USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III > Part 85
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1 [This statuette of Mr. Ticknor, made by Mr. Martin Milmore "as a compliment and ex- pression of gratitude " (Life, Letters, and Journals of Geo. Ticknor, ii. 492), is inscribed : " Aet. Sux, Ixxvii. Libris semper amicis,"- Mr Ticknor
selecting the motto. It was made in ISGS. It is shown on a table in his library, in the engraving on the next page. A life-size bust of Mr. Tick nor, likewise by Milmore, was presented to the Boston Public Library in 1868. - I.D.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
MR. TICKNOR'S LIBRARY.1
unknown, but singularly undeserving of attention amid the multitude of more important claims.
There is something pathetic in the confidence with which, at intervals of a few years, some earnest soul, or perhaps a group of them, sets on foot a new periodical; starting forth with a full stock of enthusiasm and a con- fortable pile of contributed material of just the required stamp, only to repeat, after a declining volume or two, the dismal story, - of enthusiasnı
} [This cut follows a photograph taken since Mr. Ticknor's death, kindly lent by Mrs. Ticknor. The house in its present condition is shown in an engraving of Park Street, given in Mr. Bugbee's chapter in this volume ; and also, as it stood a few years after its erection, in the heliotype given in Mr. Stanwood's chapter in Vol. IV. Of the above view Mr. Ticknor's daughter has furnished, by request, the following description : -
"The portrait over the fireplace is that of Sir Walter Scott, painted by Leslie for my father, mentioned in the Life, Letters, etc. of G. Ticknor, vol. i. pp. 388, 389, and 407 ; and also in Leslie's Reminiscences. The books visible in the cascs, on the left of the spectator, are, suc- cessively, of German, French, and English lit- erature, until the press next the fireplace is
rcached, which contains works on history. Be- tween the fireplace and window are works of biography and theology. The cupboards below are all filled with books.
"The large chair by the fireplace, on the right of the spectator, is that in which Mr. Ticknor habitually sat.
" The appearance of the room, as seen in this view, is absolutely the same as when he was liv- ing, except for the addition of one or two small pieces of furniture. The Spanish books, re- moved after Mr. Ticknor's death, occupied the whole end of the room opposite the fireplace ; and their places have been filled by Greek, Latin, Italian, and other books, which had at different times been crowded out and exiled to another part of the house." - ANNA ELIOT TICKNOR, June, 1881 .- ED.]
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THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
quenched by hard work and lack of support, and of contributions labori- ously extorted from indifferent or reluctant friends, and perhaps not of just the required stamp any longer. The Dial kept itself alive for four years. While it was yet comparatively prosperous, in 1842 a new magazine was established, called the Boston Miscellany of Literature and Fashion. Its editor was Nathan Hale, Jr., who drew contributions from Dr. Chan- ning, Alexander H. Everett, Edward Everett, Nathaniel Hawthorne, W. W. Story, J. R. Lowell, N. P. Willis, and many others. A charming periodical was the result, which did not survive its first year.
