USA > New York > Old New York : or, Reminiscences of the past sixty years > Part 5
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and fatal self-indulgence when less persuasive counsellors wholly failed. This association led to a singular ex- perience, the impression whereof upon the Doctor's mind was deep and lasting. Kean entertained a great admira- tion for the genius of George Frederic Cooke, and enlisted his medical friend's good offices in his project of erecting a monument over his remains. The desire to do honor to one whom he regarded as having enlarged the sphere and exalted the rank of their common profession was blended with a morbid anxiety to inspect the place of his burial, and all that time had spared of his mortal frame. Through the Doctor's influence, permission was obtained from the Bishop to open the vault where the great actor had been interred ; and, on a calm summer night, they repaired to Trinity churchyard. Kean had set out on his nocturnal enterprise full of vivacity ; but the scene subdued him to a mood of pensive sentiment. He gazed with profound emotion, and moralized with the solemnity of Hamlet be- side the sepulchre of Cooke, reverently possessed him- self of the bones of the forefinger of the right hand-that finger which, sparkling with diamonds and framed in lace ruffles, had been so often raised, with a miraculous im- pressiveness, when Cooke personated Sir Pertinax Mac Sycophant ; and, for hours, lingered, mused, and quoted Shakspeare in the moonlit cemetery, making the night- breeze musical with his plaintive singing of " Those Even- ing Bells." Years afterwards, on the occasion of Kean's own burial, this tribute to his great predecessor was com- memorated by a print stamped upon handkerchiefs, and hawked about to the crowd, representing Cooke's Monu- ment in the far-away land of his latest triumphs and his death, with Edmund Kean and Dr. Francis standing be- side it.
But it was the distinction of Dr. Francis in his social feeling and action, that they were not limited by special
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tastes, but embraced all enlightened and kindly charac- ters and aims ; public spirit, not less than private gratifi- cation, inspired his intercourse and hospitality. When that suggestive, however superfluous, inquiry, "Have we a Bourbon among us?" occupied so many enthusi- asts, it was at the Doctor's house that the party met to examine Rev. Mr. Williams, compare notes, and, if pos- sible, identify the Lost Prince. When Dr. Sims came from the South with a most important and benign but unac- knowledged innovation in one of the most delicate and desperate exigencies of surgical science, it was to Dr. Francis he confidently appealed for support, and through him that he found a way to make his great reform con- spicuously known to the profession, and rendered avail- able by that noblest of modern charities-the Woman's Hospital. When another philanthropic physician sought to carry out a grand humane expedient whereby the In- ebriate could be rescued from shame and restored to soci- ety, by remedial methods and a salubrious Asylum, it was by enlisting the mind and heart of Dr. Francis in the en- terprise that ho won for it the advocacy of the medical fraternity, the encouragement of the State, and the confi- dence of the public. When Dr. Kane's fragile body drooped, and eager mind faltered, in his efforts to obtain the means to achieve his memorable Expedition, it was to Dr. Francis that he turned for hearty comfort and a sym- pathy that cheered him onward. When an English phy- sician, encouraged by the statements of American trav- ellers in Egypt, was induced to bring from Cairo to New York a collection of Antiquities garnered during many years' abode in the land of the Pyramids and the Nile ; and when he discovered how alien was the commercial metropolis of the United States to the spirit of archæe- ological research, and so kept isolated vigil over his un- appreciated treasures, save when some biblical student,
