1.11 SKA K Y
i n:
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
ADDRESSES AND SPEECHES.
UITI7BESIT7
ADDRESSES
AND
SPEECHES
ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS,
FROM 1869 TO 1879.
BY
ROBERT C. WINTHROP.
BOSTO
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
1878.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by
ROBERT C. WINTHROP,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
CAMBRIDGE:
PKEStt OF JOHN WILSON AND SON.
TO THE HONORABLE
HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY, LL.D.,
PRESIDENT OF THE VIRGINIA HISTORICAL, SOCIETY, AND CHANCELLOR OF THE
COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY IN VIRGINIA,
iz Uolutra
IS INSCRIBED WITH THE CORDIAL REGARD AND RESPECT OF
HIS OLD FRIEND,
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
I AM not unmindful that " Memoirs " or " Miscellanies "
might have been a more popular title for this book. But,
as I have already allowed two volumes to be published
under the title of " Addresses and Speeches," one in
1852, containing the record of my public service, and the
other in 1867, it is too late to seek a more attractive
designation for the third volume. The three volumes
must, therefore, take their chance, for such consideration
as may be accorded to them, under a common name.
The contents of the present volume partake largely of
the character of the period through which we have been
passing during the last ten years. That period has in
cluded the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the
Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth, and the
Centennial Commemoration of our National Independ
ence. The Historical Addresses connected with these
events are the most substantial papers in these pages,
and those which I should have been least willing to spare
from any collected edition of my literary productions.
I have been glad, however, to associate with them many
briefer papers, which may help to illustrate the lives of
[vii]
VI 11. PREFACE.
distinguished men or valued friends, and to preserve the
record of interesting events or important Institutions.
A single page, or even a single paragraph, may some
times suffice to supply a date, recall a name, or prolong a
memory, not within ready recollection or easy research.
Meantime, my duties as President of the Massachusetts
Historical Society, and of the Trustees of the Peabody
Education Fund, have given me occasion, more often than
could have been wished, for Notices of men whose lives
and deaths were of public and permanent interest.
Let me only add that in this volume, as in both of those
which have preceded it, there has been no attempt to
reconstruct what had already been composed or uttered,
but that, in conformity with the views I have always
entertained as to what was due to the truth of history,
every thing has been printed here as it was originally
prepared or spoken.
ROBERT C. WINTHROP.
BROOKLIXE (BOSTON),
15 November, 1878.
CONTENTS.
MASSACHUSETTS AND ITS EARLY HISTORY.
PAGE
Introductory to a Course of Historical Lectures at the Lowell Institute,
Jan. 5, 1869 1
CENTRAL BUREAU OF CHARITY.
Address at the Opening of the ISTew Rooms of the Boston Provident
Association in the Bureau of Charity, May 19, 1869 27
GEORGE PEABODY.
Eulogy pronounced at the Funeral of George Peabody, at Peabody,
Massachusetts, Feb. 8, 1870 36
PEABODY EDUCATION FUND.
Address at the Annual Meeting of the Trustees, at Washington,
Feb. 15, 1870 51
A GLANCE AT THE CHANGES OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.
Speech at the Semi-Centennial Anniversary of the Boston Mercantile
Library Association, in the Music Hall, Boston, March 11, 1870 . 59
VERPLANCK AND FROTHINGHAM.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, April 14,
1870 64
JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY.
Tribute to the Memory of Mr. Kennedy, at a Meeting of the Massachu
setts Historical Society, Sept. 8, 1870 69
[ix]
X . CONTENTS.
TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LAND
ING OF THE PILGRIMS.
PAGE
An Oration delivered at Plymouth, Dec. 21, 1870 79
REPLY TO A COMPLIMENTARY TOAST
At the Pilgrim Jubilee Banquet, Plymouth, Dec. 21, 1870 .... 134
SEARS AND TICKNOR.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Feb. 9,
1871 138
PEABODY EDUCATION FUND.
Address at Annual Meeting, at Philadelphia, Feb. 15, 1871 .... 143
BOSTON PROVIDENT ASSOCIATION.
Report read at their Annual Meeting, May, 1871 149
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
Address at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society on the
One Hundredth Anniversary of his Birth-day, Aug. 15, 1871 . . 154
BANQUET TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS.
Speech from the Chair, Dec. 10, 1871 161
DINNER OF THE ALUMNI OF HARVARD.