After the discontinuance of the Dial, some of its most eminent support- ers and contributors, chief among whom was George Ripley, the head of the Brook Farm Community, devised a new journal, - half magazine, half newspaper, - to take up, in some sort, its work as an organ of advanced thought. The new journal was called the Harbinger, a large octavo of sixteen pages, "published by the Brook Farm Phalanx " once a week at Boston and New York, and with an admirable list of writers, nearly equally divided between the two cities, including the names of Ripley, W. H. Channing, G. W. Curtis, Lowell, Whittier, Story, Horace Greeley, J. S. Dwight, and many more. Mr. Francis G. Shaw's translation of Consuelo was printed in the Harbinger, beginning in the first number of the paper. Attractions enough were here combined to have secured for the paper a long, prosper- ous, and useful existence. It was not too philosophic or too aggressive to commend itself to steady-going people who still held by the old ways, while its tone was thoroughly liberal, earnest, and progressive; but it was discontinued at the end of the fifth year.1
The last attempt at establishing a journal in the interest at once of good letters and of reform was the work chiefly of Theodore Parker, who in 1846 had taken charge of the society in Boston, and found his influence necessarily much enlarged by the change. Mr. Parker had never been a contributor to the North American Review, and that journal, under the management of Francis Bowen, was then in its most conservative phase. To the Chris- tian Examiner he had been a frequent and welcome contributor ; but the Examiner was a theological review, published in the interest of a sect, and that sect one of the least numerous of all. It was felt by Mr. Parker, as well as by many other scholars of liberal instincts, that the condition of the country was such as ought to receive more attention and sterner comment than any existing review would admit to its pages. “We want a tremen- dous journal," said Parker, " with ability in its arms and picty in its heart. It should be literary, philosophical, poetical, theological ; above all human, -human even to divinity. I think we may find help in unexpected quarters." Many conferences were held with Emerson, Dr. Howe, J. E. Cabot, and other friends; and the first number of the Massachusetts Quar- terly Review appeared in December, 1847. Mr. Emerson wrote the editor's address, as he had done seven years before for the Dial; but in the tone
1 [See Mr. Bradford's chapter in Vol. IV. - ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
of the two addresses there is a difference as wide as in the motives of the iwo journals. The new review was certainly not " secondary or bookish in its origin ;" and its inspiration was very clearly " caught from primary instincts." The ambition here was not for culture or self-development, - the transcendental phraseology was laid aside; the desire was to move the con- science and heart of the nation, and awaken them to a more carnest interest in the national affairs. The overwhelming and stifling materialism of the people, the brutal and reckless behavior of their chosen rulers, arc the points most strongly emphasized in the address of the new editors. The war with Mexico was now at its height. "We see that reckless and destructive fury which characterizes the lower classes of American society, and which is pampered by hundreds of profligate presses. The young intriguers who drive in bar-rooms and town-meetings the trade of politics, sagacious only to seize the victorious side, have put the country into the position of an overgrown bully; and Massachusetts finds no heart nor head to give weight and efficacy to her contrary judgment." A voice must be raised on behalf of decent government. But politics is not the only im- portant matter. " A journal that would meet the real wants of this time must have a courage and power sufficient to solve the problems which the great, groping society around us, stupid with perplexity, is dumbly explor- ing. Let it not show its astuteness by dodging each difficult question, and arguing diffusely every point on which men are long ago unanimous." Socialism, slavery, the new questions in natural science, the new heresies in theology, invited candid and fearless discussion. It is praise enough for the new Review to say that it did not discredit this programme. An article of great severity on the Mexican War, by Mr. Parker; a paper by Dr. Howe, on the condition and prospects of Greece; another, by Mr. Jamully HowE. April 6. 1032. Weiss, on the life and writings of Agassiz, who had just accept- ed the Harvard professorship; and a thoughtful paper by Mr. Cabot, on the influence of mod- ern civilization on the fine arts, suggested by Mr. Powers's statue of the Greek Slave ; with some pages of short reviews and notices, -made up the opening number. Mr. Parker was from the first, though much against his wish, the laboring editor, receiving occasional assistance from Wendell Phillips, Henry James, Edouard Desor, and others, besides those just named as contributing to the first number. But the usual disappointments of the editor were not long in arriving. Too large a proportion of the writing fell upon him for lack of adequate help. Twelve quarterly numbers were issued, and the undertaking was then reluctantly abandoned.