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historical scholar, or curious artist haunted his rooms, and forgot New York amid the relics of the Pharaohs-it was under the hospitableroof and in the cordial presence of Dr. Francis that the disappointed cxile took heart and felt that his long pilgrimage had not been in vain ; and so pa- tiently hoped on until the votaries of knowledge won over the prosperous and patriotic to endow the modern city with the venerable trophies of ancient civilization. When a New York Croesus so wisely and munificently set apart a portion of his wealth to establish, on a grand scale, a free Public Library in New York, not one of her citizens so gloried in the event, and celebrated its realization, and cheered its indefatigable agent and representative, as did Dr. Francis, who knew so well what it was to struggle for Knowledge with inadequate resources, and what incalcu- lable benefactors to humanity were her wise purveyors. The Astor Library was a source of personal pride and pleasure to this its accomplished librarian's staunch friend, whose fireside witnessed the most charming dis- cussions of its progress. When an Oxford travelling Fel- low desired to comprehend some principle of our educa- tional or process of our social development, obscure to his inexperienced observation, it was to Dr. Francis he ap- plied for enlightenment and counsel; when Brodhead had finished a chapter in his History of New York, and wished to test its quality, it was to the true heart of his Knicker- bocker physician, who honored his labors while minister- ing to his health, that the appeal was confidently made. When from the far West or South author, artist, or econ- omist, sought the social centre of the East to try their great experiment, to the medical Nestor of that city they were almost invariably accredited as to an oracle and pro- tector. To-night you would meet in his library an en- thusiast fresh from exploring the ancient mounds of the Mississippi valley, intent upon gaining the Doctor's alle-
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giance to his theory of their origin and purpose ; and to- morrow he would be closeted with an Arctic voyager ex- amining the trophies of that perilous enterprise; now he puts a worthy Italian exile on the track of successful work ; to-morrow, is the endcared cicerone of Lady Frank- lin through the memorials of progress that signalize the city of his love : and, again, it is the introduction of the Croton or the adornment of the Central Park that fills his discourse ; this week a joint letter from Macready and Thackeray, and next a Hospital Anniversary ; one evening the death of a Statesman, and another the arrival of a re- nowned Author ; here a scientific discovery, there a chari- table enterprise ; at this visit a fresh publication, at that a characteristic anecdote, which varied and emphasized to the habitués of his dwelling, the large, liberal, and sym- pathetic life of Dr. Francis .* His friends and guests were taught a grand lesson of generous affinities, were lifted from selfhood into humanity, and inducted into the brotherhood of knowledge by this benign activity. Pro- vincial narrowness, fastidious reserve, stolid indifference to other than personal interests, and the emasculating in- fluence of exclusiveness, were thus and there dispelled as the broad wings of the wind disperse local exhalations, and the sight of the horizon wins the eye from what is temporary and adjacent to the continuous and universal. Another kind of social activity wherein he was remark- ably efficient was as a member and officer of numerous associations. No citizen more successfully promoted, by contributions and discussion, the objects of the New York Historical Society, some of whose most valuable donations were prompted by him ; among the trophies of that pros- perous institution his liberal co-operation is largely evi- deut. The Society of Natural History, the Academy of
* Appendix IV.
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Fine Arts, the Mercantile Library Association, the Eth- nologieal, Typographieal, and Kane Monument Societies, found in him consistent and generous support ; while, as we have seen, he was long and often the ruling spirit of char- itable and medical associations at home, and an honorary member of numerous foreign and native institutions.
We know not of a more beautiful example of the law of compensation than that whereby the absorbing duties of a special vocation are made subservient to social enter- prise and culture. In this country especially, where stu- dent-life so often ends with academie education, where the man of intelleet and high ambition is ushered at once from the University to the seene of professional toil ; and is so apt to cast aside the improving influence of habitual reading, and to forget prematurely the dreams of youth, it is of the greatest importance that the minds of those devoted to special investigation and endowed with literary or scientific abilities, should, through social life, escape at times from the absorbing outward activity which, unmodi- fied by such alleviation, soon degenerates into a meehan- ical routine and a narrow sphere of experience.