Reply to a Toast from Hon. William Gray, President of the Associa
tion, June 26, 1872 170
THE GREAT BOSTON FIRE.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Nov. 14,
1872 175
FOLSOM, SOMERBY, AND SEWARD.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Dec. 12,
1872 186
THE ENVIRONS OF BOSTON.
Address at Dedication of the New Town Hall of Brookline, Feb. 22,
1873 194
CONTENTS. XI
JAMES SAVAGE, LL.D.
PAGE
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, on the
Evening of March 13, 1873 238
. CHIEF-JUSTICE TANEY.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, March
13, 1873 . 245
RE-OPENING OF THE DOWSE LIBRARY.
Address at the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical So
ciety, April 10, 1873 250
BISHOP MCILVAINE.
Address at the Annual Meeting of the Trustees of the Peabody Educa
tion Fund, July 16, 1873 255
BISHOP WILBERFORCE.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Aug.
15, 1873 260
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
Communication at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society,
Sept. 10, 1873 263
THE BOSTON LIGHT INFANTRY.
Speech at the Dinner on their Seventy-fifth Anniversary, Oct. 18,
1873 .281
THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY.
I.
Speech at the Centennial Celebration of the " Boston Tea-Party," in
Faneuil Hall, Dec. 16, 1873, in Reply to a Complimentary Call from
Hon. Josiah Quincy, the President of the Occasion 286
II.
Introductory Remarks at a Special Meeting of the Massachusetts His- .
torical Society, held in the Evening of the same Day, at the House
of Rev. Robert C. Waters ton , 292
CONTENTS.
OUR HOME MUSIC.
PAGE
Speech at the Dinner of the Harvard Musical Association, Jan. 26,
1874 ..................... 298
HON. WILLIAM MINOT.
Memoir read at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society,
March 12, 1874 .................. 302
FILLMORE AND SUMNER.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, March
12, 1874 .................... 307
AGASSIZ.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, April
10, 1874 .................... 312
CAMBRIDGE IN OLD ENGLAND, AND CAMBRIDGE IN NEW
ENGLAND.
Speech at the Vice-Chancellor s Banquet, in the Hall of St. Peter s
College, on the Evening before Commencement, June 15, 1874 . . 319
WILLIAM A. GRAHAM.
Address at the Annual Meeting of the Trustees of the Peabody Educa
tion Fund, New York, Oct. 6, 1875 ........... 324
RETURN TO THE DOWSE LIBRARY.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Oct.
14, 1875 .................... 329
PORTRAITS OF WASHINGTON AND FRANKLIN.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Nov.
11, 1875 .................... 335
HENRY WILSON AND JUDGE METCALF.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Dec. 9,
1875 340
CONTENTS. Xlll
EX-GOVERNOR CLIFFORD.
PAGE
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Jan.
13, 1876 342
Memoir 343
LORD STANHOPE.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Jan.
13, 1876 357
WILLIAM LAMBARDE.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Jan.
13, 1876 362
THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, March
16, 1876 364
THE SANDERS THEATRE.
Speech at the Dinner of the Alumni of Harvard University, June 28,
1876 . 368
CENTENNIAL ORATION.
Delivered before the City Council and Citizens of Boston, July 4, 1876, 373
PEABODY EDUCATION FUND.
Address at the Annual Meeting of the Trustees, at the White Sulphur
Springs, Virginia, Aug. 3, 1876 426
COLONEL THOMAS ASPINWALL.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Oct. 12,
1876 432
THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF DANIEL WEBSTER.
An Address delivered in the Central Park, New York, Nov. 25, 1876, 436
OLYMPIA MORATA.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Feb. 8,
1877 . . 447
XIV CONTENTS.
EMORY AVASHBURN.
PAGE
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, April
11, 1877 457
WEDNESDAY EVENING CLUB.
Address at the Centennial Commemoration of the Club, May 9, 1877, 459
QUINCY AND MOTLEY.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, June
14, 1877 404
THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THE PEABODY EDUCATION
TRUST.
Address at the Annual Meeting of the Trustees, New York, Oct. 3,
1877 471
GEORGE T. DAVIS.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Oct. 11,
1877 477
THIERS.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Oct. 11,
1877 480
THE EARL OF ST. GERMANS.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Nov. 8,
1877 487
THE BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL.