In the department of history, Boston has contributed to the literature of the country some works of distinguished excellence. In 1840 the two
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THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
authors who were the first, in later days, to make this department a con- spicuous one, were already in full career. George Bancroft, in his long and crowded life, has shown us a remark- GuBancnt Mar 20 . 1848. able example of a type not uncommon in Europe, - the union of the man of letters with the statesman. He seems from early youth to have foreseen and prepared himself for a high career. Graduating at the age of seventeen he went abroad at once, studying for two years at Göttingen, and passing several years in alternate study and travel in Germany, Italy, and France; enjoying in all those countries, to an unus- ual extent, the acquaintance and friendship of men of the first eminence in scholarship, - of Schleiermacher, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and Varn- hagen von Ense, in Germany; Bunsen, Niebuhr, and Manzoni, in Rome; Cousin, Benjamin Constant, and Alexander von Humboldt, in Paris. In Heidelberg he pursued his historical studies with Schlosser. Upon his return to America he became a frequent contributor to the North American Review, then under the charge of Jared Sparks. In 1823 he published a translation of Heeren's Politics of Ancient Greece. He was not long in getting at work on the history which he had early determined to undertake; but he worked with patience and deliberation, and it was not until 1834 that his first volume was ready for publication. The second and third volumes fol- lowed in 1838 and 1840, while he held the responsible, if not yet exacting, position of Collector of the port of Boston, - a position which, in the present days, we should regard as ludicrously incongruous with the quiet prosecu- tion of literary or historical studies. Aux vaillants cœurs, rien impossible. Mr. Bancroft's labors on his great work were often interrupted by business of too great moment to be put by. Successive appointments to high pub- lic office, while they left him diminished leisure, saved him, perhaps, from the characteristic defect of the writer who mixes little with men. He was Secretary of the Navy in 1845; and the next year was Minister of the United States at London, holding this post until 1849. This interval was, however, of inestimable advantage to him. The public offices, both of Lon- don and Paris, opened their doors to the American Minister; and, in addi- tion to the exhaustless records thus made available, immense collections of letters and manuscripts, which had come down from the English statesmen of the Revolutionary era and had remained in the possession of their fam- ilies, were put at his disposal. The fourth volume of the history appeared in 1852 ; the fifth and sixth in 1854; bringing the work down to the open- ing of the Revolution. The period of the war, and the organization of the government under the Federal Constitution, occupied four volumes more, of which the last was issued in 1875. Finished under the pressure of advancing age, the later volumes show no decline in vivacity of style or strength and firmness of thought.
Four years after Mr. Bancroft published the first volume of his history, VOL. 111 .- 84.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
there appeared the first of a series of historical works whose picturesque- ness and novelty of subject won for them a popularity which no American work had as yet achieved. The career of William H. Prescott offers, in all TH. Prescott but perseverance and steadfast adherence to a delib- erately formed purpose, a strong and pathetic con- trast to the busy and conspicuous life of Mr. Bancroft. Graduating in 1814, he spent two years in travel abroad, but without any special aim beyond diversion and the restoration of his impaired eyesight. He was strongly interested in French and Italian literature, and made con- scientious studies in this field, even cherishing at one time, we are told, an ambition to write a comprehensive history of the literature of one or the other of those countries; but the undertaking, on a nearer view, appeared too great, and was relinquished. The only direct result of his studies in this direction appeared in some papers contributed chiefly to the North Amer- ican Review, and which were collected in a volume of Miscellanies, pub- lished in Boston and London in 1845. He had, however, conceived the desire to become a historian, and in the absence of strong predilections appears to have cast about for a subject. An entry in his diary in 1819, when he was twenty-three years old, shows the deliberation of his purpose. He there assigns ten years for general preparatory studies, and ten years more for the composition of the work, whatever it might prove to be. He made a fortunate choice of subject, in the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and sent to Madrid for the necessary materials, which, through the influence of Mr. A. H. Everett, then United States Minister at that Court, he readily obtained. An imposing mass of manuscripts and printed works was forwarded to Boston, but found the eager student incapable of reading so much as a titlepage. The story of the trials by which Mr. Prescott was beset through his partial blindness, and of the patience, deter- mination, and ingenuity through which he overcame them, is too familiar to need repetition. The history, spite of all obstacles, was published within the ten years which the writer had assigned for the work, and its reception was doubtless ample compensation for the fatigues it had cost him. It was at once republished in London, and translated into French, German, Spanish, and Italian. Twelve editions have been printed in the United States, and four in England. Far from resting content with this triumph, Mr. Prescott set to work without delay upon the history of the Conquest of Mexico. In this case, as before, he spared himself the labor of personal research through the state-paper offices, but availed himself of the assist- ance of willing friends, through whom he received in due time a mass of documents from the Royal Academy of Madrid, from the family archives of the descendants of Cortes, and from Mexican sources, covering some eight thousand folio pages.1 His infirmity of eyesight did not mend, and he was forced to employ the same methods of reading and writing as in his first work. Long practice had, however, given facility both to author