There is so much to be gained, such a wealth of moral inspiration, such a discipline and a resource for mind and heart, to be found in varied and intelligent companionship, in the interehange of opinion, the diseussion of public questions, and the exercise of mutual sympathy, that when we have compared the arid isolation of the mere book- worm with the vivaeious, versatile, and genial mental ae- tivity and acquisition of the social philosopher, we cannot but regard the latter character as the most efficient exem- plar of self-culture. If it be true that the life of the soul is most real in the atmosphere of ideas and emotion, and the development of individual faculty and enjoyment a re- sult of contact with superior and select intelligences, then he is truly wise who, like Montaigne, prefers to forge his
-
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mind rather than to furnish it ; and, while regarding books as " the best viaticum" upon this mortal journey, ever cheerfully turns from them to humanity as both their source and object. It was the impulse, the refreshment, and the instruction derivable from social intercourse which constituted the habitual resource and the grateful inspira- tion of existence to Dr. Francis ; this his daily business enabled him freely to enjoy, his rare intellectual appreci- ation to secure, and his broad and active sympathies to profit by. Nothing so marks the diversity of human character as the degree of sensibility to, and the interest which daily experience, observation, and communion of thought, afford. Upon how few men, comparatively, does the history enacted before them make any distinct and last- ing impression ; how few note the connection of events and the significance of life ; to what a minority of the race do the advent of a remarkable character, the career of con- temporary genius, the facts that develop and illustrate civilization, come home as matters of personal concern, subjects affiliated with their conscious being ; the means of arriving at truth ! Consult half your acquaintance, and you will often find that the scenes they have beheld have left no record ; the people they have met have come and gone like shadows; and opportunities of information neither enlarged their conceptions nor deepened their sympathies. Habit indurates, nearness obscures, famil- iarity makes indifferent, the most suggestive and moment- ous incidents, the most original persons. Without an eye for the picturesque, a heart for the humane, a sense of the comic, an enthusiasm for the grand and beautiful, life and its revelations, society and its amenities, Nature and her miracles, are devoid of meaning and of charm. " When we are much attached to our ideas," wrote Mad- ame de Staël, " we endeavor to connect every thing with them." And this is the secret of remarkable memories.
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A biography of Dr. Francis, which records the events of a strictly personal nature which happened to himself, would contain little of general interest ; for his life was neither adventurous, romantic, nor exceptional ; but a me- moir which traced the life of his mind, the scope of his af- finities-the men, the achievements, the opinions, and the public affairs wherewith, through an active and compre- hensive intellect and a generous and sympathetic heart, he was identified-would form a history of his times, a catalogue raisonée of the means and motives whereby, in this age and country, social progress and national devel- opment attained their present condition. John Foster wrote a memorable essay ou " A man's writing memoirs of Himself," wherein, with psychological insight, he points out the relation between consciousness and expe- rience, in building up character to its entire individuality and equipment. And it is because this relation was vivid in the instance before us-because the various elements of life within the compass of the Doctor's observation aud sympathy, were assimilated, reproduced, and made cm- phatic-that he affords a study and an example to the lover of humanity : for he was not a creative genius, a great reformer, a hero, or a discoverer ; he left no won- derful work of art, no extraordinary product of literature, no marvellous story of adventure to make illustrious his name. He was for half a century a physician in a popu- lous and prosperous metropolis, as thousands have been and are still. It is the spirit in which he worked, the view he took of life, the manner in which he used oppor- tunities, the interest he found and proclaimed in the place and among tho people where his lot was cast, that now bid us pause and consider what he was, and how he lived.
The most casual survey of the subjects and objects wherewith Dr. Francis identified himself by advocacy or illustration, and upon which he descanted, on every occa-
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sion, so as to make them intelligible and interesting to the least enthusiastic, will indicate both his public spirit and his special knowledge. Botany carly won his earnest love through his familiarity with Colden's labors, his ad- miration of Bartram's pioncer enterprise, and the estab- lishment of the Elgin gardens by Dr. Hosack. Of the latter he thus speaks in his Historical Discourse:
"Those twenty acres of culture, more or less, were a triumph of individual zeal, ambition, and liberality, of which our citizens had reason to be proud, whether they deemed the garden as conservative of our indigenous bot- any, or as a repository of the most precious exotics. The eminent projector of this distinguished garden, with a princely munificence, had made these grounds a resort for the admirers of Nature's vegetable wonders, and for the students of her mysteries. Here were associated, in ap- propriate soil, exposed to the native elements, or protected by the conservatory and the hothouse, examples of vege- table life, and of variety of development-a collection that might have captivated a Linnaeus, or a Jussieu ; and here, indeed, a Michaux, and a Barton, a Mitchill, a Doughty, a Pursh, a Wilson, or a Le Conte, often re- paired to solve the doubts of the cryptogamist, or to con- firm the nuptial theory of Vaillant."
