finishing it just as the " old clock on the stairs " was striking three.
Sir Walter Scott says that he was led to write the romance of Kenilworth because the first stanza of Mickle's famous ballad of Cumnor Hall haunted him.
" The dews of summer night did fall ; The moon, sweet regent of the sky, Silvered the towers of Cumnor Hall, And many an oak that grew thereby."
Longfellow attributes the writing of "The Wreck of the Hesperus " in part to the dreary sound of the words "Nor- man's Woe."
"The Hanging of the Crane " has a very pleasing history. Longfellow made an evening call on a promising young poet who has since become known to the public. He found him, as the story is told, living in a cosey, humble way, with the tea-table drawn up before the fire, and only the young poet and his newly married wife at the board.
" You are two now," said Longfellow, or words to this effect ; " before long little angels will gladden the household,
-
405
Longfellow's Poems.
and you will need a larger table. Years will pass and the table will grow ; then one by one the loved faces will leave you and you will be two at the table, as you are now. Why do you not write a romance on the Acadian custom of the hanging of the crane, giving distinctness to these family scenes and changes ?"
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.