1 Griswold's Prose Writers of America.
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THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
and secretary. The work was finished in less than five years from its com- mencement, and was received not less favorably than its predecessor. It was published in 1843. The third history, the Conquest of Peru, appeared in 1847, after a still shorter interval. Mr. Prescott then entered on a work of much greater difficulty. The period of Philip II. was a subject involv- ing not merely a continuous narrative of successive and obviously connected events, but the story of vast and obscure complications with almost every Court in Europe. This was the last great undertaking of Mr. Prescott, and was destined to remain a fragment. Two volumes were issued in 1855, and
PRESCOTT'S LIBRARY.
a third in 1858; and much had been done on succeeding portions of the work, when the author's patient labors were brought to a sudden close by his death, in 1859.1
The line of historical writers was worthily continued by Richard Hil- dreth, who had been one of the contributors to the New England Magazine in 1832, and who was for some years after that date the successful manager of the Boston Atlas. In 1840, having retired from that position, he devoted himself to literature. His productions were, for the most part, in the nature
1 [The tributes published in the Mass. Hist." Soc. Proc. of that year testify to the honor in which he was held. A few years later, in 1864, appeared a Life of Prescott, prepared by his life- long friend, George Ticknor. Before beginning on his Spanish subjects, Prescott had contem- plated a work on Molière, and the books he col- lected, becoming the property of Mr. Ticknor,
were given by him to the Public Library. Mr. Prescott left by his will the manuscripts collect- ed for the writing of his Ferdinand and Isabella to Harvard College Library. After some years the bulk of his library was sold at public auc- tion; but not till the marks of his ownership had been generally and unfortunately removed. -ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
of moral or political treatises. Of these, the first to attract general notice was Despotism in America, a vigorous though temperate and argumentative arraignment of the system of slavery in the Southern States. In 1844 he published a purely philosophical treatise called the Theory of Morals, followed some years later by another on the Theory of Politics. These works were colored by a more advanced radicalism than had before been ventured on, except, perhaps, in the columns of the Liberator ; and their reception by the organs of criticism was surprisingly warm. This was par- ticularly the case with the Theory of Morals, as to which the North Amer- ican Review for once joined hands with Brownson's Quarterly in what must now be admitted to have been not so much criticism as abusc. Mr. Hildreth now began a comprehensive History of the United States. The work of Mr. Bancroft had reached its third volume, but was for the time inter- rupted by the author's official position in London. Mr. Hildreth was not satisfied with Mr. Bancroft's treatment of some portions of his subject, and tried his hand at a different plan. Less diffuse in detailed description, less enthusiastic and demonstrative in his patriotism, Mr. Hildreth passed briefly over many points on which his predecessor had delighted to linger, while he gave much attention to certain others which the earlier history had scarcely touched at all. The work was pursued with steadfast industry. Three volumes, published in 1849, carried the history as far as the adoption of the Federal Constitution; and the remaining three, bringing it down to the close of Monroe's first term, were completed and issued within three years from the appearance of the first volume.
In 1851 Mr. Francis Parkman gave to the public the first fruits of his studies in a field which, lying straight in the path of every historian of the United States, had hitherto been strangely neglected by them all. The exploits of the Spanish adventurers and the English settlers had received abundant attention at various hands; but the story of the determined and long-continued resistance of the Indian tribes, and of the French attempts at colonization, North and South, - with the experiences, heroic, pathetic, fanatic, picturesque, of the religious entrepreneurs, - had been left for the fortunate hand of a new writer. Mr. Parkman was not an unknown writer. The admirable papers he had contributed to the Knickerbocker Magazine, descriptive of his sojourn among the Indian tribes on the plains of the Platte River, and published later under the title of The Oregon Trail, had sufficiently introduced him as a vigorous and graceful narrator, possessing a keen relish for the wholesome and unconventional life of the camp and a generous sympathy with all forms of simple manliness, without much respect to race or color. The History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac was published in a single octavo volume, and at once attracted much attention, at first from the unaccustomed subject, and then from the visible merit and value of the work. Mr. Parkman next occupied himself with the attempts of the earliest French explorers; but, working under the disadvantage of a physi- cal infirmity curiously similar to Mr. Prescott's, a long interval necessarily
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THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
elapsed before the first of the series of books was issued which are now so well known under the comprehensive title of France and England in the New World; and which embrace under separate titles1 accounts of the explorations and strifes of the Spaniards and Huguenots in Florida, of Champlain on the Northern border, of La Salle on the Mississippi, the missions of Lejeune, Brébœuf, Lallemant, and Jogucs on the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence, and other phases of French-Canadian history. To the sombre and depressing details of New England Puritan history these romantic and picturesque narratives of gallant struggle, of heroic sacrifice, of steadfast endurance, - the more pathetic because for the most part futile, - afford a remarkable contrast and relief.