Speech from the Chair, at the Festival of the Alumni of the School,
Nov. 15, 1877 490
THE PEABODY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND
ETHNOLOGY.
Introductory Address on the Opening of the New Building, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, Feb. 18, 1878 499
GENERAL THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY.
Remarks at the Annual Meeting Boston, April 15, 1878 507
CONTENTS. XV
WILLIAM C. BRYANT.
PAGE
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, June
13, 1878 510
SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE CLASS OF 1828.
Address at the Dinner of the Alumni, June 26, 1878 512
TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF ENDICOTT^S ARRIVAL
AT NAUMKEAG.
Speech at Salem Banquet, Sept. 18, 1878 518
BENJAMIN F. THOMAS.
Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Oct. 10,
1878 524
APPENDIX.
I. HON. JOHN J. CRITTENDEN AT WEST POINT . . . 531
II. THE PEACE JUBILEE 534
III. THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE 536
IV. PEABODY EDUCATION TRUST 540
V. THE LEXINGTON CENTENNIAL 543
VI. THE BUNKER HILL CENTENNIAL 546
VII. THE GEOGRAPHICAL CONGRESS IN PARIS . . . 548
INDEX 551
MASSACHUSETTS AND ITS EARLY
HISTORY.
INTRODUCTORY TO A COURSE OF HISTORICAL LECTURES AT THE LOWELL
INSTITUTE, 5 JANUARY, 1869.
Ax Introductory Lecture, my friends, like an overture to an
oratorio or an opera, has, proverbially, a wide scope ; and I
shall avail myself, with your indulgence, of the largest privileges
of my position. It is no affectation in me, however, to say to
you at the outset, that I have little hope of satisfying even the
reasonable requisitions of the service which has been assigned
me. I am conscious, indeed, of coming here this evening to
offer an apology, rather than to deliver an historical lecture.
Most gladly would I have prepared myself to do something
worthy of such an occasion, and of such an audience as I see
before me. Most gladly would I have prepared myself, had it
been in my power, to deliver something suitable tc the position
which I am called to occupy here, as the President of the old His
torical Society of Massachusetts, the oldest historical society
in our country, which, for more than three-quarters of a cen
tury, has devoted itself to the illustration of the Colonial history
of New England, publishing more than forty volumes of invalu
able historical materials, which ought to be in the library of every
town and village of New England, but which, I am sorry to say,
have had fewer patrons, or certainly fewer purchasers, than they
deserved and needed.
Most gladly, too, would I have prepared myself, had it proved
to be possible, to say something appropriate and proportionate to
l
2 MASSACHUSETTS AND ITS EARLY HISTORY.
the great theme of that series of lectures which I am privileged
to introduce, the historical merits and virtues of the founders
and builders-up of this old Puritan Commonwealth, not sec
ond, certainly, to any Commonwealth beneath the sun, for the
influence it has exerted upon the welfare of the world, and the
examples it has afforded for the admiration and imitation of
mankind. Such a theme, I am sensible, deserves and demands
the best treatment of which any of us are capable. The praises
of the New England Fathers should not be feebly uttered. To
preface a course of lectures on such a subject, and by such lec
turers as are to succeed me, by any vapid commonplaces, or any
mere vaporing and boastful panegyrics, were like putting up a
lath-and-plaster portico to some stately Doric temple, or a facade
of stucco upon some solid mausoleum of marble or porphyry.
Better let the structure be, without any facade at all, as the
grand Cathedral of Florence, with that majestic dome which so
roused the emulation of Michel Angelo, has stood for so many
centuries, than impair its grandeur, and offend its majesty, by
any cheap or incongruous frontispiece. There was nothing of
sham in the character or the conduct of those with whom our
lectures are to deal ; and nothing of sham should be associated
with their commemoration.
Why, then, am I here at all, seeing that I must needs be so
reckless of my own rede, and do only what I feel to be so far
short of my own conception, at least, of what is due to the occa
sion ? The answer to this question, my friends, will supply me
with a subject, and will furnish the substance of the apology
which I am here to offer you.