Originally attached to this beautiful science by his in- vestigation of the materia medica, he soon learned to ap- preciate its value as a pursuit and a social interest ; plants and trees were endeared to him as they seldom are to a lover of cities: he knew the history of explorations in this field of Nature, and lionored the cultivators thereof with an affectionate zeal ; perhaps he loved individual trees and favorite gardens all the more from being so loyal to the " sweet security of streets;" it was this taste which made Thomson, Cowper, Shenstone, and Cowley, precious in his memory, and he watched the old Stuyvesant pear-
*
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tree-lonely witness of the ancient Dutch governor's or- chard, in the busy heart of a populous eity-with au almost filial satisfaction ; its slow deeay, its earliest blossoms, and its meagre harvest of fruit, were observed and noted by him with singular eonstaney ; he revereneed the thir- teen elms that Hamilton planted at his country-seat, to symbolize the original States of the Union, and that which overhangs the entrance to St. Paul's, because its shadow fell on the coffin of that statesman when Morris pronounced his eulogy ; he loved " those majestie sycamores planted by the Crugers, the Murrays, and the Jays," around his alma mater, " which City progress has recently so agoniz- ingly rooted out;" and he gazed fondly on the trees be- side his window on summer evenings-listened pensively to the rustle of their leaves, and discoursed therefrom of arboreseent wonders with the zest of a professed naturalist. No citizen of New York followed more earnestly the de- velopment of Clinton's great project, which connected the metropolis with the interior by linking river and lake ; Canal Navigation was, of all economical subjects, the one he best understood; its history in his native State, wherefrom he dated her marvellous prosperity, was intimately known to him, with all the political associations connected there- with, and furnished many an illustration of character and administrative genius. Strangers, and even many na- tives, are indebted to Dr. Francis for a new and important revelation of the position and the indirect results of this grand enterprise. It was the same as regards the appli- cation of Steam to Navigation ; the origin and progress of which, and especially the long-baffled and final triumph of Fulton and his eoadjutors, were, perhaps, thoroughly understood by no one so well as he ; it was a theme upon which his anecdotes and eloquence seemed exhaustless.
"I shall never forget," he writes, " that night of Feb- ruary 24th, 1815, a frosty night indeed, on which he died.
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Dr. Hosack, with whom I was associated in business, and who saw him in consultation with Dr. Bruce, in the last hours of his illness, returning home at midnight from his visit, remarked : 'Fulton is dying ; his severe cold amidst the ice, in crossing the river, has brought on an alarming inflammation and glossitis. Hc extended to me,' continued the Doctor, 'his generous hand, grasping mine closely, but he could no longer speak.' I had been with Mr. Ful- ton at his residence but a short time before, to arrange some papers relative to Chancellor Livingston, and the floating dock erected at Brooklyn. Business dispatched, he entered upon the character of West the painter, the ' Columbiad' of Barlow, and the great pictures of Lear and Ophelia, which he had deposited in the American Acad- emy. This interview of an hour with the illustrious man has often furnished grateful reflections."
Another memorable episode in our social and political history, the incidents of which were remarkably fresh in his memory and inspiring to his mind, was the period of the French Revolution, and its influence upon our young Republic. He had fully discussed this momentous theme with Thomas Paine and Gouverneur Morris, when their Paris experiences were vividly recalled ; he had often heard the Carmagnole chanted in the streets, and Citizen Genet had frankly talked over his theories and his schemes before him .*
* "I have spoken of Genet," he observes, "with severity; he labors under reproach from every historian who has recorded his decds, and by none is he more chastised than Judge Marshall; yet, withal, Genet possessed a kindly nature, was exuberant in speech, of lively parts, and surcharged with anec- dotes. His intellectual culture was considerahle ; he was master of several living languages, a proficient in music as well as a skilful performer. To a remark I made to him touching his execution on the piano, he subjoined ; 'I have given many hours daily for twelve years to this instrument, and now reach some effective sounds.' He had a genius for mechanics, and after he had hecome an agriculturist in this country, wrote on machinery and on hus- bandry. He assured me (in 1812) the time would arrive when his official