If the literature of Boston is rich in historical works, it is not less rich in those collections of biographical memoranda, and of the speeches, corre- spondence, and diaries of public men which furnish the materials for histor- ical studies. Such collections have, in several instances, been the grateful work of proud and loving descendants; but scarcely one of the great men who have given to Massachusetts her just prominence in the history of the country has lacked a friend to whom such a task was a pleasure, adding to the long list of pious memorials, of widely-varying interest and literary importance, but animated by the same generous motive, -to preserve and hand down the remembrance of the men who in the stress of angry and turbulent politics have kept the faith, that their successors may not be without the benefit of their example. Thus, in 1809, the works of Fisher Ames were brought together and published, with a brief memoir, within a ycar of his death ; but not so completely but that his son, Seth Ames, was able, forty-five years after, to make a much more perfect collection, includ- ing a considerable part of the correspondence of that eminent statesman. Thus William Tudor published, in 1823, his Life of Fames Otis ; and J. T. Austin, five years later, his Life of Elbridge Gerry. Thus Josiah Quincy, in 1825, published the Life of his father, Josiah Quincy, Jr., of Revolutionary fame; and William W. Story, in 1851, the Life and Letters of his father, Judge Story; and Edmund Quincy, in 1867, the Life of his father, Josiah Quincy ; and Robert C. Winthrop, in 1864, the Life and Letters of John Winthrop. The Life of John Adams, begun by his son, John Quincy Adams, was finished by his grandson, Charles Francis Adams, and printed in the first of ten octavo volumes containing the works and correspond- ence of the second President, and issued at intervals from 1851 to 1856. A memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams was written by Josiah Quincy and published in 1858; but a more detailed account, composed in great measure of his diary from 1795 until his death in 1848, was com- piled by Charles Francis Adams, and published in ten volumes from 1874 to 1877. The Life of James Sullivan by Thomas C. Amory ; the Life of Samuel Adams by William V. Wells; of Joseph Warren by Richard Froth-
1 Pioneers of France in the New World ; rewritten because of Margry's documentary Jesuits in North America; Discovery of the publications) ; Old Regime in Canada ; and Fron- Great West (later called La Salle, when largely tenac.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
ingham; of Timothy Pickering by Octavius Pickering and Charles W. Upham; of Count Rumford by Dr. George E. Ellis, - are later additions.
The orators on the other hand have, for the most part, not waited for posterity, but have themselves collected and revised their speeches for publication. A volume of the public addresses of Daniel Webster was DantWebster issued as early as 1830, containing the noble commemorative addresses at Plymouth and Bunker Hill, and that
delivered in Faneuil Hall in 1826 on the occasion of the death of Adams and Jefferson, the great speech in the Senate on Foote's resolution, .with other Congressional speeches, and the famous argument in the trial of Knapp at Salem. A brief memoir of Webster, written by Edward Everett, was prefixed to the volume. Other volumes of Mr. Webster's speeches were issued from time to time during his life, and a complete edition was in course of publication at the time of his death in 1852.
Of Mr. Everett's orations, a collection in a single volume was published in 1836, and reprinted, with additions filling a second volume, in 1850. A third volume was added by Mr. Everett in 1859, and a fourth by his sons in 1868, the last containing, among others, the remarkable address on the character of Washington, - remarkable in itself, but even more so in its extraordinary popularity, the number of its repetitions, and the sums it was made to yield to a national enterprise which was miserably defeated after all.
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