Allow me, at the outset, to recall the circumstances under
which I first heard of these lectures. It was about the end of
last January, just as I was leaving the pleasant city of Nice, re
cently included in the Empire of France, that I received a kind
letter from my valued friend, Dr. George E. Ellis, the original
proposer of these lectures, and without whom they would not
and could not have been undertaken, and who is himself to
address you next Friday evening on the " Aims and Purposes
of the Founders of the Massachusetts Colony," a letter an
nouncing that such a course was in process of arrangement
MASSACHUSETTS AND ITS EARLY HISTORY. 3
between Mr. Lowell and himself, and suggesting the hope that
I might return home in season for its opening or its close. I had
just taken leave of our grand Admiral Farragut, who, through
out that eventful circumnavigation from which he has recently
returned, made friends for his country as well as for himself,
wherever he went ; and the carriage was already at the door,
which was to bear me along that magnificent Corniche road,
on the very brink of the Mediterranean, of which anyone
who has ever been over it will require no description, while to
those who are still strangers to its marvellous attractions and its
magic beauty, no words of others, certainly not of mine, could
convey any adequate conceptions of them. I drove along this
incomparable road during three days of delicious weather, and
on the fourth day entered that superb city which a grander
Admiral even than Farragut might well have been proud to
claim as his birthplace, Christopher Columbus, a native of
Genoa. A noble monument to Columbus, recently finished,
surmounted by a striking statue of him, and adorned by a series
of bas-reliefs illustrating the strange, eventful story of his life,
from which, I need hardly say, the Discovery of America was
not wholly omitted, greeted us at the gates, with the simple
inscription in Italian, " To Christopher Columbus from his
Country ; " and, as I gazed upon it with admiration, I could not
help feeling that it was not there alone that a monument and a
statue were due to his memory, but that upon the shores of our
own hemisphere, too, there ought to be some worthy memorial
of the discoverer of the New World. I could not help feel
ing, indeed, how fit it would be, if we could have at New York, 1
or in Boston, or at Washington, or at Worcester, under the
auspices of our excellent American Antiquarian Society, which
has taken the supposed date of Columbus s discovery as the date
of its own anniversary, an exact reproduction of this admira
ble monument at Genoa, so that hemisphere should seem to
1 I am glad to say that, only six weeks after the delivery of this lecture, a colos
sal statue of Columbus, by an accomplished American artist (Miss Emma StebbSns),
which is described as " grand in its conception and beautiful iu its execution," was
presented to the Commissioners of the Central Park at New York, by the Hon.
Marshall 0. Roberts, an eminent and munificent merchant of that city, and is im
mediately to be added to the decorations of that noble park.
4 MASSACHUSETTS AND ITS EARLY HISTORY.
respond to hemisphere in a common tribute to the heroic and
matchless old navigator. It would be some sort of atonement,
I thought, on the part of America, tardy and inadequate,
indeed, but better than nothing, for having allowed the name
of another, however meritorious, to usurp the place to which
his name was so pre-eminently entitled in the geographical
nomenclature of the globe.
No one, however, who observes the course of things in our
own land, if not in other lands, in regard to monuments and
statues, can be surprised that the claims of Columbus should
have been postponed. Shakspeare has portrayed the whole
philosophy of the matter, in that most impressive passage which
he has put into the mouth of the not altogether reticent Ulysses
of ancient Greece. You all remember it :
" Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes :
Those scraps are good deeds past ; which are devour d
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done :.....
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
That all, with one consent, praise new-born gawds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past ;
And give to dust, that is a little gilt,
More laud than gilt o er-dusted.
The present eye praises the present object."
How true is it, my friends, here and elsewhere, now as in
Shakspeare s time, that the man who discovered a continent, or
founded a great commonwealth, is postponed to some living hero,
or to him who died but yesterday ! For a time the heroes of our
Revolution crowded out all commemoration both of the Pilgrim
and of the Puritan Fathers. Then came the heroes of a later
war with England to crowd out the Revolutionary patriots. Next
followed the heroes of the conquest of Mexico. More recently,
the heroes and martyrs of our late civil war have absorbed
all our sympathies and all our means. It is not unnatural ;
nor is it a subject for reproach or complaint, or for any thing
but satisfaction. We grudge no tribute, certainly, however
costly, to those heroic young lives which were offered up so
MASSACHUSETTS AND ITS EARLY HISTORY. 5
nobly for the recent rescue of the National Union. Yet it
may be hoped that a day will still come, when America may have
time to look back, even as far as Columbus ; and, coming down
through the various stages of her early colonial settlement, and
her later constitutional government, may provide some fit me
morials of the men to whom she has owed her rise and progress.