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In conversing with Dr. Francis of the temporary mad- ness and subsequent political influence of those days of intense excitement, we seemed to have lived therein-so clear were the details, so real the scenes he so graphically described. Salient newspaper paragraphs, current party maxims, famous speeches and epigrams, badges and songs, meetings and caricatures, that signalized the controversy between Federalists and Jeffersonians-the looks, sayings, characters, and costumes of the leaders; the practical working of their respective doctrines, and all the phenom- ena of that crisis of opinion, ceased to be a subject of for- mal annals, and became, to a later generation, like matters of personal experience, when thus reasoned of and un- folded by so sympathetic a reminiscent. The firmness of his own political convictions gave emphasis to such conversations ; while the dramatic reproduction of char- acter imparted vital significance to the narrative. The skepticism born of that chaotic era in France, and its tokens in America, were as clearly defined to his au- ditor as the bitter controversy and the implacable fac- tions thus engendered. Perhaps, of all literary occur- rences, none so impressed and inspired the Doctor as the establishment of the Edinburgh Review; he was fond of speculating upon the intellectual impulses and reform thereby secured, of analyzing the peculiar merits of the early contributors ; of describing the passionate eagerness with which the initial numbers were read by a limited
conduet as minister would be cleared of its dark shades. 'To other shoulders, said he, 'will be transferred the odium I now bear.' In a conversation with him on the vicissitudes and events of the French Revolution, he said, . Their leaders were noviees : had they been versed in Albany politics but for three months, we would have escaped many trials, and our patriotism been crowned with better results.' It is to be regretted that the papers of Genet have not yet seen the light : they embrace letters from Voltaire and Rous- seau, and years of correspondenee with eminent American statesmen, down to the elose of his eventful life. He died at Jamaica, Long Island, in 1834, aged seventy-one years."
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circle in New York ; of the effect of certain articles, and the ultimate influence on literature, which the independence and ability of this journal produced. Not less zealously did he expound the modifications in the current philos- ophy of the mind, and in the dissection of the brain, in- duccd by the discoveries of Gall ; illustrate the success of quackery by anccdotes relating to Perkins's Tractors, of fanaticism in the career of Jemima Wilkinson, and of journalism by the institution of Penny Papers. When research was at fault for a date, a fact, a book, a name, or an authority, Dr. Francis was the living reference confi- dently sought by friend, fellow-citizen, and stranger.
VIII.
One of the most individual characteristics of Dr. Fran- cis was his phraseology : naturally fluent, alive to rhetor- ical effect, and his taste in language having been formed when redundant expressions were in vogue, his fondness for Johnson and his extravagant humor combined to make him a dramatic talker ; metaphor, and quaint, naïve, or grotesque epithets, were his delight; he loved, when in high spirits, or under strong nervous excitement, to in- dulge a propensity for verbal caricature, as men of more lithe frames give vent to exuberant moods by gymnastic feats, and those of musical ability find utterance in con- vivial song. He was in the habit, in his genial inter- course, of addressing every one of his own sex as "Doc- tor ;" and it was jocosely said of him that no University President ever conferred so many degrees. When in earnest conversation, however, "Sir" was substituted for "Doctor." The most amusing trait to the habitués of his domestic circle were the original and often felicitous fancy-names which he bestowed at random : he would call
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a kindly, elegant elergyman, Fenelon ; a youth with a dash of enthusiasm, Mortimer; a friend or ehanee guest who betrayed any special refinement of feeling or tend- ency to sentiment, Petrareli or Claude ; a fine-looking woman, Prima Donna ; and a very engaging one, "tanti palpiti ;" a man of pleasure, Don Giovanni; an artist, Rubens or Domenichino ; a dilletante, Shenstone ; and speak of one of arid temperament as a cadavre, and a heavy, lymphatic fellow, as an " adipose ;" in momentary oblivion of the name of a dish, he would offer it under the name of "serew-driver ;" and, speaking of an obtuse bigot, he would deseribe him as destined to " perish in the mephitie exhalations of his own ignoranee ;" introdueing a elerieal friend, who had lived in India, to a stranger of the same profession, he ealled him " the nabob of his art." In writing and talking, there was a redundaney and needless eoneatenation of words, sometimes, indeed, hu- morously used, but not less the result of a habit indueed by early familiarity with, and admiration of a style less simple and direet than that which now prevails, and is justly considered aceordant with good sense and pure taste. It must be confessed, therefore, that " the thread of his verbosity was sometimes finer than the staple of his argument ;" but this was one of the characteristic traits of the man, belonged to his temperament, and aeeorded with his individuality.
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