It may be hoped that a day will come, when Massachusetts may
have leisure to examine that " wallet of oblivion at the back of
Time," and to rescue from it some names and deeds of her own
earlier and later history, which she would not willingly let die.
It may be hoped that a day will come, when our own city may
have time to review her roll of honor, and may realize that no
Campo Santo, or Santa Croce, or Pre la Chaise, or Westminster
Abbey, of the Old World, contains dust more precious, or more
worthy of commemoration, than that which lies almost un
marked in some of her own ancient graveyards. I will men
tion but a single name ; that of the great minister of our first
Puritan church, in honor of whose intended coming our city is
said to have been called : we sent, indeed, over the Atlantic,
not many years since, a considerable sum of money to repair the
little chapel of his noble church in Boston, Lincolnshire, Old
England ; but there is nothing to tell the passer-by, unless he
stoops over the mouldering stone with the microscope of an Old
Mortality, where, in the Boston of New England, have reposed
for two centuries the ashes of JOHN COTTON.
But the statue of Columbus was not the only thing I saw in
Genoa, which awakened reflections and associations connected
with my own laud. I did not fail to grope my way through the
old Historic Hall, with its double row of original portrait statues
of the old Genoese nobles, formerly known as the Bank of St.
George, but now desecrated to the use of the dingiest depart
ment of what, I should hope and believe, is the dingiest custom
house in the world. Heaven forbid, thought I, that any historic
hall of my own land should ever suffer such a profanation !
Yet when I remembered how inadequately cared for our own
Faneuil Hall, and still more our own old State House, had often
been; and how much of their sanctity and of their safety had
been sacrificed in years past, if they were not still, to any and
G MASSACHUSETTS AND ITS EARLY HISTORY.
every purpose which might increase the rents, and add a few
more hundreds of dollars to a treasury from which so much goes
out from year to year for more than doubtful expenditures, I
was less emboldened to indulge in any wholesale strictures upon
other cities. But better, a thousand-fold better, let me say in
passing, that all such structures, whether in Genoa or in Boston,
should be razed to the ground at once, and live only as they are
photographed on the hearts of those who have held them sacred,
than that they should be left cumbering the ground and block
ing the highway, only to signalize the more conspicuously that
indifference and irreverence towards the noblest scenes and
associations of a glorious past, which have been engendered by
the rush and crush of modern improvement and modern traffic.
But pardon me, my friends, for such a digression, and bear
with me kindly as I roll rapidly again along the Riviera, resting
at mid-day on the lofty hill at Rota, which commands so wonder
ful a view, and reaching Sestri di Ponente just in season to
enjoy one of those indescribable Italian sunsets. The necessity
of an early start, the next day, not only secured us an opportunity
of witnessing what Jeremy Taylor had so vividly in mind when
he quaintly recommended to the readers of his " Holy Living,"
that they should sometimes " be curious to see the preparations
which the sun makes, when he is about to quit his chamber in
the East ; " but enabled us also to reach the summit of the last
mountain on our route, in season to look down upon the lovely
harbor of Spezia, just as the day-star was once more sinking
beneath the blue waters of the Mediterranean, and casting those
ineffable roseate hues upon the snow-capped Apennines in the
distance, while at the same instant a full-orbed moon was
rising majestically from behind them. A more delightful and
inspiring view it has hardly entered into the imagination of poet
or painter to conceive. Shall I be forgiven, however, for saying
that there was an added beauty to that view, to American
eyes, certainly, when we descried in the harbor below us,
safely riding at anchor, and surrounded by its companions of the
squadron, and surmounted by the stars and stripes, the same
noble propeller, bearing the name of the " Great Bostonian,"
Franklin, which we had left at Nice, and which had come
MASSACHUSETTS AND ITS EARLY HISTORY. 7
round there that very day ? I do not envy the apathy of any
American, young or old, who can suddenly find himself face to
face, in a foreign land, with the flag of his country, flying from
the masthead of one of its noblest frigates, and symbolizing more
especially the personal presence and authority of an admiral
who himself went into action lashed to a mast-head, I do not
envy, I say, the composure of one who can confront that flag,
under such circumstances, without emotion ; or, who would not
consider any prospect, which sun and moon and azure waves
and snow-capped hills combined can make up, as beautified and
glorified by such an additional feature.
The next morning, I found myself in the train with Farragut